Chapter 29: The Immobilized Head

Fortunately, it seemed that the black jar truly held no more flames. The antlered demon let out a shriek, tossing the jar aside, and then slammed its white bone staff onto the ground. In the next instant, the three-headed, purple-skinned monsters came lumbering forward, about to collide with Wei Cheng.

The antlered demon shrieked again. The human head hanging from its staff suddenly opened its eyes and exploded with a hiss, transforming into a cloud of black mist that swiftly wrapped itself around Wei Cheng. Even with his Golden Bell shield intact, he could not withstand the strange infiltration of the black fog. In a heartbeat, he felt as though he had fallen into an icy abyss, completely losing control over his body, even his mountain-moving inner strength was immobilized, unable to flow.

He could only watch helplessly as one of the purple-skinned monsters opened its gaping maw and swallowed him whole, shield and all!

Just when Wei Cheng thought his fate was sealed, he realized that the monster had no teeth. Instead, it was like a giant serpent, rapidly constricting around him. A layer of strange, viscous fluid was secreted, dissolving his Golden Bell shield in mere seconds.

By some stroke of luck, the binding effect of the black mist faded at that moment. Wei Cheng’s mountain-moving energy surged anew, he quickly reformed his Golden Bell shield and, with a single punch, blasted the purple-skinned monster apart.

Yet before he could launch another attack, another screaming human head exploded, sending black mist to immobilize him in place. He was swallowed again by the second purple-skinned monster; three seconds later, his shield was dissolved!

Wei Cheng was forced to gather a fresh Golden Bell shield and lightning-quickly destroy this monster as well.

But the cycle did not end. In the blink of an eye, he was immobilized yet again and swallowed a third time; his shield melted away!

By the time he smashed his way out of the third monster, his mountain-moving energy had been depleted to less than a tenth of its original total — barely enough to maintain the shield’s strongest form.

In other words, if the antlered demon could summon even a single fire spear, Wei Cheng would be finished.

Of course, if there had been one more of these purple-skinned monsters, he would have perished as well!

Now, the antlered demon seemed to have exhausted all its tricks. Only fifty meters separated it from Wei Cheng.

There was no escape for either of them.

With a roar, the antlered demon turned and fled.

Wei Cheng shouted, striding forward in pursuit. He shattered the demon’s leg with a single blow, and with two more punches, reduced its head to pulp.

Its body was unexpectedly fragile!

But considering this was only a true trial, the Immortal overseeing the test could not leave the challengers without any hope of survival. The string of bizarre attacks just now would have been enough to cripple any less formidable team.

Wei Cheng glanced back. The yellow glow on the wolf demons was rapidly fading; without this protection, they were utterly vulnerable, and were swiftly annihilated, finally ending this battle of mediocrities.

Immediately afterward, the floating stone tablet of skill transmission descended slowly onto the corpse of the antlered demon.

Wei Cheng wasted no time, stepping forward and placing his hand upon it.

Boom!

A tremendous rumble sounded from within the tablet, and a ray of divine light, brighter than any before, shone upon him. It was as if he were immersed in a warm ocean current; both his spiritual and inner energies were rapidly replenished and restored.

Within a second, his condition was back to its peak.

Then the divine light condensed into powerful spiritual energy, optimizing his body in every aspect. With every passing second, Wei Cheng felt as if he was being reborn. He could clearly sense the bottleneck of his body’s growth loosening, about to break; just one more step and he would ascend to a higher level!

Yet at that moment, the divine light vanished abruptly — only three seconds had passed.

No, the duration was brief, but the quality of the divine light was clearly far superior to before.

Wei Cheng considered the now half-sized stone tablet. Though he had not shattered his growth bottleneck this time, advancing to seven cycles would be no problem.

Moreover, he had obtained the sixth stage of the Golden Bell shield technique.

“Cheng An, Yu Liang, Wang Wei, the three of you go first.”

Turning, Wei Cheng’s calm gaze swept over the group. No one dared object; in fact, everyone now looked at him with fervent, admiring eyes.

At this point, anyone who still doubted Wei Cheng’s strength would be truly foolish.

“Thank you, Chief!” Cheng An replied respectfully, stepping forward. As he touched the stone tablet, a beam of divine light — not particularly bright but similar to the previous four checkpoints — shone upon him.

The light lasted three seconds, and when it faded, Cheng An was trembling with excitement, having clearly gained immensely.

For a moment, the others were almost green with envy.

Even more astonishing, when Yu Liang stepped forward and touched the tablet, another divine light appeared, lasting a full two seconds.

With those two seconds as a foundation, Yu Liang could safely cultivate up to four cycles, and might even break through to five cycles in the future.

Next, Wang Wei stepped forward with eager anticipation. As expected, a second of divine light shone upon her.

The rewards for this stage were generous, truly matching its difficulty.

Afterward, Wei Cheng called upon the rest to step forward. Though the divine light had vanished, the number of reward slots was plentiful — all for the Golden Bell shield technique.

In the end, the stone tablet did not disappear, indicating that the number of rewards was at least thirty.

“Chief, should we continue?”

Yu Liang was as excited as a monkey; morale was high. There were still two demon scout squads in the northern district, and with Chief Wei’s prowess, they could slaughter them like chopping vegetables.

But Wei Cheng gazed at the two stone tablets drifting closer together and sighed silently. It was too late; lacking sufficient teams to restrain them, the remaining demon scouts had already merged.

They could not win.

“Let’s return. Cheng An, you must try to break through to five cycles. Yu Liang and Wang Wei, aim for four cycles. The rest of you, push yourselves as much as possible. If you don’t break through to four cycles of mountain-moving energy in the next few days, your fate will be elimination.”

With these words, Wei Cheng did not hesitate, turning and sprinting toward Floating Cloud City. He needed to seize the time to advance to seven cycles and master the sixth stage of the Golden Bell shield.

For after reaching the sixth stage, the difficulty of cultivating the Golden Bell shield technique increased dramatically.