The moment those words about the illusion sank in, tension spread through the entire crowd, no one knew who had created the illusion, no one knew when they walked into it, and worst of all, no one knew how deep inside it they already were. Every group shifted uneasily, hands tightening around their weapons, eyes darting around as if the very air might suddenly strike them dead. The silence wrapped around them heavily, everyone quietly calculating the same thing, that a single wrong step could finish them all. Some swallowed hard, some attempted to look brave, and some simply stood frozen, trying to understand how they were supposed to fight an unseen enemy when they didn’t even know where the real world ended and the illusion began.They didn’t get the chance to think further.Without warning, without sound, without even a flicker of transition, the world around them twisted. Colors smeared, shadows warped, the ground folded inward, and before anyone could gasp, they were standing ins

Kai trudged forward with the kind of irritated patience only a man who’d been in too many fights and too many stupid situations could have. On his left, the winged baby beast hopped happily, occasionally bumping its head against his leg like an overgrown puppy. On his right… the problem.The woman.The same woman who had cried, begged, and thrown herself at his feet earlier… now walked behind him like a calm, determined shadow.She refused to leave and the beast, that traitor that it was, had decided he liked her, nudging her hand every two minutes like she was his new best friend.Kai had tried chasing her away. Twice or maybe more than that but the beast purr-growled at him at those times like its saying she stays or we fight, daddy.So here they were, Kai, the greedy beast, and one very stubborn lady who apparently had no sense of danger.He pulled out the map the Grand Elder gave him. The moment the parchment lit faintly, Kai exhaled in relief.“Finally,” he muttered. “I’m back on

The Qi slammed into the nearest statues, CLAAAAANG!!!A deafening metallic sound rang out, the axe blade detached from the handle and fell uselessly to the ground, shattered at the edge.The massive Qi slash that should’ve cut mountains in half dissolved the moment it touched the statues.Not a dent, crack or even a scratch.Nothing, absolute nothing, it was like attacking a mountain of iron with a paper sword.Silence slammed over the plaza and everyone stared.Eyes wide, mouths open and souls shaking.One disciple finally whispered,“…We are going to die here.”Another corrected him shakily, “No. We’re already dead. This is the afterlife.”The plaza was still ringing from that metallic, bone-deep CLAAAAAANG when the next impossible thing happened.The shattered axe head lay useless on the ground. The Qi slash, which should’ve carved mountains, had dissolved like water against steel. And the statues, those towering, ancient giants stood untouched, unchanged, and unbothered.Every dis

Abigail hardly had time to protest before the strange force wrapped around her whole body, tugging with a quiet insistence that made resistance completely pointless. It didn’t drag her, no, that would’ve made sense. Instead, it guided her gently, almost politely, like an invisible elder pushing a child toward a destiny she didn’t ask for. Her feet moved in steady, unhurried steps, ignoring every attempt she made to stop or turn away. Even when she tried to plant her heels into the ground, they slid forward like the floor had suddenly turned into smooth ice.She tried harder to stop... nothing happened.She tried to step left... her foot stubbornly went right.She tried to turn back... her entire body ignored her.“…Okay, this is getting creepy,” she muttered under her breath, but no one heard her.She felt every gaze on her as she walked, the remaining disciples frozen in disbelief. They watched her bypass dozens of glowing statues without so much as a glance, her body heading in a st

Kai finally caught up to the little beast, mostly because the creature had stopped to sniff a glowing rock as if they weren’t in a place that could literally melt a human skeleton. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Despite darting straight into a death chamber like a headless idiot, the beast looked perfectly fine, wings fluttering casually, tail swishing like it was strolling through a meadow instead of a furnace meant to incinerate cultivators.“Good,” Kai muttered, “at least one of us here is fireproof but I wonder how long though.”With the beast leading the way, they began to move deeper, step by scorching step, and Kai immediately noticed something different from the sect’s Lavare pits. Back at the sect, the volcanic chamber had multiple pits scattered around, each radiating different intensities of heat and meant for cultivators to temper their bodies gradually. But this place? This place was a single, monstrous pit. One enormous chasm at the very end of a b