The entire space was deathly silent.
You could hear a pin drop.
The Yanxin Semi-Saint acted as if he had just done something trivial, gently snapping his jade-boned folding fan shut.
The next moment, just as he had appeared, his figure silently melted into the void, as if he had never been there at all.
But the lingering might of his universe-suppressing pressure and judgment was seared deep into everyone’s soul.
...
Li Wen saw a flash of light, and the next thing he knew, his feet were on the metal floor of the Alka Empire’s designated area.
However, he keenly sensed that the surrounding atmosphere was extremely strange.
Tens of thousands of gazes were focused on him... amid a deathly silence.
In the distance, toward the central structure, it seemed as if a world-shaking storm had just subsided.
’What happened?’ Li Wen frowned slightly. He thought he had just vaguely sensed an extremely terrifying pressure—one that far surpassed the Immortal realm—flash past.
"Li... Li Wen!" Ares’s voice transmission came from the side, laced with excitement and lingering fear. His voice was even trembling.
"You... you were in the tower, so you don’t know... Oh my god! It was the Yanxin Semi-Saint! The Semi-Saint himself descended!"
"The Yanxin Semi-Saint?" Li Wen was inwardly shaken.
Although he knew that the realm above Immortal was the Tribulation Realm, and above that were the legendary Semi-Saints and Saints.
He had never seen one before.
Ares spoke rapidly, his voice filled with immense reverence, as he recounted the details of the shocking scene that had just unfolded.
He described the uproar and doubt from the countless contestants over his "0% progress," and the malicious instigation by Kane from the high-level empire.
He told of how the Yanxin Semi-Saint had descended without a sound, suppressed the entire crowd with his supreme pressure, and personally declared Li Wen’s innocence.
And then, how with a single sentence, he had directly revoked the participation rights of Kane, ranked 832nd, and instantly expelled him...
Ares relayed every detail with perfect clarity.
He especially emphasized the Yanxin Semi-Saint’s scholarly image, clad in moon-white robes, and his supreme authority where his words became law.
"The Semi-Saint himself said... he said your choice was one of ’the great wisdom and courage to see one’s true nature’!"
Ares’s voice was filled with vicarious excitement. "That Kane deserved it! The Semi-Saint is just so... so..."
He was so worked up he couldn’t find the right words to describe the sheer shock of it all.
Li Wen listened quietly, but a tempest was raging in his heart.
He had never imagined that simply making the most cost-effective choice for his cultivation would cause such a huge uproar, even alarming a legendary Semi-Saint to the point of personally intervening to pass judgment.
The Yanxin Semi-Saint’s praise—"the great wisdom and courage to see one’s true nature"—was like a warm current affirming the path he had chosen.
At the same time, the Semi-Saint’s thunderous, absolute methods—where his word was law—gave him a more direct understanding of the power wielded by a Cosmic Peak expert.
Li Wen took a deep breath, suppressing the waves of emotion in his heart.
He knew that although the storm he had caused was quelled by the Semi-Saint’s supreme authority, it had also pushed him squarely into the center stage of the entire universe’s genius tournament.
He had become an opponent that all the top geniuses would have to treat with the utmost seriousness.
’And the upcoming ’Lonely Stairway’ and ’Slaughter Field’ are the real tests.’
A silver and gold light quietly swirled in his eyes.
It was the afterglow of his breakthrough in the Time Law.
...
Following Li Wen’s appearance, the magnificent Enlightenment Tower slowly faded from view under the gazes of billions.
Finally, it vanished completely from the preparation space.
The grand voice rang out at the perfect moment, announcing the official conclusion of the first assessment, the "Enlightenment Tower."
[Enlightenment Tower assessment complete.]
[Results have been recorded in the final rankings.]
Before the echoes of the voice had even faded, a new directive was issued.
There was no pause, nor were the tens of thousands of contestants given a moment’s respite.
[Second Assessment: Lonely Stairway.]
[Commencing teleportation.]
Space rippled like water once again.
The contestants were given no time to think or react.
In fact, after the long wait during the Enlightenment Tower trial, most of them had no desire to spend another moment in the preparation space anyway.
