Free Web NovelChapter 166: Chapter 166: Pain That Acts Directly on the Soul
This is a projection of the mental hospital, and, at the same time, a projection of Jiang Che’s consciousness.
Ding Ning glanced at the dim light and shadows around her. She moved swiftly, drawing closer and closer to the exit. In these endless corridors, there were no windows; if the lighting in an area grew slightly darker, the path ahead would fall into pitch blackness.
Can she escape?
Is there an answer to this question?
Sharp claws tore through Ding Ning’s back, ripping a slit in her black leather coat in an instant.
The torn clothing was like a balloon being punctured—not bursting, but slowly leaking air.
The body she projected here had never been physical, just a mass of energy.
With her current combat experience, she was already adept enough to avoid some fatal injuries, using other parts of her body to shield herself instead.
When two fresh gashes scored her body in quick succession, Ding Ning felt the pain multiply.
The first wound seemed ordinary enough; but when the second landed, she felt the pain clearly double.
"This kid’s design is a bit interesting," Hua’s eyes gleamed as she noticed this rule.
You could say Jiang Che truly gave the challengers many chances.
"Because he really wants someone to escape," Ding Ning raced ahead, collecting the crystals scattered along the way and those displayed on her radar.
Sometimes, if she found a path less ideal and missed crystals on a side route, she’d keep thinking of them.
Jiang Che wasn’t lying when he said he hoped someone could get out.
The difficulty of this dungeon was obvious—being able to injure Ding Ning proved just how oppressive these attacks were for the challengers.
Xiong Jie failed the challenge because he was beset and killed by those white spirit bodies.
But if someone were careful to dodge every attack, hurrying straight for the exit, there might actually stand a chance.
With each fresh wound, the aura of Ding Ning’s energy projection grew weaker.
The spirits behind her, once fused, saw their offensive power climbing ever higher.
Even she couldn’t evade everything completely.
"It’s still not enough. At your current strength, what feels like a light injury to you might be unendurable agony for a normal person," Hua kept up her connection with Ding Ning.
With average people, even the slightest scratch would evaporate them instantly.
"I don’t think that’s it." Ding Ning spoke without pausing her steps.
"Didn’t I just get hurt? I tried transmitting energy to repair myself and keep going, but the moment I did, it’s as if the dungeon detected I’d become stronger and ramped up the incoming attacks accordingly," Ding Ning shared her theory. That was also why she didn’t use energy to mend her spirit body.
The pain didn’t intensify if your strength waned, nor did it lessen if you grew stronger.
It was impartial—no matter how powerful you were, the ratio of pain you felt stayed exactly the same.
The higher the frequency of injuries, the greater the cumulative pain would become.
"It is kind of fascinating," Hua murmured under her breath.
Since her birth, she had seen all kinds of dungeon checkpoints, a myriad of evil spirits setting them up.
For such spirits, checkpoint design was never about letting their own kind pass, but about territory.
A mechanism for slaughtering and repelling interlopers.
Ever since the spatial ties between humans and the supernatural had weakened, humans had been transported into the world of evil spirits with increasing frequency.
From that point on, spirits like Hua learned that when outsiders succeeded at their dungeons, the spirits would lose a portion of their core dungeon energy.
Though it could regenerate, it remained a negative drain all the same.
And among evil spirits, none would risk their lives raiding another’s dungeon for a mere morsel of core energy.
If they ever fought, it was to devour another spirit whole, to seize everything!
The meager core energy from passing a dungeon wasn’t worth the brutal contest, when they could simply absorb ambient world energy and grow, avoiding life-and-death struggles in other dungeons.
When humans succeeded, they could seize some of the dungeon’s energy—but evil spirits could also benefit by feeding on human fear.
Feasting on that terror fostered growth far swifter than absorbing the energy drifting through the air.
In Hua’s experience, all territories, all dungeons, all checkpoints existed only to expel and destroy intruders.
The designers of these checkpoints never wanted intruders to escape alive.
Jiang Che, however, was the first bizarre "human" she’d seen create such a setup.
Even as she spoke, Ding Ning was already lacerated in many places, her spirit body growing ever fainter.
Ding Ning’s real body had gone pale. She patted the Tuantuan in her arms, signaling her to get down.
The pain from these wounds was becoming almost unbearable.
Obediently, Tuantuan slid off Ding Ning, crouching beside her throne and gazing up at her mother.
"Why not just call it quits?" Hua knew how stubborn she was, and didn’t know how to stop her.
Unless she succeeded in clearing the dungeon or her energy body dissipated, Ding Ning would never abandon her attempt.
Above the castle, the enormous Cannibal Flower swayed slightly. The purple mist around it thickened, but it dared not let the fog spread through the entire dungeon; that would only attract other Lords’ attention.
She only encircled their immediate surroundings in purple mist, blocking any and all prying gazes.
"It’s not much further," Ding Ning shook her head. At first, the little radar in her mind revealed nothing but blood-colored crystals within a few meters; but as the white spirits behind her grew stronger—
Her mental radar evolved into a detailed overhead map.
She could see the labyrinthine routes clearly, see the crystals marked on the map.
The deeper into the dungeon, the more acutely a challenger sensed the layout, the more precisely and in detail they detected the blood-colored crystals.
Ding Ning knew: this detailed map was not because Jiang Che recognized her identity.
She would never probe him, and she trusted Hua’s ability—her disguise was flawless and would not be seen through.
In that case, the detailed map was a rule of this dungeon.
The later you got, the more clearly challengers could sense this precise map in their minds. He truly wanted people to leave, to take all the blood-colored crystals and escape.
Ding Ning knew that almost everyone inside Red Pearl Mental Hospital had died within their own dungeons. She did not carry guilt for the past; she believed that Jiang Che’s stubborn rule in the dungeon stemmed from something other than blaming her for it all.
He had simply visited the archives, read the files, and understood the whole truth.
He thought only of the past—himself, everyone else—that in any moment, anyone could flee that place.
Two more heavy blows landed on Ding Ning’s back. Her figure wavered. The pain struck straight at her soul; if she ever lost her grip, this projected spirit body would vanish.
