Chapter 580: Cultivation is Creation - Chapter 575: The Drowned Vestibule

“Everyone ready?” Song Wei asked, and we all nodded or said yes or something like that.

Pan Jun looked pale but you could tell he was trying to be brave about it, Xu Feng was just calm like always, and Xie Ling didn’t react at all, which I honestly expected by now.

“Remember,” Song Wei said, “stay close to Hou, whatever protection his presence gives, you want to be inside its range, if you see a Night Domain coming, don’t try to fight it, just keep walking forward.”

I moved toward the edge of the stone platform and faced the black mist that was in front of us. The Night Domains could tell I was coming closer somehow, the shapes inside the darkness started moving toward us on purpose, I could feel what they wanted, they wanted to pull us into whatever horrible place they existed inside of.

I reached into myself and found the channel that connects this body to my inner world, and the red sun energy came through it when I called for it. I pulled it into Hou’s body and let it fill up my spiritual channels completely.

It felt hot inside my chest, aggressive like something alive that wanted to burn everything it touched, I let it keep building and building while I kept control of it and then I used the transformation technique that I had been working on and practicing during my experiments.

Red energy came out of my skin, it wasn’t like a normal aura that others let out, it was more like actual physical matter that just erupted outward and hardened around my body into something that looked a little like bark but moved like it was muscle or something living.

The transformation started at my torso and then spread to my arms and legs and came up my neck toward my face.

I had practiced enough times that I could keep my human shape while this was happening, so there were no giant vine arms or anything monstrous like that, just a human-shaped figure with red demonic energy all over it.

The Night Domains reacted to this in a very dramatic way.

The closest one was maybe thirty feet ahead of us on the surface of the nightmare sea and it shuddered suddenly, the distortion that showed where it was collapsed inward for a second and then exploded outward as it tried to get away from me as fast as it could. It shot sideways across the water moving way faster than something that big should be able to move.

Other Night Domains nearby did similar things, some of them ran outward toward the open sea, others went beneath the nightmare water and disappeared, and a few of the smaller ones actually just fell apart when they touched the edge of my red energy field.

“Move,” Song Wei said quietly. “Now, while the path is clear.”

I started walking forward off the stone platform and onto the surface of the nightmare sea. I used dream qi to make solid footing under each step so I wouldn’t sink, small ripples spread out from where my feet touched and the red energy around me got stronger as I moved, because the hostile environment made it want to be more aggressive.

The Night Domains moved out of my way ahead of me, they scattered and fled and left a clear path that was around twenty feet wide, I could sense what they felt, which wasn’t conscious fear like a person has but something deeper and more basic, like a recognition that something much more dangerous than them was walking toward them.

The others followed behind me and stayed close inside the protective range of my aura.

I heard Song Wei’s voice behind me say, “Incredible, when I brought three demonic cultivators on my last expedition here, their combined presence only opened a path ten feet wide and the Night Domains didn’t dissolve when they touched the edge either, they just moved aside reluctantly.”

I didn’t say anything back because I was focusing on keeping the transformation going and continuing to move forward at the same time. The red energy kept wanting to expand further and consume everything around us and I had to hold it back through will and keep it as a directed field instead of just letting it explode outward in every direction.

More and more Night Domains fled as we kept advancing through the black mist, and one very large domain that was easily a hundred feet across stayed in my path for a moment like it was deciding whether to hold its position, the red energy pulsed and it fled so quickly it left an actual visible wake behind it in the nightmare sea.

The black mist started getting thinner after what felt like an hour but was probably closer to ten minutes and the Night Domains we encountered were smaller and weaker the further we went, they fled before my aura even fully reached them, just disappearing into the darkness without hesitating.

Then the mist was completely gone.

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I stopped walking and let the transformation end. The red sun energy went back into my inner world, and I felt tired but not dangerously so, I had used maybe twenty percent of my reserves, which was manageable.

But what was in front of us made me stop thinking about the energy I had used.

The Drowned Vestibule was enormous, it was like a massive chamber that was underwater but somehow had air in it anyway. The walls and the ceiling were made from black stone that seemed to absorb light and made everything feel darker than it actually was, phosphorescent algae grew in patches all over the surfaces and provided just enough light to see by.

And there were corpses floating throughout the whole chamber, suspended at different heights in the air like they were hanging in water instead of air, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, perfectly preserved by whatever spiritual forces existed in this place.

Some of them wore robes that looked like they were from decades ago, others had clothing that looked like it was centuries old, and a few were in armor with weapons that looked like they had been dead for thousands of years.

