Embers Ad Infinitum
chapter-907-30041322

"That fellow left?" Shang Jianyao jumped up, his tone filled with joy.

The light returning to normal meant that he was the only one left in the room and its vicinity.

"Left?" Jiang Baimian was rather surprised. From her point of view, things wouldn't be easy to resolve due to the oddity of the room.

Shang Jianyao excitedly said, "I'll try opening the door. Call me again in five minutes."

Why does the second sentence sound so familiar… Jiang Baimian thought for a moment before recalling that this sounded like some lines from the Old World's entertainment.

Shang Jianyao focused and walked to the door. He then stretched out his right palm and turned the doorknob, but the door remained motionless.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He turned his body and slammed into it, but it was like scratching an itch for the wooden door.

"I still can't open the door…" Shang Jianyao looked around as if a ghost was hiding in the room.

At this moment, the fluorescent lamp dimmed a little, giving off the feeling that the voltage in this area was unstable.

Its brightness was clearly lower than that of a normal New World powerhouse!

Shang Jianyao's eyes immediately turned sharp, and more sparks gathered in his eyes. The next second, a large, illusory vortex seemed to appear in front of him.

This cast a shadow over the entire room.

The terrifying suction force pulled Shang Jianyao until he staggered and fell into the vortex. At the same time, his 'head' throbbed, showing signs of contracting the Heartless disease.

The suction force was extremely terrifying. Shang Jianyao couldn't resist it even with his mental strength.

In a flash, Shang Jianyao suddenly disappeared. All of his consciousness had entered his Mind Room!

Before Shang Jianyao could breathe, he felt a chill along his ankle.

He quickly lowered his head and saw that a dark-blue sea had come from nowhere and was constantly surging upward. It wouldn't be long before it drowned 131.

Shang Jianyao didn't run to the door. He knew that it was impossible to enter the corridor from a Mind Room at the New World level.

He went straight to a part of the room, jumped, and drilled into his Sea of Origins in a very standard diving posture.

Above the illusory sea formed by faint light, Shang Jianyao's figure had just appeared when he saw the water under his feet turn pitch-black.

A pitch-black wave slammed into the air, and the water level rose higher and higher, wanting to drown everything here.

Shang Jianyao's mouth opened wide as he muttered to himself, "Isn't this too exaggerated?"

As he exclaimed, he rose higher and higher. He was chased by the pitch-black seawater and huge waves until he had nowhere to go.

After fleeing for a while, the ruthless Shang Jianyao shouted, "Now that disaster has struck, let's split up!"

"You make it sound like you can escape if we split up," the honest Shang Jianyao pointed out mercilessly.

Internal strife broke out between them.

The ruthless Shang Jianyao quickly explained, "I plan on hiding in Xiaochong's rift, but I won't crawl over completely."

This was the plan that had been used to avoid having his memories deleted.

"What if the seawater doesn't stop rising?" the Shang Jianyao that abhorred evil asked anxiously.

The ruthless Shang Jianyao replied without hesitation, "Then, I'll enter Xiaochong's mind world! Since we are going to die either way, we will definitely choose the one with a chance of survival!"

After all, Xiaochong was good friends with them.

"I didn't expect the timid you to be so decisive at a time like this." The honest Shang Jianyao always said whatever was on his mind.

The ruthless Shang Jianyao snorted. "Because there's no way out."

As they conversed, Shang Jianyao came to the gap that represented Xiaochong. He didn't hesitate to enter before stopping at the interface.

A few seconds later, the dark and illusory seawater surged to this height. Its rising trend suddenly stopped—one without warning.

The water level quickly dropped, and it didn't take long for it to return to normal.

Shang Jianyao stuck his head out from the gap and watched seriously. After a while, he jumped out of the rift and laughed. "Xiaochong is indeed Master Zhuang's childhood! As expected of my good friend. It feels great to have a Kalendaria's backing!"

He stood akimbo and roared with laughter, looking like a vile person who had gotten his way.

The honest Shang Jianyao reminded his peers, "Xiaochong didn't promise to help us resist such matters. We were just bluffing."

