Wang Ren kept his glaive at the ready as he exited the wall of mist. It had taken him almost thirty-six attempts to finally figure out the right technique.

Slashing in such a way that the tunnel was large enough for him to pass through, but also lasted long enough to not consume him before he could was difficult. However, it had given him unexpected insights into his Shattering Earth Carving Heavens Heavy Glaive.

No, that isn't quite right anymore. Ever since that moment I formed a strand of glaive intent while facing Gao Shan, my technique changed from the original art Master Bang passed down to me, Wang Ren thought to himself. Now it should be the Obliterating Earth Erasing Heaven Heavy Glaive.

He had declared that his glaive would make the earth vanish beneath its blade and erase the heavens themselves. It was sheer arrogance, but he embraced it wholeheartedly. It was who he was.

A sudden shift in the spiritual energy made him step back. The blade of a sword thrust through empty air where his head had been a moment before.

"This one is alone, brothers! His weapon is unusual. I bet it's worth plenty of spirit stones. Strip him bare!" a weasel-faced cultivator cried, slashing the sword at Wang Ren once more.

At his outcry, three more cultivators surrounded him. They all wore identical grey robes with a fish emblem on the chest. Disciples of the same sect or clan.

He wondered why they were attacking him rather than trying to find treasures in the palace, but quickly dismissed his confusion. This was normal. Cultivators fought over resources, women, land, and face everywhere at all times.

Mostly face.

He didn't care who they were or why they'd attacked him. All that mattered was that they had. So they would pay the price.

"This is too easy. These fools keep coming through alone, it's like they want us to take their treasures!" another one laughed as he rushed at Wang Ren.

The others attacked at the same time, forming a four-pronged pincer attack that trapped him in place. There was no way out.

Not unless he carved one for himself.

In a single breath he assessed the cultivation realms of his four opponents. His spiritual senses were nowhere as powerful as Zhao Dan's, that monster, but they were enough.

The strongest of his opponents was a seven-star Qi Gathering cultivator. The same realm as him. The weakest was just a four-star, while the other two were both five-stars.

This wouldn't be difficult.

While the insectoid glaive still felt unfamiliar in his hands, he had grown used to its weight over the past week. It was far from being a match for his own weapon, but it would suffice for these pathetic fools.

Those who lacked the courage and determination to face the challenges ahead of them and instead tried to prey on the weak were nothing but fodder in front of his glaive. His determination was one that would obliterate the earth and erase the heavens themselves!

What did four mere cultivators mean in front of that? His qi was like his muscles. Lying dormant until it was needed. "Weak!" he roared as he swung his glaive.

The tip of his weapon had rested against the ground until that moment. In one explosive burst, his muscles and qi exploded with force. The power released in a single breath was so great it suppressed the four attackers, slowing their movements for an instant.

An instant was all it took for Wang Ren to end their lives. From the ground, his glaive swung in a circular arc until it returned to its starting point.

A gentle ting sounded out as the tip of the glaive tapped against the stone, followed by eight consecutive thuds as the cultivator's corpses tumbled to the ground. A single fluid slash had sliced all of them cleanly in half.

A few nearby cultivators gave Wang Ren a wide berth as he advanced towards the palace. None of them wanted to be the next victims of that devastating glaive slash.

It hadn't been as effortless as it appeared from the outside. That one strike had used about a third of his qi. However, he had understood another battle technique.

The suppression of his force that had resulted in his enemies' hesitation had allowed him to kill them all in a single move. He had expected the seven-star Qi Gatherer to at least survive the initial blow, but the suppression had broken his attempt to counter.

That must have been my killing intent. Master Bang spoke of it once, but I had dismissed it as the atmosphere of battle. To think it could be a physical force that you can use in that manner, he pondered on how to leverage his new tool best as he approached the towering wall around the Spring and Autumn Palace.

Of the beasts in their group, Shuanghu, the badgerhog, and even Longma had made it through the mist wall before Wang Ren. Meng Huo had also succeeded in breaking the wall apart, but chose to remain until the little ape was able to join him.

He looked around for the white tiger, spined badgerhog and the antlered horse, but there was no sign of any of them. Assuming that they had already gone ahead or had been transported somewhere different, Wang Ren instead focused on the obstacle in his path.

