Heroes' Prison

Chapter 267 - 262: Please Do Not Give Up

But after the sword gleam dissipated, his Incarnation surprisingly remained unscathed, not even a scratch on him!

This was just an illusion!

Huang Yi sprinted for time, promptly letting his real body rush up, and attacked the Puppet Soldier together with his Incarnation. His real body had much greater Attack Power; it took just a few strikes to shatter the Puppet Soldier into pieces, turning it into a pile of components.

This Puppet Soldier was all bark and no bite; its actual combat power was not strong at all!

After the Puppet Soldier died, it immediately burst out a small piece of paper. Huang Yi quickly picked it up and saw that it was an Epitaph, with a line of small characters written on it:

"Never be deceived by appearances. Some enemies only appear to be formidable, but when you bravely confront them, you’ll find that you are the truly powerful one. And some enemies may seem weak, yet they possess formidable combat power, and victories too easily attained are often traps. — Liejun"

This person named "Liejun" must be one of the Four Great Generals. This Epitaph seemed more like a declaration of his combat philosophy.

"Never be deceived by appearances." Seeing this phrase, Huang Yi couldn’t help but turn back to look at the broken Puppet Soldier he had just defeated.

At that moment, the ruined body of the Puppet Soldier suddenly displayed a burst of golden gilding, giving it an impenetrable look, gone was its previous frail appearance!

Huang Yi felt a chill in his heart. Luckily, he had not chosen to confront it; otherwise, he might have faced a grueling battle. The deception of appearances was too significant.

Now, he had easily acquired an Epitaph, and it seemed that the challenge was effortless and unrelated to his own strength.

Huang Yi continued onwards and after traveling down several junctions, he halted.

There was no path ahead, replaced instead by a cliff, with only a steel wire across to the other side that stretched a hundred meters long, under which was Magma that would burn one to ash upon a fall. Even crossing the steel wire over the glowing red Magma was impractical; setting foot on it would probably roast one’s feet.

At this time, a youth stood on the opposite cliffside. He was translucent, seemingly just a Soul. He stared at Huang Yi and shouted from afar, "Friend, if you bring my gloves to me intact, I’ll give you a gift in return!"

Huang Yi looked around and spotted a pair of gloves not far away. These gloves were covered in frost and continually spewed cold air, clearly not ordinary objects.

Huang Yi fell into deep thought. He lacked the ability to walk across the steel wire, and the path was too narrow to transform into White Dragon to fly over. The only external item he could possibly use was those frost-emitting gloves.

Clearly, the key to this challenge was to wear those frost-covered gloves and grasp the blazing-hot steel wire to climb over.

However, doing so would undoubtedly damage the gloves, while the young man’s request was to deliver them intact. Now, there was a conflict.

It was then that Huang Yi seemed to suddenly remember something and looked towards the cliff in the distance.

The next moment, his Incarnation raised an eyebrow, nodded, and said, "All right, I’ll bring your gloves over!"

Huang Yi’s Incarnation immediately stepped forward and bent down to pick up the gloves. A chill emanated from the gloves, freezing his hands cold.

Afterwards, Huang Yi walked to the edge of the cliff.

Beneath was the boiling hot Magma, with only the steel wire connecting the two sides.

Huang Yi took a deep breath, surged forward, and leaped off the cliff!

At that moment, Huang Yi appeared to have thrown caution to the wind, actually jumping down towards the Magma below the cliff!

But after falling a little over a meter, his body abruptly stopped, no longer plummeting, but instead, it hovered steadily in mid-air!

The cliff turned out to be an illusion; there was a transparent glass platform underneath that caught him!

Huang Yi slightly smiled and immediately rushed forward. He had recalled the words written on the first Epitaph, "Never be deceived by appearances." That’s why he decided to overcome the obstacle in this way.

In this scene before him, the cliff seemed to spell certain doom, but after using his Incarnation’s Third Eye to examine it, Huang Yi saw a faint layer of glass. This required extremely powerful vision to detect, something ordinary players could certainly not perceive. While the cliff appeared a dead end on the surface, it was actually the safe path.

Next, Huang Yi’s real body also jumped off the cliff, racing against time as he sprinted forward.

He was now competing against a Level 100 opponent; unaware of the other’s progress, he could only hope to prevail by clearing the stage as swiftly as possible.

Finally, Huang Yi reached the opposite side of the cliff, clambered up, and handed the gloves to the young man.

