Chapter 54: Vortex of Memory

"Lord of Anima," Dong Yunpo had said to Li Fengyin before they parted ways, "It is not human."

Li Fengyin silently remembered these words. He assumed this was Dong Yunpo's way of warning him.

The sky was blue with white clouds, and the black hexagonal Soul Pagoda towered into the clouds, its height impossible to gauge by looking up, resembling a pillar connecting directly to the heavens.

When Li Fengyin followed behind Li Jingshen, walking around the Soul Pagoda and the hills before them, Li Fengyin still looked up, but once again could not see the peak. When the Corpse Pagoda finally came into view, Li Fengyin could not help but fall silent: "The difference here is a bit too stark."

The white Corpse Pagoda was extremely thick, yet it was also hexagonal. However, just a dozen meters up, nothing remained but broken walls and ruined facades. Li Fengyin glanced at the [Qi Anima] beside him, but the entity showed no reaction. Could it be that the Corpse Pagoda was naturally like this?

Only when Li Fengyin stepped inside the Corpse Pagoda did he understand.

There was no conspicuous entrance gate. Li Fengyin entered the Corpse Pagoda through a cracked opening, where he saw a flight of stairs winding along the inner wall, ascending obliquely step by step along the gray stone steps.

When he reached the ruined, wall-like summit of the Corpse Pagoda, he discovered a terrifying truth: this Corpse Pagoda actually led underground!

The stone stairs wound downward, and all that could be seen was deepening darkness, illuminated only by blue-green lamps burning with dead souls that lit the path ahead. Yet in such a terrifying place, there was always an eerie, chilling sensation.

The oppressive underworld energy was unimaginable.

Now, Li Fengyin walked behind Li Jingshen. The two remained silent, leaving only their hollow, echoing footsteps behind. The entities known as [Earth] and [Human] must have also separated to guard the twin towers of soul and corpse respectively.

Then, who was supposed to be here?

Right at that moment, Li Jingshen spoke: "You must be careful."

Hearing this, Li Fengyin felt his heart tighten. Suddenly, a wave of dread seeped into his soul, though he failed to notice the strange, peculiar smile at the corner of Li Jingshen's mouth.

He blinked, and upon opening his eyes, Li Fengyin suddenly felt a sense of strangeness. He was still standing outside the village, where droplets of morning dew were scattered across green leaves in the early light.

The morning sun gradually grew hotter. Li Fengyin had intended to restock his food and water here, but right ahead on the winding path, a figure resembling a gray-robed monk was kneeling in prostration.

"Please halt your steps!"

Li Fengyin felt as though he had heard these words somewhere before, but he could not afford to wait here.

"Why must I stop?" Li Fengyin asked. "State your reasons clearly."

"Ahead lies calamity, suffering, and sorrow!"

The voice echoed in Li Ziye's mind, yet Li Fengyin could not understand. This was the path he needed to walk, yet he was being told he was forbidden to proceed, and the old man was still kneeling in supplication—this was completely unreasonable!

"What will it take for you to let me pass?"

Li Fengyin spoke aloud: "If you won't let me pass, I'll just cut you down!"

However, no further words were exchanged. With a sudden slash of his blade, the elderly monk, devoid of much flesh and blood, turned to flying ash. Then, Li Fengyin pressed forward once more. Panzhihua night rain negotiations, breaking through obstacles on the mountain highway, the impending collapse of the Zhoukou darkness, followed by striking down the heavens and charging into the Corpse Pagoda—yet behind a trace of a smile, Li Fengyin was plunged once again into the cycle of reincarnation.

"Please halt your steps!"

The gray-robed old monk ahead spoke once more: "Ahead lies calamity, suffering, and sorrow!"

Cutting him down once again, Li Fengyin proceeded forward, restocking his food and water. The village chief was very satisfied with his generosity and gifted him many fine goods, and Li Fengyin paid a sufficient amount in return. Yet as he left, the village chief muttered a single sentence, which Li Fengyin finally heard clearly: "Hellish reincarnation, beware!"

Still, he did not understand the meaning of those words, and this place was the territory of Zhoukou.

Yet another cycle of reincarnation. But that single sentence was spoken only this once. When Li Fengyin arrived at the mountain trail outside the village entrance and saw the gray-robed worshipper, he could not help but say: "It's this old monk again!"

"Huh?" Li Fengyin muttered to himself. "Why did I say 'again'?"

Yet he still could not get out. In fact, he did not even realize he was trapped within a reincarnation cycle, unable to resolve the predicament. Li Fengyin's very memories were trapped in this loop; he could no longer escape.

And when he finally made it out, when Li Fengyin walked to the very end, he would discover that the nightmare he could never escape was right here!

Yet a seed of fear had already taken root deep within Li Fengyin's heart. Harboring ghosts in one's heart was a reality everyone had to face, much like an inner demon; some people failed to escape it for the rest of their lives...

At the towering Soul Pagoda, Dong Yunpo walked at the very front, followed by Luoyu Danhen and Shen Ling, who wore her hair in twin ox-horn braids. The three stepped onto the stairs of the Soul Pagoda, ascending the white steps step by step. To be honest, the Soul Pagoda was not very wide in diameter, but it was so tall it vanished into the heights. Entering it and climbing upward step by step made one truly realize the difficulty of ascending to the heavens.

Before this, Dong Yunpo had remarked, "Actually, the biggest problem is not [Human], but the [Soul Attendant]."

"Soul Attendant?" Luoyu Danhen asked doubtfully. "What is that?"

Dong Yunpo replied, "The Soul Suppression Hall has three souls and seven qi animas, as well as two emissaries. One of them is the Soul Attendant."

"Then what about the other?" Danhen questioned.

"That would be me," Dong Yunpo said, pointing at himself with a hint of casual levity.

Yet no matter how they looked at it, the few of them could not manage to relax, because the Soul Attendant was highly likely to have already fallen under the command of the Soul Lord, and was guarding this Soul Pagoda alongside [Human].

On the first floor, they were already met with mechanical traps: volleyed arrows, burning oil, and rolling boulders. These were the defenses deployed before the tenth floor, and gradually, the spacing of their progress began to stretch out.

Hidden mechanisms were installed within the stone crevices, suddenly shooting out sharp spears, while the other side bordered the drop-off of the pagoda. Falling from here would likely end quite poorly.

Most terrifying of all were the continuous, repeated thrusts, striking over and over again in a pattern exceedingly difficult to dodge.

After encountering the first wave of continuous spear traps, Luoyu Danhen's terrifying reaction speed and blade aura played a tremendous role. With him leading the way, they finally cleared the first three floors!

By this time, Dong Yunpo, Shen Ling, and Danhen had already climbed to a height of seven or eight meters. They had to admit that these mechanisms were far too troublesome.

Dong Yunpo's arm had just been grazed, though fortunately, it was nothing too serious.

To be frank, entering the Corpse Pagoda with few people meant a lack of unity, whereas entering the Soul Pagoda with more people brought a measure of solidarity—a rather peculiar sight in its own right.

Looking out through the open skylight, the entire valley of Zhoukou could be seen. The mountain peaks were layered in lush greenery, though tinged with an austere, desolate hue.

Dong Yunpo glanced outward. As the fourth floor was about to be reached, he could not help but think of Li Fengyin: "Let's hope things go as I planned. Fortunately, the Corpse Pagoda didn't have quite so many trials and hardships."

Up to this point, they had not yet formally engaged the enemy in battle, but that very absence of conflict only added a hint of dangerous tension within the bounds of Zhoukou.