Shun Long didn't have the slightest bit of shame on his face as he removed the 2 men's spatial rings and stored them inside the 'Stone of Time'.

Since he had decided to beat those guys, he wouldn't hesitate to take their spatial rings.

After throwing a look at the surrounding disciples who shot him weird looks, Shun Long simply shook his head and ignored them before he flew back to Liu Mei and the rest.

Of course, in Shun Long's eyes, today's result was only natural.

After reaching the peak of rank 9 in the Nascent Soul, Shun Long was confident in battling even early-stage Dao Kings. As for the long-haired young man and the bald man, if they hadn't decided to court death, he wouldn't have even bothered with them in the first place.

Seeing that Shun Long didn't have any plans to stay in this place any longer and was now heading deeper inside the King's palace with Liu Mei and the rest, the surrounding disciples decided to split up as well.

...

An hour later, Shun Long's group eventually came to a halt, as Liu Mei looked at Shun Long and the others and said in a low voice

''Long-ge, I won't go any further than this.''

Shun Long was slightly surprised when he heard this, but a moment later, he actually nodded his head in agreement as he said

''Alright.''

Indeed, Liu Mei had no reason to go deeper inside the King's Palace right now.

She had just completed her breakthrough and had yet to truly stabilize her cultivation base and familiarize herself with the changes that she had experienced after reaching Dao King realm.

After all, Dao King realm experts were in an entirely different level compared to Nascent Soul cultivators.

Thus, staying here, in the outskirts of the outer region of the King's Palace where the pressure of the Daos wasn't that strong and the purple lightning bolts weren't that frequent, was actually the best choice for Liu Mei.

Since practically all of the Dao King realm cultivators had gone deeper inside the King's Palace and had already entered the inner region, there was nothing that could threaten Liu Mei in this place other than the purple lightning bolts that would occasionally descend from the sky.

''Mei, you should still be careful!'' Xingyi said in a slightly worried voice as she looked at Liu Mei. Regardless of how 'safe' the outskirts of the King's Palace seemed to be, in reality, the King's Palace was still an extremely dangerous place.

Liu Mei nodded her head before she conjured a ball of death qi between her hands and allowed it to fall on the ground barely a moment later.

The tall figures of 8 undead knights dressed in black armor all appeared from the black hole, as they stood in front of Liu Mei and the others.

The 8 undead knights looked exactly the same as they were in the past, but the only difference was, that their aura had already reached the early rank 1 of the Dao King realm, the same as Liu Mei!

Since Shun Long and the others were most likely going to split as well, Liu Mei had decided to let 2 of her undead knights accompany them and protect them in case they needed it.

Naturally, Shun Long had no reason to refuse since the undead knights would indeed come in handy as they entered deeper inside the palace.

Besides, Shun Long suspected that after breaking through to the Dao King realm, Liu Mei would obtain another trump card aside from the Death Eater, so losing 8 undead knights temporarily wouldn't make much of a difference to her.

...

In the blink of an eye, half a year had already passed since the opening of the King's Palace.

In the outskirts of the inner region of the palace, Shun Long watched Jiang Chen as he sat cross-legged on the ground, while the sky above him rumbled violently as a white-colored thundercloud that covered an area of more than 1000 meters had appeared above the King's Palace.

Xingyi and Bai Longtian had completed their breakthroughs to the Dao King realm a month ago and 2 months ago respectively, while Jiang Chen and Shun Long were the only ones who had yet to breakthrough.

And today, Jiang Chen felt that he could finally reach the Dao King realm as well!

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Jiang Chen had already stimulated the bloodline of the Demonic Crow of Darkness inside his body, as 2 pitch-black wings that resembled the wings of a black crow had sprouted from his back.

However, this wasn't the end of it, as Jiang Chen stared at the white thundercloud above his head with a grim look on his face, before he also used the power of his Eternal Darkness unique physique a moment later, as a dense black aura completely covered his body along with the rest of his surroundings.

Jiang Chen could see that the white thundercloud in the sky was slightly bigger than Liu Mei's Heavenly Tribulation as well, which made him go all-out to face it.

Shun Long nodded his head when he saw this, but there was still a serious look in his eyes.

In the past 2 months, he and Jiang Chen had both witnessed Xingyi's and Bai Longtian's Heavenly Tribulations as well.

Their level of difficulty was roughly on par with Liu Mei's Heavenly Tribulation, as each of them had to face 3 bolts of white lightning.

The only difference was that Xingyi's bolts of lightning descended one after the other, in a relatively orderly manner, while Bai Longtian's Heavenly Tribulation was almost identical to Liu Mei's, as the second and the third bolts of lightning descended simultaneously.

Although Jiang Chen was confident in his ability to survive it, he had to admit that the Heavenly Tribulation was truly terrifying.

The sky rumbled for a few moments, but before Jiang Chen or the surrounding disciples could react, 3 enormous bolts of white lightning simultaneously descended from the sky, as they effortlessly destroyed Jiang Chen's Kingdom of Darkness and headed for his head.

-

Author's note: 5

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