Zhan Bu Du soon managed to reach the second floor!
He surveyed the area with his hands behind his back: "Hmm, the pressure seems to have been alleviated."
He noticed that this floor, like the first floor, was completely flat. There was nothing in sight.
Zhan Bu Du then quickly walked to the other end of the platform, wasting no time, to continue on the path of Ascension.
Stepping on the path, he was once again greeted by an overbearing pressure beating down on him.
But he did not relent and continued forward.
Next to enter was Ying Guang Xin, she quickly surveyed the area and found nothing interesting, and proceeded onward.
The hooded figure didn't bother examining the surroundings and just directly walked onto the path of Ascension.
Lu Wei Yin and Light Emperor did the same after a quick scan.
The only Pseudo-Venerable that had yet to reach the Second Floor was Hei Lou Lan.
Slowly but surely the others on the first floor also began the Ascend, many were knocked back with only a few of the Rank 8s such as Chu Du, He Chun Qiu, Wu Shuai, and Wu Yong managed to cross the barrier of will and potential.
The others such as Fang Gong and the various leaders of the 10 Great Ancient Sects and Northern Plains Tribes were stuck as this was the limit of their potential.
As all the participants had finally attempted to step onto the path of Ascension, the Heavenly Spirit snapped his fingers.
*Snap*
The first floor was completely slanted and became part of the path of Descension!
This made all those who were only slightly repelled be forced to keep themselves up lest they fall deeper down the path of Descension.
"Hmph, is that all."
A Gu Immortal was holding disdain towards such petty tricks.
If they insisted on staying put it required little energy but climbing up was very exhausting.
This was evident that only Shen Shang effortlessly climbed back to the first floor while the Rank 7 from before was still struggling.
But now that the first floor no longer exists, he decided to stop.
A sinister smile emerged from the face of the Heavenly Spirit.
Shen Shang was the first to notice the irregularity: "Something's wrong!"
He cast his sense everywhere across the first floor and found nothing.
"Strange my senses tell me there's nothing wrong, but my intuition is telling me something is wrong, either my senses have gotten dull or …I'm looking in the wrong place!"
Shen Shang then cast his investigative Killer Move downwards and found that there was one level less than what was previously mentioned.
Meaning…
"The Ordinary Abyss is rising!"
His shout attracted the attention of everyone who also cast their senses down below.
Sure enough, although they could not sense the Ordinary Abyss, nor see it, they could detect the lack of the 8th Level.
"Hehe, not bad, you managed to figure it out way earlier than I anticipated." The Heavenly Spirit chuckled.
At the rate the Abyss was going it seemed that it would take quite a few days to reach the participants on the first floor.
Seeing the abyss rise made some participants that weren't on the first floor push themselves so that they could be as far as possible.
After 30 Minutes even the slowest person had made it up.
But it was at that moment that Shen Shang realized something.
"The Abyss is rising faster!"
Indeed, the Abyss was now on the 7th floor of the path of Descension.
This caused the participants to frown as they quickly put 2 and 2 together.
"The more people that Ascend the floors the faster the Ordinary Abyss rises."
"Hahaha," at this point the Heavenly Spirit burst out laughing: "That's right when more talented people appear the definition of ordinary must rise in accordance, what was yesterday's genius is tomorrow's idiot."
This caused the others to frown as they were unable to stop those who had ascended from ascending.
"Fairy Zi Wei and Friends from the Northern Plains I think we all know what to do." One of the Gu Immortals of the Central Continent walked forward and announced to the 2 other camps.
"Mhm," They nodded their heads.
Shen Shang saw this: "Prepare for battle!"
At his announcement, the 2 camps glared at each other.
On the one hand, there was The Great Love Alliance and on the other, there was The Anti-Great Love Alliance.
One side had numerous Rank 8s while the other only had 2 Rank 8s and 1 Pseudo Venerable.
But with a wave of their hands, the Rank 8s from the Great Love Alliance pulled out all their Rank 8 Gu Houses.
Nightmare Castle, Peaceful Soil Heavy Mountain Fortress, Fallen Flower Hall, Dragon Palace, Chicken Dog Coop, and Myriad Year Flying Warship!
With Shen Shang personally overseeing the legendary Myriad Year Flying Warship, the battle could be considered even.
Of course, these measures just about even the playing field the Anti-Great Love Alliance were no slouches either.
