Chapter 129

Chapter 129: Fifteen Layers

As they drew near, Wang Jie finally saw what lay beyond.

There was no floor inside the entrance—only a dark cliff. He kicked a stone over the edge and heard nothing. No impact. No echo. Just endless depth.

Miao Tai spoke softly. “My lord simply needs to jump. Stop at whichever layer you wish. The distance between layers is enormous, because each layer is a complete world.

“Yi Sword Heaven’s surface holds the most beasts. Fifteen Layers lies beneath.”

“How far have you gone?” Wang Jie asked.

Miao Tai lowered his head. “Shamefully, I’ve entered first layer, second layer, third layer, seventh layer, and eighth layer. I only passed first, second, and seventh.”

Wang Jie wasn’t surprised. Miao Tai had explained that each layer matched a realm.

The first six layers were Ten Seals layers.

Miao Tai could enter while he was Ten Seals, but passing was another matter.

The easiest was first layer: most creatures sat around 3,000 combat power. A normal Ten Seals cultivator could pass with caution. A stronger one could push straight through.

Second layer demanded 7,000 combat power. Without that, you couldn’t pass at all.

Miao Tai, who later reached Star-Breaking Realm, had been strong even at Ten Seals—so passing first and second made sense.

But third layer was different.

Third layer required 15,000 combat power.

A typical Star-Breaking Realm started around 10,000. Miao Tai himself was only 10,000.

To pass third layer, you needed 15,000 combat power—and you had to be Ten Seals to enter. Star-Breaking Realm and Full-Star Realm couldn’t even set foot inside.

How many Ten Seals cultivators could reach that?

Miao Tai stared into the darkness, bitter. “Even now, if I entered third layer, I still couldn’t pass.”

Seventh layer was the starting threshold for Star-Breaking Realm. Ten Seals could enter. Star-Breaking Realm could enter. Passing required only 10,000 combat power, which was why Miao Tai could clear it.

Eighth layer required 50,000 combat power.

That wasn’t hard. That was absurd.

A typical Full-Star Realm’s combat power hovered around 50,000.

That was Fifteen Layers.

It was why Wang Jie had come.

Third layer already demanded 15,000 from Ten Seals.

What did fourth layer demand?

No one seemed to know. Rumors ranged from 20,000 to 30,000. The truth might be known only by Black-White Heaven. Even Four Alliances didn’t know, because Suo Xing Jian had never produced a Ten Seals cultivator capable of clearing it.

Miao Tai had his own plans. He intended to challenge seventh layer again, and hunt on the surface.

So many people died here that treasures were sometimes found among the remains.

Wang Jie’s purpose was different.

He was here to climb.

He started with first layer.

Even if it posed no challenge, he wanted to see the environment. It might suit his training.

Out of caution, he waited until Miao Tai jumped first. Then Wang Jie stepped off the edge.

Weightlessness hit immediately. He fell fast, rock walls streaking by on either side, bloodstains smeared along the stone here and there.

A platform appeared below.

Wang Jie landed without a sound.

Ahead was the entrance to first layer—a passage similar to the one above, but with faint light spilling from within. Even the air felt cleaner.

He walked in.

Beyond it was another cliff.

In the distance, thick vines hung from the sky like curtains. The land stretched endlessly. Flying beasts flashed overhead. Farther still, rivers flowed upward into the sky, streaming above him like inverted waterfalls—a world turned inside out.

This was first layer.

A shriek sounded beside him. Wind slammed into his face.

Wang Jie swung his arm once.

A wave of force swept outward and erased the attacking beast instantly.

He stepped to the cliff edge and looked out over the wilderness. A world this vast saw only seventy human entrants per year—Four Alliances and Lone Peak Gorge combined.

Seventy people in a boundless realm like this were less than a splash in the ocean.

Wang Jie strapped on his combat power detector and set it to alert him only if a target exceeded 10,000.

Then he jumped.

A massive bird wheeled beneath him, sensing his approach and trying to veer away.

Wang Jie moved through the void, caught its talons in a handful of steps, and hauled himself up. The bird thrashed wildly.

Wang Jie swung onto its back and drove a fist down.

The bird went still.

Passing a layer was straightforward. From the entrance, travel in a straight line until you reached the end. Each layer’s land curved, and at the far edge, an air current would appear and blow you back toward the layer’s entrance. That same current could carry you upward to the overall entrance of Fifteen Layers.

As for rewards—Wang Jie didn’t know the exact rule.

He’d heard not everyone who passed received something.

He suspected it depended on how you passed.

If you simply avoided the beasts and walked through, could you really call that “clearing” the layer?

Not likely.

Wang Jie intended to do it properly.

The bird soared. Wang Jie let his lockforce pour out freely. He was alone in this world—one human surrounded by endless beasts.

The exhilaration hit him like a drug.

It made him want to shout.

On the ground below, beasts ran in swarms, firing attacks upward. Wang Jie batted them aside easily.

Ahead, the sky darkened as a flock of bizarre flying creatures rushed him.

