On the huge pillar, Geoffrey was climbing the steep staircase step by step.
In actuality, climbing up the huge pillar was a very complicated thing.
Every one thousand steps, there would be a statue blocking his way.
When it came to the rotten and scrapped statues, he dealt with them with ease. He only needed to
carefully pass them without making any contact.
However, the intact and mobile ones were great trouble.
Every time Geoffrey encountered a statue that could move, he would forcefully pull the rope that
connected him and Ziya.
Then, at the foot of the pillar, Ziya would pull Geoffrey down from the pillar.
Ziya wasn't able to clearly see what was happening on the pillar, so he was there as a support for
Geoffrey.
Fortunately, he could still control his physical strength very well.
So whenever Geoffrey would be in danger, Ziya would immediately drag him down. And before he hit
the ground, Ziya would firmly catch him.
When the statues started chasing after them, they would run towards the nearest cave.
However, the mobile statues were tenacious. Once they locked on their targets, they wouldn't give up
easily until they were destroyed.
They circled down the stairs and chased after Geoffrey into the nearest world.
After several attempts of repeating the same process, Ziya realized that they were up for a long-term
battle. Thus, he decided to put up a big array at the entrance of the world.
Geoffrey and Ziya entered the array first.
When the statues chased after them and entered the array, the array was instantly activated.
Streaks of golden lightning burst out from all directions and pierced into the weak parts of the statues.
Crack! Crack!
The statues were charred by the bolts of lightning, but they still weren't completely destroyed. With that,
Ziya took out his God Lashing Whip.
He let out tens of thousands of golden whip shadows, lashing out the solid statues until they finally
disintegrated.
"Fortunately, the statues have been corroded over time, so they were quite easy to destroy," Ziya said
after crushing the statues to pieces.
The powers possessed by the statues in the past were absolutely greater compared to what they were
experiencing now. Even Ziya couldn't fully resist them.
After destroying the most recent statue, Ziya noticed a frown on Geoffrey's face. "What's wrong?" he
asked.
"I'm just tired," Geoffrey answered as he let out a sigh.
Personally, Geoffrey didn't have a persistent attitude.
Back then, he just came to explore the four pillars because he found them really interesting.
At first, he was fascinated by what he found out about it.
He could control other people's Other Shore Tokens at will, and he could climb up the stairs. He
wondered what he would encounter if he was able to climb up to the top of the pillar.
He also thought that if he could find his father's Other Shore Tokens there, he would have the
opportunity to change them to more powerful ones. He was excited to know how his father would react
when he found out that his Other Shore Tokens were upgraded.
But all of that was just his wishful thinking. The reality that he found out was so much different from
what he imagined.
The pillar was too high that he couldn't say for sure if he would be able to reach its top.
In the beginning, Geoffrey was still counting the steps that he had climbed.
Whenever he had climbed about one thousand steps, he would encounter the statues that would attack
the intruders.
Since he had no means to defeat the statues, he would pull the rope and descend to the bottom, and
then he would let Ziya deal with the statues.
After the statues were successfully destroyed, he would continue climbing up.
The higher he climbed, the longer it took him to get back when a statue started attacking.
There were even times when he had mistaken a stationary statue for a mobile one. Because of that, he
accidentally pulled the rope, so Ziya immediately dragged him down. In those cases, he really regretted
wasting so much energy and effort.
The process was getting so boring.
Geoffrey, who was the one climbing the pillar, was already running out of patience and wanted to give
up.
Surely, Ziya also knew about that.
He knew how tiresome and dangerous it was.
However, the fact remained that the pillar could control the Other Shore Tokens in the chaos.
Its importance was very evident.
"We've been here for a long time, huh?" Ziya sighed. "I know it's tough for you, but—"
"Yes, I know," Geoffrey interrupted him before he could finish his sentence.
Then, he grabbed the rope that was lying on the ground and climbed up again without saying anything.
Ziya was surprised at first, and then a faint smile appeared on his face.
Over the years, Geoffrey had always acted on his own and rarely accepted any responsibility.
This was totally new to him, but at the same time, it was the perfect training.
While he climbed and fell repeatedly, he eventually learned how to be patient.
He also learned how to see the positive side of what they were doing.
In fact, there was an interesting feat that could be seen when he climbed up the pillar.
The pages were connected to many Other Shore Tokens. Through the silk threads on these pages, he
could witness what was happening on the Other Shore.
Once, he saw a group of humans through the rays of light on the stairs.
He tried communicating with them, but he got no response.
So, he realized that the rays of light could only project the scenes from the Other Shore, and they
couldn't transmit his voice.
What he could do was upgrade their Other Shore Tokens by changing the rays of light.
However, there were too many Other Shore Tokens in there, and they came in various forms.
They were in the form of sand, a leaf, a stone, and generally anything else.
There were so many creatures residing on the Other Shore, so it was simply unrealistic to check them
one by one. With that, he also gave up looking for the ones possessed by Zen.
Therefore, as time passed by, Geoffrey started ignoring the Other Shore Tokens and just kept climbing
to the top.
When he climbed to a certain height, he noticed that all of the statues guarding the pillar were almost
rotten, and they no longer chased him.
Thus, his determination got a boost, and his speed steadily increased.
A few months had passed, and Geoffrey was now able to reach such a great height.
He stuck his head out of the stairs and looked up. He wanted to check if he could already see the top of
the pillar.
Finally, he saw that he was quite near. It was still high, but already achievable.
He also tried to look down the pillar.
However, he couldn't see anything except for the rope that was hanging. After all, he was already at
such a great height.
He and Ziya were only connected by this rope.
Then, he suddenly thought that if the rope had extended to such a great length, it should have become
very heavy by now. But he noticed that it was still the same.
A strange thought came to Geoffrey's mind, so he looked down again and tried to inspect the rope
more intently this time.
His expression suddenly changed as he realized that his guess was actually true. He saw that the rope
was torn apart.
But Geoffrey was so busy climbing, so he didn't know when it broke.
'This is bad. Should I go back?'
However, as soon as this thought entered his mind, he shook his head and slapped his cheeks with
both hands.
Although he still felt tired, he realized how he had worked so hard to climb this height. It would all be in
vain if he retreated now.
He still had great confidence that there were no more statues that were going to chase him, so he
convinced himself to climb all the way to the top and have a look at what was waiting for him there.
Finally, Geoffrey made up his mind and continued climbing up the stairs without Ziya's protection.
In the upper half of the pillar, he noticed that the rays of light shining upon the stairs had gradually
become scarce.
Previously, the light was densely distributed to every step. But now, every stair only had about one or
two rays of light on them.
There were still extraordinary Other Shore Tokens at the end of the light, but Geoffrey just continued to
move up.
After climbing for a few more days, he was now very close to the top of the pillar. Then suddenly, he
noticed that the color of the stairs beneath his feet had changed.
The previously gray-colored stairs glowed bright red.
Moreover, on these bright red-colored stairs, there was no more light shining on them.
"The absence of light means that there are no Other Shore Tokens connected to them," Geoffrey
muttered as he observed the stairs.
On the side of each stair, there were still many small black stones, but none of them was emitting light
anymore.
As he continued to climb, the stairs that he had stepped on all became bright red in color, and there
was still no light on them.
But after about five or six stairs, he finally saw a ray of light from one of the stairs.
The previous ones released an orange light, while this one emitted a bright red light.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda