The fight against the volcanic giant had been thoroughly satisfying for Jiang Chen. The only blemish was that, inside this cavern, the giant's home-field advantage was simply too pronounced.
If Jiang Chen hadn't possessed an endless array of tricks — not to mention the bloodline he'd refined from the Vermilion Bird divine creature — he could very well have suffered a real setback against the volcanic giant.
Of course, Jiang Chen had deliberately chosen to engage it this way.
In truth, fighting the volcanic giant was one thing; clearing this trial was quite another.
To pass this stage, brute force wasn't the only option — one could also rely on wits. After all, the trial simply demanded that one bypass the volcanic giant's guard and find the exit to the ninth stage nestled within its lair behind it. For any cultivator blessed with sharp intelligence, a head-on clash was far from the only path forward.
A direct confrontation was arguably the most foolish choice of all.
Jiang Chen had chosen to fight head-on not because he was foolish, but because he wanted to harness the volcanic giant's ferocious power to test his own strength and hone his combat abilities at the same time.
At this moment, Jiang Chen was fighting with mounting excitement. When the volcanic giant unleashed its barrage of heavy fists, Jiang Chen used the void runes to meet them head-on — actually managing to constrain and even neutralize those devastating blows with sheer spatial manipulation.
Though the volcanic giant's intelligence was limited, it could tell that it held little advantage over this human cultivator. In fact, it had already taken more than a few hidden losses.
After trading blows for a stretch, Jiang Chen had roughly mapped out the giant's fighting style and identified the weak points in its defenses.
The area around the giant's waist and ribs was comparatively lacking in defensive resilience.
Once Jiang Chen had pinpointed the weakness, he naturally exploited it to the fullest.
Strike after strike rained down on that region, and the volcanic giant's defenses truly began to crumble. In an instant, its guard was thrown wide open.
Seizing the opportunity, Jiang Chen transformed into a streak of brilliant light and shot through the gap along the giant's flank.
The volcanic giant reacted and instinctively moved to give chase.
But once Jiang Chen fully unleashed his speed, how could the lumbering giant hope to keep up?
Before long, Jiang Chen had burst past the defenses, located the exit to the eighth stage, and vanished into the shimmering light. The radiance dimmed, and the scene before him shifted once more.
"So the eighth stage… is cleared just like that?" Even Jiang Chen himself found it somewhat hard to believe. Still, the jade slip confirmed it — he had indeed passed the eighth stage.
"What the hell — if the eighth stage is this hard, how many of those sixty geniuses could possibly break through it?" Jiang Chen felt a flicker of irritation.
But he quickly regained his composure. Thinking about it, the eighth stage was one of the final three — the most critical hurdles. It would be strange if it *weren't* difficult.
A low difficulty would have been the real anomaly.
Outside, the commotion was deafening.
"He cleared the eighth stage! Heavens — how long has it even been? He's already in the ninth! Which sacred land's genius *is* this?" Everyone was itching with curiosity.
The second-place contender had only managed to enter the seventh stage so far, with no signs of breaking through anytime soon. And this fellow had already charged all the way to the ninth? Was he planning to clear the entire trial?
By this point in the second phase, more than half of the geniuses had been successively eliminated, stopped dead at the earlier stages.
Those who had made it into the sixth stage were already few in number.
And those reaching the seventh? Precious few.