Chapter 353: Trial Of Meteors

Chapter 353: Chapter 353: Trial Of Meteors

Chapter 353: Trial Of Meteors

The moment Rhain, Lyra, and the terrified remnants of the Golden Arrow Sect stepped through the blinding white light of the ancient gates, they immediately braced themselves for the worst.

But as the spatial distortion faded and their vision cleared, the environment that greeted them simply beyond their expectations.

There was no toxic miasma of the basin. The air was fresh.

A gentle, warm breeze brushed past their faces, carrying the intoxicating fragrance of thousands of rare spiritual herbs.

They were standing in the center of an unimaginably vast, beautiful garden.

Lush, vibrant greenery stretched as far as the eye could see, illuminated by the radiant light of a perfectly clear azure sky.

The spiritual essence in the air was so incredibly dense and pure that breathing it in felt like consuming a high-tier elixir.

"W-What is this place?" Karsten stammered, his eyes wide with sheer disbelief. He lowered his heavy broadsword, looking around the serene paradise. "Did we... did we step into a heavenly realm?"

The other mercenaries sucked in sharp breaths of cold air, their faces instantly flushing with greedy excitement. "Look at the density of this essence! If we cultivate here, we could break through to the Domain Master Realm!"

Lyra’s crimson eyes narrowed sharply. She kept her hand firmly resting on the hilt of her rapier.

"Don’t be foolish," Lyra scolded, refusing to let her guard down. "Did you never hear that the more beautiful a place is, the more dangerous it is?"

Rhain’s dark grey eyes swept across the serene garden, his Spiritual Sense had already expanded, probing the surrounding environment for any signs of danger.

What Rhain could confirm was that It was not an illusion.

The space, the air, the garden—it was all entirely real.

But before Rhain could speak—

BOOM—!!!

Without any warning, an incomprehensibly powerful spiritual pressure descended from the clear azure sky.

It did not carry any malicious killing intent or bloodthirsty rage.

It was simply a manifestation of supreme authority. It fell upon them like a collapsing firmament.

"GAAAH!"

Karsten and the five remaining mercenaries shrieked in agony, instantly forced to their knees.

The was so unimaginably dense that their spines creaked ominously. They couldn’t even lift a single finger.

Lyra’s face turned pale. Her slender legs trembled violently, and she was forced to use all her power just to keep herself from collapsing.

The orange-crimson True Heavenly Flame flickered weakly around her, desperately trying to repel the crushing weight, but it was like a candle fighting a hurricane.

Rhain remained standing, but his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

Inside his dantian, his three supermassive pitch-black cores spun with an unprecedented ferocity.

The Abyssal Sovereign Physique roared, its tyrannical nature aggressively resisting the suppression that sought to force him to his knees.

’This pressure...’ Rhain analyzed the sheer magnitude of the aura, his heart beating rapidly. ’It vastly surpasses that of the Old Dean of the Valdris Royal Academy.’

The Old Dean was a true Monarch Realm powerhouse.

For an aura to so casually dwarf a Monarch’s pressure, it meant the existence casting it was fundamentally on an entirely different plane of reality.

Swoosh—!

High above the beautiful garden, the space rippled gently.

A translucent figure slowly materialized in the clear sky.

It was an old man, dressed in ancient, flowing robes that belonged to an era thousands of years past.

His body was entirely ethereal, shimmering with a fading starlight.

It was clear that this was not a living cultivator.

It was just a remnant soul left behind by a supreme expert.

The old man looked down at the group, his ancient eyes carrying the profound vicissitudes of time.

He let out a long sigh that echoed directly within the depths of their spiritual seas.

"Hundreds of years..." the old man’s voice resonated with a melancholic tone. "I have waited in this desolate land for hundreds of years for a suitable candidate to arrive."

The remnant soul slowly descended, hovering just a few feet above the grass.

"My soul is on the verge of completely dissipating now, if you had arrived a mere few decades later, the last fragments of my consciousness would have faded into nothingness, and my inheritance would have been lost forever."

The old man’s gaze swept past the terrified mercenaries, not even resting on Rhain.

Instead, his ancient eyes locked entirely onto the beautiful girl with crimson hair.

