High-Martial World: System Arrives 30 Years Late-Chapter 85: Slaying the Sixth Phantom, Violet Pillar of Light
Suddenly, it was as if invisible hands dragged Su Mu into the deep sea; an intense feeling of suffocation surged over him. In an instant, the entire world froze, and when he came to, gasping for breath, he realized...
The world before his eyes resumed, his five senses returning. He focused and began to peer into the future timeline.
"Strike first, the speed of the shadow isn’t very fast."
The future Su Mu murmured as he took a stride forward.
Watching all this, Su Mu nodded silently. He had dealt with the shadow figures in the previous rounds the same way.
He acted first to gain the upper hand, reaching this point.
He possessed the ability to slay shadow figures with a single strike, while the shadow figures also had the power to instantly kill him. It all depended on who made the first move.
Soon, the sixth shadow figure was triggered.
Future Su Mu was already prepared; as the shadow figure was solidifying, he had fully activated the Red Sun Saber in his hand, channeling his qi and blood and sword momentum into it without reservation.
Then, using the Extreme Shadow Body Technique, he instantly closed in.
At the very moment the shadow figure materialized, he swung his saber.
"Should it succeed?"
The next second, the shadow figure raised its saber, a pure and extreme force instantly compressing the surrounding air, forming a natural cage that trapped the approaching Su Mu within.
The scene broke off here.
In the Tower World, Su Mu suddenly opened his eyes, bloodshot, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for air.
"Failed."
...
"Sigh, the third shadow figure is just too strong."
A person sitting atop a pillar sighed, and after awakening, he glanced at the figure atop the tower’s central pillar, unable to hide his shock and admiration.
"Su Mu is still persisting."
People from the Tower of Power and the Tower of Speed had been replaced batch after batch, but the figure of Su Mu still stood there on that stone pillar.
"Sigh, let’s leave."
Just as he was about to leave, his steps halted suddenly as he heard rapid breathing.
Following the sound...
It was indeed Su Mu atop the central stone pillar. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth, and upon closer inspection, blood was even seeping from the corners of his eyes.
"What, what’s going on here."
"Does failing in the Tower of Power also lead to backlash?"
After a moment of hesitation, the person strode out of the Tower of Power.
...
"Huh, Su Mu still hasn’t come out!"
Quite a few people outside the Tower of Power hadn’t left. Initially, they all wanted to see how far Su Mu could go, thinking it wouldn’t take long to find out.
As time passed, their waiting increasingly shocked them, including the two chief examiners, Shi Hao and Xu Zhi.
"Can the Tower World be attempted repeatedly?" Xu Zhi couldn’t help but mutter to himself.
"No, only one attempt."
"That’s strange, why can Su Mu persevere for so long? The Tower World should quickly produce a result!"
Xu Zhi’s doubts were something Shi Hao couldn’t answer either, as he was equally puzzled.
At this moment, someone else rushed over, anxiously reporting what he saw about Su Mu’s bleeding eyes and mouth.
"What, you saw with your own eyes that Su Mu had blood at the corners of his mouth and even his eyes?"
Shi Hao and Xu Zhi’s first reaction was disbelief. They had never heard the comprehension within the Tower World would have any backlash on one’s physical body; at most, in the Tower of Spirit, one might exhaust their spirit from mental duels.
Just then, a few more people exited the Tower of Power, echoing the same accounts as the previous person.
They all heard the rough breathing and saw Su Mu bleeding.
As the news spread, people outside were filled with confusion and shock. Why did it seem like Su Mu’s evaluation was different from theirs?!
In the first round, almost all of them, even the other four who passed besides Tantai Yan, took a beating.
Yet, Su Mu instead turned the tables, giving the puppets a beating.
In the second round of assessments, most people quickly suffered a beating from the shadow figures in the Tower World. Even Tantai Yan was quickly eliminated this time.
Only this Su Mu was a freak, withstanding numerous batches from the Tower of Power and was about to become the last one standing.
...
"What should we do, forcibly interrupt it?" Xu Zhi said in a low voice.
Shi Hao thought for a moment and then shook his head.
"No, wait a bit longer. No one has encountered the same situation as Su Mu before, and no one has tried forcibly awakening someone to see the consequences. Wait a bit more."
"What if..."
Shi Hao knew what Xu Zhi meant—what if something happened, they, as chief examiners, wouldn’t be able to escape responsibility.
"I’ll take the responsibility, so give Su Mu a little more time."
...
"The sixth shadow figure can instantly kill me; I can’t let him execute this strike."
"Once more!"
Su Mu gasped heavily, taking a long time to calm down. His eyes were bloodshot, for he had already subjected himself to the backlash of Future Sight for the third consecutive time.
He had seen his three futures.
Without exception, all three times he perished with the sixth shadow figure.
"Is there really no solution?"
Su Mu was unwilling to give up because, in the third future timeline, he was very close to success. But he was also very aware.
Knowing that what he thought extremely close might, without actual success, be far greater than he imagined.
"Should I give up?"
At this time, Su Mu felt his qi and blood churning within.
