Chapter 735: Sea of Consciousness

The swaying dark shadows howled as they rushed in. The old woman shielded Junsheng in the narrow stairwell. She was blind, but her mind was sharp; even without sight, she could feel the impending danger.

The obsessions moved incredibly fast, rushing into the room in a flash. Leading the charge was that charred humanoid monster covered in bite marks.

Watching the two dark shadows charge toward the old woman, I could no longer stand by.

"Granny! Get out of the way!"

Ignoring the candles, I lunged in front of the old woman, snatched up a nearby wooden chair, and smashed it at the obsessions.

Crash!

The wooden chair couldn't touch the obsessions at all. Their bodies existed somewhere between solid and ethereal; I swung with all my might, only to smash the chair into the ground.

'Xue Zhuo! The obsessions are right in front of me! How do I draw them into my spirit platform?!'

I shouted in my mind, but the sea of consciousness remained silent. Gripping the wooden chair brought me no sense of security. 'The obsessions are being manipulated. Now that I think about it, I'm the one who dragged Granny into this.'

Guilt gnawed at me, but this wasn't the time for regrets. There was still a chance to turn things around.

Obsessions harbored an innate hatred for the living. From Old Granny's story, it was clear that they were born from an overly deep obsession with staying alive.

To survive, they ate their own kind, until they were eventually eaten themselves.

As I stepped between the old woman and the obsessions, the monsters immediately switched targets and aimed straight for me.

Those two charred faces, riddled with bite marks, filled my vision. Anyone with trypophobia would likely break out in a cold sweat from a single glance.

"Get into the inner room!" Before I could even finish shouting, the obsessions had already reached me. Their method of attack mirrored the desires they retained in death; as they closed in, their sharp fingers clawed at my arms. They opened their wide mouths and bit at my neck like wild beasts going in for a feed!

"Get lost!" My talismans were in my coat. Fighting bare-handed, I swung my arms wildly, but it had little to no effect.

They clung to me like rotting flesh to bone. The moment their fingers touched my skin, those residual bite marks and scars seemed to come alive, transforming into swaths of fine black threads that tried to burrow into my body.

"Yin-Yang Ghost Art!" I roared. A layer of densely woven black gauze seemed to coat my skin, thick enough to suffocate a person. Blood Fox wasn't responding; I had to save myself.

The Ghost Ring flashed with a spectral light before clusters of ghost fire erupted in the darkness.

The Filthy Ghost and Seductive Ghost flanked me as guards, while the Desire Ghost didn't wait for my command, immediately pouncing forward to attack.

Behind those three ghosts, the Fate Ghost slowly emerged from my shadow, its black hair curling and the King Yama Seal branded on its pale skin.

I forcefully commanded them with ghost arts, but the Seductive Ghost and Filthy Ghost still didn't dare to step forward. They seemed to be fundamentally different from the obsessions, though I hadn't figured out exactly how just yet.

However, I managed to glean a few clues from the Desire Ghost's brawl with the obsessions.

The obsessions had low intelligence and relied purely on instinct to hunt. The Desire Ghost, on the other hand, was incredibly ferocious and completely ignorant of fear.

The moment they clashed, it became a fight to the death. They engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat, biting and tearing at each other's spectral bodies.

The Desire Ghost initially held an overwhelming advantage, but I slowly noticed its momentum beginning to wane. Looking closely, I finally understood why.

With every bite, the obsessions tore off a large chunk of the Desire Ghost's soul. In contrast, the Desire Ghost's bites did no real damage to the obsessions.

Over time, it was the Desire Ghost that slowly fell to a disadvantage.

'What exactly are these things?' What I found even stranger was that despite tearing off and devouring so much of the Desire Ghost's soul, the obsessions themselves didn't change at all.

If Old Granny was right, Junsheng was the soul of spiritual wisdom belonging to that child on the sixth floor. I had initially assumed the obsessions were eager to hunt Junsheng because he was a spirit entity, and they wanted to devour him to strengthen themselves. But now it seemed my guess was completely wrong. Ghosts and monsters existed because their souls had lingered in the mortal realm instead of entering reincarnation. The Desire Ghost and the Filthy Ghost were essentially spirits brimming with yin energy and the true essence of heaven and earth, yet the obsessions clearly had no interest in them.

'They aren't trying to devour souls? Then why do they want to hunt Junsheng? Their craving for him even surpasses their urge to kill me, a living person.'

While the Desire Ghost was losing its one-on-one fight, the obsession in front of me was blocked by the Fate Ghost. The Fate Ghost's black hair tangled with the obsession's black threads, trying to purge those things from my body.

After a moment, I realized something was wrong.

My mind was linked with the Fate Ghost, but as his black hair became more deeply entangled with the obsession's threads, I suddenly felt our connection growing fainter.

I turned to look and saw a trace of confusion and madness slowly creeping into the Fate Ghost's pitch-black eyes. He was starting to feel like a stranger to me!

'No... something is draining from the Fate Ghost. It's being absorbed by the obsession...' A realization struck me, and I suddenly understood. 'It's memories and emotions! That's what the obsessions want!'