"You," the remnant soul spoke, a trace of genuine astonishment and admiration flashing in his translucent eyes.

Lyra froze, her crimson eyes widening in shock. "M-Me?"

"Indeed," the old man nodded slowly, descending slightly closer. "The gates of my domain do not open for just anyone. They opened solely because they sensed your presence. The dormant, supreme bloodline flowing within your veins... it comes from a great existence. Your future is boundlessly bright, little girl."

Rhain listened to the old man’s words.

"Her bloodline,’ Rhain mused.

He instantly recalled the conversations in the Valdris Royal Academy and the sheer terror the Imperial Families harbored toward Lyra’s missing father.

That man was a taboo existence whose mere shadow kept the Solathane Emperor in check.

It must be him.

The old man withdrew his gaze from Lyra and swept his eyes over the rest of the group.

"However, the rules of my domain have been set," the remnant soul declared, his voice ringing like a divine bell. "Anyone who steps through the gates will have the fortune to participate for the trial and gain my inheritance. Therefore, everyone present in this space can participate in the trials."

The merceneries looked at each other with greedy eyes. The inheritance of a supreme expert, it was a fortune that could change their lives.

But then, they saw the old man’s translucent eyes turned chillingly cold.

"However, if you fail the trials, you will die here."

The words terrified Karsten and others. They didn’t want to die.

"N-No... NO!" Karsten shrieked, tears and snot streaming down his scarred face. "We are just mercenaries! We don’t want the inheritance! Please, Supreme Senior, have mercy! Let us out! We beg you!"

"I don’t want to die! Let us go back!" another mercenary wailed in pure despair, frantically trying to crawl backward.

They had barely survived the outer rings of the Sunless Umbral Basin.

To be forced into a life-and-death trial designed by a supreme expert beyond the Monarch Realm was a guaranteed death sentence!

The old man looked down at them with eyes as cold as the blade. "You have the option to refuse. However, the gate behind you has already closed. If you refuse to take the trial, you will not have to go through the trials of life and death. But, you will be sealed within this garden, trapped in this realm until your death."

Trapped for life.

Karsten’s face turned ghastly white. They had no choice.

It’s either a quick death or a slow death.

"We... we will take the trial," Karsten gritted his teeth and spoke in an utterly broken voice. The other mercenaries could also just agree, seeing their leader’s decesion.

"What’s your decision, little girl?" The old man looked at Lyra.

Lyra was silent, lowering her head with guilt.

If her bloodline hadn’t triggered the gate, they wouldn’t have been forced into this death trap.

Seeing her silence, Rhain also turned to look at the crimson-haired girl whose fierce demeanor had completely crumbled.

"There is no point in blaming yourself," Rhain said, "It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. We would just have to break free from this trap."

Hearing his confident words, the heavy knot of despair in Lyra’s chest loosened slightly.

She took a deep breath, her crimson eyes hardening with resolve as she raised her head, and gave a firm nod.

"We accept the trial," Rhain stated, looking directly at the remnant soul.

"Very well."

The old man waved his translucent hand.

SHATTER—!!!

The breathtakingly beautiful garden, and the clear azure sky violently fractured like a pane of fragile glass.

They now stood in the middle of a sprawling, barren wasteland.

Above them hung a blood-red sky, swirling with thick, ominous clouds. There was no visible exit.

The old man’s ethereal voice echoed from the blood-red heavens above.

"The First Trial. You must survive a rain of meteors. Your only objective is to remain alive for exactly one hour. The trial begins now."

RUMBLE—!!!

The blood-red clouds above began to churn violently.

The temperature in the wasteland skyrocketed, instantly causing the mercenaries to sweat profusely.

High above, the clouds parted, and two massive, flaming meteors plummeted from the sky, hurtling directly toward the group.

The fiery rocks trailed thick black smoke, carrying the destructive kinetic force of an early-stage Core Formation expert.

"What is that!" Karsten was terrified.

But before the mercenaries could even think what was happening, Rhain and Lyra had already moved.

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Lyra drew her star-forged rapier. An orange-crimson True Heavenly Flame erupted along the blade.

Rhain had also brought out his dark broadsword from his spatial ring.

It was now a battle of life and death with the sky itself.