Chapter 402 - The Mist Hiding The Beast
The weird guy crawling on the ceiling like Spider-Man stared at us with a vacant look in his eyes.
“I see that you seem shocked to see another one of your kind here,” he said.
Then he let himself fall.
Mid-air, he attempted a backflip to land on his feet.
Instead, he crashed face-first into the ground with a loud thud.
Did... did he just knock himself out?
As I was considering whether to check if he was still alive, the man stood up again abruptly.
His posture was scrunched forward, though only the upper part of his spine. He looked like either a hunchback or a perfectly normal person pretending to be one while suffering from severe back pain.
“Uh, where was I again?” he asked. “Oh, right. My name is Ni Shì Tiān'é Tā Shì Qīngwā.”
“That is way too long. It sounds more like a phrase,” Song Song said.
“Then you can just call me Qingwa or Ni Shi,” the strange man replied, taking no offense. “Anyway, fellow humans, I think we should look into getting out of here.”
Song San chuckled, scratching his cheek beneath the porcelain mask.
“Calling us ‘fellow humans’ really makes you seem suspicious, so you should probably cut that out next time.”
“Oh?” The strange man nodded thoughtfully.
By now, I was not too concerned about his odd behavior. Instead, I began slowly piecing together everything I had learned so far.
Due to my research, I knew the mist surrounding these mountains behaved more like a living being than ordinary mist. Combined with the realistic illusions scattered throughout this place and this strange individual standing before us, a picture was beginning to form.
The mist around the mountains served as a seal, and something on that scale could not continue operating by merely absorbing natural Qi from the environment.
A sealing array needed a core... a battery to keep everything running.
Certainly, it might sustain itself in part by absorbing victims who wandered in, but that alone would never be enough.
Which meant there had to be a Nascent Soul-level beast somewhere within.
The otherworldly creatures sealed here were also more mental than physical. Their games, contracts, and challenges all required significant mental energy to maintain.
Coupled with the fact that the few people who escaped this place always ended up insane or strange in one way or another...
The victims were not drained all at once, or we would have gone mad already.
No.
They were likely harvested gradually over years, their mental energy siphoned away bit by bit.
...I think I got it.
“If you escape, doesn't that mean the whole array would collapse?” I asked the strange man.
“Huh?” He turned toward me.
The only thing that didn't fit was him.
I had originally assumed the Nascent Soul beast serving as the array's core had somehow fused with the mist, lost its mind, and become little more than an instinct-driven existence.
But perhaps that beast's element was mist.
Perhaps it controlled the mist as an extension of its own body through mental power, making it appear alive.
“You're the monstrous beast acting as the core of this array, aren't you?” I asked carefully.
Everyone except Song San and Jiang Yeming immediately released their Qi and went on guard.
Ready for anything.
The strange man stood there silently for several seconds.
Then his tongue flicked out and slowly licked the corners of his dry lips.
The thing was as thick as a snake.
He crouched down onto all fours.
Then he sat there like a dog, staring directly at me with those empty eyes while drool dripped from his mouth.
“How about we just get out of here and stop asking so many questions?” the weird guy said.
Qingwa...
I guess his long and strange name had been a sign.
“But you shouldn't be able to escape so easily,” I said, sounding confident even though I wasn't entirely sure. “This human shape isn't even your real body.”
Since the mist was so strange, I was fairly certain the beast sealed here wasn't currently in its human form.
Also, it couldn't be another ordinary beast. The mist would have driven it insane by now.
Though there was a small chance he was a newcomer, that didn't seem to be the case.
“How can we be sure if we do not try?” the weird guy asked, a strange smile spreading across his lips. “This place... I have been here for so long. Nobody to speak to. Only strange demons surrounding me, speaking in strange tunes.”
“Because you've likely tried before and failed many times with other people,” I explained.
The guy stared at me. Suddenly, one eye twitched in one direction while the other wandered the opposite way.
His body vibrated like an engine. His long tongue rolled out and swung through the air as a strange smirk blossomed on his lips.
“Ah, I want to lick your fingers so badly!” he declared in a strangely excited tone.
What the actual fuck?
It was so sudden that my thoughts came to a screeching halt.
I immediately raised my guard.
This might be some bizarre distraction before an attack.
“This is in bad taste,” I replied with a smile.
Showing awkwardness in front of people like this was a mistake.
To them, it was like a shark smelling blood. Freaky bastards.
Song Song was similar in many ways, though she was usually much more unstable around other people. It was often difficult to tell whether she wanted to kill someone or respected them.
“Heh, you humans have always been strange,” the weird guy said. “But I somewhat understand you better now.”
I shrugged and relaxed slightly.
There was no point getting weirded out.
I literally knew an immortal who spent his days farming while getting nagged by his wife. If I possessed infinite lifespan and the power to do whatever I wanted, what he was doing wouldn't even make the list.
So I had long ago accepted that some people were simply too strange to view through a purely logical lens.
Still, I tried my best.
Because the last time I dismissed something as mere eccentricity, I ended up dealing with an immortal over twenty millennia old. Song Song's psycho father.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
The guy shrugged.
“Many years. But most of those years were spent waiting for humans to arrive. Apparently, there was a big war between humans and beasts outside.”
