Nine Star Hegemon Body Art (WN)
Nine Star Hegemon Body Art (WN) - Chapter 169: Most Difficult Trial in all of History

When that Elder saw that number, his expression completely changed. He looked at it with disbelief.

“How is this possible?!”

Everyone was shocked. To cause an Elder-level expert to become so shocked, just what was it?

Tu Fang sighed. “If I haven’t remembered wrongly, the fellow that is imprisoned in that cave has never been defeated in many years.”

Tang Wan-er hastily asked, “What is the cave age?!” The situation was definitely not good. Her heart sunk.

“One thousand… One thousand and twenty-five years,” sputtered out that Elder.

The crowd descended into absolute silence. After each battle, those souls in the corpses would end up using up all their spiritual energy, requiring a great deal of time to recover.

It was like raising pigs. Once they were fat enough, you would slaughter it. After each battle, the soul inside would be exhausted and the cave age would be reset to zero.

Each corrupt corpse that had its head cut off wasn’t actually dead. But the soul sealed within the corpse would have used up so much energy that it needed to rest. They would just find another corpse to replace it with, switching them out.

And the monastery had a rule that the core disciple trials’ corrupt corpses’ cave age could not surpass five hundred years. If it did, the Elders would personally go out to kill those corrupt corpses, using up all their spiritual energy and putting in a new corpse.

That was because corrupt corpses that had surpassed a cave age of five hundred years had already surpassed the limit of what a Blood Condensation genius could handle. Entering such a cave would only result in death for them.

That Elder’s face was deathly pale now. He was in charge of these caves, but he had made such an error. That was definitely an extremely great error.

“Elder Tu Fang…” That Elder sadly sighed. But he was also a straightforward and upright person. He knew he had made an extremely grave mistake, causing a genius to die. He would accept his punishment.

Tu Fang shook his head. “This matter isn’t your fault.”

Tu Fang had been in the Xuantian Monastery for many years. He already completely understood all the Elders. This Elder was an extremely attentive person. It was normally impossible for him to have made such a mistake.

And in the past five hundred years, all the other caves that had surpassed the five hundred year limit had all been reset to zero. Only this one had remained. That was definitely odd.

In the past five hundred years, the three Elders in charge of the caves had never noticed it.

And when Tu Fang saw that cave, he had immediately thought of a possibility. Perhaps it was simply that fate had foreordained Long Chen to choose that cave.

But he of course wouldn’t dare to say that out loud. He remembered what the sect leader had repeatedly warned him about. He was admiring the sect leader even more for his courage to prove Long Chen was a true Divergent.

That Elder was completely confused why the normally completely strict Enforcement Elder Tu Fang would so easily forgive his error.

“How could Long Chen possibly pass such a high cave age? Why aren’t you going to save him?!” Tang Wan-er angrily raged.

Tu Fang shook his head. “It’s already been this long. Even if we went now, it has no meaning. Right now we can only hope Long Chen is lucky.”

“What?!” Tang Wan-er had only barely managed to avoid death when her cave age had only been in the four hundreds!

The higher the cave age, the faster those souls would cultivate. Naturally that represented an exponential growth in strength as well.

Tang Wan-er ground her teeth and turned, rushing over to the stone wall.

“Wan-er, come back!” Qing Yu was given a fright. She knew Tang Wan-er was planning on personally going to save Long Chen, and it was already too late for her to stop her. Tang Wan-er had already reached the stone wall.

BOOOOOM!!!!

A huge heaven-shaking explosion rang out just at this moment. People raised their heads to see that the cave Long Chen had been in had completely exploded, and a wretched figure had flown out.

“Is it Long Chen?” Someone called out.

Long Chen was fleeing for his life. As soon as he had jumped out, a huge palm image had shot out, narrowly missing smashing him.

That hand was just an empty image, but the berserk energy within it shook everyone. The entire stone wall was quivering.

After that palm image attack, an angry roar rang out filled with icy killing intent. “You wretched brat, you dare trick me?! Die!”

Following that shout, a black figure flew out of the cave, its entire body covered in black mist.

As soon as that figure flew out, it was immediately lit up by the light of the stone pillars. That black mist around its body was immediately burnt away with a sizzling sound.

“AHH!!! You’ve really angered me now. Brat, stand still!” That figure actually decided to chase after Long Chen in front of everyone’s appalled gazes despite being covered by that light.

“Long Chen!” Tang Wan-er on the other hand was celebrating.

“Foolish girl, what are you just standing there for? Run!”

As soon as Long Chen had jumped out of that cave, he had seen Tang Wan-er looking up to him. Long Chen immediately pushed her forward, sending her flying forward.

BOOM! She had only just been pushed out of the wave when a huge hand fell from the sky. Long Chen didn’t have time to dodge and was smashed into the ground.

A huge crater formed with Long Chen at the center. Even some of the surrounding stones were completely destroyed.

