Chapter 458 First Trial

"God damn," I said as I saw the number of people in the empty space in front of me.

It took me two months of travel to arrive here, and what I saw was pretty damn interesting.

I thought for sure that there should be barely anyone besides the Poison God Cultivators and some idiots thinking they can do away with their Heritages. But no, there were hundreds of thousands of people if not more here in the empty space. Each minding their own business for sure but they all seemed hostile to anyone who got too close to them.

The tension and stress is visible enough that you could feel the air electrifying with it.

My arrival was late, but I wasn't the last, many other cultivators were heading to this gathering still.

Once I arrived, I looked around and realized that a lot of Sects were actually grouped up together, they were protective of each other and had their own little 'section' where they didn't allow anyone else to enter if they didn't wear the same type of robes.

As for the vagrant and loose cultivators, they each held their own position, hoping to end up with some form of fortuitous encounter inside the Poison God's Trial, or at least take out one of their competitors before the trial begins and loot their belonging.

It's a lawless Zone, and I could do nothing but sit and watch in a far away part. There was no reason for me to go in right now.

"Brother, if you're that far away, you'll probably not get the chance to get inside the gate once it opens," some random cultivator said as he went past me and headed toward the gathering of the people up ahead.

"He is right you know," another one said, "The number of people who can enter is limited to ten thousand, many here will be fighting for the chance to enter so you should get closer," some other cultivator also said.

Though I know that's the case, it shouldn't apply to me, since I have one of the Poison God's heritages, if I were to approach early and end up in a disadvantaged situation this early on, it'll only be beneficial to some chump who'll think he can get the drop on me while I'm in the middle of battle. Not to mention I should also not give off the feel that I own one of the Poison God's Heritages.

That's why I made sure to change my facial structure. Many people know me, and the worst thing I want right now is if someone were to realize that I'm Shen Bao, I have a few too many enemies that I don't want to know where I am, mainly those guys...

Looking up ahead at the front of the entire gathering was a group of people, they were five, and only five, but everyone was giving them a large breath of distance since no one wanted to face any of them or cause any problems with them.

They all wore black robes with red hems and a symbol of a Phoenix on their back.

"Fire Palace Spears..." I sighed. The Fire Lord is actually that delusional giving up five of his spears to this trial.

Though no one can predict what could happen during the Trial, using Five King Class Cultivators is basically telling everyone that he's interested in this trial and wants it for himself.

But no worries, I'm here for the endgame, not just this. So we wait.

Hours passed as more cultivators came and the number of people waiting for the Poison Gate to appear and open is becoming more and more absurd.

Soon, the space in front of the many, many cultivators began changing. A doorway the size of a giant city appeared out of the open.

The gate was a dark obsidian color that had a giant serpent carved in ti that looked like it would come to life any moment.

Once the gate fully materialized, a pressure akin to the gates of the flood opening pushed on all the present cultivators. And that was just the start.

The giant serpent on the door shuddered and moved, slithering on the door, licking at the air for seconds before retracting its tongue.

Then the head that was embedded in the door looked up at the cultivators and the serpent's eyes opened up.

The pressure from earlier that caused a lot of cultivators to wince seemed like a joke compared to this one.

Just the snake's eyes, those veridian green eyes seemed to push down against every cultivator's soul, body and mind as if they were being pinned down by a star.

Weak cultivators that didn't know any better immediately exploded. As for others who were barely able to support the sudden increase of pressure, one could see them slowly breaking, their skin melting off their bones as their body soon turned to ash against the pressure with their souls completely destroyed and their Soul Energy funneled towards the snake.

'Offerings," I mumbled.

"Cough!"

I looked to my right and saw a young man who seemed to be bleeding from his ears and nose, barely able to support himself against the oppressive pressure.

He looked at me, and shuddered to utter the words, "How...are...you fine...after this...pressure?!" he asked unable to understand why a cultivator who looked to be barely at the Ascendant Stage able to easily shrug off this oppressive pressure.

"Skill issues," I said.

To which I was surprised to see the man cough out blood as he lost focus and was immediately squashed.

"Yikes," I exclaimed.

The pressure continued on for several minutes until it weeded out all the inadequate and the powerless, those who remained standing were about eighty percent of the people present. More than twenty thousand souls were killed and consumed just by that serpent's eyes opening.

This is enough of a declaration for the people here, if you don't have the balls to go through this trial don't do it.

The snake's eyes soon closed and it returned back to its position on the door.

Several cultivators who received heavy injuries decided that it was wise to just leave, if they couldn't even face the gate's initial pressure they didn't have any business taking the trial.

Those were the smartest people here though not numerous.

Because a great majority of cultivators decided to stay, call it Ego, or a cultivator's arrogance, but for many of the people who remained and clearly knew they were not able to take on this trial, this was nothing but stupidity.

With the gate calming down everyone waited for what was going to happen next. And from some research, I did about this trail I know what's about to go down, so as probably everyone here.

A battle royal will happen soon.

And it did, the gate absorbed the souls of the cultivators and began transforming them, it was a form of alchemy only a bit higher level than normal alchemy. It was Soul Alchemy.

Half of the consumed Souls were transformed into small marbles. About ten thousand Souls. And you could see them in front of the gate.

One cultivator clearly with patience issues jumped the gun and went for one of the marbles.

The moment he grabbed the formed marble, however, the snake on the gate snapped towards him, it didn't even take a fraction of a fraction of a second for everyone to realize what just happened.

The man who greedily grabbed a marble had nothing of him left but a foot. The rest of his body, all you could see from it was the blood on the jaw of the snake that already went back to the gate.

This was a clear warning for everyone. Wait your fucking turn.

After a few seconds when the marbles were fully formed. The snake shuddered once again and slithered against the gate, fully fusing inside it and disappearing. But instead of the snake something else replaced it.

It was an hourglass.

This hourglass didn't have sand in it, but it had marbles in it, the remaining ten thousand souls.

Suddenly, the ten thousand flying marbles in front of the gate shot in every direction randomly and each one of them appeared in front of a random cultivator.

And the moment that happened, you could see the hourglass at the gate flipping. And the ten thousand other marbles began falling.

Looking at the speed of the falling marbles, we have on hour.

And just as the first cultivator grabbed the closest marble. Another ripped his head off.

It was a battle for position, and it was clear to everyone. Only those who have the marbles can be allowed to enter the Poison God's trial.

As for me, who was far away from this battle, it should have been a disadvantage for me to be so far away from where everyone was fighting over the marbles. But apparently, luck was on my side because a marble happened to appear right in front of me.

Just as I went to grab it, another cultivator flashed past me and laid his hand on it.

"You're too slow old man!" the kid said as he laughed running away from the cultivators.

Looking at the scene again, it was the wisest thing to do. Get a marble, and run the fuck away.

But... A Poison God's trial can never be that easy. And that was clear from what happened to the kid who stole my marble. Just as he arrived at a certain distance away from the gate. The marble he had on him exploded.

Several explosions happened back to back, making it clear to everyone that if you try to leave the invisible arena borders, only death awaits. Not only that, but from the remains of the explosion, a new marble manifested, and then it also teleported randomly back inside the invisible arena for more people to fight over it.

"Well, this is going to be interesting," I muttered as I began channeling my Qi, I should join in on the fun now.