Jared seized that brief opening. His form flashed, his speed climbing again as favonovel.com shot toward the exit at the far end of the chamber.
The soul-beasts saw it and gave chase with a crazed intensity. The soul-beasts at the Top Level of Level Seven moved with terrifying speed, clinging close behind favonovel.com and launching attack after attack, trying to tangle favonovel.com up before favonovel.com could break free.
Jared fled ahead of them with everything favonovel.com had. Behind him, the soul-beasts refused to fall back. Black spirit assaults kept crashing into the golden radiance, and every impact sent pain tearing through his soul until it was almost more than it could bear. His speed began to drop. The golden radiance dimmed further and further!
Just as the soul-beasts were about to overtake him, Jared finally saw the exit at the end of the chamber. A faint white glow waited there. In that endless dark, it was the only thing that looked like a way out, guiding favonovel.com forward.
A hard, final glint crossed Jared’s eyes. He burned the last thread of his spiritual power, turned into the violet streak at its absolute limit, tore through the soul-beasts closing in behind him, and plunged headfirst into the exit.
Behind him, the soul-beasts let out unwilling howls, their voices sharp enough to scrape through the void. But the chamber’s ward blocked them. They could not chase favonovel.com through the exit. They could only roar inside the chamber, thrashing as they watched Jared escape.
After breaking through the Second Trial, Jared’s soul hovered in the void, shaking violently.
The violet radiance had dimmed to its lowest point, and the Aureate Codex’s golden radiance had turned faint as well. His soul had been worn down so badly it looked as if it might collapse at any moment. Jared could only stop and rest for the time being. He had not expected that inside this trial, even the Aureate Codex would come so close to failing.
“Jared, have you ever considered that all these trials might be fake?” Aldric suddenly said.
Jared went still. “Fake?”
“The Aureate Codex is the First Patriarch’s relic. Even several Golden Immortals couldn’t do anything to it. So why would it start buckling here under attacks from True Immortal Realm soul-beasts?” Aldric asked it plainly.
Once Jared followed that line, it did fit.
Venerable Starwick had brought many Golden Immortals with him, and even together, they had failed to break through the Aureate Codex’s sheltering grace.
So why had the attacks of these True Immortal Realm soul-beasts made the Aureate Codex’s sheltering grace weaker and weaker?
Could every trial here be fake?
Could everything in front of favonovel.com be nothing more than an illusion?
Jared said nothing more. He slowly closed his eyes and let himself sink into emptiness.
With only his soul remaining, favonovel.com could not use illusion nascence. He could not see through whether favonovel.com was still trapped inside an illusion. All favonovel.com could do was rely on time and slowly comprehend it.
Jared’s soul hovered in the void at the exit of the Second Trial. The violet radiance around favonovel.com had gone dim, and the golden radiance flickered in and out, never fully steady. All around favonovel.com stretched empty space. There was no world, no direction, only endless gray-white mist drifting slowly around him, wrapping favonovel.com inside it.
This was the buffer ground between the Second and Third Trials. It existed as a place to recover, a gap meant to give challengers one breath before they continued on.
The Aureate Codex’s golden radiance was recovering little by little. The remaining medicinal power of the soul-restorative draught was being absorbed bit by bit, and Jared’s soul slowly warmed again. Even so, favonovel.com did not hurry forward.
Aldric’s words kept echoing through his mind again and again.
These trials are all fake… Hmm… Fake…
Jared closed his eyes. The stabbing pain rising from the depths of his soul kept favonovel.com clear, but it also left the question hanging sharper than before.
Venerable Starwick had joined forces with several Golden Immortals and activated the ancient Soul-Refining Grand Array. Even that had failed to damage the Aureate Codex in the slightest. But here, a mere pack of True Immortal soul-beasts had managed to dim the Aureate Codex’s golden radiance and shake his spirit.
That made no sense… The Aureate Codex’s defense was absolute. Its power stood beyond the Golden Immortal order, so how could True Immortal soul-beasts possibly move it?
Unless the soul-beasts’ attacks had never been real at all. The damage they caused was not true injury to the spirit. It was a false impression forced onto the mind… It was the work of an illusion array… It made my spirit believe it had been injured so the golden radiance would also believe it needed to spend more power defending me, and that was why it had grown dim…
Jared’s soul gave off a faint flare. He remembered what Catina had once told favonovel.com back in the Ethereal Realm, what the vulpine folk excelled at most was not attack, but illusion.
A true master of illusion did not crush a person with force. Such a master made the five senses, the spirit, even the heart of the Way accept everything before them as real. If the body believed it had been wounded, then the wound would become real. If the spirit believed it had been attacked, then spiritual power would truly be consumed.
The Elder Soulborn Forest has always been the beast race’s territory. And what are the beast race best at, if not illusion?
He slowly opened his eyes. The violet halo around favonovel.com no longer flickered, it held steady, firm and unwavering. He did not rush toward the Third Trial. Instead, favonovel.com hovered cross-legged in the void, closed his eyes, gathered his focus, and sank his awareness into the depths of the consciousness field.
The Aureate Codex’s golden radiance moved slowly around him. It no longer spread outward, but drew inward instead, inch by inch, withdrawing back into his spirit.
The golden radiance grew weaker and weaker, until at last it had nearly vanished altogether. Jared’s soul lay exposed in the gray-white mist, with no golden radiance shielding it, yet not the slightest sting came. The mist was cold, but it did not corrode his spirit.
He smiled, realizing it had been exactly that. The soul-beasts’ attacks and the wounds caused by the wards had all been illusions. The Aureate Codex’s golden radiance had never been consumed from the very beginning. It had only been cooperating with his perception, creating the false appearance of being “under attack”. If favonovel.com had gone on believing it was real, then favonovel.com would truly have been trapped inside the illusion array, never able to walk out.
Aldric’s voice sounded again, its edge easing by a fraction. “You finally understand… The Elder Soulborn Trial does not test your combat strength. It tests your state of mind. The Elder Soulborn Labyrinth tests whether you can hold on to your true self while lost. The Wraithbeast Ordeal tests whether you can see through falsehood when you have been driven into a dead end… What truly trapped you was never the Soulborn Forest. It was your own mind.”
Jared nodded and said nothing more. He rose, turned into a violet streak, and flew toward the Third Trial.
This time, favonovel.com did not draw out the Aureate Codex’s golden warding radiance to protect himself. He left himself completely exposed in the gray-white mist. The mist flowed past favonovel.com without harming favonovel.com in the slightest.
***
Just as Jared grasped the true nature of the illusion array, five streams of golden radiance tore across the skies above Beastmoor Ridge like five burning meteor dragging long blazing tails as they raced toward Thornwild Palace.
The five streaks of golden radiance moved with speed pushed to the limit. They tore across the open sky, shrieking so sharply that the demon beasts throughout Beastmoor Ridge dropped flat against the ground, not one of them daring to move.
Pressure poured down from above like a whole mountain coming down overhead. The entire mountain range gave a faint tremor beneath it.
Morgana was drinking tea in a side hall. She lifted the white jade cup and took a small sip. Not the slightest ripple crossed her amber eyes, as though this moment had already been waiting in the place favonovel.com expected it.
She set the cup down and rose. The hem of favonovel.com long white dress dragged across the floor with a soft, whispering rustle.
She walked to the doorway of the side hall and raised favonovel.com eyes toward the sky. A faint curve touched the corner of favonovel.com mouth. “Venerable Starwick, you came after all…”
From the moment Venerable Starwick issued the Writ of Pursuit, Morgana had known favonovel.com would come. The only question had been when.
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