Chapter 800: Will Die, But Not Necessarily Today
Jiang Jiang was not at all surprised that he had gone to find the other children from the welfare home. She gave a faint, ambiguous smile and said, "Why don't you think about why she needed psychological counseling in the first place?"
"You're saying she has a mental illness." Xu Huo did not question his own judgment. "But even if she has delusions, it just so happens that she imagined Shang Shuming as a doctor. That can't be a complete coincidence."
"As you said, Shang Shuming was merely a sponsor of the welfare home. He wouldn't have had many opportunities to appear there. Logically, he shouldn't have had deep contact with the children."
"I've met Peng Ya. She's a normal person."
"Perhaps precisely because she was normal, she was abandoned."
He paused, his gaze sharp as he looked at Jiang Jiang. "Were you abandoned too?"
"That shouldn't be the case. The Octagonal Gallery—this item matches your traits perfectly. Even if it wasn't custom-made for you, considerable effort must have been spent to acquire it. An Artificer died for it. The person who trained you valued you greatly."
"With such deep affection and loyalty, it's unlikely they'd abandon you just because of a personality flaw... Unless they're dead."
Jiang Jiang's expression darkened slightly. "I have foreseen my own death, but it doesn't have to be today."
As soon as she finished speaking, she raised her paintbrush and flicked it toward Xu Huo. "Paid Model!"
Along with her item, a semi-transparent frame resembling a picture frame appeared, restricting his movements from a distance. At the same time, one of the gallery corridors enlarged around Xu Huo, gradually pulling him into the depths of the gallery. Meanwhile, the mutated animals in the picture frames on both sides of the corridor began to revive.
Xu Huo was limited by the item and couldn't move, but he could still slightly move his hands and feet. He smashed a bottle of "Mind-Blowing Good Stuff" on the ground. The boiling stench immediately drove back the few Xenomorphs that had rushed close. One of them even hunched over and vomited, but what came out wasn't undigested remains like corpses, but watery grass.
Of course, not all Xenomorphs were highly sensitive to the smell, but this moment was enough to offset most of the item's effect time. Coupled with the "Progress Bar Disappearance," after repelling the first wave of Xenomorphs, Xu Huo regained his mobility. He carved a bloody path through the clustered monsters and returned to the central intersection of the gallery. However, Jiang Jiang was no longer there, and the moment he stepped in, the eight corridors began to deform and rotate!
Xu Huo experienced the side effect of having too good eyesight for the first time. In just a few seconds, he was significantly affected, even feeling dizzy. Unable to look directly at his surroundings, he simply closed his eyes.
After sensing the environment around him, he turned and stepped into one of the corridors.
After cutting down a few Xenomorphs that rushed at him, he suddenly felt a strange force appear right in front of him. He reflexively dodged to the side, but a sharp claw tore open his left shoulder!
Xu Huo snapped his eyes open and saw a Xenomorph standing right in front of him. He swung his blade horizontally and severed it. The corpse that fell to the ground still retained the form of a wild beast, but what spilled from its belly were all plants like flowers and grass.
"It seems not all the Xenomorphs in these paintings are real."
At that moment, the corridor changed. The original wall covering was replaced by black and white checkered tiles. The entire hallway was covered by a giant static screen, and the path ahead and behind completely disappeared, leaving only endless darkness.
Xu Huo opened a door in the wall. After stepping out, he found himself standing at a high place. He jumped down and landed back in the gallery, but this was no longer the same gallery as before. Looking back, the place he had just jumped down from was merely a flickering painting like a static screen.
In other words, he had come out of a painting.
Switching to the "Crimson Sword," Xu Huo opened a second door. However, he still emerged from a painting. The content of this painting was a wall with a black-and-white checkered painting hanging on it.
Pushing open the third door, the content of the painting was again based on the previous one, now depicting the scene he had just experienced.
It was like an infinitely magnifiable painting. This gallery and the paintings were trapped in an infinite loop.
It was as if it was telling the trapped person that every time they found an exit, the predicament would deepen.
But Xu Huo only stood still for two seconds before continuing to open doors. He didn't stop until he had opened over a dozen doors. Not because an exit had appeared or he had found Jiang Jiang, but because a black picture frame appeared before him.
There were also picture frame symbols in his spiritual world. Clearly, the Octagonal Gallery was not an ordinary location item; it also had spiritual interference. Xu Huo, trapped inside, would certainly be suppressed. Opening his own spiritual world was not easy, let alone materializing it.
But having found the picture frame, he had succeeded.
Raising his hand, a door appeared before Xu Huo. He pushed it open and walked down a moving spiral staircase. Before long, Jiang Jiang's figure appeared on the stairs.
Seeing him, Jiang Jiang couldn't hide her surprise. "I didn't expect you to have undergone Super Evolution!"
The stairs were in constant motion. Xu Huo seemed to be walking down, yet also seemed not to have moved at all. But the stairs delivered him right in front of Jiang Jiang. He raised his hand slightly, and the two of them were transported from the staircase into the Library Tower.
Looking up, the nearly endless Library Tower was unimaginably vast. Jiang Jiang swept her gaze over it briefly, and a look of admiration actually appeared in her eyes. Then, she drew a semi-transparent picture frame in the air and jumped into it.
Unfortunately, the next second, she emerged from the opposite side of that same floor in the Library Tower.
From a distance, Xu Huo waved at her.
Jiang Jiang tried again, but still failed. She seemed to want to summon the Octagonal Gallery again, but the location item couldn't break through this spiritual world. Or rather, the item had already been deployed, but she was trapped and isolated from the outside world.
Seeing the round table at the bottom of the tower, she quickly jumped down and swung her brush to smash the Materialized Object on the table. However, the item didn't destroy the Materialized Object as she had hoped. Instead, the black thin sheet on the table instantly liquefied, wrapped around her hand, and pulled her entire body toward the tabletop.
In terms of spiritual evolution, Jiang Jiang was definitely inferior to Xu Huo. So, unlike Bai Kou who had handled it with ease back then, she panicked for a moment. She slapped her waist, and a visible shockwave burst out. Not only did it repel the black substance enveloping her, but it also created chaotic pixel-like craters inside the Library Tower!
Although it recovered the next second, Xu Huo was inevitably affected by the impact. He grabbed the railing, and blood trickled from his nose.
"Opening the door does come with considerable risk." Wiping away the blood, he concealed the round table and used the stairs to send Jiang Jiang up, throwing her into one of the rooms in the Library Tower.
Every floor of the Library Tower was a large ring enclosing smaller rings, layer upon layer. It wasn't the core of the entire spiritual world. Even if she started demolishing things inside, the impact on Xu Huo wouldn't be too great. But before their next conversation, it was best to wear down her energy first.