Chapter 221: Bronze Giant Beast
The Celestial Ladder was just about to reach the ground.
But at that moment, the sound of the gong faded. Instantly, the Celestial Ladder vanished, and the beam of light disappeared.
The large word "Unqualified" appeared once more in the sky.
BOOM!
A massive fireball came crashing down.
The petite man whooshed into the air and vanished.
Suddenly, everything around them fell silent.
"I’ll go!"
Suddenly, a burly man stepped forward. With a great roar, veins bulging on his body, he heaved up the mallet with both hands and slammed it down hard on the gong.
DONG!
A deafening sound rang out, clearly much louder than the previous two attempts.
WHOOSH!
Instantly, a beam of light shot down. A towering Celestial Ladder slowly descended—halfway, then two-thirds of the way, until it finally reached the ground.
The burly man, overjoyed, stepped onto the Celestial Ladder. It whooshed back up, carrying him away until he disappeared from sight.
Seeing someone succeed, more daring people finally stepped forward.
Before long, ten people had tried, but in the end, only one of them managed to successfully summon the Celestial Ladder.
After that, everyone looked at each other, their hesitation clear.
Seeing no one else go, Shen Daoxing walked up. He reached out a single hand and casually lifted the mallet, which was as large as he was.
Shen Daoxing twisted his body, applying a bit of force.
BANG!
The mallet struck the gong, and an explosive, deafening sound erupted.
The onlookers’ heads buzzed, and they couldn’t help but cover their ears.
As the gong’s sound echoed, a beam of light shot down from the sky.
A towering Celestial Ladder then descended without any hindrance, whooshing down.
It was so fast it arrived in a mere moment.
"Qualified!"
In the sky, the character for "Strength" twisted and transformed into a new word.
The crowd, having witnessed Shen Daoxing’s power before, was not surprised by this at all.
However, just as everyone thought he was about to climb the Celestial Ladder...
Shen Daoxing raised the mallet high once again.
DONG!
A deafening blast. The mallet smashed against the gong, releasing an earth-shattering sound. This strike was even more violent than the last. The onlookers’ minds went blank, and it felt as if the entire sky was spinning.
CRACK!
With a sharp crack, a fissure suddenly appeared on the gong. It then split apart with a crash, shattering into pieces.
"???"
"???"
"???"
The onlookers were stunned. Then, as if realizing something, their expressions changed to alarm. They scrambled over each other, rushing forward and jostling to get onto the Celestial Ladder. Fortunately, it didn’t disappear this time.
One after another, the crowd scurried up to the fourth floor.
Shen Daoxing, however, walked over to the shattered gong. In its fragments, a point of white light sizzled, crackling with black arcs of electricity. It was Venerable Power.
Without hesitation, Shen Daoxing reached out. The point of light flew up on its own, drilled into his hand, and merged with the Seven-Colored Profound Platform within his Dantian.
ZZZZT!
RUMBLE!
An explosion suddenly rocked Shen Daoxing’s Dantian. A bolt of black lightning appeared from nowhere, and the black arcs of electricity on his Seven-Colored Profound Platform grew thicker.
Shen Daoxing felt an incomparable destructive force welling up inside him, an invigorating sense of fullness.
Then, Shen Daoxing turned toward the Celestial Ladder. He walked to it and ascended step by step. As he slowly reached the top, his surroundings twisted and blurred. When his vision cleared, he had arrived on the fourth floor.
The moment he arrived on the fourth floor, Shen Daoxing felt an immense force pressing down on him, like the weight of a thousand-pound mountain.
He looked around and saw he was surrounded by brown rock walls, as if inside a cave. The space was considerably smaller than the previous three floors.
And on the rock wall above, there was a large character: "Yu," seemingly hinting at the nature of this floor’s trial.
Many of the people around him had faces flushed red, unable to move a single step as they struggled to resist the force pressing down on them.
Shen Daoxing took a few steps forward and found that the pressure grew stronger the deeper he went. Looking up, he was met with the sight of a massive bronze door that filled his entire field of vision.
The bronze door was enormous, set straight into the rock wall at the far end of the cave, reaching all the way to the ceiling. It was covered in ancient murals that exuded an air of great antiquity.
The mural depicted a ferocious, giant beast, its gaping maw opened toward the crowd. Its vivid eyes seemed alive, staring fixedly at everyone and sending a shiver down their spines.
At that moment, two burly men had their thick arms braced against the two closed halves of the bronze door. They gritted their teeth, veins bulging as beads of sweat dripped from their foreheads, apparently trying to force the great bronze door open with sheer strength.
One of them was the same burly man who had been the first to enter the fourth floor.
But no matter how hard they pushed, the two halves of the bronze door didn’t budge an inch.
And just then, something seemed to be triggered within the space.
HUMMM!
An inexplicable hum suddenly rang in everyone’s ears. They felt the pressure on their bodies abruptly increase, as if another thousand-pound mountain had been dropped on them, causing their insides to churn violently.
The two burly men at the door cried out as they spat a mouthful of blood, unable to hold on any longer. They collapsed to the ground with a thud.
It was obvious that just resisting the immense pressure was already difficult for them; asking them to also push open the bronze door was an impossible task, adding difficulty upon difficulty.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Everyone present turned their heads in unison to look at Shen Daoxing.
After the last two trials, everyone had come to recognize Shen Daoxing’s strength.
Facing their gazes, Shen Daoxing said nothing and simply walked forward calmly. He glanced around, then looked up at the bronze door.
Then, he raised the Great Ming Demon Sparrow in his hand and, with a sudden motion, slammed it against the two giant beasts depicted on the bronze door.
Instantly, the figures of the two giant beasts on the bronze door twisted. Their colors grew vivid, and with a roll of their eyes, they actually came to life.
ROAR!
They threw their heads back and roared, then pulled themselves out from the door.
They were bronze monstrosities with the heads of horses, antlers of deer, and bodies of snakes. Their four ox-like hooves stomped heavily on the ground. Like ancient behemoths, they blocked the doorway, their massive bodies dominating everyone’s vision.
"???"
"???"
"???"
The crowd stared, utterly dumbfounded. They turned to look at Shen Daoxing. ’We needed you to open the bronze door, so why did you have to go and provoke these two monsters?!’
Shen Daoxing paid them no mind, raising his Great Ming Demon Sparrow and surging forward.
ROAR!
The two beasts roared at the sky in unison, a terrifying, deafening sound that seemed to assault a person’s very soul.
The onlookers felt their courage shatter. Some of the weaker ones even spat out mouthfuls of blood and fainted on the spot.
Like Fierce Beasts from a primordial age, the two monstrosities let out another roar and suddenly lunged forward.
The crowd, terrified, scrambled to get away.