The Lord of Void and Real

Chapter 80: Chapter 79: The Unusual Change of the Jade Pillow

Shen Luo’s eyes widened, as if a cold snake was crawling up his spine.

The tiny hands were swollen and rotting, their color frightfully pale, looking like bodies that had been in the water for quite a while, each with a long black nail on top, some of which had even pierced through his clothes and into his flesh.

Shen Luo opened his mouth to scream, his mouth wide open, but found himself unable to make a sound, terror taking over his heart.

But then, he noticed something strange.

He didn’t feel any pain at all!

“Stay calm, stay calm…”

Shen Luo’s mind eased a bit, forcing himself to stay calm.

He tried to activate the Nameless Cultivation Technique, attempting to mobilize the mana in his body to see if he could push back these ghastly ghost hands.

However, as the energy in his Dantian begun to move, he immediately felt a chilling sensation at the back of his neck, an overwhelmingly powerful Yin energy seeping out, making his whole body hair stand on end.

“It’s the jade pillow!”

Shen Luo immediately noticed the change at the back of his neck. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Before he could react further, a powerful force of absorption emerged from the jade pillow behind his neck, making him feel as though his blood and essence were boiling, turning into plumes of white steam that were being sucked out.

His eyes bulged, and he could only watch as his chest caved in bit by bit, and his exposed hand rapidly became thin, turning into a ghostly claw, the spark of life diminishing.

Shen Luo’s mind was muddled, fear, confusion, a resentment… all kinds of emotions mixed together, he used his last ounce of strength to scream, “No…”

In the next instant, he jerkily sat up from the bed, his chest heaving, gasping for breath.

In his panic, he quickly checked the mattress underneath him, only to find a circle of sweat stains, but where were the ghostly hands of a child?

Next, he inspected his palms and back of his hands over and over again, they were all intact, there were no traces of his blood and energy being drained, turning his hand into a withered ghost claw.

“Was it just a nightmare?”

Shen Luo looked around somewhat blankly, and found that all the doors and windows were closed, the furnishings in the room were as usual, and the pillow under his head was still the common rattan one, whereas the jade pillow was sitting peacefully on one side.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, sleepiness completely dispelled, he got up, lit a lamp, changed into clean clothes, and sat down at the table.

The moonlight outside the window was hazy, it seemed to be late at night.

Shen Luo thought of the horrifying scene in his nightmare, he still felt somewhat terrified, he unfathomably picked up an exorcism charm, sticking it onto himself, and channeled a bit of mana into it.

As the light on the talisman paper lit up, his eyes became blurry again, he carefully inspected the corners of the room.

However, as soon as his gaze shifted, his brows twitched suddenly.

There was indeed something strange in the room!

His sight retraced, and he saw fine shadows hanging down from the roof to his bedside, flickering in and out of sight, extremely vague.

If it weren’t for his heightened senses and concentrated attention, he would not have noticed.

Shen Luo felt a tightening in his heart, hurriedly brought the lamp over, trying to get a closer look.

However, when the light moved, the things he had barely been able to see, disappeared.

Without hesitation, he immediately blew out the oil lamp in one breath.

As the light in the room went out, the barely visible things finally reappeared, turning out to be strands of transparent light, all falling like rain from the ceiling.

Shen Luo traced the light down, only to see a layer of translucent light covering the jade pillow on the bed. The light strands falling from above all landed on it, being absorbed completely without leaving a trace.

“What is this thing…” Shen Luo felt even more astonished, stepping closer to the side of the bed.

As he got closer, he glanced at the exorcism charm attached to his chest, finding it unburnt, and the queer luminous filaments were not struggling or squirming.

“It seems that it’s not related to a Yin Sha (evil spirit)…” Shen Luo’s mind slightly relaxed.

He extended a palm, like catching rain in a cupped hand, reaching out towards the almost transparent light threads. A dim white light immediately shrouded his palm.

