Everyone returned to the mountain with slightly excited expressions. They had conquered the first seven challenges in a few hours, leaving only three more to complete everything. None of them believed that less than 24 hours ago, they had no hope of leaving this place alive. Now, under the leadership and protection of this round figure radiating a divine presence, everyone could glimpse a future ahead.
They stood there, watching the whale measure and analyze Ruri with total concentration. Even though he had mentioned having only a few hours, he didn’t hesitate to stop and ensure she was okay. This made everyone sigh as they watched the two up ahead.
The whale took a little over five minutes using his tattoos and revitalizing Ruri with the energies of the place. Then, they stood her up in front of them, and her condition was now halfway normal, but she could recover on her own in no time. They turned to the front of the mountain; now there were six hours left, and they had to hurry.
Everyone followed with quick steps, and time passed in a suffocating manner.
In the previous walk, it took fifty minutes to reach the next challenge, but now, an hour had passed climbing, and they found nothing. The whale had his eyes closed as he quickened his steps; after another half hour, everyone’s view changed.
It wasn’t the new challenge, but the skies that were very close to them. They were very close to the top of the mountain, and all they could see was a celestial blue similar to the common sky of some planet. The whale looked up, and they realized another thing that made their steps slow down.
’The entire interior of this formation is really composed of Divine Qi,’ Alm commented, analyzing coldly. ’It makes sense; such a large formation full of details should use Divine Qi as the core of its energy, which can change into anything, adapting to the imposed rules of the training and making everything work perfectly.’
’The core is Divine Qi...’ Bruno murmured. ’We have some of that Qi coming from the totems; can’t we manipulate this formation? If the entire core of the formation is Divine Qi, it shouldn’t be difficult to manipulate the formation with our divine souls.’
Alm responded curtly, ’We don’t have enough to do that much; we can only use it as a secret weapon in a challenge.’
They then set aside those thoughts and continued running up the mountain. Shortly after another twenty minutes, they felt the space distort. It took exactly twice as long as before to reach the next challenge; now, they had about four and a half hours remaining.
After the robotic voice sounded, the whale didn’t run immediately and quickly spoke to everyone. "Get ready for an immediate fight; we can’t waste time. We will surely face two armies, one of demons and another of demonic beasts. Leading them will be a two-headed Cerberus. Hold the army quickly while I deal with the commander."
"So now it’s him, the Divine Cerberus!" Ruri spoke excitedly. "Those cerberi mentioned this title so many times; let’s see this new invincible form of master!"
Corin and everyone nodded, but none of them could understand what was happening. There should only be hero reflections in these tests, but they saw completely different creatures, absurdly powerful, with equally formidable followers. Everyone knew the answer, but they couldn’t grasp how the whale could be all of them.
The whale took steps towards the totem, and everyone drew their weapons, ready to fight immediately. On the totem was an incomplete Dao, a formation that united various different races into an army, obviously geared to aid their upcoming enemies.
’In the beginning, the techniques were about things that helped us; now, they’re things that make the test more and more difficult. Everything seems aimed at finishing us, and it will only get worse...’ Bruno spoke, and both he and Alm already felt that it would be impossible to finish everything in time.
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The totem was destroyed, and the space distorted. Soon, an eternal twilight emerged, a faithful copy of the place where they fought in the Cerberus’s skin.
Two giant willows rose with infinite power. Everyone quickly prepared, and when the sight of millions of demons and demonic beasts appeared in the same second, they attacked.
The whale carefully observed the armies and sighed in relief. The Demon King and the Beast King were not replicated. They were his enemies, not allies. It seemed to be a pattern in the reflections, using only what had truly worked in his favor.
ROAAAAAAAR!
At the back of the armies, an animalistic and infernal howl echoed. Everyone saw the two-headed creature radiating an unparalleled presence. In one head, the Yin tattoo was lit; in the other, the Yang. The sense of imminent death looking at that being, and all the signs left no doubt: it was a divine reflection of the whale.
