Chapter 255: The Restless Corpse Horde |
The half-bodied woman with spider-like arms and fingers smashed face-first into the ground, letting out a tremendous crash.
A massive fissure split across the stone platform, shaking it even more violently.
The half-bodied monstrosity ceased all movement, seemingly shattered to pieces. However, as she was a soul entity, there was no grotesque scene of flesh and blood.
Out in the real world, this woman might have been terrifying, but within Saul’s mental realm, dealing with her was a breeze.
The three nearby consciousness souls watching from the side all shuddered simultaneously, as if they were the ones who’d just been slammed into the stone slab and shattered.
Having suppressed the now completely corrupted consciousness soul, Saul’s expression remained dark.
A thin layer of white frost slowly crept up his skin, echoing the madness gradually overtaking his eyes.
Not far away, Morden sensed something was wrong and immediately called out, “Master, please calm yourself. Your current state isn’t right.”
Saul immediately turned his gaze on Morden. The chill in his eyes sent a shiver down the latter’s spine.
Saul blinked once, forcing himself not to be swayed by rage.
“The juice of the Grinding Sound Fruit isn’t strong enough. Relying on my willpower alone to stay here is too risky—any moment, I could lose control. I should exit for now and continue studying this uncontrollable soul next time.”
With that thought in mind, Saul raised the diary in his hand.
The half-bodied woman who had just appeared was once again reduced to a tattered black page, flying back into the diary.
Only now, the page was smaller than before—likely because Saul had consumed a portion of her energy during the tentacle attack.
Saul looked again at the remaining three.
The three of them immediately understood, transforming into streaks of black light and returning to the diary, becoming black pages once more.
The stone platform beneath his feet stabilized again, but the starlight surrounding them continued to flicker rapidly.
That starlight more and more resembled countless pairs of eyes, blinking furiously, as if trying to transmit some kind of message.
The starry sky that made the other conscious soul uneasy, however, appeared like a serene and wondrous sky to Saul—gazing into it filled him with joy and calm.
If it weren’t for the risk of extreme emotional shifts in soul form, Saul wouldn’t have minded staying a while longer.
He pressed his fingers together with a “snap,” closing the diary, and shut his eyes to exit the mental realm.
As soon as he opened his eyes again, the magic crystals fixed in the formation beneath his feet instantly shattered, and even the magic formation he had painstakingly drawn combusted and destroyed itself on the spot.
Saul hastily dodged the flames in a few quick motions, leaping out of the formation.
“This time the formation got seriously damaged. Was I too rough inside? It can’t go on like this—I’ll need to find a way to reinforce the formation.”
After leaving the mental realm, the irritable frenzy from moments earlier had dispersed, and Saul gradually returned to a calm state.
“It seems that to enter the mental realm repeatedly, I need to prepare enough potions that can stabilize consciousness or suppress emotions. The Grinding Sound Fruit works, but I don’t have much of it left, and it doesn’t last long. I nearly lost control again just now.”
Saul decided to both refine a large quantity of Grinding Sound Fruit to extract its essence and prolong its effects, while also continuing his search for high-grade substitutes.
“But right now, I have no leads on any suitable high-grade alternatives. I’d better just collect more Grinding Sound Fruit—that’s the most reliable option.”
“I’m pretty sure Billy doesn’t have any left. Maybe I can go to Grind Sail Town. Even though it was ransacked by barbarians, there should still be seeds or some stockpiles. That last wandering apprentice who showed up seemed pretty dependable. He should be trying his best to restore the Grinding Sound fields.”
Saul rubbed his chin, preparing to grab cleaning tools and deal with the mess on the floor—only to be startled the moment he turned around.
“Haah!”
Between the towering shelves behind Saul, dozens of corpses were suddenly standing upright.
Unlike before, their hollow eyes were all open wide, fixated directly on Saul.
The one closest to him was Herman’s corpse.
That “beautified” corpse was currently pressed tightly against the edge of a shelf, seemingly straining to push past an invisible boundary.
From within his deep, bottomless eye sockets, Saul seemed to hear a never-ending voice…
“Help me… help me… help me…”
“Herman?” Saul stepped back, one foot at a time, until his back bumped into the lab bench.
He quietly moved one hand behind him, feeling around in the drawers.
As Herman’s corpse spoke, the other corpses also began to emit voices from their hollow eyes.
Some, like Herman, cried out for help. Others seemed to be conversing, though the voices were too garbled to make out any clear words.
Saul didn’t try to listen to the details.
As the voices grew louder and more chaotic, the corpses began to move again.
Because they had once appeared suddenly in the corridor outside the bronze gate, and Saul had never seen them move, he’d assumed they were like Gorsa—capable of instantaneous movement.
Today, he finally saw the truth.
They weren’t teleporting—they moved like regular people.
But while moving, they left behind layer upon layer of overlapping afterimages, as if multiple versions of them were walking simultaneously.
This created a visual illusion: if one wasn’t watching them directly, it was very easy to overlook their presence.
So when people “snapped out of it,” they’d find themselves suddenly surrounded by terrifying figures.
Saul quietly slid the drawer open and felt a cylindrical object inside.
He moved slowly, careful not to provoke the corpse horde.
Bit by bit, Saul brought the item out in front of him.
It was a red candle—made from his own blood.
With the candle’s appearance, the previously restless and noisy corpse horde instantly quieted down.
Saul slightly sped up, retrieving a lighter from the drawer and lighting the candle.
The corpses across from him gradually shut their eyes, and as the black voids closed, the cries for help vanished completely.
Only then did Saul raise the candle and slowly approach the corpses.
He walked straight up to Herman. The corpse did nothing more—its face remained pointed at the candle in Saul’s hand.
Saul placed the candle on the ground a short distance in front of the corpse horde, and when he saw all the corpses lower their heads, he began to slowly retreat.
“I’ve checked over and over again—there are no souls in the bodies, and yet they still have some form of consciousness, and can act on their own. Could it be that the physical body retains some form of awareness?”
“But then why are they asking for help? And where are those voices really coming from?”
A term surfaced in Saul’s mind—The Interlayer.
The Wizard Tower had 22 floors, but also a layer between them where no living person could exist.
The interlayer surrounding the storage vault was a dark space full of eyes. In that place, Saul’s soul would suffer burns and could only last a few seconds.
And outside the vault’s bronze door, there was another interlayer.
Saul speculated that it was the entrance to the interlayer. Those long, slender, delicate hands—were both guardians and soul-hungry predators.
The weakest attackers were probably those pipes connected to the candles.
Though their mouths were extremely painful, they had pitiful combat power. Even if one accidentally fell in, there was still a chance to counterattack.
By this logic, the interlayer already contained eyes, mouths, and hands—as if it had dismembered a group of human souls.
So then… What about the rest of those souls?
Would dismembered souls… still feel pain?
(End of Chapter)