The wall felt solid, far tougher than the buildings of the Grasping Life Sect or even the Cloudy Falls Sect. Whoever had constructed the Spring and Autumn Palace had to have been an exceptional master, likely a Nascent Soul Sage.

Even so, this is worth a try, he told himself as he unleashed a full force slash at the wall with his glaive. The blade smashed against the wall and bounced off.

A jolt went through Wang Ren's entire body, making his teeth clatter and legs feel like jelly. He needed a moment to steady himself before observing the result of his strike.

There wasn't even a scratch on the wall. He had expected to fail, but to not even leave a mark was ridiculous. What kind of material is it made of to be that tough!? he inwardly cried.

At first Wang Ren decided that brute force wasn't the answer here. Then he threw that foolish notion away. Master Bang had never backed down from a fight or an intellectual battle and he'd rarely lost either challenge in all the time Wang Ren had been his disciple.

Even during the meeting of the Cloudy Falls Sect's Elders, Master Bang had shrewdly played the other elders against one another and reached the outcome he desired. It was interesting to watch and had broadened Wang Ren's understanding of battle.

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Nonetheless, even if it was an intellectual challenge, the concept was the same. There was nothing his glaive couldn't carve with sufficient time and determination.

This wall might be sturdy, but I will advance!

****

Shuanghu hadn't faced much difficulty passing through the mist wall array that guarded the Spring and Autumn Palace. It wasn't because her ancestor had prepared her, but rather that the design of the array was similar to a lower grade one she'd encountered before.

Where the other cultivators tried to brute force it, she had used precise applications of her qi to break individual nodes and create a path through the mist. She had still been slower than that unusually talented human, Zhao Dan, but she was faster than the rest of her companions.

He was an oddity. She had been annoyed at the old ape throwing the two humans with them. She'd thought they would be dead weight, much like that little ape. Except the little ape could at least be considered a distant cousin, whereas the two human cultivators had been strangers to her.

However, Shuanghu had been proven wrong many times over during their journey through the Blossoming Heavens. Not only had they saved each other's lives multiple times, but the human—Zhao Dan—had uncanny spiritual senses that allowed them to find far more treasures than they might otherwise have been able to.

As was often the case, the ancestor's wisdom proved superior to her own fallible knowledge. They were separated now, the Spring and Autumn Palace being one of the trials that required individual wit and strength rather than cooperation.

While those who'd entered the Blossoming Heavens in the past were sealed from talking about the specifics of what they encountered, they were able to give some general advice. Such as the types of trials one might encounter along the way and the nature of the final event that preceded the appearance of the key.

Which was what they were really here for. Every clan, sect, and powerful rogue cultivator in the world had come to the Blossoming Heavens to claim an ascension key. Even if they weren't able to use it themselves, they could sell it to a peak Nascent Soul Sage for a fortune or trade it for contributions in the case they were a sect disciple or clan descendant.

Shuanghu honestly felt she and the rest of her companions weren't powerful enough to claim the ascension key here. However, it wasn't only a contest of strength. Especially with the appearance of the Spring and Autumn Palace.

She was confident in her ability to solve intellectual trials and there was also her exceptional speed along with her bloodline abilities as a descendant of the White Demon Tiger King. It all depended on what lay between her and the key.

She found herself staring at a towering wall that encircled the palace beyond. It seemed to lack entrances, a fact which she confirmed by walking around its entire circumference.

Along the way she encountered a few other cultivators, most of them sat in meditation or staring at one of the four intricate carvings of a tree in various stages of bloom. They had to be the trial that lay between the cultivators and entry to the palace.

There was no sign of Zhao Dan or even that woman who made it through the mists before everyone else, she thought to herself as she came to a halt. Either someone had killed them and hidden the bodies, or they had solved the trial and advanced.

Her spirit stones would be on the latter. That female cultivator was talented enough to instantly break the mist array. No doubt she hadn't struggled at this early junction, either.

The same could be said for Zhao Dan. His techniques were strange, especially the fact that he could heal with such ease. It was eerily similar to the Celestial Jade Emperor's technique, but there was no way the brat was part of the imperial family.

Then again, perhaps he was some bastard son of a prince? It would explain why her ancestor had insisted on him tagging along. However, that didn't line up with the events leading to him and his companion joining their group.

She decided not to worry about his origins and instead focus on her own problems. First and foremost, how she was going to pass this wall and enter the Spring and Autumn Palace.