A trainee, just defeated by the shadow figure in the Tower World and planning to leave, opened his eyes and instantly saw Su Mu atop the central stone pillar suddenly cough up a large mouthful of blood.
"He’s spitting blood?"
Immediately, the person hurried out of the Tower of Power to report what he saw.
"What, Su Mu is coughing up blood?!"
"Something’s off, we can’t wait any longer." Xu Zhi spoke in a deep voice.
"Alright, let’s go in and take a look."
This time, Shi Hao couldn’t sit still either, and the two briskly walked towards the Tower of Power, intending to forcibly awaken Su Mu.
...
The fourth Future Sight still failed.
Just as Shi Hao and Xu Zhi entered the Tower of Power, they heard a loud ’wah’ and saw with their own eyes that Su Mu had coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood. They also noticed that Su Mu’s entire body was stained with blood, now bleeding from all seven orifices.
Upon seeing this, Shi Hao immediately took out a token of a deep blue color, but hesitated before Xu Zhi grabbed it.
"Let me do it."
At this moment, Shi Hao sensed a faint sword momentum exuding from Su Mu, an unconscious operation, a manifestation of high concentration of energy and spirit.
The blue light enveloping the stone pillar where Su Mu stood was more brilliant than that of others.
This might mean that Su Mu had gone very far.
"Xu Zhi, wait!"
"Wait for what..." Xu Zhi shouted angrily.
...
"I see, I understand now!"
Due to the backlash of peering into the future, Su Mu’s originally solid form in the Tower World became somewhat ethereal, seemingly not needing to wait for the phantasm to strike.
He could self-destruct at any moment.
But his eyes remained bright, like stars.
"Another round of Future Sight?"
Su Mu very much wanted to, but when he looked down at his almost transparent body, he realized his situation instantly. He didn’t have the capability for a fifth Future Sight.
He must succeed in one attempt.
He had only one chance left, with zero margin for error. Failure would mean stopping here, forever separated from the remaining part of the Secret Technique.
Behind him was a cliff.
Let’s do this!
Su Mu adjusted his breathing to bring his state to its best before stepping forward.
The sixth phantasm condensed before Su Mu for the fifth time, and he did exactly what his future self had done in the previous Future Sights.
Preemptively fully activating the Red Sun Saber, pouring his Qi and blood and sword momentum into it without reservation, a faint saber glow spitting out.
Then he performed the Extreme Shadow Body Technique.
Up to this point, everything happened exactly as in the previous failed timelines.
Was Su Mu planning to give up?!
Definitely not.
The next second, behavior different from the future timeline appeared.
Before the phantasm fully formed, there was a breath’s time during which the phantasm couldn’t be directly attacked, a rule of the Tower World.
But Su Mu still resolutely and without hesitation slashed at the phantasm with all his might.
Surging Waves Saber Technique First Form: Riding the Wind!
A breath later, the phantasm finally fully formed, its hand falling on the saber handle, raising the saber in hand, the invisible cage reappearing for the fifth time.
The invisible cage was about to lock Su Mu’s figure, set to repeat all over again.
However, Su Mu did not hesitate, nor did he look at the phantasm, slashing out the second saber without hesitation.
Surging Waves Saber Technique Second Form: Breaking Waves!
And at this moment, an anomaly occurred, the timeline deviated.
The just-formed invisible cage couldn’t directly lock Su Mu’s figure because in front of Su Mu there was already a saber, the Riding the Wind from the Surging Waves Saber Technique’s first form.
Sword momentum, sharp and domineering.
The sword momentum could briefly break Li Yue’s grandmaster’s pressure back then, so it could also break this purely force-formed invisible cage.
This was Su Mu’s assumption.
And it was this thought that sparked after four unsuccessful attempts to directly slay the phantasm, but he had no opportunity to experiment with a fifth Future Sight.
Fortunately, this time he gambled right.
The sharp sword momentum broke the invisible cage, buying Su Mu a moment, and that moment was enough.
Su Mu stepped forward and slashed, the second saber fell.
Hiss!
The sixth phantasm shattered in an instant, unable to slash out its frightfully lethal strike against Su Mu.
After the sixth phantasm was slain, a brilliantly dazzling light appeared.
"Come on." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
Su Mu embraced the light with a look of ecstatic joy, just as he had previously guessed, this light also contained part of the Secret Technique, and thus he had obtained two parts of the Secret Technique.
Just one step away from completion!
...
The sound of Xu Zhi stopped abruptly inside the Tower of Power.
They saw the blue light on the central stone pillar where Su Mu was suddenly became more brilliant, turning into a more dazzling and radiant purple light column under the shocked expressions of the two.
"A purple... light column?!"
"The ancient tower is already ruined... This can’t be right!"
This unprecedented sudden situation left the two dazed, and they exchanged a glance, shock and confusion mixing on their faces. They had never heard of a ruined tower activating a purple light column.
...
"I’ve come this far, I might as well meet the splendor of the seventh phantasm."
"Quitting now would be too regrettable."
"Let me give it two more slashes."
"No, this time I want to try three slashes!"
Su Mu got up and strode forward, as a purple phantasm slowly formed.
