Book 10 - Chapter 16

B10C16: Who dies? Who survives?

That thunderbolt strikes down straight like a sharp arrow but Qin Yu basically cannot move or dodge because he is subject to the terrifying gravity. Based on his visual estimation at that moment, this thunderbolt is roughly striking down at his head.

Bang!

Qin Yu feels a shock wave. He stares at a place just 3 cm away from his head.

“So dangerous, I was nearly killed.” He is lying prone on the ground of the Road of Death and just now that thunderbolt unexpectedly hit a place between his head and his right arm. The Road of Death is made of some unknown material. Even though its surface has been hit by lightning, it does not seem to be damaged at all.

“I almost forgot that the thunderbolts of this Road of Death aren’t heavenly tribulation thunderbolts. Heavenly tribulation thunderbolts strike down on the tribulation-taker and are unavoidable. But this Road of Death’s thunderbolts strike down aimlessly and don’t have large areas of effect either.” Qin Yu immediately sees where his chance of surviving lies.

The material of the Road of Death is special. When a thunderbolt strikes down, it only leaves a small mark on the Road of Death like a knife. Moreover, the Road of Death is not conductive so when its surface is hit by lightning, the electricity does not flow in all directions and harm someone on the Road of Death.

Besides, when a thunderbolt strikes down, its area of effect is only several cm in diameter.

But … even though the area of affect is small, the thunderbolts complement the heavenly flames, one coming down from the sky and one leaping up from down below. Even worse, there are too many of them. An individual on the Road of Death is affected by a terrifying gravity so they can only advance slowly like a black tortoise and it takes them a very long time to go through the Road of Death. If they are hit by the lightning or burnt by the heavenly flame, they will undoubtedly die.

Qin Yu cautiously unleashes his internal energy and physical strength to resist the frightening gravity. His attention is totally focused on the heavenly flames and thunderbolts around him. His ears are also listening carefully to decide if there are any heavenly flames attacking sneakily from behind.

Step by step, Qin Yu slowly goes forwards like a black tortoise with caution on the brink of death under the joint attack of the heavenly flames and thunderbolts.

……

Not only Qin Yu, even the others who have entered the Road of Death are also feeling very nervous at the moment. None of them dares to split their concentration at all. Among everybody, the one who is calmest while walking the Road of Death must be Yan Mo.

His expression is ice-cold, his eyes glittering. He is paying attention to everything around him.

“I must get through no matter what.” There is a tinge of a blood-red light at the bottoms of his eyes. As a member of the dragon clan, he naturally knew how powerful his clan was, but he still defected from it. Someone haughty like him was not willing to listen to anybody else’s orders.

Even if he would not succeed, he would mature!

“Because the heavenly flames are powerful and attack suddenly from down below, they are very dangerous, especially the ones coming from behind. But their shooting-up speed is not fast. If they come from behind, I can figure out their locations based on the sounds caused by them alone. The thunderbolts are fast and powerful but their areas of effect are extremely small. As long as I’m careful, I won’t be struck to death by them.”

Yan Mo advances strangely at a totally constant speed.

A thunderbolt strikes down. The face of Yan Mo, who has been moving slowly all along, suddenly reddens. The energy inside his body is instantly activated to the utmost. He concentrates all of his power in his right arm and flings it abruptly. Naturally his body shakes: “The distance should be about 1 cm, which is safe.”

That thunderbolt almost grazes his waist. There is only a distance of around 1 cm between them.

As Yan Mo has often fought life-or-death battles, his calculating ability has already reached a shocking level.

Even though the gravity is strong, it only makes him move exceptionally slow and is not unsupportable. Not only can he resist it, he can even go all out at the most crucial moments to exert a bit more power. Those small amounts of power that he does his utmost to muster can save his life.

It is slightly easy to avoid the heavenly flames but the thunderbolts are a little more difficult.

With absolutely no wavering in his ice-cold eyes, Yan Mo keeps advancing at a constant speed. He is like a slowly moving poisonous snake. By slightly dodging at dangerous moments, he has unexpectedly covered 20 m very safely. If this continues, he will be the one with the best chance of success. However —

“No good.”

Yan Mo’s face changes color. There is a thick red mist above the river of heavenly flames and lava at the same height as that of the Road of Death. At this moment, a large mass of the red mist unexpectedly floats to his position and enfolds his body, which worsens his view of the sky right away.

“This cloud is simply too thick for me to see the thunderbolts in the distance. Though I can see them when they have come close, it’ll be too late for me to avoid them by then.” Yan Mo is still exceedingly cool-headed. What can he do when there is mist floating above his head?

