Chapter 230: Impossible Ascent Begins
Chapter 230: Impossible Ascent Begins
Rhain and Seris arrived before the massive obsidian doors of the Heavenly Ascendent Tower.
"Dean Carmilla. Preceptors," Rhain greeted politely, offering a bow.
Seris also bowed gracefully beside him.
Myrielle stepped forward, her sapphire eyes still filled with a lingering trace of anxiety.
"Rhain," Myrielle spoke, her voice solemn. "I will ask you one final time. Are you certain about this? Once those doors close, we cannot intervene to save you."
The surrounding High Preceptors also looked at him.
But Rhain’s expression remained perfectly calm.
He gave a firm nod. "I am sure."
Seeing his unshakable conviction, Myrielle let out a soft sigh.
At this moment, Carmilla spoke up.
"Very well," Carmilla said. She turned and gestured toward the towering spire that seemed to reach the skies. "Heavenly Ascendent Tower consists of one hundred floors. With every floor you ascend, the difficulty does not simply increase; it multiplies in ways that defy common logic."
She gestured to the side, drawing Rhain’s attention to five figures standing quietly near the base of the tower.
They all radiated incredibly dense, overwhelming auras.
The weakest among them was at the first level of the Core Formation Realm.
These were the five Core Palace disciples of the Stormveil Academy.
Seris offered them a familiar smile, having already met them during her time in the Core Palace.
For Rhain, however, it was his first time seeing them.
Carmilla pointed to a tall young man standing at the front of the group.
"This is Halston," Carmilla introduced. "Out of the five current Core Palace disciples, he is the one who has ascended the highest in recent years. You should listen to his experience."
Halston stepped forward, offering a respectful nod to Rhain.
Despite his high status, after witnessing Rhain’s monstrous display in the Inner Palace Contest, Halston did not dare to show a single shred of arrogance.
"I managed to reach the fortieth floor," Halston stated, his voice carrying a lingering dread. "The tower’s mechanics are ruthless. It scales dynamically based on your exact cultivation realm at the moment you enter, but the sheer number and variety of enemies multiply drastically.
"Since you are at the fifth level of the Spirit Manifestation Realm, the first floor will generate an essence opponent at that exact same level." Halston took a deep breath, his face turning solemn. "On the second floor, you will face two opponents of that same realm. On the third, three. This pattern continues until the tenth floor, where you must fight ten opponents simultaneously. Do not underestimate them! They are not just mindless essence puppets. They are uniquely generated to cover all weaknesses. A few will be human constructs skilled in complex weapon arts or hand-to-hand combat, others will take the form of beasts with extremely strong physical power, and a few will exclusively launch soul attacks to destroy your mind."
"Once you break past the tenth floor," Halston continued, his voice dropping an octave, "the eleventh floor will return to a single opponent... but its cultivation will be exactly one minor realm higher than yours. It goes on like this until the twentieth floor, where you will face ten opponents of that higher realm."
His eyes darkened as he recalled his own ordeal.
"When I challenged the tower, I was at the peak of the Spirit Manifestation Realm. By the fortieth floor, I was forced to fight ten opponents at the fourth level of the Core Formation Realm. They used every type of attack imaginable to crush me physically and mentally. I was completely overwhelmed, and could only flee to save my life."
To fight ten opponents four minor realms above you, combined with different attack types and crushing mental suppression, it was a fundamentally impossible scenario for any ordinary cultivator.
Even many Preceptors felt that this tower was extremely difficult.
As Halston finished his explanation, High Preceptor Aldren spoke with a grim warning.
"Rhain, do not underestimate this," Aldren warned heavily. "Remember the legendary prodigy I spoke of. Six hundred years ago, his talent shocked the entire Stormveil City. He He pushed himself beyond his limits and attempted to conquer this tower."
"As a result, although he managed to reach the fifty-seventh floor, he emerged from the tower with his consciousness permanently shattered. To this day, that record still stands as the highest record in the thousand-year history of our Academy."
Faced with these terrifying statistics, Rhain’s expression did not change in the slightest.
To an existence bearing the Abyssal Sovereign Physique and a soul power that infinitely approached the Domain Master Realm, the concept of mental pressure was nothing but a joke.
