Amon was so stunned by the voice that he somehow forgot about the pain in his hand, but it returned soon. This brought him back from his trance. He involuntarily pulled his hand out of the swirling darkness. It had become a mangled mess of flesh and blood. He couldn’t even call it a hand anymore.

He again forced his mind to ignore the pain. He popped in a curative pill and a regrowth pill.

He still heard the bell in his mind, though much softer now. This bell told him that the voice he heard earlier was not a hallucination.

He was still uncertain if he should give an answer when the sound of the bell became even weaker. He somehow understood that the offer from the voice of Heaven would expire once the sound of the bell was completely gone.

He hurriedly exclaimed, "I accept!"

Without warning, he felt like something had struck his head. A stream of information entered his thoughts, but he couldn’t make out what its content was. The process seemed to take hours, but it actually lasted only one second.

He faltered afterward. He slowly ascended as he regained his bearings. He couldn’t tell how he knew, but he knew that he already possessed the Law of Darkness. Everything felt so surreal, especially the voice of Heaven. It was... unreal.

Amon didn’t waste his time thinking about it. There were plenty of unanswered questions in the world, whether it’s this new world or the previous one. Trying to find an answer to every single question was no different from the effort to pursue insanity.

He opened his hand. The darkness elements in his vicinity gathered around his palm. Natural elemental energies were too small to be perceived. Under his manipulation, the darkness elements condensed until they became visible to the naked eye. These darkness elements danced above his palm. They moved according to his will.

"Fascinating," Amon uttered. With possession of the Law of Darkness, he held dominion over the darkness elements. He could manipulate it at will.

Amon smiled. "Hehe. Let’s put it to good use."

He floated upward again and stopped just before the dark gateway. He closed his eyes and concentrated on using his cultivation art, the Infernal Divine Absorbing Art. The art began absorbing the surrounding aether and elements. Using the Law of Darkness, he drew the elements of darkness. Combining the law and his cultivation art allowed him to suck in an insane amount of darkness elements. If he opened his eyes, he would see trails of dark light seep out of the dark gateway and into his body.

’Incredible!’ He thought. The energy that filled his black energy core was as if an ocean poured into him. He was between the feeling of being overwhelmed and ecstasy. The feeling was intoxicating. He willed his mind so as not to lose control of himself.

He cultivated for hours, days, months. He never moved from his position. Even when unknown bones were spat out from the gateway. The bones bounced off him before falling to the ground. He was unfazed. He didn’t even stop to eat or drink, nor did he consume the nourishment pill. In his current state, his body received all the nourishment it needed from the absorbed elements.

He only stopped after more than a year had passed. That was also because he was disturbed by Zee Whang, who sent a message via a battle puppet inside his black space ring. He asked for supplies because he was running short of materials.

Amon informed him that they were currently imprisoned inside a pocket dimension and could not leave. This alarmed him. Amon didn’t bother calming him. Amon told him he was working on a way out, and he still had spare materials in stock. He would call Lin Li to bring the materials over.

When Zee Whang asked him how long until they could leave, Amon looked at the dark gateway. The previously pitch-black gate now had a slight grey hue. Amon replied to Zee Whang that it would still be a long time before they could leave.

Not long after that, Dao Su asked a similar request. He ran out of live humans for his experiments. Amon decided to stop his cultivation and bring the two out to see the situation for themselves. He even left the prison box on the ground and kept the portal open so they could come out any time they wished.

They only spent a few minutes outside before returning to their workshops inside the prison box.

After that, Yuka was the one who disturbed him. She didn’t ask anything from Amon. She was bored. She could exit the black space ring at will. Every time she did, Amon paid attention so as not to get jumped by her. Though her attacking him under this situation would be foolish, since that would mean entrapping herself in this place. Nevertheless, he chose not to be careless. Yuka was a spirit beast that had been imprisoned for too long. He could not be sure her psyche was still that of a sane being.

Aside from those interruptions, Amon never stopped cultivating. Under this routine, eight years passed by.

*

Amon opened his eyes after another long, intensive cultivation session. He stopped not because someone had interrupted him. He stopped because he sensed that the dark gateway above him had become too thin. The previously black gate, with violent, swirling energies, was now a light grey portal that seemed composed of thin fog.

Another push, and the gateway should collapse.

Once that happened, this pocket dimension would cease to exist. Everything that was originally from the real world would be thrown back out.

"Hm..." Amon landed on the ground and monitored his improvement. His infernal cultivation had undergone a massive improvement. He was now a Peak Supreme Stage, two whole stages more than when he entered this cavern. His cultivation power was on par with the King Stage of the Demigod Realm. In other words, he was now stronger than the ascended Zhang Daofeng.

His divine cultivation, on the other hand, remained at the Intermediate Lord Stage. This dimension was filled with darkness elements, so it would be a waste if he didn’t focus solely on the infernal cultivation. The improvement to his divine cultivation was his body’s passive aether absorption and the aetherium fruits, which he consumed yearly. Even from only this passive improvement, he was close to reaching the Peak Lord Stage.

The role of his two opposite cultivation paths had reversed. His black energy core was now more powerful than his normal energy core.

He looked at the grey gate above. It was a pity. If he could find more ley nodes with darkness elements, he could further fast-track his infernal cultivation. Ley nodes, however, were rare. It was even more so if he wished to find one with a particular element.

’Never mind,’ he thought. He would look for information about ley nodes once he was out of here.

He touched his face. He remained bald, but beards had filled his lower face. Though he didn’t care about his appearance, he preferred not to have one. It could be grabbed or pulled during a grapple. Though it would be unlikely for his opponents to do this in a cultivation world where winning or losing relied on using mystical energies, he still preferred not to leave any chance.

He used a knife to cut away all his beards. After he was done shaving, he returned his attention to the grey gate above. He flew toward it.

It was time.

*

Outside, another Worthiness Trial was in progress. As before, eight sides fought in a battle royale. But unlike during Amon’s trial, only one participant was the object of the trial, a Hyanid with cultivation level at the Peak Fiendish Stage. The other seven were altered beast and spirit beast. The strongest beast was again the Steel-clad Titan, a Lower Primordial Beast.

Like before, the Steel-clad Titan kept to itself. The Hyanid and the other beasts left it alone. The Titan beasts were the most used spirit beasts in the trial because they were the most manageable of the captive beasts available. Its drawback was that it was too passive, but this made the trial more enjoyable to watch. Otherwise, the trial would be over too soon.

The participant Hyanid was not foreign to the Worthiness Trial. He knew the key to winning the trial was preserving his strength, goading the beasts into fighting each other, and utilizing the black pond at the center of the pit.

He had done well at provoking the altered beasts into fighting each other until there were only four opponents left. One was the passive Steel-clad Titan. Two were fighting among themselves. The remaining one he couldn’t trick into assaulting the other beast. It had been dogging him for a while now.

This forced him to resort to using the black pond. He had seen past participants survive by tricking the beast into falling into the pond, including the Titan Beasts. None could survive the pond. The black pond was one of the reasons the trial took place in the pit. It was something the trial participants could use to pass the trial. Otherwise, the participant couldn’t win because there would always be one beast that was far more powerful than the participants.

The Hyanid successfully tricked the beast, an altered beast with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a spider. When the legs of the spider touched the pond, the Hyanid thought the beast was done for. Unexpectedly, the spider beast managed to pull itself out of the pond and lunged at him.