412: Chapter 411 The Mountain Trail

"The penalty for mission failure is actually 'none'?"

Within the Longshan Squad, someone's brow furrowed tightly: "From the look of it, these three trials themselves are extremely dangerous. If we fail to pass, it's certain death, with no room for maneuver."

"Don't worry, we have special items that can waive the penalties for trials like this," another person spoke up.

"If things really don't work out, we can also use an item to leave this Dark Place directly..." someone else laughed. "Anyway, the requirement for a mandatory mission is just to participate. Since we've already participated, leaving halfway through doesn't count as breaking the rules."

"Heh! You haven't even started the trial and you're already thinking about an escape route. What a bunch of trash." A faint sneer sounded. As the barrier blocking the Mountain Road vanished, Shen Ba was the first to step onto the mountain stairs.

His figure paused slightly, but then he stepped onto the second stair with a normal expression. He walked as swiftly as the wind, appearing perfectly fine, and in the blink of an eye, only his silhouette remained.

"What an annoying guy!" Longshan spat fiercely, waving his hand to lead his squad up the mountain.

However, the moment he stepped onto the stairs, Longshan's face suddenly darkened.

The other six members of the squad following behind him trembled even more, nearly collapsing.

"This Mountain Road... something's wrong!"

The members of the Longshan Squad were all flushed red; some even had distorted expressions, with veins bulging on their faces.

"Hold on, move faster!" Longshan reached out both hands and shouted, "Connect with each other, we'll walk together!"

As Longshan finished speaking, two people immediately grabbed his palms, and the four behind them followed suit from the left and right, grabbing the palms of those two.

A faint greyish-white light enveloped the seven-member squad as they sped up their pace.

At the same time, Li Na and the Twins followed closely. Although they weren't trembling, their expressions also changed drastically.

"Let's go, quickly!" The three of them strode forward.

"This..." Lin Liguo frowned slightly, then gritted his teeth and stepped onto the mountain stairs, his expression also shifting slightly.

"This Mountain Road is similar to the one in the Amusement Park we entered not long ago; there's a similar oppressive force. The higher the Rank, the stronger the pressure. However... the number of stairs here far exceeds those in the Amusement Park!"

Lin Liguo looked back at the other Night Watchers and said in a low voice, "Everyone, keep up with me! We need to do this in one go. We can't stop for too long, or else if this drags on, we'll all be worn down to death here!"

The remaining five Night Watchers took deep breaths and followed suit.

Wu Wanqiu stayed at the back, giving Chu Xuan a strange look before following the others up the mountain.

"Brother, aren't you going yet?" Cai Hou jumped off the Big Pig and chuckled as he approached Chu Xuan.

Chu Xuan only gave him a brief glance and didn't speak, his eyes fixed intently on the ink-black night below the mountain.

Chu Xuan clearly felt that the night cloak and the paper effigy were inside it.

"Brother, although there's no time limit for the mission, without the protection of the barrier, the darkness behind us is spreading. If you get caught in it, I'm afraid there will be unpredictable dangers..." Cai Hou reminded him again.

Chu Xuan retracted his gaze from the dark mist and turned it toward Cai Hou, chuckling softly. "What are you trying to say?"

"I'm just giving a friendly reminder." Cai Hou chuckled, then gestured to Fat Pig:

"Fat Pig, don't hold back your spirituality value anymore. Let's put all our other three attributes up to 100!"

As they spoke, the two of them stepped onto the Mountain Road.

Their figures also paused slightly, but they didn't stop, striding forward.

"I'll head up the mountain first..." Chu Xuan's eyes flickered, and he no longer lingered, stepping onto the first stair.

In an instant, Chu Xuan felt as if the gravity of the entire world had changed.

Every inch of his flesh and bone felt the pressure of gravity, and his blood circulation accelerated significantly.

"There's something wrong with the gravity here... Does the pressure vary depending on the Rank?"

Chu Xuan understood instantly. With no change in expression, he stepped directly onto the second stair, then the third, and the fourth.

The more time passed and the higher the stairs went, the heavier the pressure Chu Xuan felt.

This gravitational pressure required not only the strength attribute to resist but also the stamina attribute for endurance and the agility attribute for personal resilience.

And on such a long Mountain Road, if one's spirit attribute was insufficient, it would be difficult to sustain; one might suffer a breakdown of willpower halfway through.

"This pressure should correspond to all four attributes reaching 100 points..."

Chu Xuan gradually picked up his pace.

By now, Chu Xuan's four basic attributes had long since broken their limits: stamina 157, strength 182, agility 160, and spirit 165, far exceeding the limit attributes of a normal Rank 10.

This Mountain Road held no difficulty or challenge for the current Chu Xuan.

Looking up, he saw that the slowest ones, Lin Liguo and his group, had already reached the end of a slope, about a thousand stairs up.

These stairs wound their way up the mountain.

Estimating the height of the mountain, they were probably a third of the way up.

However, by this time, Lin Liguo and the others were no longer running in large strides as they had initially; they were moving as slowly as frail old men.

"Something's not right here! The higher we go, the stronger the gravitational pressure becomes. Don't hold back your spirituality value anymore; let's get through this trial first!

Focus on strength and stamina attributes and max them out! Most of you are around Rank 8, so you'd better max them out to the limit of 80 points!" Lin Liguo shouted in a low voice.

"My spirituality value was used up long ago!"

A woman with shoulder-length short hair said, "Brother Lin, it was already extremely difficult for us to pass the Mountain Road in the Amusement Park before, and this mountain has about three times as many stairs as the Amusement Park. We won't make it!"