Soon after they landed in the Dark Canal, everyone broke off. The Elders of both factions rushed in all directions—stepping on the wind, teleporting, or running on four legs—while even the Overlords parted space and disappeared. Soon, the only ones left were the B-Grade disciples—eighteen people in total—and their accompanying Elders.

Jack inspected these Elders. Each faction had sent one middle A-Grade and two low A-Grades. It was a considerable force, enough to deal with most threats the Dark Canal could throw their way—assuming they didn’t push their luck. To Jack’s disappointment, Elder Puerto wasn’t present. Elder Owlhead was. He stood with his muscular arms crossed and face looking straight ahead as if cosplaying some ancient Egyptian god.

Besides Elder Owlhead, who was the leader of their faction’s side at the middle A-Grade, Great Silver had sent two early A-Grade Elders: a shapeless brown blob with limbs and eyes swimming over its surface, and a scantily-clad, female double devil. Jack wondered if she also possessed two sets of genitals, but he didn’t want to find out.

On the other side was a four-legged beast wrought of shadow. Darkness made up its body, dancing over it like flames, while wicked red eyes shone from within. It was the middle A-Grade Elder of the Fiend King faction, flanked by two early A-Grade Elders resembling the classical devil of Earth mythology—curved horns, bat wings, triangular-tipped tail, trident in hand. Their body was bulky, red, and covered in black fur. Surprisingly, one of the two was short and chubby.

These six Elders came together to oversee the eighteen disciples headed by Strawpin and Fiend Prince.

“We will now head towards the Hall of Trials,” Owlhead said in a neutral voice. Jack liked this guy. He seemed impassive but fair. “As you all know, its location changes every delve. We will wander in its general direction until we Elders sense the Dao ripples it gives off, then we’ll make a beeline for it. This is not a resource-gathering trip—the Dark Canal is too dangerous for Barons. Just follow us, stay in line, and pray we don’t run into anything too strong.”

Jack raised a brow at that. He leaned towards the nearby Strawpin, whispering, “Does that really happen?”

“Sometimes,” she whispered back. “Even late and peak Autarchs can disappear in the Dark Canal. It’s not unheard of for the entire disciple group to go missing—though it’s certainly rare.”

“I wish something was easy for once.”

“Relax. The Elders are powerful—they’ll keep us safe as long as we just stick close.”

How could she know that Jack was planning to do the exact opposite? Playing it safe wasn’t his style. The Dark Canal was filled with other opportunities, and he had the power of a middle A-Grade. He could look for them. If he stuck with this group, sure he’d reach the Hall of Trials, but he’d miss everything else on the way.

“I’m leaving these guys. Will you follow?” he asked Brock and Starhair telepathically.

Starhair hesitated. “I’d rather follow you than strangers,” he finally said.

“I go where my big bro goes,” Brock replied. “And if we want to rejoin the group later, I can track them down.”

“You can?”

“Some of these disciples are my bros. I’m aware of their general direction.”

“Really!? How long have you had this skill for?”

“Since forever. Why?”

“...Nevermind.”

Owlhead and the shadow beast—apparently called Elder Shadowhound—were giving a set of careful instructions to the group, but Jack didn’t care much. “Can we leave the group if we think we see an opportunity?” he asked.

Elder Owlhead struck him with a stare. “If you break off, we won’t save you,” he replied.

Jack nodded. Then, without another word, he turned into a streak of purple light which vanished in the distance. Brock and Starhair followed a beat later.

The rest of the group was left stunned. Elder Shadowhound laughed, the sound like a malefic hyena. “What arrogant disciples you have, Owlhead,” it said. “Your faction sure enjoys humiliating itself!”

Its voice was gravely, much unlike its laughter. Owlhead remained silent, his gaze stuck where Jack and the others had disappeared. Strawpin was looking in the same direction—her eyes filled with shame and anger.

Good riddance, she thought to herself. It’s bad enough that you took three of our spots…but you did it just to suicide immediately!?

“Let’s go,” was all Owlhead said, leading their group into the darkness.

***

The Dark Canal was a massive, frothing mass of water. Stone islands floated on its surface, their positions haphazard.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The first thing Jack realized was that these stones weren’t really islands. Nothing connected them to the bottom of the ocean. They simply floated on the surface, slowly moving in random directions and tipping over when pressure was applied on their sides. Yet, for all intents and purposes, they felt exactly like stone.

Jack had no idea what magic kept them afloat—or why their speed and direction seemed completely irrelevant to the frantic water below.

Each stone island was only a few miles across—a normally insignificant distance to people of their level, yet proportions changed under the massive pressure. In the Dark Canal, where the Dao was suffocatingly dense, Jack needed a few seconds to fly over each island. Teleporting was out of the question. Not only did the dense Dao prevent him from moving long distances and make the process exhausting, but he also had no intention of teleporting outside his perception range. That would be blindingly stupid.

The three of them resembled rays of light as they flew over the dark ocean. Each stone island was small, but the distances between them were random. Some were almost touching each other. Others were tens of miles apart. Given that the Dark Canal was a thousand miles wide and several thousand long, the area they had to cover was tremendously large.

