In a direct confrontation, Ling Yun would have no chance whatsoever. And without the Mirror Image Technique, he would be equally helpless. Since entering the fifth stage of the simulation, it seems that every unusual technique he has unintentionally acquired or learned has found a use.
Even after severing Medusa's head, Ling Yun couldn't be sure if the petrification had worn off. Therefore, his telekinesis never managed to turn Medusa's head back to its original position. The feeling of being petrified was unpleasant; having experienced it once, Ling Yun never wanted to try it again. This kind of monster, which only appeared in nightmares, was better off disappearing.
Ling Yun's face turned deathly pale. The prolonged, high-intensity use of the Mirror Image Technique had severely depleted his powers. His self-healing only affected the injuries, having no impact on energy consumption. Normally, a few hours of rest would have restored his powers, but now, there was no time.
The countdown timer on the pendulum has almost reached one hundred. And as time goes by, the countdown is accelerating. When it was just past ten thousand, each tick of the number roughly equaled one minute. But now that it's only one hundred, each tick of the number is equivalent to one second.
This means that Ling Yun has less than two minutes left to reach the target location. Although he doesn't know if the countdown is actually calculating the time it takes for him to reach the target location, his intuition tells him that's the case.
As for what would happen when the countdown ended, only heaven knew. But Ling Yun dared not try. So he could only run forward with all his might, the darkness of the boundless wilderness forming black bands on both sides of his body. Ling Yun's face was unusually pale, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth again.
During his first battle with Medusa, Ling Yun was hit by six heavy blows. Although his self-healing quickly cured his internal injuries, it also greatly depleted his superpower. Currently, he is almost using his life force to replace his superpower to move forward at full speed. For every meter he runs, his life force decreases by one point. Even self-healing cannot slow down such rapid consumption.
The castle in sight gradually grew larger. Although it was just an insignificant little black dot when he first saw it, Ling Yun realized its magnificence and grandeur as he got closer.
The castle, with its towering arches reaching over ten meters high and adorned with pointed columns, stretches twenty meters across its sides. Constructed entirely of pure black maltstone, it exudes a solemn and majestic aura. Every arch and every pattern seems to jut out upwards, creating a sense of upward soaring power. Most notably, atop the highest column stands a golden statue of a deity, gazing down upon the earth with compassionate eyes.
Lingyun rushed to the black castle, where the countdown had already begun, starting from ten.
Two large black doors, each five meters high and three meters wide, slowly opened. A fully armed team marched out of the castle and stood in a line in front of Ling Yun, each holding a ten-meter-long black spear. The spearheads, each the size of a skull, were burning with eerie, ghostly blue flames, within which countless skeletal monsters could be seen wailing.
Each warrior was five meters tall, with incredibly thick black lower limbs resembling four iron pillars. Atop their heavily armored, imposing upper bodies was a diamond-shaped head, half a meter long, from which misty breaths constantly spewed from their horse-nose-like mouths.
The countdown finally came down to five, and the pendulum swung again, its shrill sound like an apocalyptic alarm, buzzing and pricking Ling Yun's fragile nerves.
As if to coincide with the countdown, a rumbling, thunderous sound came from the horizon.
The nameless biological warriors let out a deafening roar in unison and charged toward Ling Yun in a unified manner.
The boy slowly raised Medusa's head, which he had been holding with telekinesis. His two blood-red eyes emitted a final red light, and a row of neat stone sculptures appeared in front of the castle.
The countdown timer displays the last number: 0
The elongated sound of the pendulum echoed across the wilderness like a car horn.
At the last moment, Ling Yun leaped into the air and jumped into the slowly closing castle gate.
Countless bolts of lightning descended from the sky in an instant, turning the entire wilderness into a sea of light and fire.
Chapter 75, Paragraph 5: Simulation (11)
Even inside the castle, Ling Yun could still see the apocalyptic scene outside through the panoramic image. Shocked, he couldn't help but secretly rejoice that he hadn't gambled with the countdown; otherwise, faced with the waterfall of heavenly lightning, there would have been no chance of survival, let alone resisting it, even if he had dug three feet into the ground.
He turned around and examined the interior structure of the castle. But the sight before him made Ling Yun pause in surprise.
The entire castle was hollow, with a hall several meters high leading directly to an arched roof. A heavy iron bell hung from a dark beam made of some unknown material; it was unclear how it could be rung in a hall without stairs. Through the dimly lit skylight, countless bolts of lightning, like snakes of electricity, could be seen falling like meteors.
The dazzling lightning illuminated the wilderness as bright as day, and even brightened the interior of the castle. An invisible force field seemed to exist outside the castle; the lightning bolts, striking just meters above it, were blocked and dissipated into countless sparks that scattered in all directions. However, the immense force of the shockwave still transmitted down through the several meters, causing the seemingly impregnable castle to tremble under the terrifying power of the heavens.
Faced with the power of nature, the strength of any individual is as insignificant as an ant.
Ling Yun walked a few steps on the smooth, mirror-like black stone floor, looking around. Such a large castle couldn't possibly be just an empty shell; there must be an entrance or a hidden door somewhere.
Sure enough, Ling Yun's eyes lit up. On a dark wall, there was a vague shape of a door. However, the door was the same color as the wall, so it was hard to spot if you didn't look closely.