"Thank you! This gift is for you!" The boy nodded, took off the gloves, and then handed Huang Yi a piece of paper. It was an epitaph, with the same message written on it:

"To become a strong person, one must have something they wish to protect. It can be an item, a person, or even a world. ——Solitary Thistle"

Huang Yi remembered that if he hadn’t chosen to protect the gloves, he wouldn’t have been able to pass this test.

In this secret realm, the only thing he had to protect was a pair of gloves, but in fact, he had many things to protect, such as Xiao Chunzi, Qin Shiyu, the organization...

"Next, please grab my hand and lead me to the girl I love. I will follow behind you, and you must remember, you absolutely must remember not to let go or look back. If you see me, you will face an irredeemable situation," said the boy suddenly, with a mysterious tone, and after putting on the gloves, he reached out his hand.

Huang Yi pondered for a moment. If he wasn’t supposed to see the boy, then the boy couldn’t be in his field of vision. He had to walk ahead, holding the boy’s hand and moving forward.

"Okay, I’ll take you there!" Huang Yi nodded, controlling the Hunting Dog, Falcon, and Incarnation to scout ahead, while his main body followed behind, holding the boy’s hand, leading him further onward.

Thus, Huang Yi’s entire focus was on the path ahead, the boy behind him out of view.

"Gurgle gurgle!" At that moment, a strange noise suddenly came from the boy behind him. Huang Yi didn’t know what it was, but he wasn’t allowed to turn around to check. He had to suppress his curiosity and keep moving forward, pulling the boy along.

And so, various eerie sounds continued to emanate from behind Huang Yi. Sometimes it sounded like the chewing of meat, sometimes like a venomous snake hissing, and sometimes like the sound of slimy worms crawling. The sounds behind his ear were chilling to the bone.

Huang Yi fought the urge to look back and kept walking forward. If it had been someone with weaker nerves, they would probably have been trembling in fear, unable to resist turning around to see what was happening.

In this way, Huang Yi walked for a long time until he slowly reached the end of the passage, where a Stone Chamber lay ahead. At the entrance of the Stone Chamber stood a girl with her back to him, who, like the boy, was a soul and presumably the beloved girl the boy had spoken of!

At this moment, the girl seemed to hear the footsteps behind her and turned to look in Huang Yi’s direction.

When the girl saw what was behind Huang Yi, her body shook violently with horror, her face filled with terror, and she screamed with her mouth covered!

The scream sounded like the howl of a ghost, chilling to the core and raising goosebumps!

At that moment, Huang Yi suddenly felt the boy’s hand turn slender and sticky, filled with slime, like the tentacle of some monster!

Huang Yi’s initial reflex was to let go and turn around to look at what it was.

But in an instant, he suppressed that thought and continued to lead the tentacle-like presence, his neck stiff as a board, never turning back.

Just then, Huang Yi felt the tentacle-like thing wrap around his hand, and it seemed as if something crawled up from his hand, climbing his wrist and arm toward his body. The feeling was so vivid, inching across his skin.

Fear!

This sensation was terribly frightening, enough to make one’s scalp tingle, driving a person to turn around against all reason to see what lay behind them.

This was a life-threatening moment, where despite knowing it would mean failure, one would have to turn back to see what was crawling over them.

But Huang Yi was not afraid. He kept moving forward without ever looking back!

Gradually, whatever was crawling along his arm reached his armpit and climbed up to his neck, as if lying on each nerve, pulling one sending ripples through his entire body. Huang Yi was covered in goosebumps, the sensation on his neck incredibly pronounced!

Eventually, Huang Yi finished walking down the passage and entered the Stone Chamber.

"Alright, thank you for bringing me here," came a voice from behind, as if speaking through mud, with a gurgling sound that was extremely eerie.

Then, Huang Yi felt his arm relax, and the things crawling on him seemed to vanish in an instant.

Next, a piece of paper flew out from behind him and fell to the ground in front of him.

At the same time, an eerie sound receded into the distance from behind him, as if something was withdrawing.

At that moment, Huang Yi’s back was drenched in cold sweat, yet he remained composed without looking back, even though he was very curious to see what it was.

This too would become a permanent secret in his life. He would never know what he had gone through on that dark path or what it was that had been behind him. All he could remember was the strange noise behind his ear and the unforgettable sensation on his arm and neck.