Chapter 1506: Hallucination
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"...."
The young woman tilted her head slightly, gazing at the colossal structure before her—the vast arch taking form inside the cavernous metallic warehouse.
She was flame-haired, her locks a mixture of deep red and fiery orange, lips a shade of crimson, cheeks tinged with faint pink from the rush of blood beneath her pale skin.
Her clothes were neither scandalous nor chaste; the cut that separated the two extremes seemed designed to provoke, as if she enjoyed unsettling every eye that dared linger.
One leg crossed languidly over the other, her foot tapping rhythmically, a restless pendulum, as she reclined on an unmade bed.
At last, she turned toward the only other figure in the warehouse and parted her lips.
"Will that thing truly take you to another world?"
"That’s what I’ve heard." Robin’s reply was curt, his hands moving with painstaking care as he inscribed a labyrinthine Rune.
The etching glowed faintly with interwoven symbols, each line drawn with an obsessive precision that would have driven most men to despair.
Then, with a faint smile, he glanced back at her. "Didn’t we already speak of this, Mila? There’s no turning back now."
For a man of merely the sixteenth level of energy foundations—one who had yet to even comprehend the nature of soul units—to etch runes of the fifth and sixth stage of the Law of Space was itself a miracle.
All credit, of course, belonged to the genius of Interas, who had simplified the unfathomable into something barely attainable.
And yet, each sigil required weeks of concentration, weeks of error and correction, to finally take shape.
This was not a project for the faint-hearted—it was the work of a madman, or of someone who could not afford to fail.
"I still don’t know if this is a good idea..." Mila’s eyes dropped toward the ground, her voice trembling. "I don’t like the thought of you leaving. Who knows what you’ll face there?"
"What, are you afraid some beautiful stranger will steal me away?" Robin laughed, the warmth in his voice rising above the cold air of the chamber.
The closeness between them had grown by the day since their wedding. In recent weeks, it had become difficult to find them apart, their bond woven tighter with every dawn.
"It’s only a quick mission. I’ll tell the inhabitants of that world what they need to know, and I’ll return as soon as I can."
"No, I don’t fear that." Mila chuckled nervously, then turned her gaze aside. "I’m certain of you. But what if you fail? What if they think you a liar, or an enemy? What if they try to torture you?"
"Don’t worry. Your husband isn’t so easily broken."
"What if someone tries to kill you? You’re still only at the sixteenth level!" Mila’s voice rose, sharp with dread.
"Don’t worry." Robin laughed again, his tone unshaken. "Your husband isn’t so easily killed."
"What if they swarm you? What if you find yourself surrounded by countless enemies, all hating you, all desperate to see you dead?"
Her voice cracked as she buried her face in her hands. "No... no... that’s too much. Just the thought makes me shake."
"Don’t worry." Robin tapped the side of his head with a playful confidence. "Your husband is clever. I won’t walk blindly into a trap like that. It’ll be a light task, nothing more. I’ll pay my debt and return. Together, we’ll rule the Duchy of the Burton family and expand it. Agreed?"
Mila lifted her head, eyes locking with his. And only when she saw the unwavering certainty reflected in his gaze did she nod, smiling faintly. "...Fine."
~~~~~~~
Surrounded by a legion of towering Nehari giants, Mila clawed backward on the stone floor. "No... no..." Her fragile body, battered by gravity and wounds, betrayed her. Even crawling was agony, each inch dragging fire across her limbs.
The oppressive weight of Nihari gravity crushed her chest, making every breath shallow, every heartbeat painful. Her nails scraped against the stone, leaving faint trails as though her very will was etching a final testament of her resistance.
"Hehehehe."
"Ahahaha."
The grotesque laughter of Dawoodar and his men echoed through the vaulted hall. Their eyes gleamed like furnaces of hell, pits of molten hunger that burned without mercy.
Their teeth lengthened, jagged and predatory, clashing against each other in anticipation of tearing flesh. Their shoulders bulged grotesquely, veins writhing like serpents beneath the skin as their monstrous forms pushed further from humanity with each cruel chuckle. Their nails sharpened into claws. Their mouths gaped unnaturally wide, drooling corrosive ichor.
"No... no..." Mila wept as she crawled backward. She knew her end was near.
~~~~~~
"No... no..." Robin whispered, shaking his limp head gently. His own eyes burned with black fire as tears streaked down his cheeks.
Then, in an instant, his eyes snapped wide and he screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
"Damn it, this is bad!" Malik cursed, his ears ringing, his balance broken from the force of that cry. "We can’t keep going like this. If anyone senses us now, we’ll be slaughtered by a random specter or by any wandering cultivator! We need shelter—now!"
Forcing himself downward, he broke his aerial leap and plummeted toward the mountainside, still carrying the half awake Robin on his back.
"There!!" Wade shouted, his cosmic scout-eye flaring with light. He spotted a natural cavity within a nearby cliff and pointed. Without hesitation, they raced toward it.
BOOF
"Arghhh!!" Robin writhed in agony as they set him down on the cavern floor. His blackened eyes rolled, vision slipping into another short coma.
"Set up the sound array, quickly! I’ll handle the triad!" Malik barked, already producing three sets of formation banners.
Energy Gathering Array.
Field Hospital Array.
Temporal Cascade Array.
"Will the triad arrays do anything for injuries of the soul?" Wade demanded in a hiss, pointing toward their lord, whose life seemed to be draining with every breath. "He’s dying before our eyes!"
"I don’t know!" Malik snapped, weaving the banners with fevered haste. "Do you have a better plan? We have no formation, no technique, nothing designed to heal this sort of wound!"
"Damn it!" Wade spat, ripping banners of his own from his ring.
He planted them furiously, one after another, crafting the muffling array. This one would suppress every sound within, sealing their voices, their screams, even the echoes in the stone. No vibration would pass into the air or the ground beyond.
SHOOOM
The triad array rose, forming a translucent dome that shimmered like heat above sand.
CRACKCRACK
Robin’s shattered bones began sliding, scraping, clawing back into place. The sound was not merely physical—it echoed in the soul, each grind a reminder of how deeply his body had been reforged by endless battles. His skin flushed pale, then red, then pallid again as the process wrenched at every nerve. Even the arrays trembled, their lines of light bending as if they too recoiled from the horror of reconstructing such a vessel.
"AAAAHHHH!! AAAAAHHHHHHH--!!!" Robin screamed as the shards moved like blades inside him, lacerating muscle and vein with every adjustment.
Then, at last—"Aaa—" His cry ended, and his body slumped. His eyes fell shut once more, surrendering to unconsciousness.
"This is bad," Malik muttered, his voice rough, his sweat streaking the dirt of his face. "The density of natural energy here won’t be enough to repair him quickly." He looked toward Wade with a desperate grimace. "Hey—how many energy pearls do you have left?"
PAK
Wade tossed a ring backward without pausing his work. "This is the ring His Majesty gave me back at the academy. There should be several million pearls inside."
Malik caught it, relief flashing across his face. "Perfect... This will—"
But the world tilted violently. The cavern swam, the banners blurred, and BOOF. Malik collapsed to the stone floor.
Thin black veins crawled across his eyes, spreading down the side of his neck.
The number of specters that had touched him during the battle had been immense. Their corruption was not carried by wounds alone—mere contact was enough. A brush of the hand, a scrape of the claw, even the faintest graze could leave behind a festering blot of negativity inside the soul domain. And Malik had been touched far too many times.
"....?!" Wade’s ears caught the sound of collapse. He spun, horror in his eyes, and saw his comrade writhing.
"Damn it, man, hold yourself together! I Don’t want to take the title of First Division Commander this way!!"