Hummm…

The intense ringing in his ears was disorienting. Even someone as unflappable as Wu Wang frowned, rubbing his temples.

When he opened his eyes again, he was shocked to find himself in a vast, white world.

Everything around him was white. It didn’t look like a room, because he couldn’t distinguish any boundaries, not even the ground.

Wu Wang could feel himself standing firmly on a flat surface, but when he looked down, he saw nothing but pure white. He couldn’t see what he was standing on. Even when he got on his stomach to feel for it, his hands met only an invisible, wall-like barrier.

He felt unreal, as if he were drifting outside the world itself.

Swoosh…

Just as he was feeling puzzled, a holy light appeared not far away.

That’s right, it was holy light.

It shone down from directly above, its source invisible. It was as sacred and inviolable as the light from legends said to guide souls to Heaven. Directly beneath it, a flight of stairs leading upward had suddenly appeared.

Wu Wang approached, filled with doubt.

“So this is the so-called ‘Audience Ladder’?”

“Still… this is a bit of a sanity drain.”

It was no wonder Wu Wang was complaining. Its appearance was enough to make anyone shudder.

Each step was about half a meter wide and a full three meters long, but the entire surface was covered in eerie pupils that blinked in his direction. At a glance, there were dozens of eyes sizing him up with all sorts of expressions.

Some were curious, some mocking, some gratified, some angry.

It seemed every gaze a human could comprehend was present on this ladder. The stares felt like they could see through him, as if he were standing before them completely bare.

A shiver ran down his spine.

Wu Wang looked down at the Red Vertical Pupil on the inside of his wrist.

“Abyss God, they’re not relatives of yours, are they?”

But he was surprised to find that the Abyss God’s Mark had actually closed its eye.

Ever since that pervy Lord Cthulhu had put a quarantine tag on his wrist, this was the first time Wu Wang had seen it close its eye.

Oh no! Bro, don’t go to sleep on me now! Your little bro is counting on you for protection!

But this situation also led Wu Wang to a certain conclusion.

The being he was supposed to have an ‘Audience’ with at the top of this ladder was probably related to the Abyss God.

And they likely didn’t get along.

Otherwise, given the Abyss God’s voracious temperament, it would probably be trying to get him to eat the ladder right now.

“Guess I’m really walking into the lion’s den.”

Wu Wang sighed. He lifted his leg and stepped onto the ladder.

To his surprise, stepping on the ladder of eyeballs didn’t have the soft, mushy, or uneven feeling he had imagined. It was no different from a normal staircase.

Curious, Wu Wang even crouched down and tried to pry a couple of eyeballs off to play with. But what he touched was merely a flat, smooth surface. It seemed these eyeballs and he existed on different layers.

Thump! Thump!

Without the slightest hesitation, Wu Wang began to walk up the bizarre ladder.

As his altitude steadily increased, the number of steps above him didn’t seem to decrease at all.

Five minutes, half an hour, an hour…

He just kept walking upward without stopping. Time ticked by, second by second.

When he reached the two-hour mark, Wu Wang even thought for a moment that he was about to be sent back to the real world. But he was still in this white space. It seemed the countdown to return from the Instance hadn’t taken effect.

He continued walking.

Two hours, ten hours, a day…

It was as if he were locked in a stubborn struggle with this ladder. Wu Wang walked for a full day without rest or sleep.

When nature called, he would simply drop his pants and relieve himself from the great height, aiming below the ladder. The gazes of the eyes on the steps seemed to take on a slightly strange quality.

To pass the time, Wu Wang started muttering to himself.

“Hey buddy, this reminds me of a game called ‘If You’re a Man, Go Down 100 Floors.'”

“It’s got a similar vibe. Can’t you add some stage rewards? Maybe some nitro boosts or ‘get bigger’ mushrooms to make it feel more like a game? Just climbing stairs is boring.”

It was unclear if his words had provoked the being at the end of the ladder or if he had simply reached a designated spot. The moment he finished speaking, the ladder beneath his feet began to tremble.

