Chapter 512: The Hundred-Li Rope Path

In the forest, Su Che held a ball of deep blue flame in his hands. Without encountering any further obstacles, it took him just over an hour to smoothly exit the forest.

On the other side, the dozens of beings at the Mahayana stage led by the Snow Jade Fairy were blocked by the tentacles of the Demon Beard Beast and could no longer proceed straight south. They had to take a detour westward.

It was estimated that by the time they finally emerged from the forest, Su Che and his group would have already reached the temple.

And indeed, after traveling over 800 li across the grasslands and about 1,300 li through the forest—covering two-thirds of the total distance—they encountered little trouble on the remaining 900 li and soon spotted the temple in the distance.

By “in the distance,” they meant using the cultivators’ divine vision, whose range far exceeded that of ordinary people. Even though they could see the temple, there was still over 100 li left to go.

Yet these 100 li were extremely special. Su Che believed it was most appropriate to call it a “thread-thin path.”

At that moment, Su Che and his group stood on the edge of a sheer cliff, with an unfathomable abyss below, shrouded in mist, making it impossible to determine its depth.

This cliff wasn’t located atop a mountain but seemed to be the end of the earth. Here, the land suddenly disappeared, giving way to an endless sea of clouds. Looking left or right, there were only endless cliffs stretching as far as the eye could see.

The temple was built right in the midst of that sea of clouds, connected to it by a steel cable just thick enough for an arm to pass through.

In other words, to reach the temple built in the clouds on foot, one had to cross this cable.

This was what the secular world called walking on a tightrope. But the length of this “tightrope” was truly absurd—over 100 li long, like a thin thread floating high in the sky. Calling it a thread-thin path wasn’t an exaggeration or metaphor; it was a description of reality.

From an ordinary person’s perspective, a steel cable over 100 li long suspended in the air was utterly impossible. No matter how strong or durable it was, it would break under its own weight…

But in the world of cultivation, nothing was impossible. It wasn’t even a big deal to cover just over 100 li—thousands or tens of thousands of li were no problem either.

Moreover, walking on a tightrope was already considered an extremely dangerous task in the eyes of ordinary people. Without specialized training, even covering 100 feet would be an impossible task.

But for cultivators, even someone at the Qi Cultivation stage could easily do this, let alone advanced cultivators like Su Che who flew around at heights of tens of thousands of feet, finding the sky more familiar than the land.
“Walking on a tightrope isn’t anything special—just the design is too cruel!”
Watching the scene before him, Su Che shook his head in dismay and sighed, “A race involving nearly a thousand people, where in the end they have to compete for rankings on this single steel cable—especially those afraid of ending up in the bottom ten—how fierce the battles among them will be…”
Under the rule that “feet must not leave the ground,” the only way to overtake others on the cable and avoid becoming one of the unfortunate losers was to kill them or push them off the cable, resulting in execution per the game rules.
Just by imagining it, Su Che could picture those brutal scenes. Perhaps those who usually called each other brothers would also engage in bloody fights on this cable?
“That’s great!” Lao He chuckled. “Those bastards in the Spirit Realm deserve to kill each other—anyway, since we arrived here first, we’ve already secured the top spots. We can just watch the chaos in the temple.”
“I’m glad to see them fight among themselves…” Su Che nodded inwardly before adding, “But even if we arrived here first, it’s not guaranteed that being first is a good thing. There might be other invisible dangers on this cable—those who lead might end up being the most unlucky.”
“Yeah, that’s possible…” Lao He scratched his forehead. “Our master really thinks things through.”
“Let’s go,” Su Che said firmly. “Even so, we can’t back down.”
What Su Che could imagine, Heng Yi, with his thousands of years of life experience, could surely think of even more. Without Su Che’s orders, he volunteered to be the first to step onto the cable.
Heng Yi was first, Lin Feng second, and Su Che, carrying the still-fainting Tian Yin, was in the middle. Of course, he still had to control Tian Yin’s legs to keep walking. Thus, Miao Li was at the back.
The six of them stepped onto the cable one after another, keeping a distance of ten feet between each other.
After walking dozens of feet, Su Che felt that Heng Yi in the front was moving a bit too fast, so he quickly sent a message: “Heng Yi, be careful. You can slow down a bit. We’re already far ahead; we don’t need that extra time.”

