Xiao Yan stared at everything before him and let out a light breath. It was only now that he could confirm it—whether it was Hun Daier in front of him or the so-called Netherworld Poison Flame atop the altar, none of it was real. These were nothing more than counterfeits conjured by his own mind.
Because at the very beginning, he had associated the scene with zombies, those undead creatures really began to appear. But his subconscious kept reminding him that something like zombies shouldn't exist on the Dou Qi Continent. That lingering sense of contradiction gave birth to Yao Lao, who showed up to tell him the so-called zombies were actually the result of toxins.
But that alone wasn't enough to eliminate the growing unease in Xiao Yan's heart. So, the illusion weaved another character to fill in the blanks of his doubt. And that person, naturally, was someone etched deeply into his memories—Hun Daier. Yet his subconscious greatly rejected her presence, and so, what emerged instead was the fabricated persona of "Yun Dai."
That was why he had felt Yun Dai to be strangely familiar. Because her prototype was someone Xiao Yan had once been deeply entangled with. As for why he hadn't sensed any danger from her? It was simple. This "Yun Dai" was essentially a construct of his own will—a figment created by his subconscious. Naturally, he wouldn't perceive her as a threat.
Everything that followed was built upon the foundations of his thoughts. Since he had seen zombie films before, the encounters within this illusion resembled something straight out of Resident Evil. He believed that the corpse fiends created by the Netherworld Poison Flame wouldn't be limited to just average strength—so a skeleton with Dou Wang-level might really did appear.
All of these manifestations were fabricated to fill in Xiao Yan's doubts and reduce his sense of discrepancy, creating a seamless illusion to trap him. However, Xiao Yan knew clearly that illusions like these couldn't affect someone with his level of mental fortitude. The only thing capable of bypassing his defenses—was external influence, like poison.
What the perpetrator of this toxin didn't expect was that the string of "coincidences" had already raised Xiao Yan's suspicions. So when the skeletal hand had slammed down on him, he had already started subtly guiding the illusion with his thoughts, testing whether the world he was in was real or false.
In simpler terms, if the first half of his experience had been a dream, the second half had become a lucid dream—one he controlled.
"Even if you've seen through everything, what can you do? You're still not leaving this place," the false Hun Daier sneered, sitting atop the altar with a mocking gaze. "Why not just sink into it? At least you'll die happy."
"Tch. So you really are just a projection of my thoughts. Even your speech is just as annoying…" Xiao Yan chuckled and shook his head. "But you're far from understanding me like the real one did. Even after a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation, I never lost myself. How could a mere illusion possibly trap me?"
As his voice fell, the space around him began to collapse. In the blink of an eye, the entire underground palace warped and twisted. Hun Daier let out a piercing scream. Her claw-like hands shredded her own body into ribbons of flesh soaked in black blood.
Then came a wave of chaotic noise—screams, laughter, sobs, howls—all overlaying scenes of bloody chaos. It should have been enough to drive anyone insane. But Xiao Yan merely snorted, closed his eyes slowly, and the din disappeared into silence.
When he reopened them, the illusion was gone.
He found himself lying in a dim forest. A choking sensation immediately overwhelmed him. He looked down—there was a black vine tightly wrapped around his neck.
Not just his neck—his arms and legs were also bound by the same vines. Their surfaces were covered in sharp poisonous thorns. A normal person in his position would've been either strangled to death or poisoned. However, a faint white glow enveloped Xiao Yan's body, blocking the fatal damage.
Xiao Yan summoned the Nine Nether Flame without hesitation, reducing the black vines to ash. Before his feet could even touch the ground, countless more vines shot at him from all directions like spears. With a thought, pitch-black flames surged around him, forming a burning barrier that incinerated the vines before they could reach him.
"Where is this…" Xiao Yan muttered, maintaining the Nine Nether Flame around his body while observing his surroundings.
He was in a forest shrouded in darkness. Towering black trees filled the landscape, their trunks twisted and ancient. It was from those trees that the earlier vines had sprung. Beneath them lay countless bones—clearly the remains of others who weren't so lucky. But how had he ended up here?
"This is the Heavenly Poison Swamp," came Yao Lao's weak voice, finally echoing within his mind. "Little one, you're finally awake."
"Teacher, how are you?" Xiao Yan asked urgently. He realized now that the white light that had protected him earlier must've been Yao Lao's spiritual force shielding him.
"Let's talk about your condition first," Yao Lao sighed. "What happened to you? You walked straight in like a puppet. No matter how I called, you didn't respond."
In truth, Yao Lao had tried to seize control of Xiao Yan's body but found himself completely unable to do so. In the end, when the vines attacked, he had no choice but to use his spirit to protect him.
"I was poisoned," Xiao Yan said with a bitter smile.
"Poisoned? How is that possible?" Yao Lao was shocked. "You have the Black Flame protecting you. How could any poison get through that? And I didn't even sense anything toxic on your body."
"It wasn't ordinary poison." Xiao Yan shook his head. "It was a rare neurotoxin. It doesn't attack the body directly—it targets the mind. It induces hallucinations and seizes control of the victim's consciousness. I don't know exactly how it works, but I do know this: I was already poisoned before I even entered the village."
(End of Chapter)
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