Chapter 71: Desperate Survival on the Cliff, Eighteen Steps of the Trapped Immortal

  He stepped down, tightly grasping the seal and steel fork, but misjudged the weight of these two things, almost unable to lift them up.

  But at the last moment, after expending all their strength, they barely managed to pull them up and took a step into the abyss of hell.

  The wind howled, and below was a blur. It was unknown just how deep this Tongue-Pulling Hell was. In any case, Sun Yuan floated in the air for more than two hours without seeing the bottom.

  Fortunately, the environment here seems to be different from that on Earth. The law of gravity alone appears to have gone awry in this purgatory, as Sun Yuan discovered he was falling at a uniform speed, meaning there is no acceleration due to gravity in this place, which is quite eerie. However, he could still distinctly feel the effect of gravity.

  After several attempts, Sun Yuan discovered that there is a force in the air. When your speed reaches a certain level, it neutralizes the gravity acting on your body, allowing you to maintain a relatively small speed and descend at a uniform velocity.

  After waiting for an hour, he still hadn't arrived at the Tongue-Pulling Hell, and Sun Yuanke, who was floating in mid-air, had some thoughts. According to his understanding from his previous life, this Tongue-Pulling Hell wasn't a good place. If he continued like this, relying solely on the stolen steel spear and imperial seal, he would probably fall short!

  If he hadn't misjudged, the ones guarding the Grand Temple above should be the lowest-level existences in the underworld. They were just the most ordinary ghost soldiers, and it could be said that their weapons were all common goods in the underworld, almost everyone had one. With this kind of thing, he thought he could protect himself in the Tongue-Pulling Hell, which was simply a fool's dream.

  Actually, Sun Yuan underestimated the strength of the two ghost soldiers above. Although these two ghost soldiers are not what you'd call characters, their rank is still pretty good. At least they have a cultivation method, which proves that they are at least tenth-level ghost soldiers. If they rise another ten levels, they might become squad leaders, and by then, their cultivation methods won't be this kind of mass-produced stuff.

  No matter what, Sun Yuan realized his mistake in mid-air, he shouldn't have let himself float down.

  It was also thanks to his proactive jump that he was now very close to the cliff wall, almost within arm's reach. As long as he made an effort, it wasn't impossible for him to use the cliff wall to slow down his descent. After all, he was holding a huge steel spear in his hand, and although it was a common product, its material was not comparable to these ordinary rocks.

  Think and act, this has always been Sun Yuan's style. Moreover, it's not too late to take action now, because until now, Sun Yuan still hasn't seen the scene of the Tongue-Pulling Hell, which means he is still far from the First Hell!

  After thinking for a moment, Sun Yuan moved the demonic energy to his arm and lifted the extremely heavy steel fork, stabbing it fiercely into the rock wall beside him. As expected, the material of the steel fork was stronger than the rock wall, and with Sun Yuan's strength, the sharp tines pierced through effortlessly, all the way to the handle.

  Taking advantage of the momentum of the steel spear, Sun Yuan's descending speed suddenly dropped, immediately dropping to a degree that could produce gravitational acceleration. Next, Sun Yuan's entire body sank, his body suddenly became heavy, and the entire steel spear bent down. At this time, Sun Yuan's two hands tightly grasped the handle of the steel spear, with a huge seal in his mouth, and his legs were firmly pressed against the cliff wall.

  His speed suddenly dropped to zero, and the force he brought caused the steel fork to vibrate violently. The rocks on the cliff wall were constantly falling off, and Sun Yuan's arms were also covered in blood. If it weren't for the support of the demon power, Sun Yuan would have already lost his grip on the handle. Even with the demon power supporting his arms, under this terrifying force, his hands still suffered severe injuries, and at this time, white bones had already been exposed.

  Sun Yuan knew what situation he was facing, but he didn't care about any of that. He just tightly grasped the handle of the fork, his body swaying up and down with the continuous shaking of the steel fork.