The walls inside the castle aren't simply black; they're covered with countless abstract patterns and designs, stretching from two meters above the ground to the roof. They're incredibly artistic, but the flickering electric light outside the skylights creates an eerie, unsettling atmosphere, as if something is restlessly lurking within the patterns.
Ling Yun steadied himself and withdrew his gaze from the nameless mural. His mental field sensitively detected that the mural could affect his mind. If he looked at it too much, he might get lost in this place. He wasn't here to study the mural; he was here to obtain the Holy Healing Technique. Although the countdown had ended and he should have plenty of time, the young man had a vague feeling that the danger hadn't completely passed. At the very least, he himself was a huge problem.
The consequence of severely overdrawing his supernatural abilities was the gradual loss of his life force. For Ling Yun, there wasn't much time to waste. Although his outward appearance remained unchanged, Ling Yun keenly sensed that his internal organs were weakening at an alarming rate. Therefore, he needed to find a way to cultivate the Holy Healing Technique as soon as possible, although he had no idea how to find it.
He had now reached the target location. Theoretically, his segment simulation task was complete. The barrier's hints ended there. There were no further explanations or prompts for any further steps. Ling Yun gave a wry smile, knowing that the fifth segment simulation wasn't like playing a real online game where everything was given instructions and there were cheat codes available for him to use.
He thought for a moment, then quietly walked to the hidden door. With a dull creak, Ling Yun turned the doorknob and slipped inside.
Moments after he closed the door, all the murals in the castle hall suddenly underwent a strange change. The patterns and designs began to glow with a faint bloody light, and the murals began to ripple like a pond. The colors of the patterns and designs gradually turned deep red, eventually becoming a vertical pool of blood.
One after another, enormous, blood-red shadows gradually intensified in the depths of the blood pool, their blood-red eyes, like those of dead goldfish, suddenly appearing in the blood pool.
Behind the hidden door was a long passageway. The passageway was wide enough for five or six people to walk side by side. Exquisitely designed, bow-shaped wall lamps were evenly spaced on both sides of the three-meter-high walls, emitting a dim yellow light.
The lighting was not very good. At least to the average person, even with the wall lamps illuminating the area dozens of meters away, the passageway still seemed to extend into complete darkness.
However, Ling Yun was no ordinary person, so he easily spotted the skeletal creatures, resembling small dogs, about two hundred meters away. There were roughly twenty or thirty of them, their bodies composed entirely of shiny black skeletons, their wolf-dog-like skulls opening mouths full of fangs. The sharp, serrated fangs emitted a ghastly green glow under the wall lamp, clearly indicating they were highly venomous.
Ling Yun had no idea how such a creature, composed entirely of skeletons, could move. Apart from the eerie red glow emanating from its eyes, the skeletal creature seemed utterly unremarkable. However, it was clear that the skeletal creature was not benevolent; its bared teeth and ferocious appearance were enough to explain its intentions.
The black bone claws scraped against the hard, black stone ground with a teeth-grinding sound, and the skeletal creature's small body seemed to radiate explosive power. With each step it took, sparks flew out from where the bone claws made contact with the ground.
Ling Yun walked slowly forward, seemingly oblivious to the skeletal creature.
Two hundred meters passed in the blink of an eye.
Suddenly, a ferocious skeletal creature pushed off the stone ground with its powerful hind legs, launching itself towards Ling Yun like an arrow. While still in mid-air, it viciously opened its massive, serrated jaws, ready to bite down on Ling Yun's throat. Its eerie red eyes, illuminated by the dim wall lamplight, resembled those of a man-eating demon.
An invisible hand, seemingly slow but actually incredibly fast, slammed onto its skull, instantly shattering the entire skull of the skeletal creature with tremendous force. As the two red lights slowly faded, the skeletal creature fell from mid-air like a pile of mud. With a crack, the shiny black bones broke into countless pieces.
The subsequent leaping skeletons met the same fate as the first valiant warrior. Despite their numbers and speed, the slow-moving prey seemed more complex than it appeared; an invisible, immense force slammed precisely into the skulls of each skeleton. Not one missed. Their relentless, courageous advance only led to their demise.
A moment later, the floor of the passageway was covered with a pile of short, shiny black, scattered bones.
Ling Yun took a few moments to catch his breath before venturing deeper into the tunnel. What had just been a small battle had proven incredibly difficult for the already exhausted Ling Yun. Each use of his mental energy field felt like a sharp cut to his body.
But he couldn't stop; the panoramic view had already shown him the interior of the hall. The seemingly ordinary hall was actually fraught with danger. The eerie changes made Ling Yun even more vigilant. He didn't know what he would encounter next. Perhaps he would die here, Ling Yun thought silently.
But then, a flame of anger rose from the bottom of his heart. Having overcome so much suffering, why did he have such negative thoughts at the end?
Forced to dispel his dejected thoughts, Ling Yun roused himself and strode towards the end of the tunnel. Only after passing the spot where the skeleton had stood did Ling Yun realize that the tunnel wasn't straight, but rather curved. No wonder the wall lamp's light was insufficient at the bends. Moreover, Ling Yun sensed that the tunnel gradually descended; after traversing several hundred meters and circling the curve, he had actually descended more than ten meters underground.