Wang Jie rose slowly, drew his sword, and slashed.

Blade-light carved the heavens, as if splitting the world in two. More than half the flock vanished in an instant. The rest fled in panic.

Even the ground swarms froze, trembling.

Wang Jie laughed, riding onward.

Two days later, he finally saw the end of the layer.

He looked back, curious.

Would he receive a reward?

Something fell from the inverted river above—a ring dropping straight toward him.

Wang Jie caught it.

A storage ring.

Ownerless.

So this was the reward.

It wasn’t impressive, smaller than the one he’d bought, but still useful. Many lockforce cultivators didn’t even own a storage ring.

Wang Jie kicked the bird lightly. “Go.”

The bird chirped and fled, almost relieved to be free.

A gale wrapped around Wang Jie and swept him into a subterranean current, carrying him backward at terrifying speed. He could struggle against it, but he didn’t—fighting it would be foolish.

Half a day later, the gale returned him to a point beneath the first layer entrance.

If he let it carry him fully, it would blow him all the way back to the surface.

He knew where he was because he spotted the stone he’d thrown earlier at the Fifteen Layers entrance.

So that was where it had landed.

He stepped off again, dropping to the entrance of second layer.

The passage looked similar. He entered.

Second layer demanded 7,000 combat power to pass.

For Wang Jie, it felt no different than first layer.

He charged straight through, arrogant and unrestrained, and earned a reward of 5,000 starstones—dropped from above the same way.

Then came third layer.

Third layer only allowed Ten Seals entrants, yet demanded 15,000 combat power to pass.

How many Ten Seals cultivators could fight across realms?

Star-Breaking Realm started around 10,000. At 15,000, you could surpass Miao Tai outright.

Even Wang Jie, back at his third decisive battle with Shu Mu Ye, would have struggled to reach that level.

No wonder few had ever heard of anyone clearing third layer.

Wang Jie did what he always did.

He grabbed a mount and drove forward in a straight line, not bothering to hide his presence.

Halfway through, an enormous shadow blotted out the sky—wings spreading like a ceiling caving in.

A Star-Breaking Realm beast.

Combat power: 15,000.

His detector shrieked.

So that was the barrier: a Star-Breaking Realm guardian blocking the path.

His mount panicked and tried to flee.

Wang Jie stared toward the distant end, then lifted a finger and pointed to the right.

Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

The strike pierced straight through the beast. Blood sprayed across the sky.

With one blow, the world fell silent.

Wang Jie lifted his head. As expected, something fell from above.

Another storage ring.

He checked it and smiled. It was nearly as large as the one he’d bought—and it was packed with catastrophe materials. The amount was enormous, comparable to a tenth of everything the alchemists of Shuang Hua Sect had gathered.

At the bottom lay a jade slip.

Wang Jie’s eyes brightened. Jade slips usually recorded cultivation arts.

He read it.

Cai He Force.

An art that could raise an imprint to light black.

A treasure—just not one he could use anymore.

Arts that raised an imprint to light black were rare. The Silver Radiance Empire’s Silver Radiance Art. Shuang Hua Sect’s Shuang Hua Moon. Even in a star chain, those weren’t common.

As a reward for clearing third layer, this made sense.

Otherwise it would have been insultingly small.

On the way here, he’d heard Yi Sword Heaven had two great lures: endless catastrophe beasts in Fifteen Layers—endless materials—and arts capable of raising imprint color.

Now he had one.

He could sell it later.

Next was fourth layer.

No one had cleared third layer. Fourth layer was beyond rumor.

And now Wang Jie stood at its gate.

The first three layers were forests and plains—normal worlds.

Fourth layer was different.

A gravity zone.

Wang Jie’s pulse kicked.

Gravity meant he could train with soybeans.

Just before he stepped through, he heard the faint rhythm of exercises in his ears.

He finished his routine, felt refreshed, and entered.

The moment he did, he understood why the outside world could only guess at fourth layer’s difficulty.

He’d assumed that even if he couldn’t clear it, he could at least explore.

He was wrong.

The entrance alone was fifty times normal gravity.

That was weight most Ten Seals couldn’t endure. It was the kind of gravity a Star-Breaking Realm body could withstand.

And this was only the beginning.

Most people likely collapsed the moment they stepped inside.

Wang Jie moved forward naturally and stood at the cliff edge, taking in the world. The land was dark. The beasts were dark. Every creature had thick, powerful legs, built as if it had been born under crushing pressure.

They looked savage.

No flying mounts here. Fine—he’d take a runner.

He seized a bull-like beast, beat it into submission, and forced it to carry him forward.

Beasts attacked along the way, striking with vicious force.

Wang Jie dealt with them casually.

About a third of the way across, the gravity jumped.

Eighty times normal gravity.

His mount collapsed instantly. Its organs ruptured. It died without a sound.

Wang Jie stepped into the eighty-times gravity zone, walking under pressure so heavy even Ten Seals beasts struggled to survive.