His eyes were bloodshot with agony and despair.
Consciousness faded...
He found himself bound to a ghastly white skeleton frame once again.
Silas the Dead Speaker stood before him, the spectral fire beneath his hood burning quietly.
"You killed Theodore."
Silas’s voice was as cold as a corpse buried in frozen earth.
"The Curse of the Dead Squad was annihilated. The Withered Council requires compensation."
A skeletal finger rose, a fine, grayish-green needle coalescing at its tip.
"Soul extraction is done in three stages."
The moment his voice fell, a fine needle pierced the space between Ian’s brows.
It felt like a cold chisel being driven into his temples, slowly prying open his skull.
"Hngh..."
His consciousness was torn open. Memories, like pages in a book, were flipped through and ripped to shreds one by one.
Scenes from his childhood, the explosion during his transmigration, every battle in the Wizard World...
Everything was laid bare, perused at will.
"Stage one: stripping the surface consciousness," Silas explained calmly.
"You will retain all Perception, but lose control of your body. Like a living Soul trapped in a corpse."
Ian could still move his eyes.
He watched as Silas’s hand reached for his chest, fingers plunging in like knives to grasp his beating heart.
A tight squeeze.
The muffled pop of his exploding heart echoed in his chest cavity.
Blood flooded his lungs, the sensations of suffocation and imminent death washing over him simultaneously.
His Soul was still imprisoned in his body. He felt his flesh grow cold and stiff, as if sinking into icy water.
"Stage two: extracting emotions and memories."
Silas produced a second, thicker, grayish-green needle and plunged it into his chest.
This time, it wasn’t about tearing the Soul, but "extracting" from it.
Familial love, friendship, fear, anger...
Every emotion was pulled from his Soul, one by one, like threads.
With each thread pulled, he lost a part of his ability to "feel."
He remembered everything, but lost the ability to "feel."
Ian remembered Gaga, but no longer found him cute.
He remembered Alevia, but no longer felt the trust of their partnership.
He remembered his hatred for the Deep Red Royal Court, but no longer felt any anger.
...
Everything became a dry record.
"Stage three: Refining the Curse core."
Silas ripped the fragmented Soul from the corpse.
The Soul was no longer whole.
Like tearing apart a blood-soaked, shredded cotton ball, the threads of his Soul snapped one by one. With each break, a piece of his consciousness vanished.
Finally, it was stuffed into a ghastly white Skull.
A spectral green Soul Fire ignited in the Skull’s eye sockets.
Ian’s last vestiges of consciousness were trapped inside this cranium.
He could see the outside world, he could hear sounds, but he could never speak, never move.
Day after day, he could only "watch"...
Until one day, he would be used as a Curse medium and utterly annihilated in agony.
"This... is not my future!"
An furious voice echoed through the Void.
On the Yalan Continent, Ian stood in the center of a battle formation, his Star Bloodline burning, starlight shimmering around him like one of the Deities.
But in the next second...
Seven beams of black, destructive light shot out from different directions, piercing his body.
Pain!
His Star Bloodline was forcibly torn apart. The starlight within him drained away frantically, like air from a punctured balloon.
His Shield shattered like glass, his flesh and blood vaporizing in the beams.
He turned his head, looking toward a point in the Void—the direction of Ian’s Soul Link.
His lips moved. "I’m sorry."
Then his entire body exploded, the starlight extinguishing like a firework.
At the other end of the Soul Link, Ian’s own Soul, like porcelain struck by a sledgehammer, began to crack from within.
A dense web of cracks spread across his entire Soul core.
It wasn’t just physical pain, but a "fragmentation" at the level of his very existence.
As if a part of his life had been brutally gouged out, leaving a black hole that would bleed forever.
The images from the Yalan Continent flickered and shattered in his consciousness, like burnt film.
Li Xing fell to his knees, blood seeping from his seven orifices as he clutched his head.
The sound of his Soul disintegrating echoed with a CRACK inside his skull. With each sound, another piece of his consciousness vanished.
The Mirror Demon’s whispers echoed from all the mirrors at once.
"These are all your possible futures."
Countless voices overlapped into a mind-shattering chorus.
"Sacrificed by the Deep Red Royal Court... your Soul extracted by the Withered Council... your Soul fragmented from dying in the Projection World..."
"Choose one."
"Whichever path you take, you cannot escape."
"You cannot escape."
"You cannot escape..."
The wave of voices reverberated through the Void, hammering relentlessly against his Sea of Spirit.