Looking up, Wu Wang was dumbfounded.

The seemingly endless ladder had begun to collapse, step by step. It was so fast that before he could even react, it had crumbled all the way to his feet.

“Crap! Now I really have to go down a hundred floors!”

His current altitude was at least several thousand meters.

Just a moment ago, he had tried using 【Cloud-Stepping Steps】 to jump higher, but he hadn’t been able to activate it. Skills like 【Shadow Self-Strike Arts】 were also completely unusable. It seemed using tricks to ascend was forbidden in this space.

But now he was falling down.

The sarcastic thought had just flashed through his mind when his body plummeted toward the ground.

With a jolt, the expected sensation of weightlessness never came. Instead, as if waking from a long dream, his whole body snapped, and his eyes flew open.

He was shocked to find himself right back at the first step of the ladder. He was even in the same posture as when he had first stepped on it, trying to pry off the eyeballs.

What the hell? Did my save file just get rolled back?

Before Wu Wang could figure out what had happened, a voice that filled the entire white space echoed out.

【Player Yan Shuangying】

【On the Audience Ladder, you remained unshaken for 24 hours】

【The Divine Envoy acknowledges your Audience Qualification】

【Please step forward】

Wu Wang grumbled, a little displeased.

“Huh? So that’s the kind of game you’re playing?”

“Look, I’m here to see the world, not to audition for a gang. What’s next? Are you going to hand me an empty gun and tell me to shoot a hostage to prove I’m not an undercover agent?”

Though he was grumbling, he understood.

It wasn’t as if no one had cleared a Nightmare-level Instance before. But according to rumors, only a handful had ever obtained the Audience Qualification. The numbers didn’t add up at all.

So, besides obtaining the Audience Qualification, you also needed some Divine Envoy to acknowledge it?

He figured the eyes on the ladder must have had some kind of Mental Contamination effect. The goal was probably to make the chosen person climb for 24 hours without wavering, all while under that contamination.

Uh… seems I cheated.

Although the Abyss God hadn’t opened its eye, it could still filter out the Mental Contamination for him.

As for climbing upward without wavering… it wasn’t that Wu Wang was resolute; he was just bored. He couldn’t die anyway, so fear of heights and wasting time were non-issues. He had all the time in the world. If he didn’t feel like walking anymore, he could just jump off, fall to his death, and revive.

And that got approved?

With a mind full of complaints, Wu Wang followed the system prompt and took a step forward.

Hummm…

The moment he stepped onto the second step, Wu Wang’s mind instantly exploded. It was a bloating, painful sensation, as if he had received more information in a single instant than a human brain could possibly contain.

His gaze became completely vacant. He involuntarily looked up.

Two blurry figures appeared in the holy light. Both were extremely bizarre.

One had four faces. The first was a human face with closed eyes, its expression blank and gender indeterminate. The second was a roaring, ferocious lion’s face. The third was a bull’s face, conveying simple firmness. The last was an eagle’s face with a sharp, chilling gaze.

Besides that, it had four pairs of immense, white-feathered wings. Two pairs crossed to cover its body, while the other two beat to keep it aloft. He could vaguely see that beneath the wings, its legs were straight as pillars but had the shape of a bull’s hooves, and the whole thing shone like brass.

The other being was even more inhuman. It was formed by several huge, entangled wheels, each one inlaid with countless eyes. Flames flickered across its body, with lightning bursting from within.

In short, these two beings gave off only one impression. They were bizarre enough to make one’s sanity drop. They made one’s sanity plummet.

Wu Wang was screaming internally.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! What the hell is this Audience Ladder? It’s making my sanity spin!”

“These two things in front of me… they’re clearly the Cherub and the ‘Wheel Within A Wheel’ angel from the Old Testament’s Book of Ezekiel!”

“Crap! The fucking Bible can’t be real, can it?! Have western angels come over to our turf to expand their business?”

“Where are the eastern deities? Come and save me! This is an illegal border crossing!”