"Wow..." Ruri and Corin murmured simultaneously, wordless, looking at the two-headed Cerberus.
Then the heads moved separately, looking at all the enemies in front of them. In the eyes of each head, Ruri noticed familiar and opposite things...
"Each head seems to have an opposite power, and... they seem to act and think differently, as if they were two people. How peculiar!" Ruri spoke casually, and Alm and Bruno jumped internally. She hit the nail on the head! However, they remained silent, trying not to show surprise.
In two seconds, the whale prepared for the attack, but soon stopped its steps and looked to the skies with a bad feeling.
’Damn, we’re now facing the Cerberus. This shouldn’t have escalated so quickly.’ Bruno spoke dryly.
Then, the clouds parted with golden power. It was precisely the hero, the one Alm and Bruno had taken control of the body and who now turned against them in this fight.
The hero activated all his heroic power to the limit. The entire twilight in the sky turned golden immediately, and the whale drew his black saber, speaking quickly.
"Corin and Ruri, kill the Cerberus. I’ll deal with the hero, and... don’t try to attack in two different places thinking you’re cornering him. He has two heads, so consider that you’re fighting against two Cerberuses."
They both nodded confidently without thinking too much. Soon, the duo ran off, and the whale leaped into the sky.
’Ruri’s at 50%, but the runic seal can be used again, so it doesn’t compromise her attack power. It shouldn’t be impossible for them.’ Bruno mentally remarked, concerned. Then, twenty meters ahead, the hero just looked at the whale with an unparalleled disdain, typical of a hero. ’He... this doesn’t look like us!’
Alm was extremely annoyed by that look, and said coldly. ’The formation seems to have copied the initial hero; it seems it couldn’t associate us with who was controlling his body.’
BOOM!!
The whale attacked using the Eternal Bond, and the hero responded by materializing a holy sword immediately. The clash between them shattered the skies, and the whale flew down to the earth with a new boom.
They didn’t fare worse in the exchange; it was a tie. However, they still couldn’t fly and only leaped into the skies attacking. Meanwhile, the hero’s reflection was at the Heaven Stage Realm and floated, looking at the whale like an emperor looking at an insect.
On the other side of the confrontation, everyone in the group fought against the army efficiently and solidly. Now, the two women who couldn’t fight properly were more stable and could consider themselves acceptable.
Ruri and Corin fought against the Cerberus, and the two were walking on the edge of death, the two heads were exactly as described. They attacked, thought, and used techniques independently and synchronized, coupled with that, their power was opposite and equally shocking.
An hour passed, and Ruri was almost hit several times, but the shadow space skill, combined with her recent mastery of space laws, saved her at the last moment. Corin, on the other hand, was covered in blood, and the Cerberus played with him as if fighting a child, just like when the whale fought him.
"Beating master is impossible," Ruri murmured, gripping her katana. Then, she remembered all the moments when she fought alongside him, helping turn a difficult battle.
After a few minutes, her mind lit up. That round and giant vision in her mind seemed to be an immense inspiration for her. "Alone, it’s impossible, but we have other methods." Ruri then sent two mental messages.
In the same second, the whale fell to the ground again, creating a giant crater. The hero had half of his body cut, but in a second, the golden power joined the parts, and he recovered instantly.
’Damn, the hero’s power is too problematic,’ Bruno spat.
’The formation gave him real and almost infinite heroic power...’ Alm said, then stopped, suddenly thinking of something. ’Wait, if the formation gave him heroic power... then a massive amount of divine QI must have been given by the formation, and it’s accumulated inside him, right?’
Bruno’s mind clicked, and his eyes widened. Soon, the whale on the ground smirked sinisterly, looking at the hero. He, in turn, furrowed his brows; that was the expression of a demon savoring its prey.
There was no room for hesitation, and the two quickly understood each other in synchrony. The whale’s saber was quickly sheathed, and his tattoos glowed intensely.
