The wailing grew clearer as they pressed forward.
It was not an angry roar, but the endless lament of a colossal beast imprisoned within the river of time, echoing in everyone's ears.
The sound pierced through rock and air, carving directly into their souls.
Lin Xiyue's palm on her shield seeped with sticky cold sweat.
An invisible hand seemed to be clutching her heart, as a mixture of frustration and sadness fermented in her chest, making her want to smash everything in sight to pieces.
"This sound... is fucking overwhelming," she muttered, her voice much hoarser than usual.
Su Wan's brow furrowed, and the cold aura swirling around her body fluctuated erratically.
The wails were like needles, precisely probing her will's defenses, forcibly churning up those deliberately sealed memories she wished to ignore from deep within.
Xia Lian was in the worst state.
Her face was deathly pale, and the fingers gripping her twin swords trembled uncontrollably.
The Ranger's keen senses became the cruelest curse at this moment, making her hear the boundless despair and pain a hundred times more clearly than her companions.
It was an infinite heaviness, enough to crush all hope.
Only Lin Qingyue's expression remained calm.
The Adeptus Breathing Method circulated on its own, its cool aura forming an indestructible dam that resolutely resisted the mind-eroding wave of negative energy.
Even so, she could feel that power surging like a tide, each wave heavier than the last as it pounded against her mental defenses.
"Everyone, be careful. This thing is polluting our emotions."
Lin Qingyue's voice was cool and clear, acting as a calming balm.
"Guard your minds. Don't let it lead you by the nose."
The group forced themselves to focus, nodding grimly as they continued toward the source of the wailing.
After passing through the collapsed corridor, a magnificent archway loomed before them.
The archway was as black as charcoal, its surface's Vermilion Bird totem long since scorched beyond recognition.
Beyond the gate lay a bottomless darkness that seemed to devour all light.
The wailing was surging from within.
The moment the four stepped through the archway, a sudden change struck!
Lin Qingyue's vision blurred, and the surrounding scenery twisted, stretched, and spun wildly, like paint dropped into water!
The concepts of space and distance were completely stripped away.
The solid ground beneath her feet dissolved into nothingness.
A colossal spiritual shock, like an invisible sledgehammer, smashed brutally into her mind!
"Ugh!"
A sharp pain surged through her, and Lin Qingyue let out a muffled groan.
She instantly focused all her mental energy, pushing the [ Adeptus Breathing Method ] to its absolute limit, desperately guarding the last sliver of clarity in her Spiritual Terrace.
When her vision finally refocused, she was no longer in that scorched hall.
Lin Xiyue, Su Wan, and Xia Lian had all vanished.
She stood upon an endless expanse of ash.
The sky was a oppressive leaden gray, void of sun and clouds, only a dead silence of Chaos.
Thick ash coated the ground beneath her feet, muffling her steps with a soft, yielding texture, as if she were treading upon the dust of countless beings burned to oblivion.
The entire world was devoid of color, a monotonous monochrome of black, white, and gray.
A Mental Illusion!
Lin Qingyue immediately heightened her vigilance to the utmost.
She tried to call out to her teammates, but her voice was completely swallowed by this silent world, not even a faint echo stirring.
The System Panel and Class Panel could still be opened, which slightly calmed her heart.
Her trump cards were still intact. This wasn't a major problem.
She looked around. At the center of the horizon of this silent world stood a charred ancient tree, unimaginably colossal.
The Nirvana Parasol Tree from the mural.
Now, only its hideous, withered branches pierced the sky, standing like an eternal sculpture of despair.
And beneath that giant tree stood a solitary figure.
A woman.
Her tall, slender back alone radiated the desolation and loneliness of one withered by time.
It was as if she had stood here for countless eons, and would stand until the end of time.
She wore a complex and magnificent red palace gown, its hem trailing in the ash. The golden thread-embroidered patterns of divine bird feathers flickered with a last faint glimmer.
Her flame-like crimson hair cascaded down to her ankles like a waterfall.
Occasionally, tiny sparks would fall from the ends of her hair, silently extinguishing in the air.
Behind her, a pair of massive, illusory wings formed of light and flame would occasionally flash by, then fade away in gloom.