'No wonder their craving for Junsheng surpasses even their desire for me. Although that child is just a remnant soul, he harbors incredibly intense emotions and memories—things he couldn't let go of, even to enter reincarnation!'

The obsessions seemed to feed on memories and emotions. By devouring them, they grew stronger.

'I can't let this continue.' I didn't care much about the Desire Ghost, but the memories shared between the Fate Ghost and me absolutely could not be stolen!

I threw out my hand to shove the monster away, but I couldn't even touch its body. 'Blood Fox said that to subdue an obsession, I have to draw it into my own body and exterminate it on the spirit platform.'

The Fate Ghost's situation looked grim, and Old Granny and Junsheng were standing right behind me. I had no choice but to take the risk.

Using a ghost art, I forcefully sent the Fate Ghost back into the Ghost Ring. Then I willingly dropped my defenses, letting the obsessions burrow into my body!

The threads formed from the bite marks continuously crawled across my skin like pulsing black veins. It was a horrifying sight. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain, watching as the obsessions sank into my body piece by piece.

My mind grew sluggish, and auditory hallucinations rang in my ears—it sounded like thousands of people were screaming and wailing. Even with my eyes shut tight, I could see countless unfamiliar faces flashing past before burrowing straight into my stomach.

Not long after—it felt like only a split second—an extreme wave of hunger flared from my gut.

My stomach knotted itself in agony. The hunger made my heart race with panic, leaving me desperate to stuff whatever I could see straight into my mouth.

And right at this critical moment, a savory aroma of meat wafted out from the pitch-black stairwell!

My thoughts grew chaotic. The scent hooked into my very soul, and I took an involuntary step forward.

'I can't go out! This is a trap.' I wasn't afraid of ghosts or demons waiting outside; I was terrified that someone had actually laid out a plate of delicious meat right in front of me.

While battling the obsessions, that plate of meat could very well be the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Old Granny had been right about one thing: eating it once meant you had eaten it, and there was no changing that fact.

If the obsessions controlled me into eating that first piece of "meat"—even just a tiny bite—I would become just like Zhu Li and the others.

Cannibalism—how would I be any different from an animal? Once I crossed that line, there would be no going back.

The scent of meat grew richer. I had never felt such overwhelming hunger in my life. My mind clouded under the strain, and every cell in my body seemed to scream for food.

The terrifying obsessions were nowhere to be seen in the pitch-black stairwell. My entire world was reduced to that overwhelmingly seductive scent of meat!

'So hungry! I want to devour everything—even myself!'

My face must have looked incredibly feral. Veins bulged across my skin as I clenched my fists so tightly that the bones popped.

The hunger gnawed at my stomach like a surging tidal wave, each crest higher than the last. If I relaxed for even a second, it would completely break me.

'I underestimated these obsessions.' Unless pushed to the absolute brink, who would ever resort to cannibalism? Who would ever commit such an atrocity against human nature if they weren't starving to their very limits?

I finally understood that feeling. I bit my lips until they bled. I licked my own blood, and it somehow tasted like the most delicious thing in the world, my tongue involuntarily pressing against my lower jaw.

My vision swam. I was on the verge of losing control at any second.

If I died, Granny and Junsheng wouldn't survive either. In fact, under the obsessions' control, the one to kill them wouldn't be anyone else—it would be me, standing right next to them.

"If I eat human meat, I'll no longer be human, and I'll never walk out of the Red Building. How could I ever return to Jiangcheng? Everything I have is there!"

"I endured unimaginable hardships to fake my death, fleeing a hundred li, and it wasn't to become a puppet to these obsessions! I must uncover the truth behind the Live Show! I will kill Lu Xing! I will capture the Two-Faced Buddha, and I will wash the Five Great Upper Sects in blood!"

I practically roared that last sentence. As the words left my lips, another consciousness awakened on the spirit platform. The obsession in my heart had resonated with the Blood Fox's obsession.

The Blood Fox Tattoo on my chest, which I had carved out with my own hands, seeped with a bloody hue. My eyes flushed red as my consciousness slowly converged within my spirit platform.

In my boundless sea of consciousness, all my past memories drifted. Looking inward at my spirit platform, I was shocked to find four heaven-reaching pillars towering within my sea of consciousness. Each pillar was wrapped in thick chains, as if suppressing something sealed inside.

'What are these?' I had no time to inspect them closely. Other than the immediate area around the four massive pillars, everything else had been pierced by fine black threads. A strange power was recklessly tearing apart my memories.

'The Blood Fox wants to use my sea of consciousness as a battlefield to trap and kill the obsessions, but I can't even see where they are!'

As I pondered this, a familiar voice drifted down from the very peak of the spirit platform. "You finally entered."

"Xue Zhuo?" His voice sounded a little strange. I tilted my head back, but saw nothing at the top. "You said you were going to help me."

"I did. But you never asked how I was going to help you."

Hearing that, I immediately went on high alert. "Then I'll ask you right now. Are we cooperating or not?"

Only my own voice echoed back across the spirit platform. The fine black threads continued to spread. The situation was growing desperate.