"So what? If anyone doesn't believe in it, they can follow me to Xiaochong's mind world. At most, we'll perish together!" The rash Shang Jianyao had an excited expression. "I knew it. There are only benefits and no harm in being direct. Let's quickly do what we should've done but didn't do while we can still ride on the coattails of Xiaochong!"

"Are you looking for a quick death?" the ruthless Shang Jianyao cursed angrily.

During the argument, they left the Sea of Origins and returned to the cage-like New World room.

The light from the fluorescent lamp had returned to normal at some point in time.

Shang Jianyao clicked his tongue, walked to the door, and gripped the handle again.

As he twisted and pulled, the wooden door—which had previously remained motionless as if it had fused with the wall—opened. The corridor outside was illuminated by light.

"Hahaha." The rash Shang Jianyao laughed with his arms akimbo. "I knew riding the coattails of Xiaochong was useful!"

He looked eager to give it another try.

…

He relied on the deterrence of Xiaochong's rift to defeat the 'oddity' in the room… Jiang Baimian ended her conversation with Shang Jianyao and muttered to herself silently.

She felt that there was nothing wrong with this matter. It was reasonable and logical.

What was important was the origins of the 'oddity' that forced Shang Jianyao to flee and made it difficult for him to resist effectively.

Was it a bug in the New World's rules or some existence? If it were a certain existence, the strength and level displayed would be higher than that of an ordinary New World powerhouse. Even if they weren't a Kalendaria, they should be at the level of Truth or Wu Meng.

At this thought, Jiang Baimian shook her head and temporarily suppressed this matter to the bottom of her heart. She undoubtedly heaved a sigh of relief that Shang Jianyao could escape.

On the one hand, she was happy for the other party, and she felt at ease because of this. On the other hand, she didn't have to take the risk of attacking the corresponding building. She could slowly figure it out according to her original plan.

During their exchange, Jiang Baimian had already obtained a new mental barrier. Upon seeing that the sky was about to brighten, she quickly pushed open the heavy black door and walked out of the tunnel.

After closing the door, she used the darkness before dawn to hide her human consciousness and infiltrated the small city suspected to be the New World in reality.

After spending some time, Jiang Baimian arrived at the spot where she had the Heartless disease symptoms appear last night just as the sun slowly rose. It was a building less than 30 meters away from the tower's outermost lamp.

At this moment, the lamp had already been switched off.

Jiang Baimian tried to take a step forward, and the familiar throbbing pain in her head appeared again.

She quickly retreated again.

"It's indeed not a matter of distance." Jiang Baimian sighed softly.

This time, she moved Shang Jianyao's body a distance away toward the tunnel exit, but her range of activity didn't increase. In other words, there were only two ways for her to proceed further. The first was for Shang Jianyao to advance, and the second was for her to accommodate her other self and enter the Mind Corridor.

Without having the time to think about this problem, Jiang Baimian hid in the building beside her and monitored the area near the tower.

Since she couldn't go deep, she could only secretly observe.

After a while, the Heartless became active. They came from different places and did different things. Some of them repaired circuits, some guarded the tracks, and some used electrical appliances to cook…

This stunned Jiang Baimian. If it weren't for the fact that those guys were like zombies, she would've thought that she had entered a normal human city.

Upon recalling Swamp Ruin 1, Jiang Baimian believed that someone had implanted a complete set of thoughts in these Heartless to maintain the normal operation of this small city.

As these thoughts raced through her mind, she saw a few Heartless approach and walk to the tower's periphery. When they passed nearly 20 meters from the building where Jiang Baimian was hiding, their figures suddenly disappeared.

The Heartless disappeared in front of Jiang Baimian without warning as if they had vanished from the face of the earth!

Jiang Baimian's gaze froze.

…

New World.

Shang Jianyao—who had found nothing in the room—returned to the street. He held his head high, puffed out his chest, and strode toward the tower.

After arriving at the intersection, Shang Jianyao casually glanced around and realized that four lights were lit on different floors in a mall-like building.

They were abnormally weak, clearly weaker than normal New World Awakened.

Shang Jianyao chuckled and said, "Is that a hospital?"

After looking at it for about ten seconds, his expression suddenly became excited. "It's where Yama Tiger is locked up!"

This was the location he had deduced.