The light from the monolith lit up for a moment. It rose from Yuyu's hands all the way to her head and then shone brightly through her eyes.
It glowed bright and soon we could see that her face began to flush.
"Not worthy," she spoke and soon removed her hand on her own.
The door immediately opened up enough to allow people to pass through and everyone rushed toward it. Because they knew that the Poison Cultivator was following close behind them.
"What did you see," Liang Yu asked.
Yuyu blinked a couple of times before she looked back at her and said, "Nothing important," she said.
Her eyes seemed to land on my own and she immediately broke contact as if… embarrassed.
'Strange.'
"Let's keep moving, we don't know what's waiting for us at the next area. We can't dally any longer," I said and ushered the rest to move forward.
The group up ahead seemed to be moving at a fast pace, not even making sure that there are no dangers or traps.
"Slow down," I said to everyone, but they weren't listening.
"I said slow- cough…"
I began a coughing fit that seemed to come out of nowhere, my eyes blurred, and my whole body seemed to shiver. I felt that I was losing my balance.
The robotic arms I was using to move me forward managed to hold me from falling on my face.
"Shen, what's wrong?" asked Liang Yu.
I continued coughing, and felt like I was choking, something seemed to appear in front of my eyes… something bright, reflective almost then it soon disappeared.
I regained my bearings soon after and was as confused as the people around me.
"What's going on? What happened?" asked Lin.
"I don't know, he just started a coughing fit out of nowhere…" said Liang Yu.
"Give… give me a moment," I said as I took a few long breaths then I scanned myself. Trying to see what was wrong with me.
A cough for a cultivator is something serious, something is seriously wrong with my body. And that's not just the coughs.
My scan didn't give me anything of value, however.
I was fully functional, my muscles, nerves, and every cell and vein in my body seemed healthy hale, and will. But I was still unable to function or move.
'What the hell is happening to me?'
"Come over here fast!" someone spoke.
It was one of the people who were up ahead of us.
We followed them and realized that they had entered a new area. It was a library of sorts. Only it was so massive and large in size that one couldn't see its bottom or its ceiling.
We were standing on a bridge that ended in a circular platform that was in the middle of this cylindrical library.
"What the hell is this?" someone from the Fire Palace spoke.
"I have no idea," I said as I looked around, "Looks like a library," I muttered.
"We can see that, but what's the point of it being here? There is no exit nor a way forward unless you want to take a dive to the unknown…" said the girl in white robes.
"And how is that my problem?" I said "Look around there might be a clue somewhere," I said.
"Filthy low birth," spoke the girl in white and I was getting pretty irritated by this scandalous pervert, but I'll keep that to myself. I'm in no condition to start a fight even if I could kill her right now by releasing her sealed poisons.
Also, why am I talking about killing and murdering people right now, the Purple Skull should be days away from me, literally days.
I shook my head and almost regretted doing so. My mind seemed to reel as if it was a spoiled egg.
"Ugh…" I cursed as I grabbed my head.
"What's going on with you today? You're scaring me," spoke Liang Yu.
"I don't know, I'm not feeling well… something isn't right, it hasn't been right since forever…"
"What are you talking about low birth?" spoke Xuan.
I sighed and took a deep breath debating whether I should let the Purple Skull's thoughts become a reality or not.
"I figured out something from earlier… you remember when we all didn't have a heartbeat," I said.
"Yeah, some idiot here said we're dead, which is of course not possible, my Pendant is still bright," she said as she showed us a Life Pendant. These will break when a person loses their life and will inform another person who has a twin of this pendant of the death.
That was a silent threat from Xuan, meaning that she is being 'protected' right now.
"What did you see?" asked Yuyu these were her first words after the monolith.
"I had taken a scan on myself when I realized that we've been without a pulse. And now after I took a second glance, I noticed something new," I said.
Everyone seemed confused and some even started using divine sense scan themselves.
"Nothing had changed, what are you on about?" spoke Xuan.
"Something did change, my heart… it a millimeter more inflated than before."
"Huh? How is that a change? Can you even call that a change?" Xuan said.
"That's a huge change, that means that our heart is still beating… only, it's beating extremely slowly. We're not dead… we're in Hyper Time. We're moving hundreds if not thousands of times faster than normal. Not to mention our mental process is also as fast, however, time for us, is still relatively slow," I said and almost felt as if I was going to faint.
My head is killing me right now.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and said, "We're in hypertime, this place moves faster than up above, which is a blessing since it will take a long time for the Poison Cultivator to come and get us. The problem is we're still stuck here, without a way to leave. And this Library makes no sense, why is this here, and what's the point of the earlier puzzle if not all of us went past it," I questioned.
My questions weren't aimed at anyone, they were aimed at me, to try and figure out what the hell was going on here.
Think, think, think!
What's the point of us being here, we were brought here to look for a treasure and explore a Saint Class Cultivator, but so far we haven't seen anything that is remotely close to a treasure. We've been running around in circles all day long. As if we were being…misdirected.
Could it be it?
Just as the thought crossed my mind, my brain felt as if it was on fire, another coughing fit seemed to shake me from the core as I began retching and coughing some sort of liquid out of my nose and mouth.
Yuyu and Liang Yu's faces seemed to pale as they saw my current condition, they tried to help me but they couldn't do much.
'You…are…'
Someone spoke, it was as if the voice had been spoken inside my brain.
