“You truly are a pile of mud that can’t be propped against a wall,” Zhao Batian sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. “Even at a time like this, you’re still praying for a savior?”

The Holy Son cast a calculating glance upward. Han Lie was already nearing the 9,300th step, a height where every inch gained required a monumental sacrifice of essence and stamina. Zhao Batian was certain: unless Han Lie was willing to forfeit the summit entirely, he would never turn back.

This was a deliberate snare. If Han Lie ignored the cries, Zhao Batian would vent his humiliation by crushing Bai Ling and Xiao Zi into the dust. If Han Lie did return, the sheer physical cost of re-climbing those steps would ensure his failure.

To Zhao Batian, watching Han Lie fall short of the peak was a prize more precious than the inheritance itself. He leaned in, relishing the terror in Bai Ling’s eyes, waiting for the moment of abandonment.

“Hmm?”

High above, Han Lie’s silhouette froze. He turned his head, and in that instant, a vast, suffocating killing intent flooded the staircase like a tidal wave.

Xiao Yuruo, struggling at the 9,100th step, gasped as a blur of motion streaked past her. Han Lie wasn’t just descending; he had transformed himself into a living projectile, diving down the vertical face with reckless, terrifying speed.

“Daoist Han…?” she whispered, her heart leaping into her throat.

Before Zhao Batian could even register the shift in the air, Han Lie arrived. Utilizing the crushing momentum of his descent, he delivered a savage kick directly into the Holy Son’s temple.

The impact was bone-shattering. Zhao Batian didn’t just fall; he became a human skip-stone, his body bouncing violently off the jade steps. Under the mountain’s immense pressure, he couldn’t even find his footing, tumbling down like a discarded ball.

When the world finally stopped spinning, Zhao Batian looked up into the frowning face of Li Qingyu. His vision went dark, his soul trembling with a sudden, icy realization.

If he was looking at Li Qingyu, it meant he had plummeted all the way back to the 7,000th step. Three thousand steps of agony, erased in a single heartbeat.

“Holy Son? What… what happened?” Li Qingyu asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Bastard! That old dog!” Zhao Batian’s face turned a bruised purple, his veins bulging with fury. He had expected Han Lie to return, but he never dreamed he’d be kicked halfway down the mountain like a common cur.

He had truly ‘asked for a hammer and gotten hammered.’ He tried to roar a command for Li Qingyu to help him back up, but she simply shook her head—the spatial laws of the ruins were absolute, and the pressure at this level was now an impassable wall for her.

“Good… very good!” Zhao Batian hissed, staring up at the distant speck that was Han Lie. “Old monster, I want to see you try to climb back up now. I want to watch you fail!”

Back on the 9,000th plateau, Han Lie gently pulled Bai Ling to her feet. The “Old Man” persona was gone, replaced by the cold, sharp focus of a predator in his prime.

“I… I’m fine, Brother Mo,” Bai Ling choked out, wiping blood from her chin. “Please, don’t stay here. You have to reach the summit! Don’t let him ruin this for you!”

Han Lie didn’t speak immediately. He pressed a high-grade healing elixir into her palm, his eyes softening only for a second before hardening into black flint.

“Rest here. That coward won’t be coming back up,” Han Lie said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “I promise you, the day I twist his head off to kick it like a ball is not far off.”

Confirming she was stable, Han Lie turned back to the stairs. The 9,000th step was a graveyard of ambition, but he stepped onto it with the weight of a titan.

He didn’t just climb; he conquered. He had realized the secret of the path: it wasn’t just about the strength of the marrow or the stubbornness of the mind. It was a test of absolute, unshakable self-confidence.

He surged upward, eventually passing a panting Xiao Yuruo once more. She looked at him with a mixture of awe and exhaustion, her strength spent.

“I’ve reached my limit,” she wheezed, leaning against the cold stone. “The rest… is up to you.”

Han Lie offered a sharp nod and vanished into the mist above. Xiao Yuruo finally collapsed at the 9,368th step, her essence completely burned out. She had secured the second-highest position, but all eyes remained fixed on the lone figure above.

The higher one goes, the colder it gets. Han Lie felt the truth of the proverb in his soul. Time became a distorted memory—days, perhaps weeks, bled into one another as he crossed the 9,700th and 9,800th marks.

By the 9,900th step, the pressure was no longer physical; it was as if the heavens themselves were pressing a thumb against his existence. Sweat blinded him, stinging his eyes, and his breath came in ragged, burning gasps.

He stopped. His body trembled, locked in a stalemate with the gravity of the gods.

Below, the spectators held their collective breath. Xiao Yuruo’s heart hammered against her ribs, while Bai Ling squeezed her eyes shut, praying into her blood-stained palms.

“Brother Mo, please… don’t stop now!” Bai Ling cried out in the silence of her mind. The guilt of his descent weighed on her more than the mountain ever could.

Even Dongfang Xuehong, watching from the shadows of the lower steps, let out a long, slow breath. “Come on, kid. Show them.”

At the 7,000th step, Zhao Batian began to cackle, a manic, broken sound. “That’s it! Stay there! Die there! You threw it all away for a girl, you old fool! Hahaha!”

But Han Lie wasn’t dying. He was breathing. He reached deep into the core of his reconstructed body, igniting the very foundations of his jade-like bones.

With a roar that shook the mist from the peaks, he slammed his foot down on the 9,901st step. Then the next. And the next.

Each step was a battle for his very soul, a clash of titans between his will and the ancient laws of the ruins. Finally, his hand reached out and gripped the edge of the final plateau.

The 10,000th step. The summit.

As Han Lie pulled himself over the threshold, the crushing weight vanished instantly, replaced by a crystalline silence. He stood tall, his silhouette framed against the sky, looking down at the world he had just conquered.

He was no longer a consort or a senior. He was the master of the climb.