Countless figures were instantly enveloped by spatial power and vanished on the spot.
Light swirled, and as his vision cleared, Li Wen felt a solid and slightly cool surface beneath his feet.
He steadied himself and surveyed the new environment before him.
An impossibly vast structure rose from the ground, so large it was suffocating, occupying the absolute center of his vision.
It was shaped like an infinitely magnified pyramid.
Majestic and towering, it pierced straight into the deep void, far beyond the limits of sight.
The pyramid had four massive, slanted faces, none of which were solid walls.
Instead, they were formed by countless tiers of stairs made of the same material, stretching endlessly upward.
The stairs were wide enough for millions of people to walk side-by-side, and their height... it was impossible to see the top, as if they truly connected to the very apex of the universe.
An indescribable sense of loneliness and weight, like an invisible force field, emanated from this heaven-piercing stairway.
It pressed down heavily on the heart of every newcomer.
"So this is... the Lonely Stairway?" Li Wen murmured, his eyes scrutinizing the behemoth.
The other contestants who had been transported to the base of the same face of the stairway reacted in various ways.
Some had eyes shining with light, their chests heaving, their faces etched with fanatical confidence and a thirst for challenge.
"Yes! This is a real test!"
A burly man with a giant axe on his back growled, cracking his knuckles.
"Enlightenment? That’s just icing on the cake! The path of cultivation is about hacking through thorns and treading over corpses. It relies on an indomitable, unbreakable will! This Lonely Stairway is where I’ll make my name!"
He was clearly one of those brimming with confidence, believing this was the place where his true strengths would shine.
Others, however, turned pale, their eyes flickering with uncertainty.
They stared at the seemingly endless stairs, felt the invisible pressure permeating the air, and couldn’t help but feel a thread of panic rising in their hearts.
"The Enlightenment Tower was already so difficult, and now this..." a slender young man muttered, subconsciously taking half a step back.
He clearly lacked confidence in his willpower, afraid he would meet his Waterloo here and be reduced to a mere backdrop for others’ glory.
The majority of contestants, however, wore grave expressions. They gathered their focus and silently adjusted their state of mind, preparing for the challenge to come.
Just as a million different thoughts stirred in the minds of the contestants...
The grand voice once again echoed throughout the space of the stairway:
[Lonely Stairway, begin!]
The word "begin" exploded like a clap of thunder.
BOOM!
Countless figures moved in almost the same instant.
Like moths to a flame, they scrambled to set foot on the first step.
Li Wen was not in a hurry.
His expression was calm as he unhurriedly raised his right foot and placed it steadily on the first, pale-gold step.
The moment his foot landed, an extremely faint sensation quietly brushed against his mind.
It was a... hard to describe sense of loneliness.
It was as if he had been momentarily stripped of all sound, color, and connection, placed in a state of absolute nothingness.
If not for the fact that Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit cultivation had reached the level of a Tier Two Star Lord, making his spiritual perception exceptionally keen, and if he hadn’t been deliberately paying attention, it would have been nearly impossible to catch this faint abnormality.
It was too faint, so faint that it would be overlooked without careful attention.
He didn’t pause. He lifted his left foot and, just as steadily, stepped onto the second stair.
The feeling was the same, that barely-there sense of loneliness, its intensity having increased only by a minuscule amount.
Without actively trying to sense it, one wouldn’t have any reaction at all.
It was as if it were just some psychological suggestion caused by the material of the stairs underfoot.
However, not everyone was like Li Wen.
"Watch me!"
"It’s just a set of stairs, nothing to it!"
A few shouts, filled with confidence and even a hint of showing off, rang out from the crowd.
Several figures, either to attract attention or out of sheer confidence in their strong willpower and skill, made their move.
After stepping on the first stair, they didn’t pause at all, instead shooting upward.
In one step, they crossed dozens of stairs.
With another, they were hundreds of stairs up.
After just a few strides, their figures had shrunk to tiny black dots, taking a commanding lead.
They had already climbed over a thousand stairs.
Their speed was so astonishing that they instantly left the main group far behind, sparking gasps and murmurs from below.
In comparison, people like Li Wen, who climbed one step at a time, were now as rare as a phoenix feather.