Chapter 237: Trial of Heart
Chapter 237: Trial of Heart
Rhain stood frozen on the ninety-ninth floor, his dark grey eyes fixed upon the breathtaking figure before him.
The pitch-black arena around them suddenly rippled and dissolved.
In the blink of an eye, the cold, oppressive metal walls of the Heavenly Ascendent Tower completely vanished.
Rhain found himself sitting on a patch of lush, tender grass. Before him was a vast, crystal-clear lake reflecting the azure sky, surrounded by a breathtakingly beautiful garden blooming with thousands of vibrant, fragrant flowers.
A gentle, warm breeze brushed past his face, carrying the sweet scent of lotus blossoms.
It was an environment so serene, so utterly perfect, that it felt like a dream extracted directly from the deepest, most peaceful corners of his heart.
Seris was resting softly against him, her head lying comfortably on his lap.
It was a scene strikingly similar to the day he had proposed to her in the Azure Cloud Sect.
"Husband..." Seris murmured sweetly, her delicate hands reaching up to gently touch his handsome face.
Her touch was incredibly warm, possessing the exact same softness and familiar temperature he knew so well.
"Isn’t it beautiful here?" Seris asked, her pale purple eyes looking up at him with tenderness.
Rhain looked down at her face.
"It is," Rhain replied softly, his hand naturally moving to stroke her soft, silver-blue hair.
Seris smiled, a radiant, enchanting expression that made the surrounding blooming flowers seem completely dull in comparison.
"Then why do we need to keep fighting?" Seris whispered, her voice like a melodious lullaby meant to soothe the deepest exhaustion of a warrior’s soul. "We have already suffered so much. You have fought so hard, husband. You are already tired, aren’t you?"
She snuggled closer against his chest, her eyes glistening with a gentle plea.
"We can just stay here. We can live a peaceful life like this forever. There will be no more killings. No more blood. No more sadness or pain. Just you and me, living in peace until the end of time. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?"
It was a temptation so perfectly crafted, so fundamentally alluring, that any ordinary cultivator who had fought through ninety-eight floors of grueling, life-and-death slaughter would have instantly collapsed into its embrace.
The mind, exhausted and battered, desperately yearns for rest.
And to be offered eternal peace by the most beloved person in one’s heart... it was a mental trial of impossibly arduous resilience.
But Rhain’s dark grey eyes stared down at the beautiful girl resting on his lap, and a faint, self-deprecating smile touched the corner of his lips.
"It sounds like a perfect dream," Rhain spoke, his voice gentle, yet carrying an absolute, unshakeable clarity. "But that is all it is. A dream."
Seris’s delicate eyelashes fluttered, a look of innocent confusion appearing on her flawless face. "Dream? But husband, I am right here. The peace is real..."
"No, it isn’t," Rhain interrupted calmly, his hand stopping its caress.
He looked out across the serene, tranquil lake, his gaze seeming to pierce through the very fabric of the illusion itself.
"In a world where the strong eat the weak, true peace is not something you can simply find by hiding in a beautiful garden," Rhain stated, his voice turning incredibly solemn and resolute. "If you do not hold your own fate in your hands, your peace is merely a fragile bubble waiting to be burst by someone stronger."
His dark grey eyes sharpened, radiating a chilling, invincible will.
"I was once weak. I was a helpless victim, beaten and broken because I lacked the power to say no. I swore to myself that I would never, ever let another person dictate my fate again."
Rhain looked back down into the pale purple eyes of the illusionary Seris.
"The world does not care about our desire for tranquility. If I stop fighting, if I stop growing stronger, this peace you speak of would be trampled into dust. I do not seek strength for the sake of slaughter. I seek it so that no one in this world—no noble family, no Emperor, and no God—can ever dictate our fate or take you away from me."
A smile full of love appeared on his face.
"To ensure our true peace, I must stand above everything else."
The moment his words dropped off, the gentle, warm breeze abruptly stopped.
The serene atmosphere instantly shattered.
BOOM—!!!
The crystal-clear lake violently boiled, turning into a bubbling pool of thick, dark blood.
The azure sky fractured, tearing open to reveal a hellscape of roaring fire, rolling black clouds, and darkness fell everywhere.
The beautiful garden withered into ash in a fraction of a second.
The peaceful tranquility was replaced by the deafening, agonizing screams of thousands of people.
"MONSTER!"
"DEMON! YOU KILLED US ALL!"
"MAY THE GODS CURSE YOUR SOUL TO ROT IN HELL!"
Around Rhain, the ground was littered with broken bodies, severed limbs, and mountains of corpses.
A sea of blood was flowing over the scorched earth.
The illusion had violently shifted from his deepest desire to his darkest potential fear, the fear that his relentless pursuit of power would turn him into a calamitous demon, leaving nothing but ruin and hatred in his wake.
The Seris who had been lying gently on his lap was now standing against him.
