Death... and me

Eventually, one of Venali's elders sent him a Divine Sense Message. 'Enough! Leave the guy be. So what if he got outside of the Yin Death Zone ahead of you guys? In the end, he isn't your real opponent. The other Elemental Transformation Realm cultivators are. He's still not someone that could fight you, nor should you aim to fight him either.'

Venali could only follow the elder's orders and turn around to leave. "Let's hope the chance presents itself."

Fabio and the other Kamos Kingdom members finally sighed in relief after that. 'Fortunately, the Huring Country didn't force the issue.'

Rean couldn't help but ask Roan through their Soul Connection, 'That's not exactly something you would usually do. I totally expected you to stay quiet and ignore everything that guy said.'

Roan nodded in agreement. 'Usually, yes. However, it's true that I'm interested in what kind of power someone from a big country like him has. Let's see what happens in the future. It might be a good benchmark.'

'If you say so...' Rean said in response.

The next countries, who followed behind the Huring Country' shadows, began to appear after that. Of course, Kamos Kingdom's participants were between the last ones to come out...or at least part of them. Many had died to the Yin Corpses or to other cultivators. Of course, that also included people from Rean's group. Gulia didn't come back in the end.

Fabio sighed after noticing that. "It seems like she wasn't lucky enough."

However, Fabio was already very lucky with his proteges. In the end, five of them returned. He had sent six people inside, knowing that this was a very dangerous test. The worst part was that everyone that passed the first test was teleported straight away into the Yin Death Zone. If he knew what kind of test it was, he would have at least given Gulia and the others the chance to give up on the test.

Only Haera had the same result as Fabio, losing just a single one of her members. The rest of the princes and princesses had lost at least three of their members. Well, none of them were surprised by it. They had come to the Sacred Land in the past, especially Haera, the oldest king's child. This number of losses was very normal to them. One could see that strong countries only had 10 to 20 participants succeeding in entering the Sacred Land even though they had hundreds of candidates.

Jamiu Kamos, the 5th king's child, had the worst result among those from the Kamos Kingdom's Royal Family. He lost everyone from his side in this test. He already expected that none of them would enter the Sacred Land, just like all the others. However, he didn't expect that they would all die. After all, there were tests where one simply got disqualified. The first test was a good example of it. If one had fallen from the Divine Stream Currents, one would simply land in Huring City. Of course, if no one else killed them while trying to push them out of those streams. 'Father definitely won't think well of it.'

As mentioned before, the Kamos Kingdom came with 250 participants. Thanks to Rean and Roan, 243 of them passed the first test. As for the second... only 113 remained. Fabio then looked at his own proteges before saying, "That's what you can expect. If any of you wish to give up right now, I won't blame you. However, you did make it through the first two tests. The next stages are definitely going to be even harder, but you do stand a chance here. Whatever your decision might be, I won't complain."

Rean didn't mind that as his and Roan's answer was obvious. Instead, he looked at Samanta and asked, "Gulia was holding onto you when the teleport happened. Didn't she teleport to the place you were in as well?"

Samanta nodded in response. "She did, but we were caught by a Yin Corpse army not long after. We decided to separate so that the chances of both of us dying would be smaller. I don't know what happened to her after that anymore."

Samanta then looked at Regio and continued, "I met Regio and some of our Kamos Kingdom members after I arrived at the Soul Eater Sect. We did the same as the others and followed the Huring and the other strong countries from behind. Unfortunately, we still lost quite a few members as the strong countries ahead didn't kill all the Yin Corpses. Eventually, everyone discovered that the Huring Country found the teleport formation that led outside, and we all headed there. We even found a few more members of the Kamos Kingdom that came from other sides. These 113 remaining participants are the final result."

Roan nodded as he could tell that Samanta was lying. "That was the most optimal option. The army who came after you didn't cover all sides, so you at least had the chance to separate in different directions. In our case, we could only flee in a single direction as all other directions had Yin Corpses. Well, not that it was much of a problem to us."

Rean still felt somewhat down. "It's quite unfortunate that Gulia didn't make it."

Regio didn't say much as he wasn't the type to talk. "She knew the risks, as did everyone else."

Fabio was satisfied with Regio's words. "He's right. I doubt Gulia regretted her decision, as I believe none of you did either. Alright, what will it be? Will any of you give up here? If so, stay by my side once Cassia calls everyone out again."

The answer was obvious. "We're continuing."

At some point, Cassia received the report that no one else remained in the Yin Death Zone anymore. Or they left, or they died, or they became Yin Corpses. "Very well."

She then called everyone's attention before announcing, "Alright. The second test is over. Surprisingly, 45810 participants made it through. That's a lot more than I expected. We even had four who made it through in a very unexpected way. However, it's not over yet. Let's proceed with the third test."