Lin Qingyue narrowed her eyes.
This look, this aura...
The incarnation of the Vermillion Bird's Remnant Soul.
The aura emanating from the woman shared the same source as that mournful cry.
It was an ultimate sorrow, one that had been repeatedly boiled by time for ten million times, leaving even grief itself feeling exhausted.
Lin Qingyue tried to move forward and spoke tentatively:
"Hello?"
The figure did not budge.
"We mean no harm, we just want to help you..."
A deathlike silence.
The figure was like a soulless statue, completely sealed in its own world, utterly indifferent to anything outside.
Lin Qingyue stopped in her tracks.
Ordinary communication was meaningless to a soul that was tired even of its own existence.
She had been pulled into the inner mental world of the master of this place.
So, what about Xiyue and the others?
-
Meanwhile.
Lin Xiyue found herself in a blood-red Colosseum.
Opposite her stood another "her," a contemptuous and vicious smile hanging from her lips.
"Useless."
The phantom spoke, her voice sharp and grating.
"Always trailing behind Sis's ass, like a baby who hasn't been weaned. Without her, you're a fucking nobody!"
"Shut your mouth!" Lin Xiyue roared, charging forward with her shield raised.
"Am I wrong?" The phantom easily dodged the impact. "In every moment of danger, did you really protect her? Or are you just a parasite hiding under her halo?"
"I'll kill you!"
Lin Xiyue's eyes turned crimson as Holy Light erupted, and she swung her blade frantically at the phantom.
All attacks sliced through the air, passing right through the phantom's body.
Yet that ear-piercing mockery grew more vicious, each word and phrase precisely stabbing at her most vulnerable point.
Her rage was continuously ignited and amplified, her reason turning to ash.
-
Su Wan was imprisoned in an ice crystal cage composed of countless prisms.
She could see the Vermilion Bird Ruins outside, and see Lin Xiyue and Xia Lian not far away, but they seemed oblivious to this cage.
"Su Wan!"
A majestic yet cold voice came from outside the cage.
Su Wan's entire body stiffened.
Outside the cage stood her parents, dressed in impeccable formal attire, their eyes filled with disappointment and reproach.
"Look at what you've become!"
Her father, a highly respected Great Mage, scolded her harshly.
"Showing your face in public, consorting with those people of unknown origin! You have brought shame to our Su Family!"
"You have no sense of propriety as a young lady of a noble family!"
Her mother's gaze was ice-cold.
"We paved the way for you, yet you insisted on taking that crooked path! You have disappointed us too much!"
"Utterly improper..."
"The shame of the family..."
"Unfilial daughter..."
Each heart-piercing word turned into an invisible spiritual shackle, binding her soul tightly.
She wanted to argue, wanted to scream, to tell them how free and how powerful she was now.
But under those two stern gazes, she couldn't utter a single word.
The immense spiritual pressure made the magic power within her body sluggish and chaotic.
She raised her hand, trying to cast a spell to break the cage, but only a few wisps of weak cold air emerged from her fingertips, unable to even condense a layer of white frost on the cage wall.
The magic she took such pride in was utterly fragile before her parents' denial.
-
Xia Lian's situation was the purest and also the most terrifying.
She was all alone, running in the boundless, pitch-black darkness where one couldn't see a hand's breadth away.
She could see nothing.
She could hear nothing.
Only her own ragged breathing and wild heartbeat.
Bone-chilling loneliness drowned her like a tide.
"Roar!"
Suddenly, a terrifying roar erupted from the depths of the darkness behind her.
The sound was filled with brutality and hunger, making Xia Lian's scalp tingle just by hearing it.
Run!
She had to run!
This was the only thought in her mind.
She strode forward, running desperately in the darkness.
She didn't know the direction, didn't know the destination, only that if she didn't run, the unknown terrifying monster behind her would catch up and tear her to shreds.
The wind howled in her ears.
Her lungs burned with pain.
But she dared not stop.
She could feel the monster getting closer and closer, that foul, blood-scented stench already lingering at the tip of her nose.
Despair, like a giant net, trapped her firmly.
Why...
Why was she alone again?
She would never run out of this desperate loneliness.