Chapter 338: Illusion

Thick green mist smeared across his face, carrying the stench of dead fish rotting in an iron can.

Kalaier carefully lifted his foot to move forward, only to find that he wasn't stepping on stone ground at all—the dark green substance beneath his feet rose and fell with his breathing, and his ankles were sucked into the warm, gelatinous mud.

The surface of the leaning giant tower ahead suddenly cracked open with honeycomb-like holes, each hole violently contracting and spraying yellow-green mucus. From the hole closest to him, half an eyeball covered in bloodshot veins floated out of the thick foam, its pupil rotating like a rusted gear to lock onto his position.

"The stone... is breathing..." Kalaier's mind was shaken violently. He turned back abruptly, only to find that the sailors and travelers who had been following him were already gone.

Kalaier's knight sword stabbed fiercely toward that incomparably eerie eyeball.

But Kalaier suddenly felt his body become incomparably stiff, as difficult to control as a decaying puppet, and his previously swift speed became increasingly sluggish. In the end, the knight sword stopped an inch away from the eyeball.

A dim yellow ray shot out from the eyeball and landed on the tip of Kalaier's sword, after which a grayish-white color appeared on the tip of the knight sword and gradually began to spread toward the blade.

No, this can't be!

Kalaier immediately felt a fatal crisis approaching; when that grayish-white color spread to his body, that would surely be the moment of his death!

He couldn't give up; giving up meant he would truly die here!

Under the reinforcement of a strong will to survive, blue-gold Battle Qi erupted from Kalaier's heart and instantly infused his entire body.

Kalaier instantly regained control of his body, but that grayish-white color had already spread to the palm holding the sword and was continuing toward his elbow.

His palm had no sensation at all!

Kalaier's eyes narrowed, and he made a decisive choice!

His left hand formed a palm blade, and under the reinforcement of dazzling Battle Qi, he slashed down fiercely.

Blood splashed, and a section of his arm fell to the ground, immediately becoming completely covered in grayish-white and turning into a sculpture.

Clenching his wound, Kalaier took a deep breath.

But when he looked up again, the surroundings had returned to normal at some point.

Collapsed stone walls, leaning giant towers, shattered ground, and the surrounding greenish moss and water plants.

Just now... was it an illusion?

He looked down abruptly; his right hand was still there, still tightly gripping the knight sword he usually used.

Kalaier was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he immediately noticed something wrong—his right hand had no sensation at all!

And that knight sword, personally bestowed by the King of Lisi, was also corroding and decaying before his eyes, finally falling to the ground with a "clatter" and shattering into seven or eight pieces.

It wasn't an illusion; the injury he had just received was real.

Kalaier felt a lingering fear in his heart; if he hadn't been decisive just now, it wouldn't have been as simple as losing an arm.

Wait!

The others...

Turning around abruptly, a tragic scene appeared before Prince Kalaier's eyes.

In the thick stench of blood, the entire shattered stone street was stained red with blood. Human-shaped chunks of flesh were neatly stacked on the ground, and a dozen statues with rusted-through swords stood in the pool of blood. Even more gruesome were the crew members—some had strangled themselves to death, their faces purple and bloated; more corpses were rotting black, with maggots rolling in their eye sockets.

These... these people had all died just like him, trapped in illusions!!!

But... how is that possible?

Kalaier considered his own strength to be not bad, but among the crew following him, there were no fewer than four or five warriors on par with him, not to mention that among the travelers, there were many stronger than him. Although they couldn't compare to the power of Vivian and Agatha, each of them had their own unique tricks.

But these people had all died here, not a single one left, all dead!

And he was still alive, although he had lost an arm, he was indeed still alive!

What on earth was going on?

While Kalaier's face was gloomy and he was still pondering, the entire street suddenly came alive and began to twitch constantly. The moss on the surrounding collapsed walls began to squirm, and cold green pulp began to seep from the cracks in the walls. Countless eyes suddenly appeared in all the holes and turned toward him simultaneously, and the entire city emitted a hungry, rumbling sound.

This is... an illusion!

It's happening again!

Blue-gold Battle Qi erupted instantly, and Kalaier immediately looked around vigilantly.

Suddenly, in the sewage ahead, octopus-headed statues slowly emerged and all turned toward him. Stone tentacles wrapped around the moss-covered walls and ground, emitting a dull friction sound.

The familiar dim yellow light began to glow in the eyes of those octopus-headed statues.

"Not good!"

It was that ray that could turn people to stone again.

"There are too many!"

Kalaier turned and ran without hesitation.

Countless dim yellow rays missed Kalaier and shot onto the ground and walls, and the places they hit immediately began to corrode and rot.

Kalaier immediately thought of the blackened and rotting parts of those corpses; this attack was different, but even more terrifying.

New octopus-headed statues kept emerging behind and beside him, attacking him. Not wanting to become a rotting corpse, Kalaier could only keep running, and if he really couldn't dodge, he would use his palm wrapped in blue-gold Battle Qi to block.

Fortunately, his own Battle Qi could indeed resist this strange yellow light, and those octopus-headed statues had a warm-up time from appearing to firing the light, which was an important reason why Kalaier could keep dodging successfully.

It was just that the Prince didn't notice that, unknowingly, he had already fled into the depths of this eerie city.

"Splash!"

Kalaier, who had been running constantly, suddenly passed through a curtain of water and was drenched through. His mind cleared, and the whole world returned to normal.

The rising and falling ground, the squirming and stretching walls, the eerie scarlet eyeballs—all disappeared, and everything returned to its normal appearance.

"The illusion... disappeared again?"

Kalaier turned his head abruptly, and a giant archway appeared before his eyes, with a shimmering curtain of water flowing quietly inside.

"I just passed through this archway? Where is this?"

A glowing sphere was embedded at the top of the high tower, radiating an unnatural blue-gray light. In the areas illuminated by this light, the seawater would temporarily become transparent, exposing the dense reliefs on the wall surface—those twisted biological images had too many joints and eyes.

"This is... the Inner City!"

Kalaier's pupils instantly shrank to the size of needle points. The tower emitting blue-gray light above his head was clearly the one that had been looming in the mist in the center of the city when the *Golden King* had just run aground!

Unknowingly, he had actually run to the center of this eerie city.

That illusion... was driving me here!!!

But... why?

"Prince, you've finally come! I've been waiting for you for a long time, we can start now!"

A familiar voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

"Who~" ===== CHAPTER 339 =====