"Did you hear that?" I said as I stopped coughing for a moment.
"Hear what?" Lin asked her cat ears were perked trying to listen in on anything
'You… are….'
It said again.
"I am? I am what?!" I shouted through the coughs.
I must have looked like a fool that had lost his mind as everyone apparently didn't hear that.
'Dying'
This one I heard loud and clear.
I shuddered as the realization soon began to settle in.
"No wonder," I said as I stood up.
I went down to the liquid that seemed to have come out of my mouth, and just as I touched it, it disappeared and evaporated to nothingness.
I looked around trying to confirm that what I just realized was nothing but an ugly and poorly planned prank.
"We can't reach any of the books," I said.
"I can,' Lin spoke, "You only want one?" she said.
"I could use a bundle," I asked.
She looked at the edges of the library and slammed her foot on the ground.
Something seemed to surge from within the library, a powerful pushing force struck through the books from the library's walls and shot a massive pile of them toward us.
Many of the books fell to the unknown but a big pile of them seemed to fall right into where we were standing.
"Cultivation manuals," someone spoke.
My eyes seemed to wince for a moment before I noticed the books on the ground were all cultivation manuals.
'He did that without knowing…'
"Hold, don't touch them," I said before any of the people around me touched any of the books.
"Why are they dangerous?" asked Liang Yu.
"No, but, I want to test a theory," I said.
"These books are all the same," I said.
"No they are not, are you an idiot, they look completely different, even the names of the book…" she said and soon stopped speaking.
Because they all read the same, they all had the same name, some random spirit cultivation manual.
I frowned, it seems that I might probably be right.
My head began hurting more and more.
"That's not possible!" Xuan said as she grabbed one of the books, and began flipping through the pages.
"This doesn't make any sense, I've never seen a cultivation manual like this, it's messed up, nothing in it makes any sense…" she said.
I slowly went down and grabbed another then began reading through it. It was a struggle, it felt as if the words were being evasive. But not in a clear protective way as if the book was trying to hide its content, more like, it was randomized words that meant nothing and were absolutely pointless.
I took another look at the books and said, "All of these covers are the same. Same shape same title same books," I said.
Everyone who grabbed a book before checked and that was true, they all were a copy of the same book.
"Why is a library as big as this only has one book?" asked Yuyu.
"Because," I said as I looked around, "This isn't a library, and these aren't books…" I said.
"Did you eat something bad this morning?" spoke one of the Fire Palace, "This is clearly a library, even a cultivation pavilion, why are you saying it's not."
'Hmm, it didn't work this time. Suggestive ideas have a limit, and since they all wholeheartedly believe this is a library, I can't change that. But this is also good.'
"I think we're not here," I said.
Now everyone was looking at me weirdly.
"No, I mean it, I think we're…dreaming, we've been dreaming since a while ago, I can't remember when it started but we have," I said
"Low birth," spoke Xuan, "You seem to be a bit stupid, how about you stop speaking and let me lead this, you've lost your mind and in no condition to give orders any more. We humored you enough because you could contain the poison, but now, you're just being radicicolous," she said.
'I'm starting to lose my patience
"Open the books in your hand, and everyone goes to page number forty," I said.
"What, why should we do that?" she asked.
"You said you humored me earlier, just humor me once more, go to page forty and read the first word on that page," I asked.
Everyone looked at each other before Liang Yu opened up the book. She found the page and said.
"Bone," she said.
Yuyu spoke, "Figment," she said.
Lin opened her book and said, "Milk. Oh, yum," she said licking her lips.
Soon the rest did the same and they all realized that they were reading different things.
Xuan immediately slammed her book shut, "So what, this means nothing, it's a book with a spell on it to randomize the words," she said.
"Okay, go to the next page, the first word should be Idiot," I said while I was looking at Xuan.
This made everyone frown, but they humored me once again.
And they all began speaking, "Idiot."
"Idiot…"
Idiot…
And whenever someone said the word Idiot, it seemed that Xuan was taking it personally. Which of course was just me being petty.
"What is going on, how is this possible?" asked Liang Yu.
"It's suggestive ideas, you can't read books in a dream. I suggested to you that all of these books were the same. And you all subconsciously believed it. So it happened."
"But you also said that this isn't a library and these aren't books," Xuan Said, "Doesn't that shut down your theory,' she said smugly as if she had won a battle of wits.
Idiot.
"No, because you, all of you already wholeheartedly believe that this is a library and those are books no amount of suggestive ideas is going to change that fact. I gave the suggestion that you will all find a random word on a random page, then you all did find random words, however when I said you will find the word Idiot on the page after you all did. The books aren't random, but they are figments of your thoughts and subconscious. Try reading a book when you're dreaming, it's impossible. Same here, we're stuck in a dream status," I said as I looked around.
Clap…Clap…Clap.
The clapping was insidious and very, very slow.
Turning, slowly there was a man there and alongside him three…not so human people.
"You actually figured it out, paint me surprised… I thought I was smart to have found out about this using oh so many methods and you realized it by reading books, HAH! Quite the brains you got there…"
Looking at the person speaking, who should clearly not be here. Not after ten days at least.
He was standing with a chilling air about him. Two finger wounds were now on the side of his temple, and next to him were three people, that should have been dead.
But now they clearly are…well, they are dead because they are zombies.