Her serene, affectionate expression had completely vanished.
Her beautiful face was now had an expression of fury, disgust, and heart-wrenching betrayal.
Swoosh—!
An icy-blue sword of highly condensed Heavenly Glacial Essence materialized in her grasp.
She pointed the freezing tip of the blade directly at Rhain’s chest, her pale purple eyes burning with hatred.
"Husband... if this is what you wanted..." the illusionary Seris screamed, her voice shaking with rage and tears, "If standing at the pinnacle means becoming a monster who slaughters innocent lives... then you are a demon!"
She took a step forward, the bone-piercing chill of her sword radiating outward.
"You have no right to live!"
"DIE!"
With a hysterical, furious shriek, she lunged forward.
She thrust the icy-blue sword with every ounce of her strength, aiming flawlessly for his heart.
The attack carried a killing intent so terrifying that it felt as real as the physical world.
But Rhain did not move.
He simply stood perfectly still amidst the apocalyptic wasteland of blood and fire.
As the icy-blue blade was mere millimeters from piercing his heart, Rhain calmly raised his right hand.
Thump.
The freezing blade stopped dead in its tracks.
Rhain had effortlessly caught the icy-blue sword with his bare hands.
The illusionary Seris’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. She struggled frantically, desperately trying to push the sword deeper, but it was locked as firmly as if it had been clamped within a vice.
Rhain stared into her furious, hateful eyes with an expression of indifference.
"A decent illusion," Rhain spoke, his voice slicing through the screaming hellscape like a blade of absolute truth. "You copied her appearance flawlessly. You even managed to mimic the exact signature of her Heavenly Glacial Essence."
His dark grey eyes turned chillingly cold.
"But you are not my Seris."
CRACK!
With a slight force of his hand, Rhain snapped the icy-blue sword of concentrated essence into a dozen shattered pieces.
The illusionary girl staggered backward, looking at the broken hilt in her hands with an expression of horror.
"Because my Seris," Rhain declared, his voice carrying an unshakeable, profound affection that resonated from the very depths of his soul, "no matter what I become, no matter if the entire world curses my name and calls me a monster... her eyes would never look at me with anything other than pure, unconditional love."
Rhain raised his hand and gave a casual, indifferent wave.
"Begone."
BOOM!
A majestic wave of vast, ocean-like Soul Power erupted from his mind, carrying the primal, obliterating suppression of the Overlord’s Tyranny.
The illusionary Seris didn’t even have time to react.
Under the crushing weight of his genuine, Domain-Master-equivalent spiritual sea, her beautiful body instantly disintegrated into millions of specks of dissipating light.
With her destruction, the apocalyptic hellscape of fire, blood, and screaming corpses violently trembled.
SHATTER!
Like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer, the entire ninety-ninth floor illusion shattered into a million pieces.
The pitch-black arena returned, revealing the indestructible dark metal walls of the tower’s interior.
He had passed the 99th floor.
A glowing, majestic staircase materialized at the far end of the room, radiating a brilliant, unearthly golden light.
[Floor 100]
As Rhain stepped onto the final staircase, an ancient, ethereal voice, the voice of the Founder, echoed clearly within his mind.
"To possess the strength to crush all physical obstacles, and harbor a mind that can see through the deepest desires and fears of the heart with an unshakable will..."
The voice carried a tone of immense gratification.
"Congratulations, young man. You are the first in a thousand years to conquer the Heavenly Ascendent Tower."
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Outside the Heavenly Ascendent Tower.
Just a few minutes ago, the golden text had shifted to Floor 99.
Every single High Preceptor, Preceptor, and Core Palace disciple stood rigid, their eyes glued unblinkingly to the colossal ancient monolith.
No one dared to even breathe too loudly.
Floor ninety-nine.
It was a height so fundamentally absurd, that it felt as if they were waiting for the sky itself to tear open.
Myrielle’s hands were trembling uncontrollably.
High Preceptor Aldren’s deep-set eyes were red from staring so intensely.
Even Carmilla’s stunningly beautiful face was incredibly solemn, her fists clenched tightly within her vivid red robes.
Beside them, Seris stood like a still statue among others.
Her pale purple eyes were fixed on the monolith, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
"Husband..." she prayed silently, over and over again.
Just then....
RUMBLE—!!!
A deafening rumble erupted from the very core of the Heavenly Ascendent Tower.
Before anyone could even react, the towering, pitch-black obsidian spire of the Heavenly Ascendent Tower suddenly erupted.
A blinding, majestic golden light blasted outward from the peak of the tower, shooting straight into the heavens like a divine pillar of creation.
The dark obsidian walls of the millennium-old structure literally turned into glowing gold, radiating an aura of supreme majesty that spilled over the entire Stormveil Academy.
At the exact same second, the colossal ancient stone monolith beside the tower exploded with a luminescence brighter than the noon sun.
The runes rearranged themselves one final time.
[Floor 100]