The sixth step crumbled into rubble in the blink of an eye, its fragments tumbling into the endless void. Immediately afterward, amid a series of porcelain-like cracks, a spiderweb of fractures began spreading across the seventh step.
Li Yan felt the half of his body still resting on the seventh step begin to sink. His heart jolted. Without thinking, he pitched forward and raised both hands, madness flashing in his eyes. Just as his hands caught the eighth step, the seventh shattered with a crash, instantly scattering into drifting fragments. Like a gorilla arching its back to climb a tree, Li Yan clung to the edge of the eighth step with both hands and one foot, his other leg dangling over the bottomless darkness below.
Anxiety gripped Li Yan as he watched the great swath of white jade fragments falling beneath him. He hurriedly looked around. Only after sweeping his gaze over his surroundings did he feel some relief: the cracks that had so swiftly destroyed the steps had stopped at the seventh. No fractures had appeared on the eighth. Li Yan let out a long breath, though he knew this reprieve was temporary. Perhaps it was because he had not climbed onto the eighth step, or perhaps he had yet to trigger some rule.
He was now in much the same predicament as in the previous trial, once again stranded at the edge of a step. It might shatter at any moment, and then he truly would have no recourse. He did not even know whether this counted as reaching the eighth step.
Watching the eighth ray of light that had just appeared on Li Yan's forehead flicker as though it might vanish at any moment, Ping Tu's gaze sharpened again. "He has reached the eighth step, but things