Chapter 324 - Chapter 324: Chapter 26: The Immortal Crossing Trial (2/2)

When the last sentence was revealed, Lin Jing’s face grew even more unsightly.

“Success, live! Failure, die!”

So this was the nature of the eightieth step.

Fail to cross, and you would die.

There wasn’t even a hint of a way back.

It was likely that the true difficulty lay in the eightieth and the eighty-first steps.

Otherwise, why would there have been so many years without a single cultivator leaving Immortal Crossing Island?

Keep in mind, those top cultivators who came to Immortal Crossing Island, each one of them a peerless genius, who didn’t have countless extraordinary methods at their disposal?

Yet still, not a single person had been able to leave Immortal Crossing Island, which speaks volumes about the difficulty of the final trial.

As the stele slowly rose, the swaying of the eightieth step also started to diminish.

Lin Jing could feel that the real trial was about to begin.

It should be when the shaking stops and the stele has fully risen.

Lin Jing hurriedly adjusted his condition in anticipation of the true trial ahead.

As the trembling reduced to a calm, the stele rose slowly until with a “click,” it seemed to lock into place, motionless.

It was at that moment…

An enormous pressure descended, overwhelming like the end of the world, causing Lin Jing, who stood prepared to face it, to fall “plop” on one knee to the ground.

Simultaneously, a divine sense carrying the aura of world-ending might rushed toward Lin Jing’s sea of consciousness.

This divine pressure was incredibly domineering, forcibly pushing back the divine sense Lin Jing had extended and trying to invade his sea of consciousness.

Thankfully, Lin Jing was under the effects of an enhancement, making his divine sense very strong.

Thus, he was barely able to keep the divine pressure at bay, outside of his sea of consciousness.

However, it was not over.

Just as Lin Jing thought he had resisted the pressure…

The immense pressure and the terrifying divine pressure kept intensifying.

Lin Jing felt as if his bones were beginning to creak under the massive pressure.

And from various parts of his body, wounds began to appear.

These injuries were caused by the compression of his body, unable to withstand the force, leading to ruptures.

As the all-encompassing pressure and divine sense’s oppression grew stronger, Lin Jing finally couldn’t hold on any longer.

He had no choice but to call out to the system:

“System, enter System Space.”

With Lin Jing’s words, he entered into the System Space.

Inside System Space, Lin Jing could no longer bear it and collapsed to the ground.

The dual pressures on his body and divine sense were too much for Lin Jing to resist, forcing him to temporarily retreat to System Space.

After returning to System Space, the enhancement automatically wore off.

The pressure was too immense; it took Lin Jing a long while in System Space to finally recover his strength.

Subsequently, Lin Jing began to furrow his brows in thought.

If he wanted to leave, he still had to break through the eightieth step and the one above it, the eighty-first step.

But the pressure of the eightieth step increased gradually; the first thing Lin Jing had to do was to figure out the limit of this increasing pressure.

If the pressure truly increased without limit, then there was no point in attempting to break through; he should look for a way to exit the Trial Grounds instead.

With that thought, Lin Jing called out to the system:

“System, enter Observation Mode.”

As Lin Jing finished speaking, his perspective shifted abruptly, appearing outside.

When Lin Jing used the observation mode to view the outside, he realized the gravity of the situation.

Now the entire place was enveloped in a tempest of wind and sand, and all Lin Jing could see were the eightieth and eighty-first steps amidst it, as well as the formation on the stone platform.

Everywhere else, including the way back, had vanished.

Lin Jing then controlled the observation perspective, searching around, and found that it was indeed the case.

One could say that the Trial Grounds were now reduced to these three spots where someone could stand.

Even if Lin Jing wanted to exit now, it probably wouldn’t be possible.

Lin Jing understood then, the true meaning behind ‘death upon retreat.’

In the tempest, virtually invisible to the naked eye, there were faint glimmering lights, mixed within the sandy wind, covering the entire area.

Merely looking at it gave Lin Jing a deep chill in his heart.

The moment he disappeared from the eightieth step, the entire Trial Grounds would turn into a killing field brimming with danger.

With this in mind, Lin Jing continued to operate the observation mode.

This time, he probed downwards.

As Lin Jing controlled the view to its limit, he finally uncovered another secret of the Trial Grounds.

Below the Trial Grounds, numerous bones were piled together.

They formed a small mountain.

These bones, many of them broken into pieces, had no spot left intact.

And there were not just bones; there were jade bones radiating golden light, almost transparent crystal bones, and more…

The remains of once mighty cultivators.

All received the same treatment, discarded together like trash.