Everything was happening so fast that no one had even reacted yet. But at this time Tu Fang shouted, “Form the White Tiger Dragon Sealing Formation!”

Those Elders all immediately slammed their hands on the stone pillars in front of them. Lines appeared over the sixteen stone pillars. A huge net surged out of the pillars and covered that figure.

Long Chen crawled out of the ground at this time, completely bruised and battered. And that was only because his physical body was exceptionally strong. He was so dazed he was seeing stars.

But seeing that Gui Sha was finally trapped within that grand formation, he finally relaxed. At the very least he had managed to escape alive.

Everyone was completely shocked. They blankly looked at that black figure. Black mist still surged out of his body, making it so no one could clearly see his features.

But although they couldn’t see him clearly, they could all clearly sense he was a powerful corrupt corpse.

Those people who had failed to pass the trial and managed to flee from the caves had also had corrupt corpses chase them out, but as soon as those corrupt corpses had gone out of the cave, they were lit up by the stone pillars’ light and immediately turned into a true corpse, the soul inside completely scattering.

But the corrupt corpse fighting Long Chen was actually able to resist that light and chase him out of the cave.

Being trapped by this formation, no matter how he struggled, Gui Sha was unable to move. It was as if he were bound by countless invisible ropes.

“Long Chen, something unexpected occurred during this trial. However it is still within the scope of the trial. So right now, your trial is still not over.

“You can now choose to continue taking the trial, or you can give up. But if you give up, you will have failed to join the monastery.” Tu Fang looked at Long Chen.

Long Chen directly rolled his eyes. What kind of joke was that? You want me to fight against this strong of a monster? Isn’t that just sending me to my death?

Within the cave, Long Chen had been humbly learning Gui Sha’s Netherworld Ghost Steps the entire time. That set of footwork was extremely amazing.

It was an extremely profound footwork technique. And he had not only memorized the technique’s mnemonic that Gui Sha had originally taught him, he had also asked many questions about practicing the technique, getting many details Gui Sha had been reserving from him.

Originally Gui Sha had only been using the mnemonic in order to fool Long Chen. However, Long Chen continuously asked him more and more details over and over, and despite his intense rage, he could only swallow his anger in order to achieve his goal. He explained everything, wasting a great deal of time.

Everytime his anger was about to explode out, Long Chen would say that if he refused to teach him more, he would commit suicide so that he couldn’t achieve his goal.

Gui Sha had been taken advantage of with no choice out of it. Furthermore, Long Chen was actually extremely crafty, and his knowledge of circulating qi and the routes within his body was even greater than an old demon like him! And so Gui Sha was unable to even make things up. After that long of a time, he ended up explaining all of the Netherworld Ghost Steps to Long Chen.

He could only console himself that once he entered Long Chen’s body, he would immediately devour his soul. It was fine for Long Chen to have a slight advantage for now.

Finally Gui Sha had begun to tell Long Chen to make his preparations to have his soul extracted from this corpse and inserted into his Dantian.

First Long Chen had to place his finger between Gui Sha’s eyebrows. Gui Sha then began to circulate his Spiritual Strength to attack his seal.

The moment Gui Sha’s Spiritual Strength began to circulate, the corrupt corpse immediately began to glow with countless lines, trying to seal in his Spiritual Strength.

But in the end, Gui Sha had managed to open up a hole at his forehead. Telling Long Chen not to resist, he had sent his Spiritual Strength flowing through Long Chen’s finger to his Dantian.

Long Chen had also assented at that time. So Gui Sha was focused on resisting the runic power while also bringing out his soul. That process was extremely tiresome and slow.

Long Chen could sense Gui Sha’s terrifying Spiritual Strength sharply dropping as it resisted those runes.

At that time Long Chen had stealthily begun to make his preparations. Over half of Gui Sha’s soul had been injected into his finger and was now flowing through his arm.

Long Chen knew the moment had come. The thunderforce he had kept all that time was sent viciously slamming into Gui Sha’s soul.

Spiritual Strength was most afraid of thunderforce. Even someone as powerful as Gui Sha was unable to bear it. He had let out a miserable scream and flown back, an extremely heavy injury appearing on his soul.

Long Chen had then immediately fled for his life with his greatest speed.

But Gui Sha was too terrifying. Even having lost half his Spiritual Strength, he had quickly reacted.

His anger had already completely exploded out now. He knew Long Chen had been playing him the entire time. He had never had any intentions of cooperating with him. He began to crazily attack him.

Unfortunately, Long Chen had already run out. Due to his incredible anger, Gui Sha was willing to do anything in order to kill Long Chen and had even chased him out of the cave. Using a secret technique, he was able to temporarily block the light coming from the stone pillars. But before he could kill Long Chen, he was trapped.

Seeing Long Chen looking at him disdainfully, Tu Fang tossed out another condition. “You can invite your companions to help.”