Chapter 806: Physical Limit
The Earth Ox picked up the rope and tied it around her waist, then stood beside the pit.
Under everyone's watchful gaze, she stepped into it, then lay on her side, hugging her knees.
She looked as if she were lying on an extremely comfortable sofa, her expression calm.
"Are you ready?" the Earth Ox asked from within the pit.
The two men on the other end of the rope quickly reached out and gripped the rope in front of them upon hearing this. The fat man stood at the very end of the rope, tying a tight knot around his waist, while Brother Wang, in front of him, wrapped the rope around his own waist several times.
Qi Xia watched the two men coldly, feeling that the Earth Ox was still being a bit too soft-hearted.
When she had hurled those two corpses, it was her final chance to give them an opportunity to back out. But these two were clearly blinded by the massive stakes of "Nine Hundred and Sixty Paths." They had considered every possibility except retreat.
"You've got death written all over your faces," Qi Xia said.
"We're ready!" The two men, not hearing Qi Xia's muttering, shouted toward the Earth Ox in the pit as they pulled the rope.
"Then... the game begins," the Earth Ox said.
The air suddenly solidified at that moment, and a tense atmosphere spread from the two men, gradually filling the entire venue.
Hearing this, the two men took a deep breath, immediately leaned back, pulling the rope. They held the rope with both hands, their feet braced against the ground, both tilting backward at a forty-five-degree angle.
But unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. They had put all their strength into it, thrown their weight back, yet they didn't immediately drag the Earth Ox out of the pit.
Their teeth clenched tightly, their faces flushed red. Not even a sound of breathing could be heard, only the faint noise of the rope swaying in the air.
The rope appeared to be specially made—soft in texture but extremely sturdy. Now it was drawn as taut as a steel cable, but the Earth Ox on the other end remained unmoved.
The two men pulling the rope kept shifting their feet in small increments, as if searching for the right foothold to exert force. They seemed to be using every ounce of their strength, pressing deep footprints into the ground.
No matter how hard they pulled, it felt as if the other end of the rope was tied to a century-old tree. They couldn't budge it an inch, not even a millimeter.
Qi Xia watched the two men struggling with all their might and found the wooden box behind him to sit down again. If he guessed correctly, the Earth Ox, as before, wasn't going to end this game quickly.
The two men in front of him would never give up—that was normal human psychology. If they were just one step away from success, even knowing they might fail, they'd rather try.
Many people who walk through life experience countless failures. The key point is that even when they see the shadow of defeat, they don't actively give up.
One of the most harmful phrases in this world is, "Since we're already here."
But "being here" doesn't mean you have to "fail." You can even leave first and look for a chance to "come again."
From the very beginning, these two men had misjudged the Earth Ox's strength. But the Earth Ox had indeed given them a chance. Now, in the second round, they had voluntarily jumped into a death trap, beyond saving even by the gods.
The two men and the Earth Ox were deadlocked for over two minutes. In an ordinary tug-of-war, the outcome would have been decided by now. But because the Earth Ox couldn't exert force and could only lie in the pit, it put the two men pulling the rope in a difficult position—neither advancing nor retreating.
"Don't give up..." Brother Wang gritted his teeth, forcing out a few words. "Even if she's strong... she'll eventually run out of steam..."
"I'm trying..." the fat man also said. "Keep going..."
The two seemed to give themselves a brief pep talk, hoping to break the deadlock. But a few seconds later, their legs trembled more and more violently.
"The divine power of the 'Beasts'..." Qi Xia muttered, stroking his chin. "This 'divine power' and 'Heaven's Vigor'... what exactly?"
Qi Xia knew that the entire space operated on "Echoes," also known as "Immortal Arts."
If the Immortal Arts of the "Heavenly" rank and the "Divine Beasts" were all "Echoes," then the "divine power" of the "Earthly" rank was naturally the same. The true "divine power" seemed very similar to "Heaven's Vigor."
"But 'Heaven's Vigor' has self-healing," Qi Xia thought to himself. "The 'Beasts' clearly don't have 'self-healing'... Is the problem with the 'Beasts' themselves, or with Zhang Shan...? Could there be another ability similar to 'Heaven's Vigor' here that specifically lacks 'self-healing'?"
He sighed and looked up at the distant Earth Ox.
The Earth Ox wasn't lying motionless in the pit. As Qi Xia had roughly guessed, she was also trembling slightly, though the movement was minimal and barely visible.
She was purely using her core strength to resist the weight of these two men.
When she had swung those four corpses around earlier and then launched her body like a slingshot far away, she was already demonstrating her terrifying core strength to the two men.
Unfortunately, they never got it.
The "Beast Ascension Betting Contract" had once mentioned that anyone who became an Earthly-ranked "Beast" would have a physical constitution at least ten times stronger than an ordinary person.
There were several key points here: first, "at least," and second, "ten times."
In other words, if a person who received "divine power" had undergone rigorous training beforehand, their physical constitution at the moment of obtaining "divine power" would far exceed that figure. Hence, "Earthly Beasts" also varied in strength.
For example, the obese Earth Monkey, no matter how you looked at it, couldn't defeat the muscular Earth Tiger in a fight.
Similarly, if only limb strength were increased tenfold, an ordinary person's muscle and bone density wouldn't be able to withstand it. So their physical bodies would also be greatly enhanced, and along with that came increased weight. Their seemingly lean bodies actually had muscle mass and bone density more than ten times that of an ordinary person.
Thus, trying to pull an "Earthly" Beast out of a small pit with a rope was like asking these two men to drag a shipping container stuck in a ditch.
"Too bad the shipping container can't kill people—the 'Earthly' can," Qi Xia said softly.
Just as the two men were on the verge of complete exhaustion, they felt the rope in their hands move slightly.
Since their hands were already numb with a burning sensation, they couldn't tell for a moment whether the rope had moved forward or backward.
"It... it seems to have moved..." Brother Wang lifted his head with difficulty and said to the fat man behind him. "Put in more effort... that woman can't hold on much longer..."
"I... I'm... trying..."
The two men pulled the rope with the last of their strength, but Qi Xia keenly noticed that their hands were gradually slipping from their original positions. Where their palms had passed, blood was dripping.
Their hands had been torn open by the intense pulling.