Chapter 803: Time Loophole

"You said yourself this is the Deep Dream Layer. Since we're in a dream, anything is possible, no matter how absurd." Wang Shi pointed at the stairs beside us. "What happens if I jump from here?"

"You wouldn't die, but I'm afraid you might get exiled somewhere else. The concepts of time and space are very blurry in the Dream Realm, and I don't really understand that aspect either." If Chu Men were here, maybe he could give Wang Shi an answer.

I shook my head, still not fully grasping his point, but I had caught a crucial term he'd used—visual perspective conversion.

"Let's keep walking and see." Wang Shi and I went on for about ten minutes when something faintly appeared on the stairs in the distance.

I signaled for Wang Shi to be careful and approached alone.

After walking a dozen meters, my Judging Eye swept over it, bringing it into focus. That swaying black shadow was the Filthy Ghost.

"We're back again. We've clearly been walking upward this whole time."

"Looks like it's just as I guessed." Wang Shi grinned. Ever since escaping the Yin-Yang Boundary and surviving the tempering of the Mountain God Sculpture, his entire spirit had drastically changed. He had lost some of his sinister, calculating edge and looked much more amiable.

He touched the perfectly intact wall. The section I had previously destroyed was fully restored. "Four flights of stairs connect end-to-end, forming a bizarre loop that violates the rules of reality. Good thing you managed to bring a bunch of random junk into the Dream Realm. Without anything to use as a marker, anyone else could walk until they died and still not realize it."

"Realize what?" I leaned against the wall, listening to his analysis.

"The Penrose Stairs is a special structure formed only when a three-dimensional world projects onto a two-dimensional one. It doesn't actually exist, and it's impossible for this world to have four constantly ascending flights of stairs connected end-to-end. One of them has to be going down; it was just cleverly hidden. We just need to find that specific flight to get out of here." Wang Shi closed his eyes. "Don't trust your eyes. Follow your feelings."

I stopped him, grabbing his arm. "You'd better just stay behind me. I pretty much understand what you mean."

Retracting my aura and shutting off my five senses, I projected only my will outward, paying attention to every minute change.

Supporting Wang Shi, I ascended the stairs.

It felt like seven or eight hours had passed. When I took another step upward, a sudden sensation of falling washed over me.

Because a person grows numb after mechanically repeating a single action, that split-second sensation was incredibly easy to miss.

"Found it." I opened my eyes and looked at the step beneath my foot that hadn't felt solid. It was entirely ordinary, no different from any of the others.

I pressed the Nether Runes on my palm against the step and pushed them to their limit. The step on the ground didn't change at all, but the staircase directly overhead began to ripple like water.

"Blue ripples. The Dream Dao Talisman is taking effect."

"Don't waste your energy. The exit is right above our heads." Wang Shi looked up and sighed in admiration. "Whoever designed this endless staircase is a genius. They folded the section with the exit. We've actually been walking on the underside of the stairs the entire time—no wonder we couldn't find anything."

"That person really is a genius." Not wanting to waste any more time, I stowed away the Filthy Ghost and Desire Ghost, grabbed Wang Shi's shoulder, and leaped high toward the stairs above!

Watching the stone stairs overhead draw closer and closer, I didn't even blink.

The moment I touched the underside of the overhead stairs, the blue ripples burst like a water balloon. It felt like someone doing a handstand suddenly toppling over; the world spun dizzily.

By the time my vision recovered, I realized I was standing at the landing between the first and second floors of this building. My lifted foot hadn't even touched the ground yet.

"We finally escaped." After wandering the endless staircase for seven or eight hours, Wang Shi also felt mentally exhausted.

"Don't relax. This place is filled with murderous intent at every turn; who knows when we'll step into another trap." I reached out and felt along the stairs, quickly finding what I was looking for. Pasted at the corner of the stairwell was a specially treated talisman. It had a light blue background and was only the size of a fingernail.

