Chapter 2165: Hallucination In The Pagoda Forest

Though the situation in the Aligned Star Region was deeply strange, Shang Xia had no time to investigate what had happened. Instead, he rushed into the Pagoda Forest.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

As he flew deeper, awed by the countless towering meteorite spires that seemed to have formed naturally, faint and eerie whispers began to echo in his mind.

He frowned but paid them little heed, continuing toward the depths of the forbidden region. He had not sensed any trace of origin qi from foreign Star Fields. Even the ordinary origin qi present was extremely thin.

It was unlike any of the other seven forbidden regions he had visited.

As he advanced, the towers grew taller and more imposing, though their density decreased the farther he went.

Meanwhile, the whispers around him grew louder as agitation crept into his heart.

Almost instinctively, Shang Xia tried to discern what the whispers were saying. They sounded like a chant, like scripture being recited. However, it was always muffled, as if separated from him by a thin veil. Just when he thought he might finally hear clearly, the words slipped away again.

That sense of almost understanding made him want to listen even more. A subtle thought surfaced within him that if he went just a little deeper, perhaps he could catch a few of the words.

Unaware of how the urge was influencing him, or perhaps aware but unconcerned, his pace quickened. He flew faster and deeper into the Pagoda Forest, yet the whispers remained just out of reach.

The less he could make out, the more desperate he became to hear. The more desperate he became, the deeper he flew.

The spires around him rose from mere 100 feet tall to 200, 500, and even thousands of feet tall. All around him. Eventually, the tower-like structures loomed over 1,000 feet tall, each occupying a vast area with no other spires within another 1,000 feet.

Yet still he did not stop. He continued toward the ever-taller and eerier towers that pierced the void ahead.

When he reached a zone where the structures stood 2,000 to 3,000 feet tall, he noticed for the first time that their rocky surfaces bore signs of deliberate carving. The interior had been hollowed out and doorways, windows, staircases, and steps were clearly visible on them.

The towers had become true stone towers.

Moreover, a faint aura shimmered across their surfaces, gathering the ambient energy of the void and drawing it into the towers.

At that moment, from within several nearby towers, shadowy figures began to emerge. They stepped out slowly, forming a loose circle around Shang Xia. Their movements were neither hurried nor hostile. Rather, it seemed as though they were escorting him deeper into the Pagoda Forest.

Their eyes were vacant, but their lips moved continuously, murmuring in perfect rhythm with the whispers echoing around him. Yet even standing so close, he still could not make out a single word they were saying.

Then the whispers suddenly swelled in volume, pounding directly against his mind. Though still indistinct, they carried a clear emotional undertone, a compulsion urging him to continue forward.

“How boring...” Shang Xia said coldly, his eyes flashing back into focus. “I came to see who was behind this nonsense, and didn’t expect to find so many helpers.”

The confusion in his gaze vanished as his expression steadied, revealing that he had never truly fallen under the control of the voices.

From the start, he had been feigning his enthrallment.

The moment the whispers first tried to seize his divine soul, he had sensed something was wrong.

His consciousness was powerful, perhaps even rivaling that of the Star Origin Lord himself.

Thus, rather than resist immediately, he had deliberately allowed himself to be drawn in, pretending to be entranced so he could trace the source of the phenomenon.

Only when those figures emerged from the towers, echoing the same chants, did he finally feel a flicker of genuine pressure.

Without hesitation, he dropped the act and spoke aloud to test those who had surrounded him.

There was another more crucial reason he chose to reveal himself. The Crimson Soul Tablet had suddenly stirred, responding to the faint presence of foreign origin qi from a foreign Star Field.

However, likely because the surrounding towers were absorbing it, the ambient origin qi in the area was weak and scattered.

He quickly estimated his options. For the tablet to absorb enough of the origin qi, he would either have to remain for an extended period, or venture even deeper.

Yet given the encircling figures whose consciousnesses were clearly compromised, he doubted that advancing farther would make things safer. On the contrary, more of them might appear, and the danger would surely grow.

A different idea then came to him. Those enormous towers that drew in energy from both their Chaotic Sea of Stars and the foreign Star Field... What if he destroyed them? Would the energy released upon their collapse be richer, more concentrated, enough for his Crimson Soul Tablet?

Of course, he had not forgotten his true goal. It wasn’t only to collect the final type of origin qi but also to store additional reserves, allowing him to remain in the Star River for longer.

Suppressing the lingering dissonance of the whispers, Shang Xia noticed that the figures emerging from the towers had begun to move toward him, their muttering synchronized with the ghostly chorus in the air.

Their slow, deliberate steps closed the circle around him, exuding a mounting pressure, as if to herd him deeper into the Pagoda Forest.

From the moment they appeared, Shang Xia had been watching closely through his divine soul.

Their auras were faint to the point of near nonexistence. At first glance, they seemed harmless. Their eyes were vacant, movements mechanical, as though they were little more than walking corpses.

Yet as they drew nearer and Shang Xia prepared to break through their formation, a sudden sense of danger made his heart tighten.

These beings could actually threaten him.

He did not rush to strike. Instead, inner qi surged from his body, forming an exact replica of himself. His clone turned and charged toward the nearest gap in the encirclement.

But just as the clone reached one of the shambling figures, it suddenly jerked to a halt.

His clone, which had been under his full control, abruptly developed a will of its own, as though responding to some unseen call, and struggled violently to break free from his command.

At that same moment, the overlapping whispers in Shang Xia’s ears changed once again as another voice joined in the chorus.

It was a voice that sounded exactly like his own.