"I appreciate the valuable information," Rhain replied calmly.
He then simply turned his head, his gaze softening as it landed on Seris.
He reached out and gently squeezed her delicate hand.
"I will come back," Rhain murmured.
Although Seris was slightly nervous after hearing everyone’s dire warnings, she still stood strong.
Feeling his reassuring warmth, Seris looked up at him.
An incredibly beautiful smile appeared on her face as she nodded her head, "I know."
She chose to believe in her husband, just as she always did.
With that settled, Rhain released her hand and walked toward the towering spire.
He placed his hands against the massive obsidian doors.
With a rumbling sound, the doors opened, revealing a pitch-black void within.
Rhain stepped through the threshold.
BANG!
The moment his boots crossed the threshold, the massive doors slammed shut with a heavy thud, sealing completely.
Outside, the atmosphere tensed immediately.
RUMBLE—!
A colossal, ancient stone monolith erected beside the tower suddenly activated.
Ancient runes etched into its surface began to glow with a brilliant golden light.
The golden light shot upward, illuminating the very first row of text.
[Floor 1]
Everyone gathered at the base of the tower held their collective breath, their eyes glued to the glowing monolith.
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Inside the tower.
The pitch-black space immediately dispersed.
Rhain found himself standing in a vast, empty chamber constructed of unknown dark metal.
Across the chamber, spiritual light rapidly gathered, condensing into a humanoid figure.
It wielded a translucent blade, and the aura rolling off its body settled precisely at the fifth level of the Spirit Manifestation Realm.
Exactly Rhain’s current cultivation.
Swoosh—!
The essence opponent didn’t give Rhain a single second to breathe.
It lunged forward with explosive speed, its blade aimed directly at Rhain’s throat.
Rhain simply stood with his left hand resting casually behind his back.
As the blade closed to within an inch of his neck, he raised his right hand.
Smack!
The back of his hand collided with the essence figure’s head.
BANG!
The kinetic force was so overwhelmingly high that the essence opponent exploded into a cloud of dissipating essence in less than a single second.
The entire encounter had taken less than a single second.
A glowing staircase materialized at the far end of the arena.
Rhain lowered his hand, his dark grey eyes entirely unimpressed.
He leisurely walked up the staircase.
[Floor 2]
The moment he arrived, two essence puppets materialized simultaneously.
Both were at the fifth level of the Spirit Manifestation Realm.
They lunged at him from opposite directions.
BANG! BANG!
Two casual punches.
Two instantaneous explosions of dissipating essence.
Rhain didn’t even break his stride as he walked toward the next staircase.
[Floor 3]
Three opponents.
Crushed effortlessly before they could even draw their weapons.
Rhain ascended through the initial floors with an incredible speed.
Within moments, the space warped again, and he found himself standing in a much wider arena.
Floor 10.
This time, ten figures materialized in a perfect, encircling formation.
Just as Halston had warned, this was a perfectly coordinated squad.
Three of them were heavily armored physical beasts.
Four were human-experts holding glowing weapons.
The remaining three hovered at the back, their auras vibrating with dangerous soul-attacking techniques.
All ten of them possessed the cultivation of the fifth level of the Spirit Manifestation Realm.
The moment they fully formed, the three soul-attackers unleashed a synchronized mental blast directly at Rhain’s consciousness, intending to paralyze him so the beasts and weapon-masters could tear him apart.
The mental blast struck Rhain’s mind.
And it was completely swallowed by his vast, ocean-like spiritual sea without causing even a single ripple.
Rhain didn’t even blink.
"Annoying."
Rhain slowly raised his right hand, a dense layer of pitch-black essence gathering around his knuckles.
Before the beasts or the human-experts could even take their first step forward, Rhain punched the empty air in front of him.
It was just a simple punch, Rhain didn’t even bother using a martial art.
BOOM—!!!
A catastrophic shockwave of dark essence erupted outward in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree wave of destruction.
The ten opponents, regardless of their armor, their weapons, or their soul arts, were simultaneously hit by the devastating shockwave.
BANG!
All ten figures were instantly shattered into nothingness in the exact same microsecond.
Just like that, the tenth floor was also cleared with a single, casual strike.