"It seems the Black-Robed Anchor already anticipated I would secretly enter the dream. He intentionally left this here to deal with me." The fingernail-sized talisman was densely engraved with runes. I wouldn't underestimate it just because it was small. Back when Xu Yan plotted against the Ghost Mother, the Dao Yang Talisman he hid in the Vermilion Fruit was also only the size of a fingernail. Yet, that talisman had been capable of harming the Ghost Mother and had even completely altered Wang Shi's physique later on.

"The endless corridor can only be used to trap enemies. Even if I hadn't given you a hint, you would have walked out eventually with a bit more time." Following behind me, Wang Shi curiously walked over to the window and stared blankly at the city outside. "I'm afraid not even gods have seen the scenery here."

When I entered the Deep Dream Layer for the first time, I had a similar experience. Paying no mind to him, I pondered for a moment and pocketed the fingernail-sized Dream Dao Talisman. "The appearance of this talisman at least proves I didn't search in the wrong direction. The Black-Robed Anchor has been here before too."

If used well, this tiny Dream Dao Talisman might yield miraculous effects.

"Let's go. We'll take a look from the roof." After what just happened, I was even more careful. I only dared to head upstairs after sweeping my will over every inch.

The interior structure of the black-and-red building wasn't complex. Besides, I had only come here to stand at the highest point to see further out and pinpoint my location, so I didn't casually open any of those tightly shut doors.

I wanted to get the remaining Reincarnation Mirror Fragments from the Butcher, so I had been rushing anxiously the whole way, terrified of missing anything.

Wang Shi, on the other hand, was in a completely different state. He acted as if he were on vacation, sightseeing and sighing in amazement. "The world of the Dream Realm really does exist! There are still loopholes in modern society's 11-dimensional universe theory! This must be where thoughts slumber. I knew it!"

I ignored him. The truth was, I completely failed to understand what he was talking about, and since I didn't want to look ignorant, I could only change the subject. "When I summoned the Filthy Ghost and Desire Ghost, they both seemed terrified of something, feeling uneasy. But your reaction is quite different from theirs."

"Terrified? I haven't felt any threat. It might be because I've long since disregarded life and death; once you let go, it's nothing." Wang Shi thought for a moment and added, "I guess it also has to do with my special constitution. I don't even know if I count as being alive right now. I feel like I haven't turned back into a human, but I'm also different from an ordinary ghost. Perhaps it's because of the existence of thought and Wisdom. You know I retained my memories from when I was alive, and this Dream Realm is the final resting place for memories, so I don't feel any discomfort here. But those ghost entities are different. To them, this place is like a completely different dimension. You've heard of String Theory, right? Ghosts themselves should exist between two dimensions..."

I waved a hand dismissively. We went all the way up to the top floor of the building. Standing by the window and looking out, this bizarre, multicolored city stretched endlessly as far as the eye could see.

"It really is spectacular!"

"Don't just stand there marveling. I'm afraid our situation isn't too optimistic." I possessed the Judging Eye, so my visual range had reached a terrifying extent unimaginable to an ordinary person. Yet even so, I still hadn't found any useful clues, much less seen any landmark areas like the Lighthouse of Time, the Despair District, or the Old Site of Lightless Road.

"It's completely different from our location the last time we entered the Deep Dream Layer." Having lost my bearings, my expression was somewhat grim. If this continued, we could only search blindly. Finding the Black-Robed Anchor would undoubtedly be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

"You've been to this place before? You really aren't simple. I can't see through you." Wang Shi also stood by the window. "Don't lose heart, there will always be a way."

"I haven't lost heart. The flow of time in the Deep Dream Layer is extremely slow. Even if we search here for a few months, only a single night will have passed on the outside. At worst, we'll just search slowly. We'll definitely catch his fox tail eventually." My attitude was firm. Looking at the city, I was just about to retract my gaze when I suddenly noticed something strange to the north.

The sky of the Deep Dream Layer was covered in magnificent, gorgeous halos of light. Only a small patch of sky to the northwest had absolutely nothing. It was like a funnel; before the halos could even draw near, they were completely absorbed.