Virus King - Chapter 182

Chapter 182: Endless Abyss! A Persistence Worse Than Death!

TL: YYang

The clearing of the 100th layer.

It did not bring Chen Bai the slightest bit of joy.

Because he knew that the true trial might only just be beginning!

In fact, that was indeed the case!

Starting from the 100th Layer of the Abyss, as long as there was the shadow of an Abyss Lord present, almost all of them came with the enhancements of a third-transfer profession.

Of course, there was some good news as well.

Beyond the 100th Layer of the Abyss, there were certain layers where no Abyss Lord existed!

That’s right.

In some layers of the abyss, not only were Abyss Lords absent currently, but even in the historical records of the Abyssal Well, there had never been any.

The reason was simple: the environments in such abyssal layers were excessively harsh.

Not to mention humans or other creatures, even demons and all sorts of other beings found it nearly impossible to survive in such conditions.

Naturally, no demon could thrive under such brutal environments to gain the Abyssal Well’s recognition and become the Abyss Lord of that layer.

This might have sounded like it would save Chen Bai quite a bit of time… What a joke!

If anyone were to ask who had come closest to the border between life and death, Chen Bai would undoubtedly raise his hand to enter the competition.

He had already lost count of how many times he had died.

That first death at the hands of Gilbert had even made him involuntarily doubt himself!

Doubt what?!

It was simple!

How could someone like Gilbert, a Shadow Sword Demon, have managed to kill him? A third-transfer profession that weak—although impressive for a Lesser Demon Lord—how the hell had that guy managed to kill me the first time?!

Exactly!

Gilbert’s strength depended on who you compared him to!

After entering the 100th Layer of the Abyss, the Abyss Lords he encountered again gave Chen Bai only one feeling:

A fate worse than death!

There was even a moment when he was tempted to stop activating the Time Hourglass and using its ability to reverse time.

He thought about just letting himself die and being done with it.

Especially on the 143rd Layer of the Abyss, when he faced that legendary Balor Flame Demon Lord. After dying fourteen times in a row, climbing all the way back up from the 1st layer to the 143rd layer each time, he still saw no possibility of defeating his opponent.

It was only after his fifteenth death, during a “friendly conversation” on the 17th layer with a Koutao Fish Demon—a certain Demon Prince’s conveniently opportunistic father—that he gained some insights about the Balor Flame Demon and the special demon profession rare even among demons: the Lava Sovereign.

By luring it out of the magma lake, using the terrain to collapse a small mountain and seal off the lake, and employing Hellfire—a flame even Flame Demons could not withstand—he finally wore it down over an entire day and killed it.

That was also the only Abyss Lord Chen Bai encountered in the abyss that was completely immune to his Influenza Virus.

Fortunately, Balor Flame Demons were an exceptionally rare demon species. Their unique living environment made them highly repellent to other demon groups, so their appearances were exceedingly uncommon.

Beyond that, there was another individual who was extraordinarily troublesome and worth mentioning!

In the abyss, aside from demons, there were other species that had been baptized and accepted by the abyss, becoming rare abyssal races distinct from the demon lineage.

The most famous of these were the Fallen Angels.

And this one was a Lord of the 196th Layer of the Abyss.

Chen Bai was one hundred percent certain that it was absolutely a being whose true form was at the pinnacle of Emperor-tier—perhaps even a quasi-divine entity surpassing level 90!

The dragon race was a supremely powerful lineage across the myriad realms.

And those dragons who underwent the baptism of the Abyss, transforming into Abyssal Demon Dragons, became unimaginably formidable.

Not only did they possess overwhelmingly strong physical bodies, but they also retained their innate advantage of flight and wielded terrifying magic!

However, compared to that absurdly overpowered Balor Flame Demon, this Abyssal Demon Dragon King only caused Chen Bai to die four times.

Even though dying four times was already an outrageous ordeal, especially considering that during those four journeys, some of the Abyss Lords defeated through sheer luck in earlier layers had once again caused Chen Bai’s death.

Chen Bai no longer had any idea how many times he had died.

All he knew was that, at this very moment, his entire world was reduced to nothing but the Abyss before him.

An Abyss and darkness that seemed insurmountable forever!

One enemy after another.

They seemed endless, as if they could never all be slain.

This kind of soul-crushing despair arose in Chen Bai’s heart more than once, tempting him to give up more times than he could count.

But in the end, he gritted his teeth and endured it every time.

In his previous life, Chen Bai did not possess destiny-like luck, nor did he have some godlike talent that could be described as a stroke of divine genius.

The only thing about Chen Bai that was praiseworthy was his unwavering perseverance, his refusal to give up no matter what.

And the will to survive for survival’s sake, nurtured by growing up alone all these years.

The word “persistence” sounded simple enough, but to truly embody it—how difficult was that?

It was precisely this unyielding will that allowed him, with his low-level talent, to become the famed White Mage Saint in his previous life.

It was also this will that enabled him, in that strange dungeon where he first encountered the “Time Hourglass,” to row a small boat alone across an endless expanse. A world so vast it felt even more boundless than the ocean, where it seemed there would never be an end.

Eventually, he could no longer tell how much time had passed before he escaped that bizarre dungeon and obtained the “Time Hourglass,” whose purpose had remained a mystery even in his previous life.

Life is like a journey against the current; to stop moving forward is to be swept back.

But sometimes, stepping back does not lead to calm waters and open skies.

Death is like the long nights of summer, granting a peaceful, eternal slumber.

Death is the end of all things, allowing one to relinquish every persistence.

But Chen Bai refused. Just as he had once refused to drown in that eternal river, he now refused to submit to this Abyss that seemed to stretch on forever.

This Abyss was like a bloodthirsty maw, devouring all that entered it.

This Abyss was like a labyrinth named mediocrity!

Even though Chen Bai’s strength had already made him a frontrunner in the trial grounds,

the more he saw, the less content he became!

Chen Bai was no exception.

He would never accept mediocrity, so he was determined to measure the Endless Abyss with his mortal body. He needed to see how many layers it had and how insurmountable its challenges truly were.

His confidence rested not only on his lifelong mantra of “persistence,”

But also on his greatest asset:

Because time was always on his side.