Deep within Basement Level 6 of Herrom Prison.
Within the illusion, the black-haired girl stood alone in a hazy realm of interlacing light and shadow.
Her green irises, like two bottomless lakes, quietly reflected the shifting scenes around her.
The black-haired, green-eyed girl had just been inspecting and servicing a cell door when she suddenly felt the boundaries of the prison corridor begin to warp. Space rippled like water, and immediately following, a rain of blades poured down from the sky.
Blades and sharp swords gleamed silvery-white, piercing the girl's body in an instant and staining their metallic sheen with crimson blood.
Yet as though possessing an immortal body, the girl stepped across these blades, walking forward stride by stride, staying completely focused on her maintenance work.
On the black-haired, green-eyed girl's skin, every wound was deep enough to expose bone, blood trickling slowly along the blades.
Before long, the moment the blood touched the air, it evaporated, as if it had never existed at all.
The illusion dissipated, leaving no actual physical harm on the black-haired, green-eyed Poet of Great Love.
Yet before she could reach the metal door of another cell, flames began to writhe and leap along the ground like living creatures. Ranging from deep crimson to golden-yellow, they covered the floor in an endless expanse.
The Poet of Great Love continued into the sea of fire. The flames scorched her snow-white skin into a mangled mess until it turned charred black, crackling with a burning sizzle. Still, she calmly walked forward, as though completely devoid of the sense of pain.
"Good thing I came. If Hyperion had entered the Inverted Path of Rebirth, she would've suffered terribly."
The black-haired, green-eyed figure's lips twitched slightly as he murmured to himself.
He knew these illusions were all fake, so as a materialist with an unshakeable Daoist heart, not the slightest sense of fear arose within him.
As for the pain, because he was controlling an avatar while his primary perception remained with his true body, although it was indeed excruciating within the illusion, it was not painful enough to make him pass out.
Just as Lanqi was thinking this, the temperature in the sea of fire plummeted abruptly, transforming into a vast expanse of ice and snow.
The edges of the prison rippled once more, forming an even deeper, gloomier world.
The Poet of Great Love was pulled into a new illusion by an irresistible invisible force, surrounded by boundless darkness and ear-piercing shrieks.
Heavy snow fell from the sky, each snowflake possessing a unique shape, crystal clear yet shimmering with a dark luster, casting the world before the Poet of Great Love into gloom. Whenever this corrosive, poisonous snow made contact with her body, plumes of smoke hissed upward.
Yet on the Poet of Great Love's composed eyelashes, tiny ice crystals condensed, her steady breaths turning into white mist in the freezing cold.
Enduring the pain, she maintained her balance and pushed onward.
Along the way, no one knew how many illusions appeared or how many times they crumbled. Through it all, the Poet of Great Love's pace never wavered as she dutifully carried out the prison inspection and maintenance responsibilities.
Over time, it seemed as though even the illusions had grown tired. Having failed to shake the leisurely advancing figure in the corridor in the slightest, the mana of the Inverted Path of Rebirth barrier settled down and ceased its fluctuations.
Silence hung over the corridor.
Only after several breaths did the howling of a chilling wind gradually rise, as if the Reaper of deep winter had swept across the empty corridor.
This time, it was no illusion, for the interior of Basement Level 6 was inherently an extremely frigid prison filled with swirling frost and snow.
In the surrounding air, snow mist and translucent mana converged to form a bone-chilling cold that surged toward the black-haired, green-eyed figure, enveloping her within a domain.
In the center of Herrom Prison's deepest depths, the indestructible Tier 9 ancient barrier began to ripple, triggering a supreme spell that set off subtle reverberations and spread a hallucinatory mist.
In midair, powerful, heavy mana condensed. It not only carried the fluctuations of the Inverted Path of Rebirth, but was also even more profound, brimming with a power that struck dread into living beings—as if a colossal palm of an ancient great demon from the Demon Realm had reached across space and time to descend upon her.
Around the black-haired, green-eyed Poet of Great Love formed a translucent halo. Mana gathered and intertwined in the air while swirling icy vapor surged straight toward the Poet's forehead between her brows.
The mana grew stronger and stronger, causing Antanas and Sinora on the other side of Basement Level 6 to feel an unspeakable sense of oppression.
In the teleportation hall.
"Did our King... succeed?"
Sinora looked up at the frost-covered dome of Basement Level 6 and asked in astonishment.
Even she was not entirely certain of the conditions required to obtain a great demon mark in the Inverted Path of Rebirth.
"She definitely succeeded. These trials of character pose no difficulty to her whatsoever."
Antanas nodded. She was now certain that the new King had triggered similar fluctuations on Basement Level 5 earlier.
Although Antanas still did not understand how the King had defeated her own phantom unscathed in such a short span of time, she now only felt that the King was becoming more and more unfathomable.
To have such a worthy and capable new King was truly Talia's blessing.
The situation with the King deep within Basement Level 6 made Antanas and Sinora both curious and fearful of prying, so they simply waited according to her orders.
Once the authorization for Basement Level 6 was unlocked, they would immediately locate the cell of Pranay of Truth, rush over to open it, and await the King's arrival.
Deep in the permafrost prison of Basement Level 6.
The Poet of Great Love was confined by an invisible power, the surrounding space forming an isolated domain.
Several breaths later, the light, shadow, and mana swiftly shattered, coalescing between the Poet of Great Love's brows into a translucent imprint—
[Inverted Mark]
[Category: Soul Imprint]
[Grade: Orange Epic]
[Tier: 1]
[Passive Effect: Grants a minor increase to the Spirit stat.]
[Note: Recognition from Tiberius of the Inverted.]
"...My Spirit increased again?"
Lanqi sensed the fifth mark. This was the first time he had encountered a mark that purely boosted a base attribute—the simplest and most direct passive effect.
During his lifetime, Tiberius of the Inverted must have been an ancient great demon whose spiritual power had reached the pinnacle, which caused him to transform into this Great Demon Trial barrier after death.
From the looks of it so far, a trial of character always granted a defensive mark, a trial of martial might always granted an offensive mark, and marks bestowed directly by great demons corresponded to their personal traits.
However, the three conservatives from the Demon Realm a century ago imprisoned here were unlikely to grant offensive marks. That was why, when he previously asked Sinora the Spellbreaker for her mark, she had worried her mark was poor and acted so timidly. Little did she know, Lanqi was not picky about marks at all.
"If I get one more mark, will my demon traits undergo a slight change?"
Lanqi recalled that, according to Hyperion, once one acquired six great demon marks, one would further great-demonize.
In that case, even as a demon, he would be nobler than Talia.
Not to mention, Talia was a bankrupt noble lady of the previous generation, whereas he was a rising modern entrepreneur—a completely different concept.
Chapter 441