Outside the Sword Gauntlet.
The sky-prides had all been transported out one after another.
“I had a little bit left on the forty-seventh floor before I could gain insight from that Sage Technique Daoist Rhyme. D*mn it,” Linghu Teng said with gritted teeth.
He stared at the Sword Gauntlet, his face full of discontentment.
Right now, only three people were remaining in the Sword Gauntlet.
They were Chu Kuangren and Lunatic Swordsman who were both on the forty-eighth floor, and Murong Yu on the forty-seventh floor.
Just then, a white light flashed past the entrance of the Sword Gauntlet. Murong Yu too was sent out of the tower. He, like Linghu Teng, was halted at the forty-seventh floor, failing to pass through it.
“I can’t believe Lunatic Swordsman and Chu Kuangren are on the forty-eighth floor.” Murong Yu inadvertently narrowed his pupils as he said that.
“Throughout the ages, only so few sword cultivators had reached the forty-eighth floor. I can’t believe that there are two at once this time.”
“Not bad. Now we’ll just wait and see who is better.”
The sky-prides outside the Sword Gauntlet were engrossed in their discussions.
“But it’s been a while since Chu Kuangren has reached the forty-eighth floor right? He has already been there for a good half an hour.”
A sword cultivator suddenly said.
The rest of the crowd were stunned upon hearing those words, and they all gasped in surprise.
“Say what? It’s been half an hour?”
“The heck. Even till this day, only a handful of sword cultivators were capable of reaching the forty-eighth floor, and none of them could bear staying on that floor for more than fifteen minutes. Now you’re telling me that Chu Kuangren has withstood a whole half an hour in there?”
“With this point alone, he has already made history.”
“He truly is the famed Chu Kuangren.”
At this moment, Lunatic Swordsman Ling Feng had been transported out too. His energy was extremely frail as if he had just endured a great battle.
“Seven moves. I can’t believe I could only withstand seven moves in the hands of that faceless swordsman. This forty-eighth floor is just too d*mn crazy.”
“I reckon that amongst all sky-prides who had attempted the Sword Gauntlet this time, only I have managed to reach the forty-eighth floor. That’s already an impressive achievement in itself.”
Ling Feng looked back at the Sword Gauntlet as he said that.
Then, his eyes widened. “Someone’s still in there! I can’t believe someone else has reached the forty-eighth floor too!”
“This energy… it’s Chu Kuangren!”
Although shocked, Ling Feng felt that it made sense after he took a moment to ponder. After all, his rival was not weaker than him.
“How long has he been on the forty-eighth floor?”
Ling Feng simply asked one of the sword cultivators beside him.
“Almost an hour now.”
When he heard of that, Ling Feng’s eyes were filled with disbelief. “No way, how is it possible for someone to withstand an hour on the forty-eighth floor!”
He knew for a fact that he had only resisted seven attacks and that did not even last half an hour, yet Chu Kuangren had withstood nearly an hour?
This was impossible!
“It’s true. It has been nearly an hour now. When I got out, he had just got up to the forty-eighth floor. I can’t have mistaken it.”
A sword cultivator added.
Upon hearing that, Ling Feng’s Daoist core started to shake.
He could not bear more than half an hour in there, while his rival had held up nearly one hour long. The gap between him and Chu Kuangren was so big!
It was not just Ling Feng, but the rest of the people found it hard to believe too.
“Do you guys think he can advance past the forty-eighth floor?”
A sword cultivator suddenly asked.
“There is no way!!”
Ling Feng replied affirmatively, “Nobody has been able to get past the forty-eighth floor. That floor was too terrorizing! Nobody has ever passed it throughout the ages, and Chu Kuangren won’t be an exception.”
“You’re right. If you’re strong, the faceless swordsman will be stronger. I have no idea how we’re supposed to pass it like this. No matter how strong Chu Kuangren is, he would never beat something who is stronger than him.”
Murong Yu looked quite convinced too as he explained.
As soon as he spoke.
They saw Chu Kuangren’s bright spark started to move, and to everyone’s astonishment, he had reached the forty-ninth floor!
Everyone at the scene was dumbfounded.
Nangong Huang and a few other people threw mocking glances at Ling Feng and Murong Yu.