The faint golden points of Crystalization spun madly, his [Spirit Devourer] trait operating at full capacity, Devouring the invading despair.
But it was too much.
Three layers of mortal terror washed over him like a tidal wave. Every scene was terrifyingly real, every sensation of pain precisely replicated.
Ian let out a muffled grunt and fell to one knee, veins bulging on his forehead.
Sweat soaked through his dark gray Long Robe, spreading into a dark patch on the ground.
He gritted his teeth, forcing the words out one by one.
"These... could indeed happen."
He acknowledged the reality of his fears.
"But I... refuse to accept them."
He lifted his head. Deep in his eyes, the faint golden light had not dimmed. On the contrary, under the onslaught of despair, it grew more solid, more intense.
"Fear is real..."
"But destiny is not set in stone."
The moment he spoke,
All the mirrors abruptly froze.
Then, Ian’s vision shifted again.
He was standing atop a towering Wizard High Tower.
He wore a dark purple Long Robe inlaid with patterns of stars and the Abyss, his long hair drifting as if in a nonexistent wind.
He could feel...
Power.
Omnipotent Power, coursing endlessly through his body.
His Sea of Spirit was no longer filled with faint golden specks of light, but was now a brilliant river of stars, each star containing devastating might.
He raised a hand and made a grasping motion.
A mountain a thousand miles away silently crumbled to dust.
Another grasp.
The clouds in the sky were forcibly torn down, Refined into pure Energy Liquid that poured into his palm like a waterfall.
"This is... a Level Four Wizard!"
He simply stood there, and the surrounding Rules spontaneously submitted to him.
He could "see" the texture of space, "hear" the flow of Time, and "touch" the threads of fate.
At his feet, thousands of Wizards prostrated themselves.
Bazaar knelt at the bottom of the steps, his forehead pressed to the ground, trembling as he offered up a beating heart.
"Master, this is the offering you requested."
Silas stood a short distance away, his hood lowered deep, the spectral fire within as faint as a candle in the wind.
"The Withered Council is willing to recognize you as supreme. We only ask that you bestow upon us a mere wisp of your aura."
A Morning Star Wizard from the Silver Ring stood opposite him, his expression complex, but he eventually bowed in salute.
"The Ian Continent honors you above all."
The Sea Race of the Tide Association, the Thunder Law masters of the Storm Hall, the leaders of all the powers on the Outer Islands...
A vast, dark mass of them knelt before him.
The looks in their eyes as they gazed up at him were not of respect, but of fear, of humility, of the instinctive terror one feels in the face of absolute Power.
The whispers of the Abyss’s gift tickled his ear...
"Accept me, embrace me...
You will become the master of this world.
All enemies, all obstacles, can be annihilated with a flick of your finger. The supreme Inheritance of the Wizard World will unfold before your very eyes.
Hand over the coordinates to the Projection World, and we will give you true knowledge.
A path straight to a level beyond Morning Star. What are the Star Spirit Race ruins in comparison? We possess a more complete, more powerful path.
The path of the ultimate powerhouse extends beneath your feet.
Sever all ties. Family, friends, promises... they are all burdens.
Loneliness is the medal of the strong. Only by abandoning everything can you reach the shores of truth."
In the mirror, the "himself" standing at the pinnacle of Power turned to look at the real Ian.
A tempting smile curved his lips.
"Just nod, and this Power is yours."
"You can crush Bazaar with ease, obliterate Silas with a wave of your hand, and even the Morning Star Wizards of the Silver Ring will have to bow before you."
"No one will ever be able to threaten you again. No fate will ever be able to bind you again."
Invincible Power... was within his grasp.
Ian quietly watched the version of himself in the mirror.
The self who stood at the peak of Power, worshipped by thousands.
Then, he smiled.
"You’ve got one thing wrong."
Ian spoke slowly, the faint golden light in his eyes suddenly exploding outward.
"My greatest desire... has never been Power itself."
He lowered his hand, his eyes staring directly into the eyes of his mirrored self.
"I just... want to live freely."
The expression on the mirrored Ian’s face froze.
The tempting smile solidified on his lips, and for the first time, a crack appeared in his eyes.
"You... What did you say?"
"I said."
Ian took a step forward.
With a CRACK, the mirrored surface beneath his feet fractured into a web of fine lines.
"All the paths you’ve shown me are just cages."
"And the path I will walk..."
He raised his right hand, splaying his fingers and aiming his palm at his reflection.
"Is the one that breaks all cages."