The base of the First Sky-Pillar was a wide, ancient amphitheater carved directly into star-forged stone. Rising straight up into the clouds was the Pillar of Absolute Mass, its surface inscribed with glowing, thousand-year-old gravity runes.
A thousand steep steps stretched up its sheer face. With every hundred steps, the gravitational pull multiplied tenfold, compressing spirit pathways, cracking bone, and suffocating any cultivator without a terrifyingly solid foundation.
Hundreds of elite young masters from across the Upper Realm stood assembled at the foot of the stairs.
At the front of the crowd stood Young Master Huo, his crimson robes fanning out as his fiery Soul Assembly aura flared around his boots. Beside him, Saintess Yao adjusted her green silk sash, her expression focused and solemn.
On the high observation balcony above, the Grand Elders of the Seven Astral Heavens sat on carved marble thrones, looking down at the gathered geniuses.
"The rules are absolute!" an officiant declared, his voice booming across the stone floor. "Ascend the thousand steps! Those who reach the five-hundredth step earn entry into the Inner Conclave! Begin!"
A rush of figures charged the first flight of stairs.
BOOM!
The moment their boots touched the hundredth step, ten-fold gravity slammed down like a falling hammer. Dozens of disciples gasped, their knees buckling as their protective talisman barriers flared wildly into light.
By the three-hundredth step—thirty-fold gravity—the weak were already weeping, spitting blood, and sliding back down the stone steps with crushed ribs.
Young Master Huo surged upward, his body wrapped in a soaring pillar of Solar Fire Qi. He passed the four-hundredth step effortlessly, his boots leaving scorched footprints in the ancient stone as he sneered down at the struggling crowd below.
"Look at the Azure Cloud trash," Huo shouted down, mocking Ren, who was walking up the lower steps at a slow, deliberate pace. "He's moving like an old turtle!"
Ren ignored him completely.
With every step Ren took, his Sovereign Frame hummed in quiet harmony with the pillar's ancient gravity runes. Instead of resisting the crushing pressure, the two merged Godhead fragments inside his chest drank the heavy environmental drag, converting it into raw, pure density that strengthened his bones with every stride.
Lin Xiu walked beside him up to the four-hundredth step, her icy aura holding the pressure at bay, though her forehead glistened with fine beads of sweat.
"I can reach five hundred," she breathed, her voice tight under the drag. "Beyond that... the gravity turns volatile."
"Stop at five hundred and rest," Ren said smoothly. "I'll handle the top."
At the five-hundredth step, fifty-fold gravity crushed down. More than three-quarters of the remaining competitors collapsed, pinned to the steps like broken dolls.
Young Master Huo pushed past the seven-hundredth step—seventy-fold gravity. His solar fire was compressed into a tight, sputtering flame, his teeth gritted as blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. He looked back, expecting to see Ren pinned to the lower stairs.
Instead, his eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
Ren was casually walking up behind him, his hands tucked inside his black-and-gold sleeves, stepping over the crushing pressure as if strolling through a garden. His posture was perfectly straight, his breathing completely even.
"Impossible!" Huo roared, forcing himself up to the eight-hundredth step. "You aren't using Qi! How are you moving?!"
Ren passed Huo on the eight-hundred-and-fiftieth step without looking at him.
"You rely on flames to push against the world," Ren said, his voice flat and effortless amidst the bone-crushing eighty-fold drag. "I am the world."
Ren stepped onto the nine-hundredth step. Ninety-fold gravity slammed into him, hard enough to crush a mountain peak into fine powder.
The entire amphitheater went dead silent. The Grand Elders on the high balcony stood up from their marble thrones in sheer disbelief. No disciple had reached the nine-hundredth step in over three centuries.
Ren didn't stop. He walked up the final ten steps, his boots striking the cold stone with heavy, rhythmic thuds.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine.
One thousand.
The moment Ren’s boot settled onto the apex platform—one-hundred-fold absolute mass—the thousand gravity runes along the entire pillar didn't crush him.
They resonated.
HUMMMMMM.
A brilliant, deep violet beam of light erupted from the apex of the pillar, shooting straight into the heavens and shattering the cloud cover for a hundred miles. Inside Ren's chest, the two fused Godhead Shards roared with pure joy, pulling a third, hidden seed of divine mass directly out of the pillar’s ancient core and fusing it straight into his sternum.
Stage Breakthrough: Sovereign Domain (100-Foot Anchor).
The sky above the Seven Sky-Pillars twisted into a swirling, cosmic vortex. Ren stood at the top of the thousand steps, bathed in violet light, looking down at the shocked Upper Realm like a god looking down upon dust.