Chapter 2823: Multiple Spiritual Realms
"A model house," Tang Xu said. "I've only seen it once. It was the house she lived in as a child. When her spiritual realm expands, it takes the form of a city building. The range isn't large."
Xu Huo nodded. This description had appeared once before—it was from Miss Zeng's first treatment session. Later, her spiritual realm transformed into an endless forest, an underground tunnel, and then boundless darkness.
He checked Miss Zeng's spiritual power peak value, as well as the peak value of the Evolver who had treated her previously. Xu Huo felt it was worth a try.
The accompanying expert proposed conducting a spiritual power value test on him first to determine whether he could safely interfere with Miss Zeng's spiritual realm. If his value was too low, there was no need to take the risk—not only would it endanger him, but it could also affect Miss Zeng.
Xu Huo looked at Tang Xu.
Tang Xu said to the expert, "I, as a family member, directly authorize it."
The expert could only nod. However, for safety's sake, they did not remove the monitoring instruments attached to Miss Zeng, allowing them to observe her condition.
Even with nutrient fluids, Miss Zeng's complexion on the hospital bed was extremely poor. Not only did she have a sickly pallor, but her forehead, the corners of her mouth, and other areas even showed a faint bluish-gray aura, as if this energy was seeping out from inside her body. Although she had not awakened, she occasionally displayed signs of great pain, requiring medication to calm her down.
Miss Zeng's mental state was unstable, so her spiritual power would occasionally leak out. This allowed Xu Huo to observe her spiritual power directly—its intensity was not particularly high.
After getting a rough sense of the situation, Xu Huo pulled a chair over and sat down beside the hospital bed. He nodded to Tang Xu and the others, confirming they were ready, then closed his eyes and released his spiritual realm.
He controlled the range of his spiritual realm, not enveloping Miss Zeng completely from the start. Instead, he first attracted her attention before increasing the spiritual power intensity. Once Miss Zeng instinctively counterattacked, her spiritual realm instantly covered the entire ward.
The walls and floor of the ward were made of special isolation materials, so her spiritual power did not leak out. The expert Tang Xu had brought stayed outside the room with him to observe and operate.
The instruments in the room emitted a steady, rhythmic alarm. Xu Huo's vision switched to a dim, gray forest.
The forest was not very realistic. In the distance, only blurry tree shadows could be seen, mostly shrouded in darkness. A faint path lay beneath his feet, but before he could move forward, a corpse with a slashed face suddenly hung down from a tree ahead.
Unless it was based on a real location, most of what one saw in a core spiritual realm during a purely spiritual power collision was fake. The degree of realism depended on the Evolver's evolution intensity.
Although the face was mangled, the blood had no smell. Xu Huo walked around it and continued forward.
The forest's visible range was small, but the path was quite long. He was in no hurry, slowly walking along the trail to give Miss Zeng time to adapt.
After about ten minutes, he raised his hand and lightly sliced the air in front of him. A vertical line appeared in the forest world created by his spiritual power. As the line opened like an eye spreading apart, a portal to the outside formed.
Xu Huo stepped through. On the other side was an underground tunnel filled with a damp, unpleasant odor. Dripping water echoed rhythmically, and the muddy ground made walking difficult. The sounds of water and footsteps reverberated through the tunnel, overlapping and echoing, gradually merging into a very noisy stream of sound.
This time, he walked for fifteen minutes before opening a door with his vertical pupil. As expected, what followed was a pure black world.
A pure black spiritual realm—among the Evolvers Xu Huo had encountered, only Dou Shengnan had one like this. Her spiritual realm seemed to have no specific core Materialized Object, only flowing power similar to water. But this did not mean weakness; on the contrary, such a spiritual realm was hard to deal with because it left no trace.
As soon as he stepped into this spiritual realm, he felt spiritual power surging at high speed around him. Concentrated spiritual energy kept gathering nearby, eager to strike, but for some reason, it never truly closed in.
Xu Huo reached out and wiped the space in front of him. The dense black power dissipated slightly, and a face-like outline appeared for a moment before vanishing.
It looked like a very pained face, but it did not belong to Miss Zeng.
He then wiped away the spiritual power in other areas. Sure enough, behind every surge of power was such a face, each one different, all showing varying degrees of agony.
Presumably, the spiritual realm had initiated an attack. In an instant, many such faces surged out of the darkness, surrounding him from all directions.
Considering Miss Zeng's endurance, Xu Huo only used one Materialized Object. He cut a gap in the wall of faces and walked out.
By this time, Miss Zeng's spiritual realm had indeed become very unstable. The black world was collapsing in many places. The previously appearing forest world and tunnel world appeared chaotically in the darkness like a jumbled puzzle. At the same time, Xu Huo felt a sharp spiritual force attempting to attack his brain.
Ignoring these attacks, he opened several vertical pupil portals in this spiritual realm, shuttling back and forth between the forest world and the tunnel world. Finally, he found Miss Zeng's original spiritual realm—a pitch-black street.
Her spiritual realm was very unstable. In places with occasional streetlights, intact buildings could still be seen, but elsewhere, most were damaged or outright occupied by other spiritual realms.
Seeing this, Xu Huo frowned slightly. This situation seemed more like someone had implanted spiritual realms into Miss Zeng's spiritual world, rather than her having a split personality.
He had never encountered such a case before. But if that was true, to cure it completely, he would have to find the cause within the other spiritual realms.
The childhood persona appeared beside Xu Huo, nodded to him, and then ran toward the forest world.
The streetlights flickered occasionally, emitting crackling sounds. Xu Huo walked slowly along the street, using his spiritual power to push back the encroaching other spiritual realms from time to time. After walking for a while longer, he saw a small red-tiled house at the end of the road.
That should be Miss Zeng's core spiritual realm.
He went up and knocked on the door. Receiving no response, he opened a vertical pupil portal to enter. But to his surprise, when the portal opened, Dou Shengnan's face appeared inside!
The long blade formed by white spiritual power instantly surrounded Dou Shengnan from all directions and thrust toward her. Instinctively, Xu Huo mobilized his spiritual power to kill her, but just as the Materialized Object was about to make contact, he abruptly pulled back his spiritual power—this was not Dou Shengnan.