Chapter 1481: One Step

Swhoosh!

The sixth floor was yet again a cold, windy place, the sudden drop in temperature causing me to sneeze yet again. I shouldn’t complain though. Imagine what would’ve happened if the fifth floor’s boss had chased us into the sixth floor.

The Cloak of Divine Fervor flapping loudly behind me, I stared at the ground and discovered that it was just as snowy as the fourth floor, with several noticeable differences. One, it wasn’t snowing. Two, this floor was even colder than the fourth floor. A sheen of ice had appeared on my metal armor in the blink of an eye, and my eyebrows and eyelashes were about to become frozen as well. I used to think that Sainthelm Ruins was cold, but it was nothing compared to the cold of this place. I would’ve frozen to death if I didn’t have the Unusual Physique!

Besides that, there were a lot of blood pools on the ground. The blood pools were set about one kilometer away from the other, and each one was guarded by 10 to 15 guards. The blood pools were also bubbling as if they were boiling water or something. I had no idea what they were.

……

Seemingly noticing my puzzlement, Uldan shot me a smile and said, “Those are the Wells of Redemption. They are unique to the sixth floor!”

“Well of Redemption?” My astonishment grew.

Uldan nodded and explained, “The experts who came to the sixth floor despite having survived the harrowing trials of the first to fifth floor are all people who wished to become the Purgatory Ruler’s servants. They are also top-tier experts who potentially possess the power to threaten the Purgatory Ruler, which is why he built these Well of Redemptions to ensure their loyalty. Everyone baptized in the Well of Redemption would lose their lives’ memories and obsessions and fully become a dog to Lin Na. Coldblade, Thunder, Bloody Finger, Skullblood, Opero and more have all been baptized in the Well of Redemption.”

“What about Xinran?”

“Wind Singer Xinran and Sophie are the exceptions. They have refused to go through the baptism, and Lin Na allowed it. In their case, it allowed them to maintain the integrity of their unique Divinities and grant them greater power.”

I felt relieved. “I see. I would never have met Xinran if she had chosen to go through with the baptism…”

Uldan smiled again before saying, “Let’s go. The passage to the seventh floor, the Immortal Realm, lies at the heart of the sixth floor, but it is guarded by a divine expert. I hope we’ll get lucky just like we did earlier. Moreover, the sky is locked by a divine sealing barrier, so we won’t be able to fly undetected as we did before. We’ll need to travel by ground.”

“Mn.”

We descended to the ground and began trekking through a snowy forest. We made sure to stay away from the Wells of Redemption because the guards were Level 230 deity-rank mobs. Dealing with them wasn’t too difficult, but it would take too much time that I couldn’t afford. Moreover, it was almost 5 pm in the late afternoon, and I needed to log out and catch some rest around 8 pm. My body wouldn’t be able to keep itself together otherwise.

We didn’t walk far before a large group of red dots suddenly appeared on the periphery of my map screen. They were moving in our direction at high speed!

"Watch out. Someone’s coming!"

I grabbed Uldan’s hand and pulled her deeper into the forest. Then, I buried us both beneath the snow. The instant we finished hiding ourselves, a party of 100+ undead cavalrymen galloped past our hiding spot.

"Hunters! There are Hunters here too…" I uttered through gritted teeth. The undead party was led by ten Executioners. I didn’t fear the Hunters, but the Executioners were a different story. They could deal massive amounts of damage because they ignored 30% of my Defense. Even with my current level, I would like to avoid a fight with them if at all possible.

……

A short while later, another group of Hunters showed up and met up with this party.

"We haven’t found anything, sir!" a Hunter reported in a loud voice.

An Executioner replied snarlingly, "They can’t be too far from here. Those two traitorous bastards have destroyed the fortress troops that were stationed at the Life Shatter Realm, and Lord Lin Na is absolutely furious. He ordered us to slay them in the Redemption Realm, no matter what. You lot will continue the search in the northeast direction. The higher-ups have dispatched a total of 1,000 hunting parties to find these traitors. There is no chance for them to escape!"

"Yes, sir! We won’t let them escape the Redemption Realm!"

"Good. Now go!"

"Yessir!"

……

Still buried under the snow, I sneezed again before saying, "Looks like we made a huge mess…"

Uldan smiled. "It’s your choice. Are you afraid of the consequences?"

I gripped the Xuanyuan Sword and declared confidently, "Of course not. That being said, it will be foolish to attack a Hunter party with 10 Executioners in it. There’s no need to take such a risk either. Let’s target those that are weaker and easier to kill…"

"Exactly my thoughts!"

"Let’s go!"

We continued toward our destination. The crimson-colored Cloak of Divine Fervor was fairly eye-catching, but there was nothing I could do about it. The Master of Disguise Ring was one way to slip through the undead army unnoticed, but I didn’t want to use it because both the Song of Freedom and the Ring of Spiritual Tongue gave me critical stats. Also, Uldan didn’t have the ability to conceal herself, and I had no intention of abandoning her. I still needed her strength for the upcoming battles.

