451: Chapter 451 A Decisive Struggle

Not just them.

A little later, dozens of young Human Race men and women who had hurried over from different directions and gritted their teeth to step onto the Cyan Heavenly Ladder also encountered almost the same situation.

They were locked in place as if by invisible, extremely heavy shackles; their faces were pale as paper, and the veins on their foreheads and necks bulged like twisted earthworms crawling under their skin.

Their bodies trembled uncontrollably, and cold sweat had long since soaked their clothes, dripping from the corners of their garments onto the Cyan Heavenly Ladder, only to evaporate in an instant.

Looking at them, let alone continuing to climb, even lifting a foot seemed to require all their strength, making it incredibly difficult.

In their eyes, there was pain, unwillingness, and anger, but more than that, it was the desperately suppressed despair—the despair of knowing there was a path ahead but being unable to move an inch.

In stark contrast to this were the figures who had long since charged through hundreds of steps like a hot knife through butter, with some individual Prodigies of other races even approaching a thousand steps.

They were like meteors, like lightning, carving brilliant trajectories across the Cyan Heavenly Ladder.

On one side was stagnation; on the other was rapid advancement.

On one side was standing frozen; on the other was soaring straight into the clouds.

This scene was glaring to the extreme, and ironic to the extreme.

It was like a group of toddlers who had wandered into a giant's racecourse, appearing so out of place, so... weak and ridiculous.

A brief silence.

Then—

"Pfft... Hahaha hahaha!!!"

"Hahaha haha! What... what have I seen?! Is this your Human Race, the so-called Human Race Prodigies who are favored by the Luck of this world and produce geniuses in droves?!"

Like a spark falling into hot oil, or a dam suddenly collapsing, in the spectators' area where the powerful beings from various Demon Races and other races sat, there were first a few suppressed sneers, and then, like a landslide or tsunami, an earth-shattering roar of laughter filled with undisguised mockery, disdain, and schadenfreude erupted!

The laughter was like countless sharp knives stabbing fiercely toward the direction of the Human Race.

A giant spirit race expert, with a body as massive as a mountain, skin the color of dark gold, and three ferocious beast heads, laughed the most exaggeratedly.

His three heads laughed wildly at the same time, his six eyes full of mockery, and the sound waves rolled and exploded on the spectator platform like thousands of thunders, causing ripples in the space: "Standing at the hundredth step? At the hundredth step, you're like maggots frozen in ice, unable to even twist?!"

"This is called a Prodigy? This is worthy of coming to fight for the Taiqing Legacy?!"

"Hahahaha! This is the funniest joke I've heard in the one hundred and eight thousand years I've lived!" He laughed until he was leaning back and forth, the expressions on his three heads more mocking than the last, as if watching a group of ants trying to ascend to the heavens.

"Look! Look at that kid in white, holding a sword!"

On the other side, in an area filled with chilling cold that seemed capable of freezing even one's gaze, an Ice Soul Race expert, whose body was covered in dark blue diamond-shaped ice scales and whose aura was bone-chillingly cold, extended a fingernail shimmering with cold light, pointing at the frozen figure of Xuanyuan Zhanxian in the water mirror, his face full of undisguised sarcasm and malice: "Weren't you quite majestic outside before? One sword strike, and you almost hurt my clan's son! Such great Evil Qi!"

"What about now? Where is that broken sword of yours? Take it out! Split this damn ladder open! Standing there like a log, are you preparing to be a road sign for us? Hahaha!"

"And that little girl!"

Another youth from the Bloodthirsty Wing Demon Race, with ferocious bone wings on his back and pupils as red as blood, licked his sharp teeth, his lewd gaze sweeping over the figure of Jian Tanghuang, which appeared even more exquisite due to the tension, and let out a weird laugh, his voice like a rusty iron saw rubbing: "Holding a broken sword, do you really think you are the Divine Phoenix Reincarnation? That sword cry just now made my ears hurt! Why aren't you screaming now?"

"Standing there shaking like a sieve, tsk tsk, this figure, this degree of trembling... Could it be some kind of 'Trembling Sword Dance' newly created by your Human Race, intending to use this move to please us and beg us to let you pass? Hahaha!"

The few clansmen beside him also laughed loudly, the laughter full of lewd implications.

"Trash! A bunch of complete and utter trash!"

"The era of the Human Race has long passed! Still holding on to that pitiful self-esteem?"

"With such meager cultivation, you dare to wade into these muddy waters? Truly seeking death!"

"Get lost! This is not a place for you ants to come! Go back to your mud pits and play house!"

"It's truly an eyesore! Better to fall down and die sooner, so you don't take up space!"

Harsh, vicious, and filled with naked racial superiority, the mockery and sneers were like the filthiest hail and the foulest poisoned arrows, crazily pelting the spectator area where the Human Race experts gathered from all directions.

Those alien experts, some with arms crossed and faces full of mockery; some pointing and spitting; some slapping their thighs and pounding the ground, laughing until they were leaning back and forth, tears streaming down their faces.

Their eyes were full of undisguised contempt, disdain, and a condescending pity and mockery as if looking at an inferior race. The look was like watching a group of livestock locked in a cage for amusement.

It was as if those frozen young Human Race faces in the water mirror were not participating in a cruel trial watched by the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, but were performing a clumsy, ridiculous, and self-humiliating act.

And in the Human Race spectator area—

A dead silence.

Terribly dead silence.