“Who was it who said that Elder Senior Brother wouldn’t pass just now?”
“Well well well, seems that somebody has just ridiculed themselves.”
Ling Feng and Murong Yu’s expressions looked incredibly awful. However, with their gaze fixed at the Sword Gauntlet, they were more occupied with their disbelief at what just happened.
They had even counted the number of floors several times over now.
Chu Kuangren was indeed on the forty-ninth floor at this point in time!
“How is this possible? How is it possible that someone has broken through the forty-eighth floor? That faceless swordsman would forever be stronger than its opponent. So how is it possible for it to be defeated?”
“How the heck did he manage that?”
Ling Feng and Murong Yu refused to believe that this was the reality.
The rest of the sword cultivators were shocked too.
The forty-eighth floor had been cleared!
It had been countless years since the forty-eighth floor, which no one could pass through, had finally been broken! This moment meant that they had witnessed history!
“Chu Kuangren, a true extraordinaire.”
“He has managed to clear the forty-eighth floor which no one could pass through for so many years. I wonder how he did it?
Even the Sages were quite taken aback by that.
Just moments prior.
Chu Kuangren was on the forty-eighth floor, cracking his head on how to solve this obstacle, whilst engaging in a fierce battle with that faceless swordsman.
However, no matter how hard he tried to think, he could not come out with a solution. The thought of just grinding it out with his Immortal Body for a few days long even crossed his mind.
Yet all of a sudden, the faceless swordsman turned into sword qi and dissipated as the stairway to the forty-ninth floor appeared right before his very eyes.
A stream of enlightenment suddenly surged through his heart.
It turned out that the requirement to pass through the forty-eighth floor was not to defeat the faceless swordsman at all for this faceless swordsman was unbeatable.
The key to clearing this floor came down to one word, perseverance!
As long as a person could withstand over an hour in the hands of the faceless swordsman, it would be considered as a pass. Nonetheless, to last a whole hour under the highly-pressurized state formed by the faceless swordsman was by no means an easy task.
Not only was the enemy immortal, but it was constantly stronger than you too. Such an opponent would suffice to push any cultivator to a stretch of hopelessness, much less resist the battle for an hour-long. Fifteen minutes was already considered torture.
Even so, Chu Kuangren had done it!
“If the forty-eighth floor was already so difficult, I wonder what lays next on the forty-ninth floor?” There was anticipation in Chu Kuangren’s eyes.
He walked up to the forty-ninth floor.
However, it was very disappointing to him.
The test on the forty-ninth floor targeted the Daoist core, but the moment one stepped onto the floor, various illusions would be created to captivate and confuse them.
To be honest, this floor was quite difficult as well. In fact, it could be more difficult than the forty-eighth floor. Those illusions were incredibly realistic, even more so than the ones Chu Kuangren had faced at the Mental Staircase.
He reckoned that even Sages would not be able to pass the challenge on this floor.
Nevertheless, for someone like Chu Kuangren who had the Rocksteady Daoist Core, all these illusions were as transient and ephemeral as a fleeting cloud; it did not affect him one bit.
He spent almost no time at all on this floor before he advanced to the fiftieth floor, which was also the final floor of the Sword Gauntlet!
Unbeknownst to him, the speed at which he cleared the forty-ninth floor had caused quite a huge commotion amongst the crowd outside the Sword Gauntlet.
The crowd did not know what sort of challenge the forty-ninth floor posed, but if the forty-eighth floor was so arduous, then the forty-ninth floor should by right be even more of a nightmare.
Most of them had not expected Chu Kuangren to be able to pass through that floor. They had even started to guess as to how long it would take before he would eventually be transported out of the tower.
They had never once imagined that he would only stop by the floor for what seemed like no time at all before advancing to the final floor. The sight of that left everyone staring wide-eyed and mouths agape.
“What kind of test is on the forty-ninth floor? How could he clear it so quickly? Is it that easy?”
“In your dreams. Sword Gauntlet floors get tougher the higher you climb, so there’s no way that the forty-ninth floor would be any easier. I really don’t understand what happened there.”
The crowd was extremely puzzled.
Either way, they knew for a fact that Chu Kuangren was, amongst countless years, the only one who had managed to get to the top floor of the Sword Gauntlet!
He had created history!