But he received no reply from Hengyi through telepathy. Moreover, he walked faster and faster, seemingly having completely forgotten the agreement they had made earlier to maintain a safety distance of ten zhang between them and not go too far apart.
“There’s a problem!”
Su Che immediately realized something was wrong with Hengyi and grew alarmed. Just a few steps after stepping onto the steel cable, Hengyi, who was usually so steady, had fallen for a trap.
“Hengyi, come back!”
Lin Feng also called out loudly.
But whether through telepathy or shouting, Hengyi continued to walk swiftly without caring, widening the distance between him and Lin Feng to dozens of zhang, moving faster and faster, ignoring everything…
“That’s not good!”
Su Che immediately thought to Lao He, “Hurry up and call him back.”
Lao He responded and immediately used the soul connection between the fourth layer of the Immortal Prison and its servants to summon Hengyi’s soul.
Fortunately, this tactic worked. Hengyi ahead stopped in his tracks, turned around, and showed a surprised expression.
“Thank goodness.”
Seeing his expression, Su Che felt relieved, as it meant he had regained his clarity from the confusion.
“Don’t turn back. Keep going forward, but slower. Wait for us to catch up!” Su Che shouted at him.
The reason for telling him to slow down and keep moving forward instead of turning back was that Su Che feared some other anomaly or punishment might arise if he walked back along the cable. Additionally, considering the game rule that “one must not stop,” he couldn’t let Hengyi stand still either. So, the only option was to have him move slowly while the rest of them sped up to catch up.
Soon they reached behind Hengyi. Su Che asked, “Why did you ignore everything and walk so fast just now? You even ignored my telepathic calls.”
Hengyi, being smart, didn’t try to defend himself. Instead, he frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and then understood. He replied, “Master, I must have fallen victim to some invisible illusion. I kept hearing you urging me to walk faster, which is why I kept accelerating.”
“As I thought.”
Su Che nodded thoughtfully. “This steel cable path is indeed full of mysteries. I guessed it wouldn’t be that simple.”
Then, he used telepathy to remind Hengyi and the others at the same time, “From now on, no matter what you hear me say, don’t trust your ears. The only thing you can trust is this place.”

Su Che pointed to his heart, meaning they should listen to their inner feelings rather than words.
Hearing is not reliable, and seeing is not always true either; if one falls victim to an extremely sophisticated illusion, both hearing and sight become highly unreliable. Illusions exploit a person’s senses to deceive them.
Fortunately, Su Che could use the soul connection between the fourth layer of the Immortal Prison and his servants to convey his orders directly to their hearts, allowing them to follow the guidance of their own souls rather than being deceived by their senses.
As for Su Che himself, he was confident he wouldn’t be misled by illusions, because he had the Immortal Prison to protect his soul. Even if something caused him to fall into delusion, Lao He in the Immortal Prison could always remind and warn him.
“Master, since I’ve fallen victim to an illusion that tricked me into moving faster, it means there must be even more dangerous traps waiting for me ahead,” Heng Yi analyzed.
“Of course,” Su Che nodded gently and said, “I think the most likely scenario is that you’ll end up outside the steel ropes, with your feet in the air, facing punishment under the rules.”
Heng Yi and the others nodded in agreement, believing that the mysterious old man intended to kill them effortlessly. But perhaps for him, using the game rules to execute others brought the greatest pleasure, which was why he created such a game of moving forward.
So, the traps ahead were likely set to make them violate the rules, rather than being deadly death traps.
The five of them continued moving forward. After less than a hundred zhang, Miao Li encountered problems again—his speed dropped drastically, and he soon fell behind by more than ten zhang.
Clearly, he must have fallen victim to some kind of illusion. Perhaps what he was seeing right now was that his master was just one zhang ahead, still moving at his normal speed.
Lao He kept an eye on everyone’s condition and immediately used soul communication, causing Miao Li to tremble violently and wake up. He quickly sped up and caught up again.
The power of soul connection was truly miraculous, far surpassing any other means of communication.
Su Che and the others didn’t discuss it any further but kept moving forward without pause. After a while, another serious anomaly occurred!
Suddenly, a gray-black wind column, like a black dragon, emerged from the depths of the cloud sea below and spiraled upward at incredible speed.

This wind column covered a relatively small area, with a diameter of just over fifty feet, so it couldn’t encompass Su Che and the others entirely. Yet it was directed at Su Che and Tian Yin, who were in the very center. The wind column swept upward, clearly intended to blow Su Che and Tian Yin away from the steel cables, causing them to lose their footing, which violated the game rules. To avoid it, they could only move back and forth along the cables. Su Che quickly ordered Heng Yi and Lin Feng to speed up and move forward rapidly to create enough space for himself to dodge the wind column. Heng Yi and Lin Feng immediately obeyed, and Miao Li wisely slowed down as well, creating more than twenty feet of space for Su Che to move back and forth to avoid the wind column. However, the wind column suddenly accelerated to extreme speeds, leaving Su Che no time to dodge at all. Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh… Su Che, holding Tian Yin in his arms, was instantly engulfed in the dark gray wind column, like a vicious dragon.