Shin Sumi completely ignored what she had gotten herself into. Due to her insane Shinsoo affinity after having opened fifty two Shinsoo apertures, the formless barrier that would normally block any disciple below the Liquid Realm from entering the limited areas had just been felt like a relatively strong pressure for her.

As Patriarch Sen was pulling his hair off his head in anger and anxiety, Shin Sumi was plummeting through the darkness towards the Blood Wolf's Nest, wondering what sort of treasure would be waiting for her.

She also knew that a treasure would not appear unprotected simply waiting on the floor. There would obviously be some form of trial or test which Shin Sumi couldn't wait to discover, with confidence in her strength.

What she had always accounted for in the Rising Star Tournament was that everything had to be designed for Honorary Disciples. In fact it was her main supposition regarding the 'blur' that had saved her from the giant crocodile. Because of the strength of the crocodile, it had been restricted for the safety of the trial-takers.

But in her suppositions, Shin Sumi had not thought that she could go off-limits and put herself in real danger. After all, she was one of the strongest people currently in this dimension!

At a point during her short fall through the black opening in the earth, Shin Sumi felt herself slow down. Light had not quite returned to her yet, but she knew she had lost momentum.

"It is like moving through honey" she thought, "the Shinsoo pressure just went up a notch! It is good, maybe I'm getting close to the Vein of Hell Fire! Or maybe it's a secret cultivation place!"

Like a feather gently pushed by the wind or a falling leaf, Shin Sumi put her foot on solid ground with grace. Because she had now gotten completely through the barrier preventing access to low level disciples, the Copper Bell suddenly activated, revealing her surroundings.

The grin on Shin Sumi's mouth and the golden sword in her hand instantly froze while all the hair in her body stood up.

"Wha- what is that?!!" she was about to say out loud before the life-saving fear that had overtaken her kicked in and glued her vocal cords shut.

In front of Shin Sumi laid hundreds or thousands of Blood Wolves. It was a whole army currently sleeping soundlessly. But what was even more frightening was the huge mountain of fur in the center of the immense room that rose and fell with the rhythm of a slow and steady breathing.

Shin Sumi realized that the pressure that rendered all her movements sluggish actually came off of the giant beast sleeping in the middle of the pack.

"S-so huge! And strong... Even without the massive Blood Wolf being awake I can hardly move", she thought.

The unsurmountable power wasn't something Shin Sumi could comprehend with her Shinsoo Gathering strength. It was definitely above the giant crocodile's realm.

"This beast must be at least in the mid-Liquid Realm. It's not something I can handle at all" she now realized with panic!

Shin Sumi was trapped in the middle of an army of sleeping Blood Wolves.

Looking at the darkness above her and feeling the formless pressure on her shoulders she didn't even attempt to jump out of the hole where she came from. No, she would have to find a way out somewhere else. And without awaking the Blood Wolves.

After analyzing her situation, Shin Sumi started to explore the giant cave, carefully treading the beast covered ground.

From the Shinsoo fluctuations of all the creatures around her, Shin Sumi discovered that they were all extremely similar to the five she had fought above the entrance. They all shared the same dark fur and red markings on the length of their powerful bodies and they also were only about red core level fighters.

By themselves, the Blood Wolves posed absolutely no threat to Shin Sumi, even if they ganged up on her with a ten to one ratio.

She scanned the room with her eyes in a futile attempt to count them. With their numbers, Shin Sumi had absolutely no chance of victory whatsoever.

And that was of course without counting the white furred mother Blood Wolf. It was clear now to Shin Sumi that this cave was their lair, and all the Blood Wolves were protecting the mother.

Even normal wolves found in the forests of the mortal world were very territorial creatures, always protecting their lair. It wasn't even unusual for them to have a few guards outside of their nest.

Had Shin Sumi been a tad bit slower in defeating the five guards up above, she would have jumped in the middle of an army of alert, enraged and bloodthirsty wolves.

Shin Sumi's face was so pale that she looked like a skeleton.

"This time I really screwed up... I need a miracle to get out of here alive!"

The miracle came when she reached the other side of the wolf mother, after an hour of walking carefully in order to not make any noise or worse, step on a Blood Wolf's tail.

Without any prior indication, her bag of holding started to vibrate. In less than the moment it takes to blink, the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was flying around her, casting a golden light on the hills of fur around.

"A Vein of Hell Fire? Here?!"

Suddenly it all made sense. Of course the mother Blood Wolf would make her lair close to such a powerful source of Shinsoo. It may even have been what allowed her to grow so big and her pack to number in the thousands.

The sword cut through the air with astonishing speed towards a wall far away. Thankfully it was the furthest possible from the enormous white furred Blood Wolf.

Zzziiiiing.