Now wanting to waste time talking the Myriad Year Flying Warship led the charge by launching numerous Daybreak swords at the enemy.
The Myriad Year Flying Warship alone would have been troublesome but to be piloted by a Pseudo-Venerable made it worse, even though he didn't cultivate time path.
But unlike the native who relied primarily on Totem Killer Moves and underestimated the enemy.
The Anti-Great Love Alliance knew all the tricks of the Great Love Alliance.
In fact, Fairy Zi Wei was linked to everyone and was providing battle tactics.
She had learned a lot from the Fate Wars and her deductions against Fang Yuan's Gu Houses had improved.
But it was still incredibly challenging, the main issue was not Myriad Year Flying Warship it was Dragon Palace, the world's first Gu House to contain a Dream Path method!
Even now Dream Path was considered underdeveloped and still new.
Dragon Palace had not only the annoying ability to use Dream Path but also then enslave its targets!
Immortal Killer Move -------- Dreamy Light Smoke!
Even though the move could not be considered strong and had been known for quite some time, it still caused mild headache to Venerables and was not unraveled by others yet, the best one could do was avoid or block it.
But given that the move had a relatively small range Fairy Zi Wei came up with a brilliant strategy of bombarding it from afar.
Chen Ji, Guo Guang, and Mu Xiao Xiao were sent to bombard the Dragon Palace but as soon as they appeared Dragon Place flew behind Peaceful Soil Mountain Fortress!
"Tch, Cowards!"
But all they got in response was the Dreamy Light Smoke being shot in their direction forcing them to dodge.
Fairy Zi Wei then sent 5 of the Huang Jin tribe members to assist but Myriad Year Flying Warship interceded with its Daybreak Sword.
As the Myriad Year Warship was extremely powerful the 5 Huang Jin Members were actually in a tight spot!
The constant barrage of Daybreak Swords was exhausting their Immortal Essence Reserves!
"How do they have so much Immortal Essence!" The Huang Jin tribe member shouted in frustration.
Outside in the Western Desert
The 4 Venerables were closely monitoring the situation.
"How did Fang Yuan supply them with so much Immortal Essence? Even with the ratio of 1 Rank 9 Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence to 100 Rank 8 White Litchi Immortal Essence, he has to power 6 Rank 8 Gu Houses for this fight!"
Star Constellation continued deducing: "Either he has some method to gain Rank 9 Essence or… he sped up the time in his Aperture! That's why he's on the brink of starvation."
Star Constellation had figured that Fang Yuan was gambling everything for the sake of Reckless's Grotto Heaven.
After all, it made sense to her, with his limited Immortal Essence and his need for a Venerable Grotto Heaven it was no wonder he would make such a gamble; he was forced to!
Under similar circumstances, Star Constellation felt that this gamble was the only one worth taking.
"I have to tell the other 2 to ensure that he does not get his way!"
Star Constellation messaged the other 2 Venerables who agreed to use their methods to hinder Fang Yuan as well.
Fang Yuan of course could sense their hostile stares.
"Bring it on." He whispered in his mind as he was now maintaining full focus on containing his hunger.
Inside the Myriad Beast Fusion Color Heaven.
The 2 forces were in a stalemate.
Fairy Zi Wei managed to hold back Myriad Year Flying Warship but added 3 more members of the Great Ancient Sects to the fight.
She managed to add more pressure onto the Dragon Palace by sending 3 more Huang Jin Tribe members to attack Dragon Palace.
But at that moment Chicken Dog Coop released its 12 Immemorial Zodiac Chickens and merged with them to form the second instance in history of a battle formation merging with a Gu House!
"WHAT!"
Everyone was in utter disbelief.
The 12 Chickens merged with the Chicken Dog Coop to produce a Giant Chicken head that had its mouth opened.
As horrifying as it sounded what truly scared the Gu Immortals president was the fact that the Chicken Mouth was connected to the River of Time, bringing forth all the Chicken Beasts throughout history.
This sent great shock and fear amongst the Anti-Great Love Alliance, dealing with a never-ending stream of Chicken Beasts was a prospect that made Fairy Zi Wei furrow her brows.
The 3 Venerables were shocked that Fang Yuan managed to not only make a new Battle Formation but to then merge it with a Gu House!
Of Course, they didn't know that it was easy for him as he used Stealing Heavenly Secrets to perfect both Battle Formation and the merging process.
