Chapter 574 - 567: Grasp
"Where... is this..."
Lei Yi’s pupils contracted sharply as he took in his surroundings.
’Is this the Three Rivers Return Path?’
Lei Yi muttered to himself, surveying everything around him.
A small skiff swayed gently, drifting ever forward. Everything around him looked both beautiful and bizarre, but Lei Yi could sense a powerful undercurrent of danger.
This was the powerful force within the natural world dedicated to reclaiming the magnetic fields of all living beings’ wills. An ordinary Saint Awakening practitioner would find only certain death here, their Spirit carried away to a distant place by the skiff.
Finally, Lei Yi looked down at himself.
His body was no longer solid but had become translucent. And it was a very strange sight.
Within his translucent form, countless human faces of varying sizes were clearly visible, packed so densely they seemed to fill his entire being.
This meant he didn’t have just one soul. His split personalities had also been recognized by the will of the world as a form of soul, coexisting as one with him.
They were individuals who, though dead, would live on forever within his soul.
’So this is the real "me," free from my physical body? It’s an interesting, indescribable feeling. Being unshackled from the flesh really does let me understand myself more clearly.’
’But according to the original plan, the pull shouldn’t have been strong enough to drag me completely into the Three Rivers Return Path. It looks like the first experiment was a failure. Does this mean I have to get out of this place by myself? Is this the risk he mentioned?’
Lei Yi muttered to himself. Standing on the skiff, he turned and looked at the river channel behind him.
’According to what Yuan Jue said before, if I run back along this river and fend off the Fierce Ghosts in the water, I should be able to return to reality, right?’
’In that case...’
Lei Yi took a deep breath, then leaped from the skiff, landing heavily in the river water.
SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!
The river immediately began to churn violently. Countless ghostly figures swarmed toward him, like sharks that had smelled blood.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Innumerable black shadows shot out of the water, pouncing on Lei Yi.
As a top-tier Martial Artist highly sensitive to magnetic fields, Lei Yi could clearly sense the magnetic Power contained within each and every black shadow.
Each one was likely on par with a weak Saint Awakening practitioner, and there were so many of them.
"Everyone, lend me your strength!"
Lei Yi let out a low roar and shot forward. The countless faces within his body suddenly went through an Awakening, bursting forth with formidable power. They temporarily left his body to swirl around him, helping him fend off the attacks from the surrounding shadows.
He ran onward, but the journey was far longer than he had imagined. The countless pouncing shadows seemed endless. Without any reinforcement, even the most powerful will would eventually be devoured by them.
HUFF! HUFF!
Lei Yi was already panting heavily, nearly at his limit, but he still couldn’t see the gateway out of the Three Rivers Return Path.
’This is unexpectedly difficult... I bear numerous Heroic Spirits, so my willpower cultivation is much stronger than an ordinary Saint Awakening practitioner’s, yet I still can’t reach the end. I really don’t know how that guy managed to do it...’
Under the relentless assault of the endless shadows, Lei Yi’s energy was draining faster and faster. His vision was blurring, and his sense of self was gradually fading. If this continued, his will would likely be completely disintegrated by these shadows and returned to the Natural Magnetic Field.
’This risk is a little bigger than I thought...’
A look of resignation appeared on Lei Yi’s face.
But just then, he noticed a terrifying anomaly appear in the sky, which was thick with dark clouds and rolling with blood-red lightning.
The entire sky seemed to split open in an instant, and a dazzling white light shone out from the massive fissure.
Then, something thrust through the rift.
It was a pair of hands, as white as jade.
The next moment, Lei Yi witnessed an utterly astounding scene.
The hands, as massive as mountains, suddenly pulled in opposite directions.
RRRRIP!
The sky of the Three Rivers Return Path was torn open like a sheet of old cloth, ripped apart by that enormous pair of hands to form a huge gap.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Lei Yi clearly felt the entire world begin to tremble. The pale red river water churned, and the pouncing ghosts around him actually seemed to shudder with fear.
Then, one of the giant hands suddenly reached down toward Lei Yi, blotting out the sky as it descended like a divine mountain.
The massive hand scooped down, grabbing Lei Yi’s magnetic field of will in its palm. It then pulled back through the great rift in the sky, leaving the domain of the Three Rivers Return Path.
Lei Yi felt his senses overwhelmed by an intense light. Then came a violent jolt. The light, empty feeling in his body vanished, replaced by the familiar sensation of flesh and blood.
He snapped his eyes open and found that his will had escaped the Three Rivers Return Path and returned to his body.
Across from him sat Zhou Yuanjue. The silvery-white magnetic field and Divine Soul Power around his hands slowly receded, returning to their normal state.
Needless to say, the giant hands that had descended from the sky like a miracle from a God, tearing open the magnetic field that governed the world’s Reincarnation of life and death, had belonged to Zhou Yuanjue.
Before, from a spectator’s perspective, he had only known that Zhou Yuanjue was strong. He had no real concept of just *how* strong.
But now, having experienced it firsthand, he finally understood the true extent of Zhou Yuanjue’s power.
It was, quite simply, miraculous power.
"My apologies," Zhou Yuanjue said to Lei Yi. "It was the first attempt. I did my best to control the opening of the gateway to the Three Rivers Return Path, but I didn’t expect that even a tiny slit would generate such a powerful pull. I didn’t foresee you would face such danger."
"There’s nothing to apologize for. You were able to just rip open the Three Rivers Return Path with your magnetic field to save me. What risk was there?"
"Now I’m starting to wonder if you could just tear open the Three Rivers Return Path and drag someone who just died right back from the Ghost Gate."
Lei Yi said with a wry smile, feeling his confidence had taken a massive blow.
"That’s not quite right. For a cluster of magnetic fields like this one, the structure is looser on the outer edges. Conversely, the deeper you go, the denser and more stable the magnetic field becomes."
"I was able to tear it open and rescue you because you had already pushed your way out a certain distance on your own, leaving the densest part of the magnetic field. If an ordinary person were pulled directly into the middle layers or deeper, even I, at my current level, wouldn’t be able to tear open the magnetic field there."
"That’s also why I needed you as the test subject."
Zhou Yuanjue said, shaking his head.