Chapter 0001: Return to Sun and Moon

At the summit of Guanglin Mountain, the heavenly thunder had ceased, and the raging winds gradually calmed.

Three thousand zhang high in the sky, Henry Spencer was covered in blood, his entire body impaled upon a massive black spear.

—How enormous was this spear? Just a small section of the tip had completely pierced through his chest and abdomen, leaving him utterly drained of all strength.

Yet at this moment, Henry Spencer did not look at the eight-armed fiend before him who had taken his life, but instead, with great difficulty, turned his head to look back.

There stood a man with the bearing of a dragon and the grace of a phoenix, his features strikingly handsome. A red mark between his brows seemed carved by a blade, and his demeanor was elegant and extraordinary, standing out from the crowd.

A mouthful of black blood spilled from Henry Spencer's lips, followed by a bitter smile.

“Just now I realized, these demons must have had an accomplice on the inside. But I never thought that person would be you.”

“There are many things you never expected.”

The man’s expression was calm, but his gaze toward Henry Spencer was full of pity and mockery: “These past years, how proud and successful you were! I bet you never imagined you’d end up like this, did you?”

“But why?”

Henry Spencer asked helplessly, “To betray your fellow disciples and collude with fiends—this is high treason!”

“Treason? Xuanhao, you’re mistaken! Today, the one colluding with fiends and betraying the sect is not me, but you, Henry Spencer.”

The young man shook his head, a cold sneer at the corner of his lips: “As for why? Do you still remember what I told you five years ago?”

Henry Spencer couldn’t help but frown slightly, as if lost in thought.

At that moment, the young man spoke again: “Back then, I said that everything you took from me, I would one day take back! Whether it was reputation, status, or the most precious treasure between us. I swore then, even if I fell into hell, I would make sure you, Henry Spencer, would die with no grave, your name ruined, never to rise again. And now, five years later, I’ve finally done it…”

At this point, the eight-armed fiend let out a sneering laugh: “He’s dead, he can’t hear you!”

The young man glanced indifferently at Henry Spencer’s corpse and shook his head slightly: “That’s the soul-escaping technique. But he’s as good as dead, anyway. He won’t return to Sun and Moon Mountain.”

Then, with a wave of his sleeve, the corpse exploded into dust, scattering with the wind.

……

Three years later, at noon, the scorching sun blazed overhead. David Bolton was walking up the stone steps before the mountain gate of the Tianzhu Mountain annex of the Sun and Moon Profound Sect, feeling as if his head was about to explode, his very soul and spirit on the verge of tearing apart.

There were only a few dozen steps left ahead, but to him, it seemed like the ends of the earth—visible, yet unreachable. His mind spun, and he felt faint and disoriented.

At the top of the steps, several thousand people stood under the burning sun outside the mountain gate. Most of them looked on with helpless, complaining eyes, and curses could be heard from the crowd.

“If you can’t get up here, then get lost!”

“Stop dawdling, how much longer are you going to take?”

“You bastard, are you trying to roast us alive?”

It wasn’t just these people who were irritated and cursing—even the Sun and Moon Profound Sect disciples maintaining order at the gate were losing patience.

“What’s with this guy? Why is he so slow? At this rate, when will he ever finish?”

“This weather is killer. If I stay out here any longer, I’ll die.”

“Let’s just wait! I know this person, his name is David Bolton, and his status is anything but ordinary. There’s only a bit more than half an hour left—who knows if he’ll make it?”

“Not ordinary? Is he the disciple of some ‘Divine Master’ within the sect?”

“No, but he’s from Guanglin Mountain.”

“Guanglin Mountain? I see. They say when Guanglin Mountain collapsed three years ago, out of 297,000 households nearby, only about thirty people survived. This David Bolton is one of them? No wonder…”

David Bolton on the steps also heard the curses from above. He acted as if he hadn’t, only wailing and crying inside—Hey, hey, hey! What is this? He’d climbed this Heavenly Ascension Stairway before and never found it so hard! Was his path as a spirit master going to end here?

The blazing sun hung high in the sky, and David Bolton’s clothes were already soaked with sweat, his consciousness growing ever more faint.

Fortunately, there were only a little more than twenty steps left ahead. David Bolton gritted his teeth, clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug deep into his flesh, trying to use the pain to stay awake and keep moving upward.

But the spiritual pressure on the stone steps was everywhere, making his soul nearly collapse, and with every step, the pressure increased.

The Sun and Moon Profound Sect’s Spirit Ascension Stairway had a total of 999 steps, and was one of the first tests for new disciples, measuring the strength of their spiritual power and physical endurance—both essential qualities for a spirit master.