The weapon was vibrating powerfully, a sign of the Vein of Hell Fire being really close, and in less than half a breath of time it had disappeared through a large crack in the wall.

Shin Sumi followed the golden arc cautiously, glad that she could escape this hellish place.

She had gone only a quarter of the way when she realized that the ground felt like it was vibrating.

"No, it's not the ground... It's a growl!"

She turned around faster than a bolt of lightning, right on time to see the mountain of white fur slowly grow bigger and bigger. From under the fur, a powerful leg appeared, then two. The legs were slender and aerodynamic. A red streak of hair ran along the muscles, stopping in between the claws of the beast, making them look like blood was dripping from them.

Each one of the claws was bigger than a two-handed sword and probably sharper.

After the legs came what was the biggest animal head Shin Sumi had ever seen. Compared to the mother Blood Wolf, the giant crocodile was just a large lizard!

The maw of the beast was large enough to hold a two stories house in it and the sharp teeth were definitely enough to crush it to dust in one bite. But what was even more terrifying were the red eyes of the Blood Wolf, piercing the white fur and scanning the room for the source of the noise that awakened it from its slumber.

Shin Sumi was frozen in place, unable to move under the pressure of the gaze. She could only look in despair at the huge Blood Wolf and the red eyes fixated on her.

Willing herself to move, she soon realized that the Shinsoo emanated from the beast locked her in place, rendering all efforts useless.

"The strength of a Liquid Realm beast. I'm completely powerless against that thing!"

The growl of the mother Blood Wolf soon got picked up my more and more low-level wolves starting to awaken as well.

The white Blood Wolf suddenly lifted its head towards the ceiling of the cave and started to howl. The power of the soundwave reached Shin Sumi the next instant, throwing her in a straight line until she collapsed against the wall, blood spurting from her mouth and dripping down her ears.

She was still conscious albeit stuck in place, faced with thousands of wolves who were now howling too, and their terrifying mother.

Sending a sliver of divine sense into her bag of holding, Shin Sumi summoned a few paper talismans. In her current immobile state it was the only thing she could use.

The talismans ignited a few meters in front of her, forming a blast of white flames that illuminated the entire room, and sent the closest wolves flying. Shin Sumi herself felt the heat of the flames but she endured, closing her jaws tight. Even the mother Blood Wolf seemed affected, not by the blast or the faraway heat but by the light. The red eyes closed for an instant, rupturing the pressure that assaulted Shin Sumi.

All it took was a split second for Shin Sumi to get up and throw more paper talismans. She only had a couple left and the explosions were less powerful than the previous ones but they allowed some distraction to get rid of the mother Blood Wolf's insane pressure.

The giant beast was now howling even louder than before but because it was the second time, Shin Sumi wasn't taken by surprise. Using all the circulating energy she could muster in such a short time, she clogged her own ears with Shinsoo, dampening the blow while she braced.

Rushing to the side, Shin Sumi rolled into the crevice where the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword had disappeared.

Howling orders, the mother Blood Wolf launched her army after her. Right before she escaped their sight, Shin Sumi caught a glimpse of the reason why the mother had not attacked her herself.

Between the white furred legs, a dozen small wolf pups were curled up in a ball, whimpering and scared.

"I invaded her territory just after she had a litter of cubs... This is the worst situation I could have found myself into! And now I'm almost out of fire talismans but at least the mother herself can't come after me."

The crevice was narrow, definitely not large enough for the mother. If all the normal Blood Wolves attacked her in a straight line, she could probably fend against them. It would all come down to whether she would run out of energy before they ran out of numbers. The fact that the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was gone as well and did not respond to her call was also a big problem.

A brilliant idea popped into her mind as she evaded the first pouncing of the Blood Wolves behind her. The last paper talisman flew off in a straight line, sticking itself to the top of the tunnel.

If Chu Erlong could collapse an entire section of the maze with a fireball, why couldn't she do it?!

Recalling the strength of the fireball blast multiplied exponentially by the narrow space, Shin Sumi waited for a couple seconds before detonating the paper talisman. The last thing she wanted was to get caught up in it as well!

BOOOM!!

The tunnel collapsed on top of a few wolves with a somewhat underwhelming power.

"Crap, I miscalculated, probably only a couple wolves got crushed!"

She could hear more than five sets of footsteps behind her and a lot of barking. The most time passed, the more the Blood Wolves seemed enraged and wanted to kill her. Normally they would only chase her until she left their territory but now she really had made them mad!

And the worst thing was that if it hadn't been thanks to the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword once again saving her life by showing her the way, she would have been trapped in the central room where the whole army was gathered. That and the giant white wolf.

