Below the cliff, Cao Wei saw the boy leaping over the top and disappearing from sight.
He believed anyone who witnessed the boy's climb would certainly feel a sense of admiration in their heart.
Even as his enemy, he could only draw his breath in admiration.
Curbing down his emotions, Cao Wei turned around and ran into the forest. Instead of reconvening with Qing Huai, he planned on directly fleeing this Forbidden Land.
If he didn't escape in time, perhaps he would perish together with everyone else.
Cao Wei knew he could no longer return to the Federation. Regardless of whether or not Qing Huai would die in this place, he would never be able to go back.
Even if he had to live as a nomad in the wilderness, it was better than walking back to his death.
However… As he raced away, he suddenly recalled what took place a moment ago with a feeling of disappointment.
He watched the boy traverse the night and climb into the sky.
Later on, even with his eyesight that had been improved by genetic medicine, he couldn't clearly see the rest of the progress.
Cao Wei had been waiting for him to fall, but when the sun rose, what he saw was the figure singlehandedly hanging on to the top of the cliff.
At that moment, although Cao Wei clearly knew that the boy might not be his opponent even after succeeding in the challenge, he still lost the courage to face off against him.
It was the dream he yearned for but could never reach, yet another person had achieved it right in front of his eyes.
…
On the top of the Great Cliff of Qingshan, Qing Chen quietly looked at the view before him.
He had previously imagined how beautiful and stunning the scenery on the summit would be, but he never expected the most astonishing sight to be all these words inscribed on top of the cliff.
Every single sentence was made up of the line ‘Only faith and time remain for eternity'.
And each line was signed off with a different name.
Zhang Qingxi, Li Yingyun, Ren Xiaosu, Yang Xiaojin, Zhao Yongyi, Li Shutong, Chen Jiazhang, Wang Xiaojiu…
Qing Chen counted 81 names on the top of the cliff, each of them his predecessor.
But on his climb, he had seen 123 names.
Did this mean that there were 42 people who lost their lives while challenging this cliff? Or were there even more seniors who fell during this Life and Death Stage without having had the time to carve down their names?
Qing Chen was silent.
Over thousands of years, at the cost of their lives, hundreds of people had come to this place one after another just to pursue a dream.
Be it Qin Sheng who invented the breathing technique or those seniors who left behind their ‘footprints' on the cliff, each of them had relentlessly continued to open up this skyscraping path for their successors.
As Qing Chen looked over the lines one by one, he discovered that someone had inscribed two large words on top of each line without leaving behind a name.
‘Forever young.'
These completely different words seemed to possess a very special and wonderful charm.
Forever young.
Everlasting sincerity.
Forever youthful, with boundless aspirations to embark on a new journey.
Those two words were the expectation of the person who wrote them down, his ardent hope for every successor of the Knights to always live upholding their principles without ever looking back.
A youth did not need to look back to live their life, they only needed the courage to go on without regrets.
Qing Chen took a deep breath before finally taking out his dagger. He engraved his line at the very end of the cliff.
Only faith and time remain for eternity — Qing Chen.
Perhaps, it was only right at this moment that he truly became one of the Knights.
One couldn't become a Knight just by relying on strength. You had to walk on the same path, find a group of comrades with the same ideals, and possess the same indestructible faith and unwavering will to be deserving of the title of a Knight.
Akin to a rebirth, Qing Chen felt a burst of power coursing through him, changing the genes in his blood, bones, and body.
Moreover, he suddenly found out that after unlocking the first layer of his genetic limits, the Qi inside his body had more than doubled.
It had been hard to detect because the Qi had surged together with the power, but when the rushing power gradually subsided, he felt the Qi settling in the muscles of his arms.
Fallen leaves from the distant forest were flown by the mountain wind up to the cliff, brushing past Qing Chen and the rising sun.
The boy reached out to grasp one of them. As if instinctively, he poured his Qi into the fallen leaf.
The Qi flowed from his fingers to the blade and veins of the leaf, filling each of its capillary.
All of a sudden, the originally wrinkled leaf flattened out like a blade.
Qing Chen quietly looked at the fallen leaf in this hand. Was this the qualification of a transcendent?
He had finally attained it.
What should he do now? Qing Chen pondered.
Right, it was time to kill.
If he didn't start moving now, the enemy would run away.
Thinking so, the boy left for the forest behind the cliff.
…
Countdown 36:00:00.
Inside the Forbidden Land, Cao Wei was madly racing towards the north.
He strictly followed the route he had lined out and even made sure to confirm his position every ten minutes.
According to his calculations, he should be able to cross through the outskirts and reach the wilderness outside of the Forbidden Land in five hours.
However, despite having ran for more than six hours by now, he was still unable to see the outskirts of the Forbidden Land!
He was trapped in this place.
He was trapped by the Forbidden Land.
Cao Wei was absolutely sure that his judgement of direction couldn't have gone wrong, so the mistake must lie with the Forbidden Land.
To put it more accurately, it wasn't that something went wrong in the Forbidden Land. It was because this seemingly sentient land would not let him leave.
This terrifying and magnificent existence wanted to keep him for that boy.
At certain times, Cao Wei even suspected that the boy was creeping right behind him, but no matter how hard he tried to hone his senses, he couldn't find a single trace of him.
Because he had been moving all the way forward, it was difficult to smell any scent coming from the back.
Cao Wei abruptly stopped and turned around to scan the vicinity with a grave expression.
There was no sound of footsteps, and nor was there any sign of the boy.
But he clearly felt that someone was following him, could it really be a ghost?!
At this moment, a gust of oncoming wind carried over a familiar whiff of blood, sending a jolt of shock to Cao Wei's heart. The boy had really caught up to him!
He was hiding upwind, hiding between the shadows.
The roles of prey and hunter had now been reversed.
Cao Wei continued to run for his life, but he could never shake off the feeling of being closely tailed.
Once again, he halted his steps.
"Didn't you come to kill me?" Cao Wei panted as he spoke, "Since you've already become a Knight and gained the strength, why haven't you stopped being so overcautious? Is this the way of a Knight?"
He was rushing for a fight.
The impact of the mine explosion had already injured Cao Wei's internal organs. Had he been given enough time to recover, he could have relied on the powerful physique of a C-level master to survive without a hitch.
But now he was constantly kept on the run; let alone recuperate, his injuries would only continue to worsen. This was precisely the result that the boy wanted.
What an unexpected turn of events.
Before this, Cao Wei had been the one who used the hunting tactics of a wolf pack to corner the boy.
But he never thought that after their roles were reversed, the boy would be using the very same tactics Cao Wei had previously used on him.
Just like what he once said himself, wolves were extremely cautious animals. They would not let themselves get carelessly injured on the hunt, and would never allow their prey any chance to fight back.
Translator: Zee