Each one was encased in a shell that looked like frozen water but had a faint silver glow to it, through the translucent material you could see their faces clearly, some of them looked afraid or in pain while others looked peaceful like they had just gone to sleep, a few had their eyes open which was deeply disturbing because it felt like they were looking at us.

“Welcome to the first trial,” Song Wei said and his voice echoed strangely in the large chamber. “The Drowned Vestibule, this is where most cultivator expeditions end.”

Pan Jun was staring at the floating corpses with obvious horror. “What happened to them?”

“They failed the trial,” Song Wei said. “The first trial is built to break your will through pressure. Physical pressure, psychological pressure, and spiritual pressure, all at the same time.”

Even Xu Feng looked somewhat shaken when he asked, “What do we face in there?”

“Your fears,” Song Wei answered simply. “Your regrets and everything you have tried to forget or push away, the Drowned Vestibule pulls all of it out and forces you to face it while the dead whisper to you and try to convince you to stop and give up. The spiritual pressure alone is the same as facing a Lucid Lawbearer at full power, many cultivators can’t endure it and their consciousness just shatters. And if you can’t bear it, you become like them, preserved forever, just another warning for the next group of people who think they can conquer the Sunken Dream Palace.”

“How long does it last?” Xu Feng asked, because he was always practical about these things.

“That depends on the person going through it,” Song Wei said. “For some people it ends in minutes and for others it takes hours, the important thing to remember is that you are alone in there because once we cross the threshold into the actual trial, we can’t see each other or help each other in any way. The palace separates everyone and forces them to face what they’re afraid of by themselves.”

He looked at each one of us. “We will meet again at the entrance to the second trial, which is the Hall of Shattered Reflections, if someone doesn’t come through, don’t wait for them because they are already lost and staying will only get you killed as well. Does everyone understand?”

Everyone nodded while Pan Jun swallowed hard and tried to hide that his hands were shaking a little. “And there’s really no other path through?”

“You can turn back now,” Song Wei said without any judgment in his voice. “No one would think less of you for making that choice, this trial has destroyed cultivators who were much more powerful than any of us, there is no shame in knowing when the odds are too great.”

Pan Jun looked for a moment like he might actually turn back but then he straightened himself up and shook his head. “I came here for a reason, I’m not leaving without at least trying.”

“Good answer,” Song Wei said, and then he looked at me. “Hou, you are probably the most prepared person here to pass this trial, demonic cultivation at your level means you have already faced your own nightmares before and survived them, but don’t be overconfident because this place has killed Lucid Lawbearers who thought they were fully prepared for it.”

“Understood,” I said.

The honest truth was that I didn’t actually know how this trial would affect me specifically, I had faced nightmares during my advancement to Nightbound Adept but those were nothing compared to what this seemed to be.

This was something different because it was a corrupted trial created by a Dreamgod Ascendant who had lost his mind, the psychological pressure would be so much stronger than anything I had ever dealt with before.

But I had advantages the others didn’t have, the Dream World’s protection should prevent me from dying permanently even if I failed, and I could draw on the Genesis Seed’s purification if the corruption got to be too much, those two things meant I could take risks that the others simply couldn’t afford to take.

“One more thing,” Song Wei said. “The trial starts the moment you walk between those pillars.” He pointed to two huge columns of black stone that marked the entrance to the deeper part of the chamber. “Once you cross that line, there is no going back, the only exit is forward through the trial.”

We all stood there for a moment, gathering ourselves. I looked at the floating corpses again and thought about all the cultivators who had failed here, some of them had probably been far stronger than me, with centuries of experience and resources and the backing of powerful sects or clans behind them.

Even then, every single one of them had ended up here, preserved in crystal as eternal warnings to the next group. But I had made a promise to Lu Chenyang, and I had come too far to stop now.

“See you all on the other side,” Xu Feng said, and then without any hesitation, he walked forward and passed between the two pillars.

The moment he crossed the threshold, he was gone, like he had never been there, removed from this version of reality somehow. Xie Ling went next, her face showed nothing, no fear and no doubt at all, she crossed and disappeared. Pan Jun took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then walked forward until he also disappeared.

Song Wei looked at me and nodded. “Good luck, Hou Hongyun, I hope your demonic cultivation is as powerful inside the trial as it was getting us through that mist.”

He crossed the threshold and vanished.

I stood alone in the Drowned Vestibule surrounded by thousands of dead cultivators who had all failed at what I was about to try and do, I took a deep breath and walked between the pillars and entered the first trial.