From his seat on the southern VIP terrace, Gu Changsheng watched the black heart-demon fog roll down the middle steps of the trial stairway. Using nightmare illusions to scare an eight-year-old girl who sleeps with a stuffed turtle and a pink watering can, Gu Changsheng thought dryly. Those old sect ghosts are about to get their mouths washed out with honey soap.
WHOOOOOOOOOSH—GASP!
Up at Step 650 of the Heavenly Stairway Secret Realm. Nineteen-year-old Holy Son Chu Tian (Unstable Rank 5 Early) burst out of a hidden maintenance passage carved inside the stone balustrade—a secret. Shortcut tunnel that only the holder of the Supreme Sword Sect’s [Master Trap-Control Jade Key] could open—and leaned heavily against a jade pillar.
Gasping for breath as cold sweat drenched his white phoenix robes!
His right foot—which ten-year-old Gu Nian had ground into gravel at the starting line—was swollen to the size of a winter melon inside his silk boot, throbbing with excruciating agony at every hop.
Worse still, when Chu Tian looked down the white-jade stairway toward Step 400, he saw seven-year-old Jiang Tuntun, eight-year-old Su Nuannuan, ten-year-old Gu Nian. Eleven-year-old Ye Xiao stepping lightly off a cloud of warm, fragrant Rainbow Ramen Steam without a single scorch mark on their blue school jackets!
