"There seems to be a missing platform there."
The pathways on both sides of the gap had different angles, and the middle section where a platform should have been was completely empty.
"Hmm, maybe we could jump across, but it feels like it would be very dangerous."
Lin Ye was also quite interested in what was on that giant platform, but going over there was too risky, and it might trigger some unknown changes.
"Shouldn't we deal with this chair first?"
Mia glanced at the high-backed chair behind Lin Ye. The old man was still sitting on it, but he seemed to have lost consciousness.
"No need. This body is just an empty shell. The thing inside it has already been eaten by the chair."
Little Guardian had been monitoring the chair's condition.
"Can you control it to scout over there? That way we won't have to go over ourselves."
Lin Ye really didn't want to go to that platform; he felt that gap was a huge problem.
"I can, but right now it's just a special mental shell with basically no combat ability. Plus, the problems it triggers might spill over onto us."
Little Guardian warned.
"You're right. So before we set off, we'd better try to see if we can open this exit first."
Lin Ye approached the white door standing in the center of the platform. The front of the door had a handle, while the back was a plain white surface with nothing on it.
"This door really is the exit, but it seems only those allowed to pass can open it. And if someone touches the door, the owner here should sense it."
Alice had been staring at the door the whole time, as if she could see through its nature.
"Is it identity-restricted? Or do we need to meet certain conditions?"
Lin Ye certainly wouldn't touch the door recklessly.
"I'm not sure either... but that point doesn't really matter."
Alice looked at Mia.
"That's right, it doesn't matter. As long as this is the exit, I can force us out of here."
Mia stared seriously at the door.
"Are you sure? Don't get us trapped in here."
Maybe because of the impression she'd left at the start, Lin Ye had always thought Mia was pretty unreliable.
"Relax. I'm really good at running away."
Mia answered with absolute confidence.
"Alright then."
Lin Ye looked at Little Guardian.
Under Little Guardian's control, the old man stood up from the high-backed chair and began walking step by step toward the pathway.
Although the old man's movements were a bit stiff, Little Guardian was very good at maintaining balance. Before long, the old man stopped in front of the gap.
The old man extended a finger toward the empty area, and that finger vanished almost instantly, as if it had never existed.
The cross-section of the finger was perfectly clean, without even a single drop of blood flowing out.
"Was that... erased?"
Mia stared at the empty area. Now she understood why there was no platform there.
"It disappeared too fast. I'm not sure what happened either. Should I make it come back?"
Little Guardian turned to Lin Ye and asked.
"The range that triggers that phenomenon should only be the area where the platform is. You can have it take a detour around the side."
Lin Ye hadn't seen exactly what happened either, so he could only tell Little Guardian to try another route.
"Leaving the pathway might attract dangerous things. We need to be ready to evacuate."
Little Guardian said to Mia.
"No problem. I'm ready."
Mia stood beside the large door and said seriously.
Little Guardian made the old man leave the pathway. Mental energy formed small platforms beneath the old man's feet, and he moved quickly across them, soon crossing the gap and standing on the pathway on the other side.
Numerous eyeballs of varying sizes appeared all over the old man's body. They first turned inward toward the old man's body, then quickly swiveled outward, staring at Lin Ye and the others in their direction.
"First grab that spiritual Rule Fragment, then pick up anything else valuable. Everything over there is worth taking."
Mia, Alice, and Little Guardian all focused on the old man. The items he picked up vanished from his hands and reappeared on their platform.
"Stop taking things! There's some kind of substance on these items that I can't handle. It can convert my power. Don't let it touch you!"
Alice suddenly turned around and stopped Mia and Little Guardian from continuing to transfer items to the platform.
Some items touched the high-backed chair, and it recoiled as if electrocuted, floating away from them.
Where it had made contact with those items, a change occurred that felt very familiar to Lin Ye.
"Huh? What is this stuff? Little Guardian, set up a mental barrier for me."
Taking advantage of the high-backed chair being affected by the conversion, Little Guardian used the Consciousness stored inside the chair to set up a mental barrier around Lin Ye. Lin Ye then used the mental purification technique to pray to the young girl, and only then did he reach out and grab a Rule Fragment.
A wisp of gray substance merged into Lin Ye's body, but the conversion phenomenon didn't appear on him.
Lin Ye didn't know what this gray substance was, but it was somewhat similar to the Deep Well Substance he had obtained from the depths of the Black Sea.
It was most likely a Deep Well Substance of extremely low purity.
'So this is the organization's stronghold in the mental world? I just raided their home base?'
Lin Ye found it absurd. He had only come into contact with that organization twice—once during the Fishing Competition, and once when they sent someone to mess with him in the Emerald Capital. None of that was a big deal, so why had the Fate Rule Fragment led him here?
He had previously thought this was the Abyssal Evil God's collection room.
"That substance is extremely dangerous. You'd better not absorb too much."
Alice couldn't help but warn Lin Ye.
"You're a little late with that advice, but it's fine. I'm the Risk Hedging Master."
Lin Ye kept touching the items that had been teleported to the platform, stuffing the smaller ones into the pockets of the Sacrificial Night gown.
The pockets of the Sacrificial Night gown seemed like a bottomless pit. As long as the items could fit through the opening, there appeared to be no limit to how many could be stored.
This was Lin Ye's first time discovering that the Sacrificial Night had this kind of function.
"Let's work together and just grab that bookshelf. That's the most valuable thing here!"
Mia suddenly spoke up.
"Alright, but once we get that bookshelf, we'd better leave here immediately."
Alice scanned the surroundings. The space around them had become extremely unstable, and some kind of change was taking place.
Black seawater appeared beneath the platform, a pitch-black ring emerged at the top of the void, and the entire space was transforming into blackness.
"Okay, I'm just about done over here too."
Little Guardian replied softly.
The old man's body was now covered in eyeballs. They tore through his body, but he was like a torch burning itself out, continuously picking up items around him. It seemed that no one could make him stop until he was completely dead.
Comments