The treasures that lay within were worth risking her life and the longer she took to reach the inside, the more chance there was that another cultivator swooped in to claim them. That would be unacceptable.

Giving the ancestor the key was one thing, but Shuanghu still needed to make profit of her own on this journey. The insights she'd gained were already enough, but if she wanted to be one of the outstanding figures of this generation she would need to do ten times more than her competitors.

The puzzle of the tree carvings wasn't difficult to figure out. This was the Spring and Autumn Palace, hence the key to entry clearly lay in the spring and autumn tree carvings.

She looked down on those fools who stumbled out with confused, idiotic expressions on their faces. Could they truly not understand such a basic logic puzzle?

However, she was slightly mistaken. The real reason so many cultivators hadn't passed through wasn't because they didn't know the solution, but that in order to enter one needed to activate two carvings at the same time, despite the distance between them being too far to spread one's qi—unless one was an unprecedented prodigy at manipulating energy.

In fact, Shuanghu was the one who felt stupid when an hour later she realised a far simpler solution. All she had to do was work with another cultivator and activate one carving each.

The reason it had taken her that much longer to arrive at the solution was the pride of her ancestry as a White Demon Tiger. They were solitary beasts that disdained others most of the time.

Working with another would have been a blow to her own intelligence. Then again, the trial was designed by a Nascent Soul Sage.

If this was the answer they had laid out, it clearly wasn't beneath her to use it. After all, she was only an enlightened stage beast, equivalent to a Foundation Building Realm cultivator. Could she question the decisions of a sage?

She didn't want to work with a stranger, potentially risking giving the solution away, so she decided to wait for another member of the group to arrive. That way she might also be able to pass on the solution and ensure the rest of the beasts had a better chance at claiming more valuable treasures.

Around the time it took to eat a meal later, Longma stumbled through a hole in the mist right as it snapped shut behind it. Mist curled from his snout as he gently shook his antlers left and right.

"Oh, Shuanghu, you're still here?" he exclaimed as he noticed the white tiger watching his plight with an amused grin.

"Well, I figured out the solution to the next trial but it requires two of us to work together. I didn't want to lower myself to cooperating with one of these… fools. Hence, I waited for one of you to arrive. Follow me, I'll explain the solution as we walk," she replied, stretching her spine as she stood up on all fours.

The pair walked to the midpoint between the spring and autumn tree carvings, with Shuanghu explaining what to do to Longma, when they overheard something worrying. It was a stroke of fortune that they did, but the white tiger couldn't be certain if it was good or bad luck until she heard more. "Wait a moment. Let's follow them and listen in. This might be important," she told Longma, who nodded and walked after her.

Luckily, stealth was part of Shuanghu's bloodline talents and Longma was able to create illusions that filtered other's perception of him. They had no problem staying unnoticed while following their targets.

The reason they felt it necessary to eavesdrop was because of a name the group of four cultivators wearing identical robes had mentioned. The leader of the group, a two-star Foundation Building expert, had said, "T he elder said the traitor Wang Ren was seen heading towards the Blossoming Heavens along with the exiled trash Zhao Dan. No one encountered the exile scum yet, so he has to be inside. I'm sure the traitor is with him."

If that was all he'd said, it might not have interested the white tiger. After all, the humans were still only allies of convenience, even if they'd grown a little closer during their journeys.

She felt obligated to help him out however, when the rest of the conversation continued in a worrying manner.

"Brother Li, what should we do when we find them?" one of the cultivators asked.

"Kill them of course. No mercy for traitors," the leader responded with a cruel smile.

Longma turned to Shuanghu with a worried expression. "We have to warn those two humans. Their lives are in danger and they have no idea," the antlered horse said.

"I agree. After everything they have contributed to the expedition they deserve that much from us. Let's wait for another of the group to enter and leave a warning for Wang Ren with them. Then we can hurry inside the palace to find Zhao Dan," Shuanghu replied, rapidly formulating a plan. "Based on what they said, there are more than one group of them hunting the pair down. They won't stand a chance without our help."

"Agreed. Although you should give them more credit. They seem fairly talented for human cultivators," Longma replied.

"I don't doubt it, but even prodigies can die early if facing overwhelming odds. Let's hurry and find the others." With that, the two beasts started frantically circling the palace, waiting for another of their group to arrive so they could continue inside.

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