At the very moment Chu Feng was looking at Yan Ruyu, Yan Ruyu was looking right back at him.
"Chu Feng, save me."
Her expression was one of agony, and her voice dripped with grievance.
"Yan Ruyu, what's going on? Why are you here?"
Chu Feng hurried forward, wanting to speak with her in detail.
But before he could get close, Yan Ruyu dissolved into a wisp of drifting smoke and vanished.
Before she faded away, however, she had reached out her hand — as if hoping Chu Feng would grab hold of her.
A heavy weight pressed down on Chu Feng's heart. He could feel that Yan Ruyu truly needed his help.
"How can this be?"
"Why is she here?"
"And why would she ask me to save her?"
Alongside that oppressive feeling, questions swirled through Chu Feng's mind.
But of one thing he was certain: the Yan Ruyu he had just seen was not the real one. No physical body could simply dissolve into smoke and disperse like that.
"Wait — right now, neither am I in my physical body. I'm moving here with my Mental Power."
At that thought, Chu Feng grew even more puzzled.
If he was only Mental Power, others would have great difficulty detecting him. So how had Yan Ruyu seen him? How had she known he was here?
Moreover, this space had been created specifically as a trial for him — an isolated dimension. No one else should have been able to enter.
Boom—
Just as Chu Feng was mulling things over, the space around him shuddered. The next instant, his consciousness began retreating backward beyond his control.
His Mental Power was forcibly drawn back into his body, whether he willed it or not.
When Chu Feng opened his eyes again, he found himself back inside the great hall.
He could see the eerie, phantom hands that had been coiling around him beginning to withdraw in reverse. Even the deathly aura that had threatened his life was weakening, no longer posing any danger to him.
"I succeeded?"
"But what was all that just now?"
"Could it have been a dream?"
"No — that wasn't a dream. That space wasn't some fabrication of my mind."
"Could it have been a hallucination brought on by unstable Mental Power?"
Chu Feng turned the matter over and over, sensing that it was far from simple.
The reason was this: before entering the great hall, Chu Feng had accompanied the Sacred Cave Masters into a cavern where that ancient creature once lived. There, he had seen a mural. The figure depicted on it bore a striking resemblance to someone he knew — and that someone was none other than Yan Ruyu.
If it had been nothing more than a passing resemblance, that would have been one thing. But now Yan Ruyu had appeared out of nowhere, and that was far harder to explain…
Swish swish swish—
Just then, several figures suddenly materialized within the great hall.
They emerged from the barrier gate on the left side, and they were none other than the Sacred Cave Masters.
The eleven Sacred Cave Masters looked different now compared to when they had entered that gate. A faint glow emanated from their bodies, and if one looked closely, the glow was composed of sacred runes. The runes were holy and luminous, forming a protective halo that circled around each of them like a guardian ring.
"So, they succeeded."
Seeing all eleven Sacred Cave Masters reappear in the great hall, a smile tugged at the corner of Chu Feng's lips.
Though Chu Feng was happy for their success, the Sacred Cave Masters themselves were clearly not in good spirits.
He could not see their faces, but he could tell their mood was terrible. The reason he knew was simple — the moment they walked out of the left entrance, every single one of them began wailing like pigs.
The sounds were wretched to listen to, yet Chu Feng could sense that their grief was genuine.