Asking for Trouble

He clearly remembered the agony from the last time he had forcibly crossed the barrier, when it felt as though his organs were being crushed.

The world beyond the barrier was not a place ordinary cultivators could set foot in.

Gu Sheng did not hesitate and stepped across.

In an instant, the world spun around him. Five times the pressure crashed down like a mountain, and Gu Sheng's bones creaked under the unbearable strain.

His face turned deathly pale, veins bulging across his forehead.

"Humph!"

Gu Sheng let out a muffled grunt and staggered back three steps before steadying himself.

The lava beneath his feet was as thick as glue. Moving even an inch required an immense amount of Spiritual Power.

Outside the barrier, Ling Xiao's eyes widened.

"How is that possible? He wasn't blasted back out?"

Inside the barrier, several sharp gazes simultaneously turned toward the newly arrived intruder.

Gu Sheng could feel the scrutiny and hostility in those gazes, like a pack of beasts sizing up prey that had entered their territory.

"Interesting."

A hoarse voice came from his right.

Gu Sheng turned and saw a bald man sitting cross-legged atop a protruding slab of black rock.

The man's eyes were as sharp as an eagle's, and his bare upper body was covered in vicious scars.

"Bzzzz—"

A domineering divine sense swept over Gu Sheng's entire body without ceremony, probing the depths of his cultivation as though scraping his bones with a blade.

Gu Sheng frowned slightly. In the Cultivation World, such probing was no different from a blatant provocation.

"A mere Earth Palace Mid Stage cultivator dares enter the depths of Burning Heaven Valley?"

The bald man withdrew his divine sense, disdain appearing on his face.

"Kid, are you tired of living, or is something wrong with