Autophagy

"Kneel down my slave," the shadow said. Song Lei didn't dare to turn back as he was scared of offending it. As long as he could find a way to reason with the shadow, he would find a way of getting out of this situation.

"Kneel down," the shadow repeated. "I won't tell it one more time," it said. Its voice was hard to describe. It was as if more than ten people were talking at the same time, making a single sentence.

Song Lei obeyed the order of the shadow and kneeled on the ground while frowning. He was sweating bullets.

"Good job my slave. Those who obey shall get the chance to meet the holy one. Remember, never pass the invisible wall," the shadow said. This time, it was a single person's voice. It sounded to be a middle-aged male.

After that, a weird silence took place. Neither the shadow nor Song Lei spoke as they waited for more than two hours.

'Fuck. I can't feel my legs,' Song Lei thought while frowning in agony. Because he had been kneeling on the ground for so long, his legs were going numb. Unfortunately, the shadow didn't seem to be making any moves.

Finally, after waiting for a few more minutes, Song Lei couldn't keep his posture anymore as he fell to his right.

He quickly dodged forward a little bit to avoid any attack that might come from the shadow.

'Huh?' Song Lei turned his head and took a look at the corridor. 'It's gone?'

Song Lei got up from the ground and jumped around a little bit to get his blood circulation back on track. 'Where did the shadow go? It didn't even make any sounds. Is it invisible?' He thought.

Song Lei tried to walk inside the corridor, checking out a few places to see whether he could locate the shadow or not. Because of the shadow's light-absorbant nature, it was a bit hard to see.

'I can't find it but I know it's watching me,' Song Lei said. He walked to the middle of the corridor and raised his hand to check the invisible wall. 'It's not here...'

'The shadow told me not to pass it but it doesn't even seem to exist anymore,' he thought. The wall was long gone. He gulped and took a small step, passing the boundaries of the first half of the corridor.

Nothing happened after he took the first step. He kept walking to see whether or not something would happen but nothing changed even after he reached the other end of the corridor. Normally, Song Lei wouldn't be this careless. But right now, he didn't have the chance to be careful as he had no way of getting out of this corridor unless he kept moving forward.

Song Lei opened the door and stepped in. He entered a dark room that a little candle was trying to illuminate. The candle's light flickered as it put up a fight against the wind.

'Wind..?' Song Lei thought. 'Why is there wind in a place like this?' He asked himself. As he couldn't find a proper answer, he stopped thinking about it. The room itself was mostly empty. Other than a curtain placed right in the middle of the room, splitting the room in two, there was nothing. The candle was behind the aforementioned curtain. Song Lei squinted his eyes to see behind the curtain.

'There seems to be a silhouette...' Song Lei realized. There was a silhouette of a child. Other than its size, Song Lei couldn't differentiate anything about it.

"You did well, coming here," the silhouette said. It was a little boy's voice though a little bit demonic.

"Thanks..?" Song Lei answered while raising one of his eyebrows. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask but those could wait. First, he had to identify what kind of being he was dealing with.

"Not a lot of people can go through my test," the silhouette said. Song Lei nodded.

"And you were one of the failures."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Song Lei asked. Unfortunately, he couldn't get an answer from the silhouette. Suddenly, the silhouette's head fell off and rolled on the ground, passing the curtain and reaching Song Lei. It wasn't bleeding. Song Lei didn't feel any maliciousness coming from the head so he just took a few steps back.

When the head finally stopped, Song Lei could take a proper look at its face.

"Ugh..."

Song Lei was creeped out. His hair stood on its end as he took a few more steps back. The face didn't have any features. It didn't have an eye or a mouth. It was made of pure flesh.

He felt a burning sensation on his chest but didn't bother with it.

As Song Lei took a few steps backward, the head rolled a little bit more, following him. Song Lei tried to run away but the head would be able to follow him no matter how fast he was.

Song Lei stopped running away from the head and instead went to pick it up. He lifted it from the ground and weighed it with his hand.

'It feels to be weightless. If I closed my eyes, I wouldn't be able to feel it in my hand,' Song Lei thought. He passed the curtain and attached the head back to its body. Unfortunately, nothing changed.

As Song Lei was still trying to deal with the head, he felt the burning in his chest getting stronger. This was a familiar feeling. His eyes widened as he quickly put his hands in his jacket and pulled out a divine talisman. He had got two of these talismans from Xiang Yimu and he had already spent one against the monk. Apparently, these talismans were able to block spells cast on his soul.

Song Lei quickly went back to the other side of the curtain but the burning of the talisman didn't stop. Instead, it became even faster. Back when the monk had cast a searching spell on him, his talisman had burned off much slower. But now, its burning speed was almost quadruple.

As the last bits of the talisman turned to ash, Song Lei couldn't find any clues about what was causing this phenomenon. After the talisman finished burning, Song Lei felt a sharp pain in his body. Although he couldn't locate it, he already had enough knowledge to understand that something had happened to his soul.

He felt his eyes getting heavier and heavier as he lost control of his legs. Song Lei fell to the ground....

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