Death… and me

Erla and the others didn’t understand why Rean seemed to be affected, but they didn’t ask about it either. “Well, I guess we already understand most of the necessary things. Should we keep going? We haven’t finished this test yet.”

Rean nodded before they separated from Kentucky and Celis’s group. 

Meanwhile, Roan’s group had finally arrived at the goal of the Pressure Realm test, being one of the first ones to be teleported outside.

Krikei couldn’t help but feel extremely excited after that. “Great! Great! Great! Great! That was by far the worst test for a spirit like me. I’m finally over with it! Hahaha!” The test was quite hard in his case.

Vrie didn’t seem that excited as he said, “As a demon beast, that was the easiest. But then again, the Soul Land before that was the opposite, so I guess I’m also happy to have passed that one.”

Roan ignored them, though. Instead, he checked Rean’s group through their connection… or so he tried. Unfortunately, being in another dimension meant to be separated from the Realm of Gods. Then again, Roan could ask Sister Orb about that, at least. ‘How are they doing?’

[They’re fine. That girl called Erla has really received a huge upgrade. The Pressure Realm can’t make her feel bad at all with her awakened bloodline. Rean, obviously, has the Third Grade Star Body and the Enhancement skill, so he’s faring even better. As for the others in his group, the Enhancement skill is enough for them to resist the gravity there.]

Roan nodded in response. ‘I just need to wait for them to finish the test.’

However, Rean’s group got into quite a tricky situation a few hours later. “Hold on! Don’t let go!”

At the moment, they entered an area where gravity suddenly spiked several times. Yet, it wasn’t pulling them down. Instead, gravity was pulling them ahead. Rean could see a ‘black hole’ taking form several kilometers in the distance. Of course, he knew that thing wasn’t a real black hole. Otherwise, the entire Dimensional Realm would have disappeared already. It just had a similar function of having extremely high gravity. “If you fall into that thing, you will be dead for sure.”

Nonetheless, it was strong enough to even kill himself, let alone the others. The only reason they were able to fight against the black hole’s pulling force was that Rean noticed the moment a formation trap activated. With his reaction, he immediately controlled their battle formation to flee as fast as possible while pulling everyone with him. Only when they were already quite far did the black hole appear.

Yet, it still had the power to pull Min and Habac towards it. Only Rean and Erla had enough strength to fight the pulling power coming from that thing. The problem was that pulling Min and Habac had increased their burden twice. “Rean, we’re being pulled by that thing. We won’t resist much longer.”

Min, who held Rean’s hand, immediately asked, “What if we use long-range attacks to destroy that black thing? Perhaps it’ll at least stop pulling us over.”

Rean shook his head in response. “That thing is being controlled by a formation below the ground. That thing you’re seeing is nothing more than the result of the formation. You can attack as many times as you want. It will have little to no effect at all.”

Habac then got an idea, suggesting, “All we need to do is to generate a counteracting force strong enough to help us move away from that. Let’s attack the area behind us. As powerful as this pull may be, the shockwave from a combined energy attack of us four while using the battle formation should definitely be stronger. After all, it’ll happen right by our side.”

“Ahhhh!” 

“Heeeeeelp!”

Suddenly, Rean’s group noticed another group of cultivators and demon beasts being pulled into the black hole from another direction. They struggled as much as possible, but it was all useless. 

Rean, Erla, and Min immediately threw caution to the wind and agreed with Habac’s option. Well, the truth was that Rean could escape on his own if necessary. It’s just that he would wait until there was no other choice but to let Min go. “Alright. Focus on your strongest energy-type attack. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it can create a huge shockwave.”

With that said, they all shared the location they would focus their attacks on with their Divine Senses and went all out.

‘Life Fire, Second Form, White Stellar Explosion!’

‘Thunderfire Descent!’

‘Water Form Compress, Release!’

‘Myriad Lightning Barrage!’

*Boom!*

Their bodies had just started being pulled by the black hole when suddenly, a huge shockwave hit their bodies. As the attack landed right behind them, as well as between their group and the black hole, the shockwave immediately shot them in the opposite direction of the black hole. Rean also used his Light Element to instantly heal any injuries due to the explosion before the force of the shockwave disappeared.

The shockwave was only enough to send them a hundred or so meters away before the black hole’s gravity began to pull on everyone once again. 

“One more time!”

No one saved any Divine Energy as they repeated the same action.

*Boom!*

As they were a little further away from the black hole now, the shockwave was also able to throw them even further.

“Again!”

*Boom!*

*Boom!*

*Boom!*

Only after the fourth explosion’s shockwave did Rean’s group manage to steady themselves against the black hole’s force. “Let’s get out of here. That thing’s power is increasing. I believe this is a test to separate those who took too long to reach the end of the test. The longer you take, the worse it’ll become.”

Rean was right. That wasn’t the only black hole formation trap that appeared. At the moment, it was still possible to pass through while ignoring the black holes. However, the longer it took, the harder it would become. At some point, completing the test would be impossible. Fortunately, Rean’s group had made it through this problem and completed the test.