"*Sigh* Fang Yuan is as crafty as ever," Star Constellation threw 3 Rank 6 pieces, as did Spectral Soul and Giant Sun.
Above the Chicken Dog Coop, numerous barriers and cages of Soul, Star, and Luck Path were formed, imprisoning Chicken Dog Coop.
Fairy Zi Wei quickly realized they were Venerable methods; she had some knowledge of the game the Venerable was playing.
"How stingy can these Venerables be to use Rank 6 Moves to block a Rank 8 Gu House!"
But Venerables were not stupid, they knew that although the power was limited to Rank 6 if one was creative enough it could very well be incredibly useful.
Take, for example, the last layer that wrapped this 9-layer barrier, it was Star Constellation's Myriad Distraction Battlefield Killer Move, it causes all those within to feel many different negative emotions.
This meant that the Gu Immortals within would have to spend a much longer time to break out.
This coupled with the multiple barriers between meant that they could stall for quite some time.
Fang Yuan merely looked on, not caring.
With the pressure being taken off them, the rest of the Anti-Great Love Alliance rallied together to bombard Peaceful Soil Mountain.
Fang Yuan did not give many Earth Path Immortal Gu to the team this time as he had not been focusing on that aspect, so the Peaceful Soil Mountain had to use Hundreds of Thousands of Mortal Earth Path Gu worms.
"Sir, we're running out of Gu Worms!"
The Rank 7s managing the Peaceful Soil Mountain were growing worried.
The head Rank 7 called out: "Quick, pack the Immortal Earth Gus and retreat outback, Dragon Palace is going to surround itself in a Dream Realm to protect itself."
The Gu Immortals did as they were instructed.
While various Anti-Great Love Alliance members continued taking potshots on the slowly crumbling apart Peaceful Soil Mountain.
The Gu Immortals operating it slipped into Dragon Palace, which then covered itself in a Dream Realm.
Fairy Zi Wei smiled seeing this as she felt that the Great Love Alliance was reaching its wit's end without Fang Yuan.
But at the back, this whole time had been Nightmare Castle and Fallen Flower Hall.
As the Gu Immortals were planning to divert some of the fire from the now trapped Dragon Palace.
A blindingly fast Black emerged from Nightmare hitting Fairy Zi Wei!
It happened so fast and with no warning that it shocked everyone, including the Venerables!
All this while Nightmare Caste was preparing a move in secret, so as to not leak its aura, Fallen Flower Hall was there for defense.
The Killer Move was called Endless Night.
It was not only a Dark Path move but a Dream Path one as well!
This meant that any defense that Fairy Zi Wei had was rendered useless.
The Gu Immortals were shocked but before they could recover the Myriad Year Flying Warship also released its signature trump card, the 12 Zodiac Battle Formation!
Combining once again to form a Battle Helm that bore the image of the 12 Beasts constantly shifting like sand.
Immortal Killer Move -------- Daybreak Torrent!
The sudden increase in pressure threw the group of Gu Immortals off guard. Their hasty setup defense was like paper to the Daybreak Torrent
Giant Sun and Star Constellation had acted rapidly, using their last Rank 6 Killer Move and all of their Rank 5s to buy a bit more time.
Luckily as these were all experts, they quickly adjusted themselves.
If not for the timely interference of Giant Sun and Star Constellation they would have perished
Spectral Soul on the other hand used his Rank 5 Moves and his last Rank 6 to snap Fairy Zi Wei out of her slumber but the moves were seemingly ineffective.
"Spectral Soul, what are you doing?" Giant Sun asked as he saw him waste so many moves to achieve nothing.
Spectral Soul merely scoffed.
Soon Fairy Zi Wei began to regain consciousness.
She had been trapped in a dream realm of her own worst nightmare, the demise of Heavenly Court, Spectral Soul's killer moves had all been made to strengthen the amount of Soul Path Dao Marks.
After all, Ying Guang Xin could use these Dao Marks however he saw fit making them the most versatile use.
But in this case, he had used the moves on Fairy Zi Wei not so much to save her but to reinforce the Soul brand he left on her!
The Endless Night was a sort of Dream Path move, which meant that it corroded the Soul, even though without Spectral Soul's help Fairy Zi Wei would have been able to deduce her way out, the Soul Brand on her may have been removed which was terrible news for him.
Sorry for the late chapter I was sick, I will try to make it up to yall tomorrow