Unfortunately, the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword didn't seem to hold Shin Sumi in high regards. After having absorbed the power of two Veins of Hell Fire, it couldn't wait to taste even more of them and thus refused to answer its master's call. As such, Shin Sumi was left without her weapon, stuck in a narrow corridor with bloodthirsty creatures.

Now that she had recuperated from the blow struck by the mother Blood Wolf, she had gone back to peak condition. More confident than before, she slapped her bag of holding in between two leaps, producing a small flying sword.

"Even if it doesn't hold a candle to my normal weapon, this is still one, right?" she thought. Compared to the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword, this glaive was nothing more than a toothpick.

Having received the golden sword really early in her Shinsoo Gathering, Shin Sumi had never known what it was like to fight with more normal weapons like other disciples. The Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was a treasured weapon of high grade, leagues apart from the regular flying swords.

The simple power of her throw was instantly reduced compared to usual, giving her a bad feeling about the fight.

The red core Blood Wolf at the lead of the chase didn't even bother looking at the incoming blade, catching it in between its powerful jaws and instantly rupturing it in the middle.

And just like that, Shin Sumi understood how lucky she had been to have her sword in her recent cultivation adventures.

Having looted many disciples and slain different beasts along her trials, Shin Sumi had acquired a rather large collection of weapons that she was now proceeding to throw behind her.

For every three or four throws, only one would hit the wolf and remain stuck in its bloody fur accompanied with a painful cry.

One by one, Shin Sumi got rid of her pursuers as well as her arsenal of blades, showing her lack of experience fighting without the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword.

There was only one wolf remaining when Shin Sumi finally caught sight of a blinding green light at the end of the tunnel. Having no projectiles left, she rushed ahead even faster, followed by the enraged beast.

The more she advanced, the more she started to feel the pressure mount around her. The brief relief that she had been provided with when she got away from the mother Blood Wolf slowly disappeared. Once more, a formless mountainous pressure grew on her shoulders, her legs, her arms, followed by the now familiar burning sensation.

As Shin Sumi slowed down, unable to keep her speed while getting closer to the Vein of Hell Fire, the wolf slowed down as well with confusion, its low intelligence unable to understand what was wrong.

Shin Sumi was less than fifteen steps away from the radiant green source of light when she couldn't advance anymore. The hilt of the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword in the middle of it was visible only when she squinted her eyes.

With its lesser cultivation, the Blood Wolf was incapable of following her further, stuck approximately ten steps from Shin Sumi.

After a while of observation between the two parties, Shin Sumi guessed that the wolf could not reach her and chose to ignore it, focusing on absorbing the green Vein.

After growling to no avail for a long time, the wolf too decided to wait, its eyes never leaving the seated silhouette almost in reach.

***

After going across the icy plains of the second ring, Xiao Yue had entered the underground maze easily. Because of the path she had taken, she found an other entrance than the one Shin Sumi would come to use a few days after.

Inside the dark and ancient tunnels, Xiao Yue had encountered a couple of other disciples, all of which fled once they saw her.

At this point in the trial, only the most talented and experienced of disciples had already reached the third domain, and the only red robed individuals were part of a larger group. On their own, there was no way for a single low level disciple to go this far that fast without running into mortal danger.

Even with that in mind, most of the disciples trying to find their way through the maze were orange or yellow robed, thus it wasn't too unusual for some of them to cross paths with Xiao Yue.

But contrary to all expectations, not one of them was willing to spend time close to her.

"Oooooh they ran away... Come on guys, it's no fun without company. I'm looooneeely" she weeped, although the sly grin on her face betrayed her sentiments.

A black spear was twirling in her hand and seemed to release smoke that was even darker than the galeries devoid of light.

The high-grade weapon she had acquired before leaving the icy tundra while Shin Sumi was in isolation instilled fear in everyone that saw it. But even more so, it was the bearer of the spear that was most feared.

Due to the quality of the weapon, the sub-trial necessary to gain mastery over it had of course been intense, and only the best had been suitable to win. And Xiao Yue's attempt had left a deep mark on many a disciple's mind.

When she had stumbled upon the scene of dozens of disciples at once transfixed in front of a black monolith, she had known that something big was in play.

The Shinsoo fluctuations coming from the monolith were really strange and formed links between every disciple cross-legged.

Without hesitation, Xiao Yue had tried to probe the smooth surface of the black rock.

"Do you wish to take part in the trial?"

Xiao Yue's vision had been all encompassed in darkness, with white smoke-like characters in front of her.

Xiao Yue had accepted immediately before a whirlwind of smoke teleported her in a sub-dimension.

"There's a trial within the trial" she had thought, "and it looks like a giant arena? I don't know what's going on but it sure seems interesting!"

The small world she was in was closed off by mountains on all four sides, the center of the square being a giant tower on top of which resided a mighty black spear.