Even half an hour into flying, they’d run into neither opportunities nor monsters. Starhair was the first to break the silence.

“Maybe we should—”

Before he finished his words, a dark pink tentacle burst out of the water below, intercepting him and wrapping around his body. He made a sharp shriek as it pulled him downward.

Jack reacted instantly. Before the tentacle could retract, a Meteor Punch erupted on its middle part, cutting it clean off and releasing Starhair. The explosion was far weaker than usual—it was more like a grenade than a meteor, and the energy ripples only spread for a few miles before getting suppressed by the ambient Dao.

“Behind me!” Jack shouted. Eleven more tentacles emerged from the water, surrounding him—which meant that the monster’s body was directly below him. He readied his punch and smashed it down. Supernova exploded against the ocean. Dark water shot in all directions, revealing the shrieking mouth of a creature straight out of a nightmare. While it possessed twelve tentacles—now eleven—its body was that of a manta ray, hiding flat right below the water surface. Most of it was just a wide, gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth. Starhair had been instants away from getting devoured.

Jack’s punch had smashed right into the monster’s mouth, piercing it and exploding out the other side. The monster rocked in angry panic, smashing down on him with each of its eleven remaining tentacles. A golden brorilla appeared for each of them.

“We got you, bro!” they said in unison, using their bare arms to wrestle the tentacles. Jack used this time, when the monster couldn’t move, to unleash a barrage of punches at it. Holes appeared on its thin body. Black blood merged with the water.

Jack’s strikes hadn’t been random. They traced a line of holes across the monster’s midsection. Finally, it couldn’t take it any more, and it ripped in two, spilling multi-colored juices on the water. Jack could sense they were radioactive, though that didn’t affect him. The tentacles seized before losing their power, and the monster’s entire body crumbled, crushed by the immense pressure the moment its Dao dissipated.

Soon, only a core remained, alongside a frightened Starhair. “I almost died,” he kept muttering. “That thing almost killed me. In an instant!”

Jack made a grasping motion, pulling the monster’s core out of the water and into his hand. “Early A-Grade,” he said. “Not particularly strong though. Can any of you use a chaos-attuned core?”

“Not me,” Brock said.

“I… I can’t either,” Starhair replied, snapping out of his fright. “Did you guys see that? The thing almost killed me! It came without warning!”

Jack wasn’t compatible with the core either. He pocketed it, replying, “You should be careful.”

“I can’t do much. I’m not a monster like you two—an A-Grade enemy can instantly destroy me!”

“I know. Just stay close to us, and we’ll protect you.”

Starhair muttered something under his breath, the sound unintelligible, then scuttered closer to Jack like a wet cat. A rancid smell hit Jack the moment Starhair approached—the octopus monster had covered him in some foul liquid when it grabbed him.

Brock was still staring at the water below them. “So strong…” he said.

“Yeah,” Jack replied, his face stony. They weren’t referring to the octopus. An A-Grade monster had randomly attacked them in the middle of nowhere. That was the very apex of power, enough to become an Elder in the greatest factions of the universe, yet here it was only the level of common mobs.

Just what kind of place was this Dark Canal? How powerful was it? How high-level?

Like a peak A-Grade dungeon… Jack realized with a shiver. Suddenly, he didn’t feel as confident anymore. Early A-Grade monsters were fine. They’d probably be able to defeat middle A-Grades as well, since they were slightly weaker than cultivators of the same level. However, if they ran into a late A-Grade or peak A-Grade monster… They might die.

“Should we join back with the group?” Starhair suggested, following Jack’s reasoning.

“There’s no point.” Jack shook his head. “If a late A-Grade monster appears, being with the group won’t save us. The strongest Elder was only middle A-Grade. If anything, the group is larger, so it draws more attention. Traveling by ourselves is the safest option.”

“What if we’re unlucky?”

“Then we can only blame our bad fortune,” Jack replied, shrugging. “You cannot escape chance. Sometimes, all you can do is hope.”

“...I don’t like the sound of that,” Starhair said, but there was nothing anyone could do. Jack was right. The safest way forward was alone.

The next hour was peaceful. They’d kept moving deeper into the Canal, though at an odd angle. It wasn’t the fastest way forward, but it meant they had less chances of running into other cultivators. After all, in this perception-isolating darkness, allied and enemy Elders could be just as dangerous as the native monsters.

They did run into another early A-Grade monster. It was an amorphous mass of eyes and twisting limbs—as if the monster was trying to imitate human arms but wasn’t sure what they looked like. Jack and Brock took out this monster as well.

They were beginning to see a pattern now. The mindless monsters infesting this place were much closer to the universe’s space monsters than the usual residents of this world. Was there a point to this comparison? Or was it coincidence?

In fact, as they traveled, Jack realized this entire place was very similar to the Space Ring of Trial Planet. A large darkness filled with bubbles of safety, between which prowled chaotic space monsters. Was it possible that Archon Black Hole, who’d participated in creating Trial Planet, had heard of this place?

No—if that was the case, Venerable Saint Thousand Shell would have known as well. This was either a convergence of laws or a coincidence. Jack withheld his judgment for now—he had a feeling it would become clear later on.

Three hours into their exploration…something finally changed.