  Half a time later, the steel fork stopped shaking. At this time, the three-zhang-long steel fork had already opened up a not-too-big-or-small hole in the rock wall with its two-and-a-half zhang inserted into the cliff. Feeling that the shaking had finally stopped, Sun Yuan, covered in blood, laboriously crawled along the steel fork and entered the hole. The hole was just the right size for Sun Yuan to sit cross-legged inside.

  Taking a deep breath, Sun Yuan tried to push the steel fork, but immediately afterwards, a severe pain came, and the steel fork didn't move at all, it was stuck in the rock wall. At this time, Sun Yuan only noticed that the skin on his hands had almost completely shattered, and what appeared before his eyes were a pair of white, bony claws with intersecting tendons, and a heart-piercing pain emanated from them, and beads of cold sweat suddenly broke out on Sun Yuan's forehead.

  "This is really becoming a skull!" Sun Yuan sighed, raising his palm to his eyes and measuring it. He estimated that if he wasn't here, he would have died from excessive blood loss long ago. It seemed that this space was just a space of death, but this law seemed to have undergone a transformation!

  He let out a sigh, and Sun Yuan closed his eyes to quietly feel the elements floating in the air. The demonic energy within him began to circulate slowly, and he discovered that although there was no Moonlight Force here, he could still cultivate demonic energy. This was an unexpected surprise, as every bit of strength he gained made himself safer in this terrifying place. Once he stabilized, Sun Yuan eagerly began his cultivation.

  In fact, Sun Yuan as a monkey demon should not be able to cultivate demonic power here. This place is filled with the power of death, and there is no such thing as moonlight or yin attribute energy. The reason why Sun Yuan can cultivate demonic power in Bodhi's eighteen trials of life and death is thanks to his previous cultivation environment.

  He used to sit on the Huaguo Mountain Dragon Vein to cultivate, so he wasn't completely unable to dissolve this death energy, which is why he could cultivate his demon power, it's just that the speed was extremely slow, and using turtle speed to describe his cultivation speed would be an overstatement.

  This space is not quite suitable to be called a physical object, nor can it be said to be an illusion. It doesn't rely on the cultivator's mind to shift, so it can also be considered a world of its own, very similar to the virtual spaces mentioned in ancient legends.

  This life-and-death eighteen trials is a trial space established in imitation of the eighteen layers of hell, and the time law here is independent of the outside. In other words, this space exists based on Sun Yuan's sea of consciousness, he spent tens of millions of years here, but outside it was just an instant, similar to the spiritual space in Naruto.

  This space does not transfer the will of the trial-taker, and it is very similar to some virtual online games nowadays. The trial-taker is the player, and this trial space is where the player plays the game. However, everything here is extremely cruel, unless one has great courage and wisdom, otherwise, what awaits the trial-taker is a fate of failure and damage to their divine consciousness.

  A long, long time had passed since Sun Wukong's departure, but if he were to wake up now, he would find that nothing had changed in front of the cave entrance of Crescent Moon and Three Stars. They were still stuck in that moment, so Sun Wukong didn't notice anything unusual about Sun Yuan at all. On the other hand, the immortal child saw Sun Yuan step into the Eighteen Hells of Life and Death, and for a moment, he hesitated and stood there motionless, staring at Sun Yuan.

  This life-and-death eighteenfold also known as the Eighteen Steps of Imprisoning Immortals, is usually used to imprison some immortals who are not strong enough, and it is very common in the heavenly prison. However, the life-and-death eighteenfold set by Bodhi Patriarch has something different from those in the heavenly world, he left a thread of life in it.

  These eighteen circles seem to be overlapping, but in fact this is not the form that the Eighteen Steps of the Immortal Lock should have. After the eighteen light circles overlap, as long as the trialist passes through one of the light circles, it's equivalent to passing through eighteen hells. This is also Bodhi Old Ancestor lowering the difficulty by many times and leaving a thread of leeway.

  Originally, the eighteen refinements were meant to prevent idle people from coming to pay homage, and it was not that those with weak strength (by ordinary human standards) could not trigger them. However, if someone really managed to get through a layer of hell, Bodhi Old Ancestor wouldn't mind taking on an apprentice, so he had the eighteen refinements intersect each other, forming the current array pattern.