Stepping through the familiar void portal without hesitation, the Poet of Great Love's body seemed to dissolve into water once more, gradually vanishing into the deep purple glow.
With a strange, marvelous sensation of weightlessness, body and soul felt as though they were being swept far away from the real world.
This rapid freefall did not last long. After a sharp jolt of dizziness, the Poet of Great Love felt the cold, hard ground beneath her.
Another face-first landing.
After lying prone on the floor for several seconds without anyone offering a hand, she finally made an effort to get up on her own.
Bracing against the floor that felt half like metal and half like stone, the Poet of Great Love wobbled to her feet, casually smoothing the hair disheveled by her fall.
A careful look around revealed that she was completely alone in the spacious entrance teleportation hall.
The others were nowhere to be seen.
Standing in the hall and looking ahead, swirling mists drifted continuously from the ceiling of the wide gallery, settling into this strange and mysterious space.
It seemed to be the starting point of a labyrinth. The towering walls of the prison corridor were covered in bizarre guide sigils and flickering points of light, while the light screen on the floor faintly rippled with a soft, deep blue sheen, resembling a galaxy in a dream or a distant, fathomless cosmos.
This bore a striking resemblance to the ground structure at Herrom Station; the moment one stepped on it, barrier spells were bound to trigger.
The fifth basement level was vast. Going by the map displayed on the teleportation hall's light screen, it appeared to be a colossal labyrinth.
Its structure was constantly shifting as well. The entire level remained in a state much like Herrom's spatially distorted old districts, where arriving at certain spots would immediately teleport one elsewhere.
Of the five intern prison guards arriving at B5, the several fifth-tier and eighth-tier guards apparently had not teleported with complete accuracy, scattering across random locations on the floor. Only the first-tier Poet of Great Love had smoothly arrived at the entrance teleportation hall.
After all, the Poet of Great Love was far weaker than Boss Cat, posing virtually no burden to the teleportation process.
"Does this mean I have to head to the exit hall all by myself...? Milian, where are you?"
A lonely figure with black hair and green eyes muttered to herself, a trace of dazed sleepiness lingering in her gaze.
In this prison, Lanqi had grown used to being led around by Hyperion, rarely needing to direct his attention to Herrom Prison.
Now he had to concentrate intensely, dividing his mind between chatting with Warden Bakas and commanding the Poet of Great Love's movements.
With a helpless sigh, he looked down at the crimson light screen on his wristband.
[Surviving and performing duties on the fifth basement level of Herrom Prison will grant a generous amount of duty points.]
[Duty points can be exchanged for resources in the prison. Trading permissions for the current level can only be unlocked after fulfilling all conditions to advance to the next level.]
[Current Location: Herrom Prison, B5, Entrance Hall.]
[Task: Clear Phantoms.]
[Note: Upon stepping onto the fifth basement level, a phantom of yourself will appear within a radius of one hundred meters. The phantom will completely replicate you, including wisdom, personality, all items, and combat experience, and will be stronger than you.]
[Note: The phantom can lock onto your position; its sole objective is to hunt down your original self and usurp your existence.]
[Note: Each person summons a phantom only once per day. Reaching the teleportation hall, office area, or cells will cause the phantom to temporarily vanish. Phantoms belonging to others will not attack you of their own accord, but if you attack them first, their aggro will shift to you.]
[Conditions to proceed to B6: Clear all phantoms on the current level, achieve a team duty point total above 5,000, and obtain the B5 warden's permission and evaluation.]
"..."
Lanqi quickly swiped through the pages. It wasn't much different from B4; the only unusual element was the "phantoms."
Factoring in Warden Selena's earlier reminder on B4 and the intelligence Hyperion had shared with him, he essentially understood what this level's Great Demon Trial entailed.
Legend spoke of a great demon from the ancient era tens of thousands of years ago named Satia of Hopelessness, whose ultimate form of innate magic was summoning duplicate phantoms of his opponents.
When facing this ninth-tier great demon, the moment one harbored fighting spirit or even hatred toward him, he would preemptively summon a stronger duplicate, capped at the peak of the eighth tier.
In legion-scale warfare, the ninth-tier great demon Satia of Hopelessness was an opponent whom no number of eighth-tier combatants could ever hope to defeat.
He had been an absolute nightmare to anyone weaker than him.
At the end of his life, he left behind a Great Demon Trial born of his own essence for the demon race—the [Hopeless Battle of Annihilation].
One's fighting spirit determined the strength of the phantom.
Keeping one's fighting spirit at the bare minimum meant the phantom would only be about as strong as the original. Pushing one's fighting spirit to the extreme meant the phantom would not only exceed the original, but could even reach the eighth tier.
In other words, if one wished, one could face an eighth-tier peak version of oneself in the [Hopeless Battle of Annihilation].
Without strict control over one's will to fight, a single lapse could summon an extraordinarily terrifying phantom capable of obliterating the original in an instant.
For the guards on this floor, navigating the labyrinth required constantly evading the phantom's pursuit and reaching a safe zone as quickly as possible.
Being caught alone almost always meant a desperate game of survival, locked in combat against an empowered replica of oneself.
The intern prison guards' assignment, on the other hand, allowed them to band together and defeat the phantoms one by one through superior numbers, clearing them all out.
"Wait, then my opponent is..."
Lanqi rested his chin on his hand, falling into thought. He glanced at the body he was currently occupying in Herrom Prison, then took a tentative step onto the floor outside the teleportation hall.
The warden's office should be close to the entrance teleportation hall, and he needed to find the warden first to secure permission anyway.
Under normal circumstances, the area near the teleportation hall was very safe; one could retreat back inside at any sign of danger. But that also meant being cornered at the threshold by the phantom, left waiting for someone to mount a rescue.
Yet Lanqi's strides grew wider, his light footsteps picking up speed as though he had nothing to fear.
Along both sides of the corridor, rows of massive, heavy cell doors were arranged in an irregular pattern. The black-haired, green-eyed figure strode forward, the metal floor ringing with faint echoes.
Every step stirred the surrounding environment's magical energy. The silence was broken by the subtle hum of barrier mechanisms whirring to life, sounding like a welcome or a warning to a new guest.
Clearly, his phantom had already manifested and begun its hunt through the labyrinth.
Lanqi still was not afraid in the slightest. Guided by the dynamic map on his wristband, he set out to find the path to the warden's office.
After all—this prison replicated based on the physical body, not the consciousness controlling it.
Didn't that mean all he had to do was give the Poet of Great Love a sound thrashing, and then he could comfortably stroll toward the exit teleportation hall?
"Lanfu, it's not that I want to hit you. There's just no other way. I'll just have to challenge your phantom..."
Lanqi murmured to himself, eager to get on with his journey!
Chapter 417