I'm Trapped in the Block

Mo Ling was certain it was a sentence.

But he couldn’t understand it.

The script writhed, slowly burrowing into the robed man’s brain, etching itself onto it like a tattoo.

Yet the robed man showed no reaction. He continued to share his excitement with his companions until the black script burrowed deep.

The smile on his face abruptly vanished. As if he had suddenly realized something, his expression turned solemn, and he looked around.

The gaze he cast upon his companions now held a faint trace of pity.

He stopped sharing his excitement. Closing his mouth, he slowly began to walk.

Reaching out to grasp at the empty air, the robed man seemed to be sensing his surroundings before taking a deep breath.

’What is he doing?’

As Mo Ling watched in confusion, the robed man squatted down and pressed his palm flat against the ground, as if feeling for something.

After a moment, the robed man walked over to the side and stroked the crooked houses, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

He was like a newborn child, curiously touching everything in this world he had just entered.

When he finished his exploration, he looked back at his former companions, sighed helplessly, and then headed toward the higher levels of the black tower.

Bai Zhou and Li Luo also noticed the robed man’s strange transformation. They quickly hid in a concealed spot and recorded his actions.

"Did the blood exchange succeed?" Li Luo whispered.

Bai Zhou nodded in disbelief.

The robed man followed an upward-sloping cavern, leaving the village behind. Many villagers watched him from a distance, their eyes filled with longing.

"This might be the next stage of the distortion," Bai Zhou guessed after a moment of thought.

The robed man’s bizarre ritual seemed to be a necessary step to enter the next stage.

’But who wrote those books?’

’Was it the person who first discovered this method of "ascension"?’

The robed man disappeared from Mo Ling’s field of view. He left with resolve, without even preparing anything, which only made the scene more terrifying.

Perhaps as he continued upward, his distortion would only intensify.

Something was constantly guiding them toward the very top of the black tower.

A chill ran down Mo Ling’s spine. The image of the black script burrowing into the brain replayed in his mind, possessing a strange, captivating magic.

After the newly ascended robed man left, the others by the blood sphere grew even more frantic. They chanted with greater fervor and desperately tossed rotten fragments into the sphere.

Not only that, but a scramble for the rotten black fragments also broke out in the marketplace. Before long, they were completely sold out.

The robed people who managed to buy the fragments rushed to the blood sphere, joined the ritual, and began chanting the brainwashing, sacred song.

However, no one else proved as lucky as the robed man from before.

After documenting everything, Bai Zhou beckoned to Li Luo, and they slowly left the village, heading in the direction the robed man had gone.

"Let’s follow him and see."

The two quickened their pace and soon found themselves behind the robed man.

He moved as if he knew the path perfectly, winding his way through the intricate network of caverns.

These caverns intersected and connected, and the route the robed man chose spiraled ever upward, leading to the higher levels.

Along the way, they passed some openings that connected to the outside. Fierce winds howled in from outside the black tower, and birds constantly flew past.

Although he couldn’t see the ground, Mo Ling could tell from Li Luo’s cautious movements that they must be very high up.

A flock of birds perched on the edge of the opening. They were the same kind Mo Ling had seen in the picture before, but only now did he realize just how large they were.

Their wingspans were nearly three meters. Their pure white feathers reflected the sunlight, and their six huge, symmetrical eyes stared intently at the robed man.

However, these birds, which resembled giant seagulls, seemed to have no hostile intentions. They even appeared somewhat timid.

Startled by the robed man’s arrival, they took to the sky, circling and shrieking outside the cavern. The sound was bizarre, like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

Bracing against the fierce winds blowing in from outside, the robed man let out a shout as a pair of black wings suddenly unfurled from his back.

He suddenly leaped from the edge of the opening, plunging toward the cliff below. Then, with a surge, he rocketed back up from beneath, his huge black wings beating as he charged toward one of the circling white giant birds.

Immediately after, the robed man cried out again. A black, spiderweb-like shadow appeared in the sky, blocking the giant bird’s path of escape.

A massive hand instantly seized the trapped bird’s neck and tore its head clean off.

The headless corpse of the giant bird fell spinning from the sky, spattering blood like a carelessly discarded piece of paper.

Meanwhile, the robed man, holding the giant bird’s head, flew slowly back to the cliff’s edge. He paid no mind to the blood covering his face as he tied the head to his waist with a grass rope and continued on his way up.

The bloody scene had unfolded so quickly that the two were stunned into stopping in their tracks.

Fortunately, Bai Zhou recovered quickly and urged Li Luo to keep following.

After walking a while longer, the caverns narrowed abruptly, becoming just wide enough for one person to pass through. Moreover, a strange, persistent vibration began to appear.

Upon reaching this area, the robed man became noticeably more cautious, as if on guard against something.

Sure enough, as the vibrations grew stronger, a strange creature appeared in Mo Ling’s field of vision.

It was a nematode completely covered in armor. The color of its carapace blended perfectly with the cavern walls, hiding it in the darkness. The vibrations were emanating from its body.

With each vibration, it would pause, seemingly sensing the differences in the reverberations. It quickly located the robed man’s position.

’It seems the vibration is a form of echolocation.’

The robed man remained unhurried. He shouted, and the familiar black needle flew from his mouth, though it now appeared even darker and more substantial.

The needle pointed directly at the nematode’s location. As the nematode crawled toward him, the robed man had already made his move.

With a low roar, a long, sharp blade emerged from the robed man’s hand. He plunged it viciously into the nematode’s carapace and wrenched it open.

Just as the nematode tried to flee, a huge boulder suddenly materialized above it and crashed down, pinning it underneath.

The robed man struck again, severing the nematode’s head along the gap in its carapace.

He reached into the nematode’s flesh and pulled out a constantly vibrating pearl. This, it seemed, was the source of the nematode’s vibrations.

The robed man placed the pearl in his pocket and continued upward...

Along the way, the robed man relentlessly hunted the various strange creatures within the black tower.

After hunting each creature, he would take a part of his prey as a trophy and keep it on his person.

After killing a total of ten different kinds of creatures, the robed man’s body was completely covered in trophies.

Finally, he emerged from the caverns and arrived before a large stone door.

He removed the trophies from his body and placed them on a tray in front of the door, the prey’s blood soaking the tray.

With each item, the tray sank a little lower. When he had placed all ten trophies on it, they instantly erupted in a purple light.

This was followed by a CLICK, and the great door slowly swung open.