Chapter 452: Path of the Divine Soul
Once Khal placed his palm atop the gate and the unfamiliar voice reached his ear, he quickly nodded and accepted the offer to ascend to the Third Realm.
Whoosh!
With a gentle white glow that has enveloped his body, Khal watched as he was teleported and soon found himself in an unfamiliar and least expected location.
"Huh? Where am I?" Khal was slightly surprised as he watched how he all of a sudden was teleported into a mountain peak which was so high up in the sky that the clouds were several miles below him while he could even clearly see the stars in the dark sky above his head!
Furthermore, to make things even more confusing, he at this moment was standing before a gate that looked like nothing he has ever seen before.
The gate was open and its shape was curved, looking almost like a bridge. It seemed to be made out of some kind of black wood, however, when Khal took a closer look he was surprised to see how thin white lines were swirling on its surface, almost like little worms.
Also, its outer edges were carved in a way that they formed unique symbols, giving it a rather mysterious and ancient feeling to it.
[This gate was made out of Soulless Wood.]
"Soulless Wood?" Khal raised a brow as he extended his palm and gently placed it atop it, only to feel its almost freezing surface.
[Soulless Wood is an extremely rare type of wood, so rare that even in the Sixth Realm it is hard to find.]
"Is it harmful to others or does it have anything special use?" Khal asked as he placed a finger below his chin and started to ponder.
[Although it can’t kill others like other types of woods such as the Poison Mist Wood or the Muscle Twisting Branch, it indeed can cause harm to others.]
"How?"
[According to records, Soulless Wood can absorb others’ souls if one’s soul is damaged and in the close vicinity. However, they also say if one has a firm soul, just being around one can one’s soul get refined greatly!]
"Oh? Is that so?" Khal exclaimed out with surprise, but as he felt no change in his soul not in his Soul World he decided to explore other parts of the mountain top.
However, strangely enough, after walking for several hundreds of meters on the seemingly empty mountain top, even descending a few miles and stopping just before he could have reached the clouds, Khal was shocked to see that except for the Soulless Wood Gate there was nothing else around!
"This is weird. There is nothing around here." Khal mumbled as he walked around the Soulless Wood Gate.
Though it was not long before his steps suddenly halted, and as if wanting to see something he quickly walked through the gate.
And to his great surprise, the moment he went through the gate, he watched as a small temple the size of a cottage emerged out of thin air before his eyes!
"What is this place?" Khal decided to walk inside and see what resided in the interior of the small temple but had to be disappointed that except for a single scroll there was nothing else inside at all.
"I wonder who left you here?" Khal asked loudly as if he wished to get an answer but for obvious reasons got none, and once he held the scroll in his hand he examined it.
The scroll had an average size, no bigger than a mature human’s lower arm. It was covered in white leather and white animal fur, but once Khal opened it he had to see how its papers were black and the words written on it blood red!
Just like how mellow did it look on the outside, it looked just as eerie on the inside, giving Khal a feeling like he was reading not a sacred text but instead an ancient forbidden technique that just by looking at made one commit a huge sin!
Khal was confused as he held the scroll in his hand as this was his first time getting such a feeling after looking at an object, but he quickly regained his composure and decided to read it.
However, not even after reading the first few words, his face confronted into a painful grimace before the scroll in his hand fell onto the ground and he subconsciously grabbed his chest with an incredibly pale face.
"What... The hell is going on?" watching how bean-sized sweat flowed down his face onto the wooden floor below his feet, Khal swallowed nervously and looked at the scroll with a small hint of fear in his eyes.
Just now, the very moment he started to read the text, he felt as if something inside him was grabbed firmly and got twisted in a rather merciless way, almost as if a ghost wished to tear something out of him!
[That something very likely was your soul. It seems that scroll is the path you have to walk after choosing the Divine Soul and you have to learn it to ascend to the Fourth Realm and continue your cultivation.]
Khal wiped the sweat away from his forehead and after calming his fast heartbeat down leaned forward and picked the scroll up.
"So you say that this scroll is like a catalog of some sort that will help me walk the path of the Divine Soul?"
[Yeah, but with the sole difference that this catalog can kill you as you have experienced yourself how it attacked your soul the very moment you wished to learn it.]
Khal remained silent for a second or two before he sighed and asked, "Do you think is there any other way for me to walk this path?"
[There is none. Once you have decided to walk one or more paths, there is no turning back. You have to walk until the very end.]
"But how should I learn... Follow the instruction of something that literally tries to shred my very soul into pieces the very moment I try to comprehend it?" Khal asked with slight annoyance in his tone of voice.
[Well, unfortunately, that is something you have to figure out yourself.]