“You could say that.” I nodded, briefly thinking about the complicated history of how an Array Conjurer had split the continents with a spatial barrier to prevent humanity from being wiped out by the beasts of the central continent.
As we walked, we didn't speak much after that. Most of the team remained silent, observing our surroundings.
I had hoped Song San might figure something out. But he seemed just as confused by this place as I was. Though I knew he was thinking far more than he let on.
Sadly, I might have to kill Song San in the near future. He had learned things like time travel here, and that would open the mind of someone like him to far too many possibilities. It was only a matter of time before he pieced things together and figured out Jiang Yeming was a regressor.
No. He probably already knew.
Jiang Yeming possessing future knowledge was nothing particularly special or dangerous in itself. But if Song San decided to pick her brain apart, that became a genuine problem.
The only reason I had always managed to stay one step ahead of Song San was partly luck and partly that I always kept one card close to my chest.
But he had learned too much by now, and he was becoming too dangerous too quickly.
Because of my lack of talent, I had to plan for future threats. I was unlikely to catch up to Song San's cultivation speed anytime soon. Unless I had a Nascent Soul Cultivator available at a moment's notice, this man was simply too dangerous to leave alive.
And sadly, I didn't have that yet.
Song San likely knew all of this.
That was why he was keeping such a low profile within the group. Even if he noticed something, he probably wouldn't point it out.
He also knew by now that I understood his danger level had increased.
And my next move would likely be aimed straight for the jugular.
How would he react to that?
He was probably waiting for an opportune moment to make his own move.
The only reason I wasn't attacking him right now was that there might be something ahead that required his help.
The man was simply too useful.
We continued walking through the mist.
A peculiar silence hung around us, the fog drowning out all the sounds that should have filled a place like this. The only noise was the sound of our footsteps.
Until we finally reached the foot of a mountain near the back of the range.
At first glance, it didn't look particularly unusual.
Its peak was somewhat rounder than most mountains, but that could simply be because I was viewing it from so close. After all, no mountain was truly as sharp as a needle.
“Nice place, right?” the strange man asked as his tongue flickered across his upper lip, a peculiar smile dancing on his face.
“It looks like any other mountain,” Tingfeng said, unexpectedly joining the conversation as he rubbed his bald head.
What was he thinking? Even now, he remained my most unpredictable disciple. Even with Jiang Yeming being a regressor, I could read her better than him.
“Mountain?” the strange man chuckled. “Take a better look.”
Hm?
The so-called mountain shook. Stone and dirt cascaded down its sides as the entire thing rose higher, and an avalanche of boulders and debris thundered downward.
“Amazing,” I said. “This is quite the size, even for a monstrous beast.”
As the dust cleared and boulders hurtled toward us, Song Song flicked her hands. A powerful gust of wind erupted outward and swept the falling debris aside.
But I paid little attention to that.
Instead, my eyes remained fixed on the strange man standing beside us.
Or more accurately... The illusory clone the beast was using to wander around.
As the dust settled completely, it revealed a colossal toad-like creature.
Humongous red markings covered the white underside of its body.
No.
Wait.
The markings flashed once and disappeared. They weren't markings at all.
They were part of the seal.
“Quite tall.” I nodded, intentionally keeping my words sparse.
The giant toad-like monstrous beast truly resembled a mountain.
Its head almost touched the clouds overhead.
The white clouds gathered around the top of its head, making it look as though it were growing hair made from mist and sky. Even though visibility was better when looking upward, the mist still obscured much of its enormous form.
“This is my real body,” the weird guy revealed. “As you guessed, it serves as the center and core of this entire array. Do you think you can do anything about it?”
He looked toward us, one eye wandering left while the other drifted right. His tongue flickered constantly around his mouth like a bulldog licking its snout.
“I think you leave too much of your consciousness outside your body,” Song San remarked. “If there were someone who specialized in mental energy, they might be able to take control of your body. Then you would be finished, no matter how strong you are.”
That little fucker. He knew exactly what was going through my mind.
And despite never seeing my technique, he had accurately guessed how it would most likely function.
I knew this “innocent” warning was a direct attempt to sabotage me.
If I got my hands on something like a Nascent Soul guardian, then all our little games and rivalries would become meaningless.
It would be like playing a game and then turning on cheats to win.
But this was also the same man who had tried to use mind-controlling poison on me. The same crazy bastard who had repeatedly become a thorn in my side.
I wouldn't mind flipping the table on him.
Unfortunately, he was a clever bastard and had already guessed my line of thinking.
“You think I enjoy doing something like this?” the human illusion snorted. “It is part of the array. It periodically forces me into a state like this. Usually more often whenever people are inside.”
It was difficult to tell what the toad, hiding behind a human illusion, was actually thinking.
But he was likely suspicious of us now after Song San's warning.
Also...
I smelled a conspiracy.
Because all of this sounded a little too convenient. The way the array was designed was almost perfectly suited for me to take control of a Nascent Soul beast.
Fuck.
Was I becoming one of Heaven's favorites now? A pawn dancing to its tune while being pushed toward an inevitable confrontation with an immortal?
This had just become a whole lot more complicated.