We didn’t go far before we countered yet another hunting party. This one only had 57 Hunters and 3 Executioners in it. The Hunters couldn’t kill me, and the Executioners were few enough that I could brute-force the issue. My mind was already made up.

Chiang!

I unsheathed the Xuanyuan Sword.

Uldan blinked. "Are we attacking them?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I’ll keep the Hunters busy before focusing an Executioner. You will help me to kill it before we move onto the next Executioner. Once all three Executioners are dead, the rest of the battle is a non-issue. The remaining Hunters won’t be able to kill me."

"Got it!"

……

I ran up to the hunting party and immobilized an Executioner with the God Binding Art. This way, I only needed to fight two Executioners at the same time. I threw my sword at an Executioner using Coiling Dragon Revolution at an Executioner, putting a hole in his chest. He retaliated in anger, but I activated the Profound Armor of my Rising Cloud, increased my Defense by 300%, and rendered their passive armor penetration useless for 15 seconds. I easily tanked their Peerless Strike and other attacks. 300% Defense is awesome!

Behind me, Uldan drew her bow and fired shots that dealt nearly 3 million damage per hit against the Hunters. The Divine Rank boss was just too strong for these small fries to handle. Thanks to her, I was able to kill a full-health Executioner in less than half a minute.

A huge burden was lifted from my shoulders after the first Executioner was killed. Another minute later, the remaining two Executioners were dead as well. After that, the rest of the battle was relatively easy.

Rustle rustle rustle…

On a related note, my boots never touched the ground. There were mini cyclones beneath my boots that kept me afloat and left a trail of spiraling holes across the snow. Exploiting my speed advantage over the Hunters, I led them on a merry-go-round while killing them with Ancient Seals, Myriad Swords Obliteration and more AoE skills. In less than ten minutes, all 60 minibosses died and gave me a good number of equipment and magic stones.

I swept the battlefield and counted myself lucky. In total, I had gotten two Perfect Divine Crystals and a dozen more great pieces of equipment. At the same time, I briefly lamented the fact that I had gotten the experience from the tens of thousands of Executioners I crushed to death with a giant rock on the fifth floor, but not their loot. It was a real shame.

At the same time, I checked my experience bar and was stunned by what I saw. I had just killed 60 Ancient Immortal Rank minibosses, but my experience was still stuck at 7% like it was a permanent fixture. I could hardly believe it. How long would it take me to level to 275 like this? The chance to one-shot tens of thousands of mobs in one go was hardly an everyday occurrence…

……

I shouldn’t complain about my fortune not being good enough though. After I rescued Xinran and escaped the Purgatory, I could take it easy knowing that it would be a very, very long time before anyone could even catch up to me. In fact, I didn’t even need to grind in the norm anymore; all I needed to do was to wait for the massive events and grab the MVP spots to raise my levels. In fact, it would be stupid to grind mobs to Level 275. I was no mage, I couldn’t throw AoE spells all day and night.

In two hours, we destroyed 14 parties and gotten 47 Hunter Cards in total. They were the real reward of our labor. A card that increased Attack by 170% and max HP by 200% was absolutely god-tier, and it could sell for at least 5,000 RMB on the market. Even then, no one would use it unless they were fighting a powerful boss or took part in a large-scale war. Even I wouldn’t have been using this card if the Purgatory wasn’t such a dangerous place.

We continued forward after I put the cards and the loot away safely.

The map before us grew redder and redder. Eventually, we arrived at a barren, bone-riddled land with a huge, bloody vortex at the center. I knew from the barrier energies spilling out of it that it was the entrance to the seventh floor. My heart leaped to my throat. The entrance led to the seventh floor of the Purgatory, and my Xinran was right over the other side of this barrier!

For a moment, I couldn’t stop trembling in anticipation.

"Be careful. There has to be a guardian somewhere…" Uldan warned me.

"I don’t know, I don’t see anyone even on my map screen…"

"A true god can conceal their presence…"

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Screw it. I’m going!"

I took off and made a beeline for the barrier. Your big brother’s coming, Xinran!

……

Before I could reach it though, an invisible pressure suddenly pressed down on me. Now that I had become a god and accumulated enough experience, I could tell that it was a power that not even a Sovereign Rank boss possessed. It was the domain power of another god!

Chiang!

I unsheathed the Xuanyuan Sword without hesitation and activated Heavenly River Transformation. I unleashed my own Domain to fight against the unseen enemy’s.

"You think you can break through my defense by force, boy?"

An icy cold voice spoke from the sky. The next moment, I heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed, and an invisible astral energy smashed into my back and knocked me away from my original trajectory!

1,418,723!

What a powerful attack! I kicked out with my leg, but it felt like I had struck a steel fortress. Pain shot up my foot as I was knocked back yet dozens of meters yet again. It took me a while to finally catch myself.