So silent that one could hear heartbeats, could hear the roar of blood rushing through veins.

Many old Human Race experts with white hair and beards, whose aura was deep as the sea, had faces that were not just iron-blue, but faintly glowing with a humiliating purple-red, like wrought iron scorched by flames.

Their fists were clenched tightly, their knuckles making slight "creaking" sounds from excessive force, and the veins on the backs of their hands bulging like crouching dragons, as if they would explode at any moment.

Their chests heaved violently, sounding like bellows, as if hot magma was surging within, but they could find no outlet to erupt.

Their eyes were fixed on the water mirror, on those juniors nailed to the starting point of shame, on the faces of those alien races laughing wantonly.

Their teeth were almost broken, making subtle grinding sounds.

Blood roared in their ears like ten thousand horses galloping.

A raging fire, mixed with frustration, resentment, and a trace of profound powerlessness in the face of this cruel reality—unable to refute, unable to turn the tide—clamped onto the neck of every Human Race expert like the heaviest shackle, choking them until they could barely breathe.

How they wanted to roar, how they wanted to refute, how they wanted to use the sharpest language to shove those harsh mocks back!

But—

Say what?

What could they say?

In the water mirror, the scene was clear, cold, and real.

The junior Prodigies they had high hopes for, viewed as the future hope of the Human Race, were currently being pressed firmly at the starting point in the most unbearable posture, becoming the laughingstock of the Myriad Heavens and Worlds.

Each young and pained face was like a slap, striking the face of every Human Race expert fiercely.

And the young geniuses of other races were like meteors chasing the moon, advancing rapidly, like a hot knife through butter.

The facts were cold and cruel, superior to all pale eloquence.

At this moment, any verbal argument, in the face of that irrefutable contrast, would only appear more ridiculous, more pale, and would only invite more surging, more vicious mockery, trampling the little dignity they had left into the mud and grinding it into powder.

A near-tangible, suffocating repression and grief hung heavily over the Human Race spectator area.

The air seemed to have solidified into lead, pressing down so hard that people couldn't straighten their backs.

It was not just the anger of the juniors being humiliated, but the visceral pain of the entire race being nakedly despised and having their dignity trampled under the gaze of the Myriad Heavens and Worlds.

That was humiliation carved into the bones, unwillingness branded into the Bloodline.

Many young and hot-blooded Human Race Cultivators already had red eyes, with tears faintly flickering in their sockets—not tears of weakness, but a physical reflex when anger and humiliation reached their extreme.

Their bodies trembled slightly from extreme anger, but they could only lower their heads, their nails digging deep into their palms, oozing blood, and they dared not, could not, make any sound.

Because there was nothing to say.

Because they were powerless to turn the tide.

They could only use pain to remind themselves that they were still alive, to remind themselves to remember this moment.

The starry sky was silent, the water mirror was cold.

Above the Cyan Heavenly Ladder, those young figures were still enduring unimaginable pressure, like insects sealed in amber, solidified at the shameful starting point of the hundredth step, motionless.

And all around, there were mocking gazes as vast, cold, and malicious as the galaxy, like countless needles, densely pricking their bodies.

Only—

No one noticed.

Those Human Race Prodigies frozen at the hundredth step, although their faces were pale, although their figures were trembling, although sweat was pouring down like rain—

But in the depths of their eyes, in the deepest part covered by pain and humiliation, a fire was silently burning.

That fire was small as a bean, yet as hot as the sun.

That fire was called unwillingness.

That fire was called stubbornness.

That fire was called—

"My fate is determined by me, not by Heaven!"

Above the Cyan Heavenly Ladder, in the midst of absolute silence, a sudden change occurred—

A dull sound like ancient primordial times came from the body of the figure frozen at the one hundred and third step, as if some existence that had slept for eternity was breaking its shackles.

Ji Tianming slowly raised his head, and in the depths of his originally dim eyes, two clusters of sky-burning fire suddenly ignited.

This flame was not red, but a gilded color, like a molten sun rolling and boiling in his pupils.

"Crack—"

A clear shattering sound exploded from within his body, as if a jade bottle had shattered, and the Seal was completely broken.

Three hundred and sixty acupoints simultaneously erupted with dazzling golden light, the golden light like threads and strands, penetrating from his pores, weaving into a blurry imperial totem behind him.

The sound of blood rushing in his body was like a river pouring backward, and also like ten thousand horses silenced—this was the Bloodline that had been silent for too long roaring, it was the ancient Legacy awakening!

"Break."

A single word was spat out, not heavy, but like a spring thunderclap, shaking the Dao pressure within a hundred steps to a standstill.

One step taken—

The cyan stone steps under his feet suddenly lit up with complex Dao patterns, and golden ripples spread out from the tip of his toes, like a stone thrown into an ancient pool, rippling out in layers.

The cyan Dao pressure, originally like a mountain, was actually forcefully pushed open, creating a three-zhang vacuum!

He stood at the center of the vacuum, his robes dancing wildly in the invisible storm, and what flowed between his hair was no longer Dao patterns, but dense golden runes, each one containing the might of an emperor.

The second step, he was already at the one hundred and tenth step.

The third step, the fourth step, the fifth step...

He climbed step by step, and illusionary golden lotus prints actually grew under his feet.

With every lotus print blooming, the ladder emitted a low resonance, as if this Cyan Heavenly Ladder, which had existed since time immemorial, was responding to this awakening imperial Bloodline in its own way—not submission, but recognition!