Blame Heaven?

It is better to accept everything and try to think of a good solution for the current situation.

“I can only rely on my luck.” Yan Mo looks around carefully. The look in his eyes seems able to see through the red mist. He then goes forwards cautiously just like that. As time passes, he gradually walks towards the outside of the red mist.

Various thunderbolts strike down, some of which strike in his vicinity and one of which even nearly scrapes a corner of his eye.

“I’ve finally come out.”

When Yan Mo gets out of the red mist, he becomes a bit more relaxed in his heart. But at this moment, he unexpectedly discovers another Road of Death 100 m away from him on his right hand side with the corners of his eyes. There is also someone on that Road of Death — Azure Dragon Yan Lang.

“It’s Yan Lang. He has also managed to go so far.” Yan Mo gives a faint smile then focuses his attention on the heavenly flames and thunderbolts in his surroundings. He has no spare energy to care about somebody else.

“Ah!”

An anguished cry is heard. Yan Mo’s face changes color. He slightly takes a look towards the right.

Yan Lang, who just now was still on that Road of Death, has already disappeared. That Road of Death is now unexpectedly deserted with not a soul to be seen on it.

“Yan Lang is already dead!” Yan Mo’s heart gets a shock.

He has an indescribable feeling. At that time in the Hallucinatory Magic Land, even though he had become obsessed, he still got into action to help Yan Lang. It was because of his help that Yan Lang survived. But who would have thought Yan Lang would die at this moment on a Road of Death?

Yan Mo’s eyes flash with a cold light. His face seems to be covered in a layer of frost. He continues advancing.

“Heavenly flame on the left.” Yan Mo’s ears slightly move. His body relaxes in the blink of an eye and gives up on resisting the gravity, which immediately presses his body flat to the ground. A heavenly flame then shoots over his body from the left.

When he stands up, he unexpectedly discovers another Road of Death in the distance on his left hand side with a familiar person on it — Old Taoist Gan Xu.

It looks like Old Taoist Gan Xu has already gone half the distance and is slightly ahead of Yan Mo.

Right at this moment, 6 or 7 thunderbolts unexpectedly strike down towards Yan Mo’s immediate vicinity. Some of them shoot down in front of him, some behind him and some even at his position …

To sum up, this batch of lightning bolts is totally surrounding him at the moment. It can be said that he will surely die!

Several thunderbolts striking down together is not something that has never happened before, but these thunderbolts are striking down towards the only individual on this Road of Death, and even worse, they happen to be surrounding him. Does this mean Heaven wants to destroy him? Now Yan Mo’s face changes color greatly.

An explosion is heard. The 6 or 7 thunderbolts have struck down on that area but Yan Mo is nowhere to be seen on that area at the moment.

There is unexpectedly just … an over 100 m long black dragon totally coiling around the Road of Death. Because the dragon’s body is extremely long, it is moving in a spiral like a rope. Naturally, some sections of the body are on the Road of Death and the others are underneath it.

The part of the dragon’s body at Yan Mo’s original position happens to be under the Road of Death so the 6 or 7 thunderbolts have hit nothing but the surface of the road.

In the blink of an eye, the huge dragon transforms into a human.

Even though Yan Mo is exceptionally calm, now beads of sweat have also stood out on his forehead.

It was too dangerous!

After switching to his dragon form, he can use this move to avoid the attack of the thunderbolts, but the dragon body is too long so naturally it is an extraordinarily large target. Just now Yan Mo’s calculation was very accurate. When those 6 or 7 thunderbolts were about to hit him, he immediately transformed into a dragon and after the thunderbolts had struck down, he switched back to his human form without delay.

Moreover, the way he positioned his body while coiling around the Road of Death was decided based on the heavenly flames and thunderbolts around him at that moment.

Even so, the dragon body is too long so it was still highly probable that he would be hit. But in the face of death, Yan Mo could only risk his life to grab a slim chance to survive.

At that moment, he switched to his dragon form then immediately changed into his human form. He succeeded. The way he positioned his body allowed him to avoid those 6 or 7 thunderbolts. Moreover, the time he was in his dragon form was so short that he was not hit by any heavenly flames or any other thunderbolts. This happened not only because of his calculating ability and self-possession but also because of … his luck!

At the moment Yan Mo is still calm. He continues going forwards slowly step by step.

The probability that a batch of thunderbolts will attack an individual on a Road of Death at the same time is very low. What happened just now was just a freak accident and is almost impossible to happen the second time. But Yan Mo still does not dare to slack off at all because … slacking off equals committing suicide!