CRACK!
The earth cracked as they flew into the sky, with a piercing gaze in the direction of the golden target. The hero, sensing something wrong, exploded with his maximum power and swung his holy sword. But the whale simply raised his fists, with his eyes turning black.
A new mysterious and hidden door opened before Alm and Bruno; they immediately burned almost all their last resources. The situation already seemed desperate and unsolvable; they just seized the first opportunity they saw.
The demonic flames were ignited once again; the remaining power of faith wouldn’t be enough to fully restore them afterward, only to keep them alive. If they had done this before, they would have sealed Calirer’s death since they wouldn’t be able to proceed further in the test with their bodies destroyed.
Soon, it was all or nothing. It was just a solid assumption by Alm, but they wanted to believe it was true.
Whoosh!
The black flames enveloped the hero, invading his golden power, wanting to burn his existence. Unsurprisingly, the golden power managed to resist the flames, but all the hero’s concentration and power were being used for this.
Soon, a round and completely black hand, burnt like coal, advanced and grabbed the head of the hero’s reflection. The tattoos glowed like two suns, and a spatial rune lit up on the whale’s forehead.
In a second, the whale’s eyes opened, and everything was covered in gold. In the next second, all the space around, throughout the test, seemed to tremble violently!
Finally, as if by magic, the hero simply evaporated. As if the formation had quickly cut the energy cables, disconnecting him. However, the whale simply smiled, and soon, villainous and sinister laughter reverberated.
At the same instant, in the battle nearby, Corin attacked without holding back, with a gigantic rainbow on his back. The Cerberus roared with sinister black power, blocking the attack. In the same second, a cutting power made the other head turn to the side, seeing a girl attacking with an indefensible power.
The expression of the canine head changed, and it roared with its eyes glowing with a new power. Ruri immediately recognized it; it was the power of the soul!
BOOM!
Corin and Ruri attacked with all their firepower at the same time, and the two heads defended with equally sinister and shocking methods. But in the midst of this great clash, an afterimage advanced, and a light cutting power emerged.
The Cerberus, which was forced to use all its energy to block the two strikes, was unprotected for a fraction of a second. There were no other enemies nearby, and the Cerberus didn’t imagine that anything could happen. But at an extreme distance, Sayqi activated the shadow space and, at the key moment, appeared in front of the Cerberus, attacking with the sharpness seal.
Slash!
The whale, watching from above, saw the Cerberus split in half and nodded in satisfaction. Sayqi’s power was not even 10% of Ruri’s, and Ruri’s speed was already superior to hers. However, with the challenging runic seal they created, the Cerberus reflection didn’t even have time to use its main techniques. It died caught off guard, a well-executed tactic that clearly came from Ruri.
The two enemies were defeated, and the world began to distort. In seconds, they found themselves back on the mountain. But now, none of them displayed happiness on their faces. There were a little over three hours left, and just reaching the ninth test should take half of that time. It was impossible to believe they would win in time, but none of them could express that frustration in words.
Ruri turned to the whale with tense eyes but quickly held her breath when their gazes met. She knew immediately, just by looking into his eyes, and her heart started to beat fast as a faint smile bloomed on her lips.
The whale looked at everyone and simply nodded lightly. Then, his entire body lit up in golden light, and he turned his gaze upward with a wicked smile.
Far away...
A few kilometers above, at the mountain’s peak, a humanoid being in a lotus position meditated with closed eyes. Any member of the group who looked at this person would quickly be surprised; their hair was vibrant and colorful, identical to Corin’s. It was definitely a member of the Chromaraic race, just like him.
This was the last and main examiner of the Realm of the Heavens. And for more than seventy thousand years, no hero had reached the tenth test of the mountain, which was the final test of the entire place.
He was completely focused on meditating and cultivating. If someone were to approach, the formation would alert him. But just above his head, a small spatial crack appeared and slowly opened.