“Lin Yun, let’s go home, okay?” Wang Xue said softly, taking his other arm, gently pulling him toward the castle.
Burdened by guilt toward them, how could Lin Yun bear to refuse?
Soon, they reached the castle’s entrance.
Inside, it bustled with warmth and allure.
But Lin Yun stopped abruptly.
“Yun’er, what’s wrong?” his mother asked, concerned.
“Lin Yun, let’s go inside,” Wang Xue urged, her smile tender and captivating.
“No!”
“You’re fake! No matter how real you seem, you’re still fake!” Lin Yun roared, his eyes bloodshot.
With that, he yanked his hands free.
The warmth and kindness on Wang Xue’s and his mother’s faces vanished, replaced by shock and sorrow.
“Yun’er, I just want you to stay…” his mother said, her voice tinged with sadness.
“Lin Yun, without you, I’m so scared. Please hold me, stay with me…” Wang Xue’s eyes reddened, her expression pitiful.
“You’re fake! You’re demons trying to harm me, disguised as my loved ones to deceive me!” Lin Yun growled hoarsely, his voice raw.
He raised his fist, swinging it at Wang Xue and his mother.
“Yun’er, I’m your mother!” she cried, trembling, her face full of disbelief.
Boom!
His fist struck her, and her form shattered into countless specks of light.
Lin Yun swung again, targeting Wang Xue.
“Lin Yun, would you really hit me?” she asked, heartbroken.
“You’re fake, a demon!”
Boom!
As his fist connected, the scene crumbled, dissolving into countless light fragments.
The light dimmed.
When Lin Yun focused, the surroundings had changed completely.
The layout resembled the sixth floor.
“Huff… huff…”
Lin Yun panted heavily, sweat beading on his forehead, tears lingering on his cheeks.
It took him a while to fully recover.
The illusion had been so vivid. Thankfully, he’d held firm in the end.
“Master, you were likely caught in an illusion. I tried calling you, but you couldn’t hear,” the artifact spirit said.
“B-But…” Lin Yun’s voice trembled, his face pale.
Though he’d shattered the illusion, knowing it was fake, striking the images of his mother and Wang Xue still tore at his heart.
“Master, see through the surface to the essence. They were your inner demons, not what you saw. You destroyed your demons,” the spirit explained.
“Thank you. I understand,” Lin Yun said, feeling slightly comforted.
Everyone had emotional knots, weaknesses, and pain. The illusion had exploited these.
The light binding was the first test to reach the seventh floor; the illusion was the second.
After entering the portal, the initial light binding seemed like the only hurdle. Breaking it lowered his guard, making the illusion more insidious.
Most, even recognizing the illusion, would lack the will to break it or the courage to destroy it.
Lin Yun suspected entering the castle would count as failing the seventh floor, sending him back to the sixth.
His unwavering resolve had saved him.
His goal was to one day truly revive them, not to be ensnared by illusions and sink into delusion.
“This is the seventh floor. I wonder what challenges await to reach the eighth,” Lin Yun murmured.
That test had nearly tripped him up.
He began exploring the seventh floor, seeking the entrance to the eighth.
In the center stood a single golden stone pillar.
“This seventh floor is quite different,” Lin Yun noted.
Unlike the lower floors, it had only one pillar.
Gleaming as if cast in gold, it was etched with incomprehensible runes.
Since the four alliance leaders had reached this floor, Lin Yun wanted to discover its merit.
He sat on the cushion beneath the pillar.
Buzz!
The pillar’s top instantly radiated brilliant light, cascading down to envelop him.
A scene materialized before him.
A human figure stood there, then shattered with a *boom* into countless particles, slowly reassembling.
The process was deliberate, displaying every detail—flesh, organs, meridians, even hair—reconstructed in an entirely new structure.
“How marvelous!” Lin Yun exclaimed, awestruck.
He realized it was showing him the body’s construction down to the particle level.
For two hours, the reassembly unfolded.
Boom!
The figure shattered again, this time slowly, revealing the body’s particle-level structure through disintegration.
This took another two hours.
Once complete, only particles remained, then reassembled again over two more hours.
Finally, the light faded, and the scene vanished.
Lin Yun opened his eyes.
“Haha, fascinating,” he said, smiling.
Observing the body’s particle-level construction and decomposition gave him a new understanding of the physical form.
Like a complex machine, it seemed intricate until fully understood, revealing its simplicity.
This would greatly aid his future physical cultivation.
The Soul-Breaking Poison’s potency lay in infiltrating every particle of the body.
These visions were now etched in his mind.
With them, Lin Yun felt confident he could reach the Nirvana Body, given time to cultivate.
He stood up.
“The higher I go, the greater the merits. Time for the eighth floor,” he said, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