……

Dame Yan Ji has been very unlucky.

Her calculation seemed very beautiful at first. Since there are so many thunderbolts and heavenly flames, she thought that she would gain more advantages with a smaller body. So she immediately changed into the form of a child before taking that dangerous Road of Death.

But she was wrong.

Even though her shape-shifting skill is not bad, when an expert takes the form of someone else, they are still most familiar with their own form. Only in their own form can they unleash all of their power. Therefore, Dame Yan Ji could use just 80% of her true power after taking the form of a child.

But the strength of the gravity is decided based on her true power so she can only manage to walk the Road of Death with all her might. And when she had transformed into a child, she could not even walk.

The moment she turned into a child and had to stop because of this, a thunderbolt struck down.

This thunderbolt was comparable to a thunderbolt of the 9-from-9th Heaven Tribulation.

Luckily, Dame Yan Ji is much more powerful than the people like Qin Yu, who cannot even withstand a thunderbolt. She unexpectedly took that thunderbolt head-on while immediately switching back to her true form because only this would allow her to use 100% of her power.

In order to resist the gravity, she needed to use not only her energy but also her physical power.

It is because this trap set by Immortal Emperor Ni Yang gives an individual a gravity corresponding to both their internal energy and physical power. This is the reason why those with very strong bodies such as Qin Yu and Yan Mo still find it so hard to move.

After withstanding a thunderbolt, Dame Yan Ji stayed on the bank of the river of heavenly flames and lava and took holy pills to restore the amount of energy that had just been lost. This time it is even more difficult for her to go forwards and she has been working very hard on the way. After that blunder in the beginning, she has covered nearly half the distance without making any other mistakes.

Even so, this does not mean it has been simple for her to walk because she has encountered very many dangers on the way.

At the moment, Dame Yan Ji has only one arm.

This is because when she had gone 20 to 30 m, 3 or 4 heavenly flames came at her from different directions simultaneously. She went all out but there were too many of them so in the end she was still hit by a heavenly flame despite having avoided two others.

The heavenly flame is exceptionally strange. When it has licked any part of the body, it will expand towards the rest of the body from here.

Not even standard immortals and standard devils dare to resist the heavenly flame lightly. Even though Dame Yan Ji is comparable to a level-1 standard devil, by then she had been badly injured so she was simply not confident of neutralizing that heavenly flame using her own power. At that moment —

She cut off her arm at the shoulder, abandoning that arm which had been hit by the heavenly flame.

The bodies of loose immortals and loose devils are formed from energy so it was very easy for her to severe that arm.

Since losing that arm, Dame Yan Ji has had no intention of wasting her energy re-materializing it because power is now very important to her, and moreover, she has become a slightly smaller target thanks to the severing of the arm.

……

The experts who entered the Road of Death such as Yan Mo, Yi Da, Qin Yu, Dame Yan Ji, Huo Can, Old Taoist Gan Xu, Yan Lang and Li’er have encountered their respective dangers. Some have escaped but some have lost their lives.

At this moment, Qin Yu sees a stupefying scene.

In the distance on his right hand side, a Road of Death is vaguely visible amid the floating red mist. He notices at a glance that familiar silhouette. He is totally sure that the person on this Road of Death is Li’er!

However, now several thunderbolts strike down at none other than Li’er’s location.

Several thunderbolts are striking down at Li’er?

Qin Yu only feels his mind go blank. But at this moment, the slowly floating thick red mist unexpectedly blocks his view, making it impossible for him to see that Road of Death no matter how hard he tries. Now he is only 5 to 6 m away from the other bank of the river.

“Li’er, is she dead or alive? Right, she’s still got protective magic treasures.” Even though Qin Yu has become impatient, he tries hard to console himself.

“My defense is inferior to Li’er’s. When I’m still living, she’s definitely all right.”

However, at this moment several heavenly flames rush over from the sides. Because of the matter of Li’er, Qin Yu unexpectedly reacts slowly. These several heavenly flames are coming at him very low so it will be totally useless for him to lie down on his stomach. If he had not got distracted and stopped just now, if he had kept advancing slowly, these heavenly flames would not be able to hit him at all.

However, now it is already too late to say anything.

At this moment, a hint of fierceness appears in Qin Yu’s eyes. With a scream, he suddenly leans sideways and stops resisting the gravity at the same time. This Road of Death is very narrow so when he does that, his whole body immediately falls to one side then drops down towards the river of heavenly flames and lava extremely fast.

End of b10c16.