However, he quickly discovered that as soon as these luminescent threads fell onto his palm, they seemed to pass right through it, like they were nonexistent, and gathered towards the jade pillow again.

Yet, he didn’t feel any discomfort in his hand; those light threads truly seemed like mere illusions.

Shen Luo instinctively looked up at the ceiling, noticing that those light threads appeared to be grown from within the ceiling, fitting in perfectly.

An idea crossed his mind; grabbing the jade pillow, he exited the room.

The moonlight was serene outside, bringing stillness all around, interrupted only by the sporadic chorus of insect calls.

Shen Luo carefully checked his surroundings. Seeing that the only sound besides his neighboring Senior Brother’s snores was the absence of any human noises, he lightly toed off the ground, his body floating up gracefully to land onto the rooftop of the second floor.

He stood on the ridge of the roof, looking up at the high sky, watching the crystal clear strands of light pursue the jade pillow, like an endless waterfall of light hanging from the sky, seemingly infinite and continuous.

He observed the night sky for a long while until he finally figured out that these crystal light threads were actually cast upon them from the stars spanning across the sky.

“What kind of connection is there between this light and this jade pillow?” Shen Luo was greatly puzzled.

He’d slept a little bit earlier, but after being woken up by a nightmare, he was unable to sleep again. So, now he found the view of the descending light threads interesting. Clutching the jade pillow, he laid there watching the starry sky.

The light threads continued to fall all night, and Shen Luo watched all night.

When it was dawn, and the sun was about to rise with the sky starting to turn a fish-belly white, the light threads that were falling from the starry sky gradually became scarce. By the time the daylight truly brightened up, they completely disappeared.

Until the very end, Shen Luo didn’t notice anything unusual about the jade pillow. He then jumped from the roof holding the jade pillow and, still full of doubts, walked back into his room.

…

In the afternoon, after Shen Luo had eaten in the Dining Hall, he took a lazy stroll to the back mountain.

As soon as he got to a place where no one was around, he immediately quickened his pace, heading straight for the hidden valley.

Shen Luo reached the edge of the Shallow Pond, and with a leap, he dived right into the water.

The Shallow Pond was splashed all over, an instant sense of refreshing coolness surrounded him from all sides, making him feel extremely comfortable, as if his sleeplessness from the previous night was instantly eradicated.

However, he did not come here today to relieve his fatigue, but to try another mystic art from the Nameless Cultivation Technique: The Art of Communicating with and Controlling Demons.

According to the Classics, if there is an overachiever in the Beast Taming technique, they tend to successfully communicate with the spirit only by cultivating the first level of the Nameless Cultivation Technique. However, if their talents are inferior, they are likely to be unable to communicate with the Demon even if they have cultivated five or six levels.

Shen Luo thought, “The first level of the Nameless Technique was able to reach perfection as if water flows to lower ground, perhaps his own talent isn’t that bad. Maybe it’s just because his nature is more akin to water, that it manifested so after encountering the Nameless Heavenly Book.”

He walked to the central part of the Shallow Pond, kneeled down, and the pool water precisely reached his chest.

He then closed his eyes, gently forming magical tactics with one hand while adjusting his breathing, and silently began to operate the Nameless Cultivation Technique.

In no time, a cooling sensation began rotating in Shen Luo’s Dantian, circulating along his body’s meridians. There were also waves of cold Water Spirit Qi zipping around in the pond, converging towards him from all around.

As his thoughts gradually became void, he started to mutter the mantra of the Art of Communicating with and Controlling Demons. Suddenly, everything around the mountain valley began to feel oddly different.

At first, Shen Luo could vaguely hear the chirping of a few birds, but he quickly only could hear the sound of wind passing through the woods. Then, he could only listen to the sounds of insects lurking beneath the earth and fish paddling in the pond…

Until at last, all he could hear was the sound of the stream gently flowing.

Simultaneously, Shen Luo’s mind became completely void, his half-closed eyes saw nothing but darkness, as if he had crossed a different space, appearing in another…void.