Illusions, Lies, Truth

Translated by lucathia (proofread by Taffygirl13 & Trespasserby)

Lu Yang ran with all his might toward the abandoned campus. People’s lives were in danger. His running was nearly fast enough to break the world record.

Soon, he reached the abandoned campus. He glanced toward his destination; there was only a single floor lit brightly in the dark building. Lu Yang counted as he ran. It was the eighth floor.

He rushed into the building. With each stride, Lu Yang was able to leap half a floor up, making it look like he was practically flying. He rushed straight to the staircase that connected the seventh floor to the eighth. A pool of black water blocked his path where the staircase turned.

The water was actually flowing backwards, with the water pooling above his head, as if the eighth floor was lower than the seventh. The water flooded the eighth floor’s stairway instead of flowing down to the seventh floor. This is completely illogical!

Lu Yang boldly extended his hand to touch the black water. He immediately felt chilled to the bone although his fingertip had barely touched it. No matter how much of a rush he was in, he did not dare to dash directly into something like this. He immediately summoned his sword.

“Slay! Cut this thing apart!”

The ancient sword shone brightly, seemingly agitating the black water so that it surged and spun warily. However, when the sword cut into the surface of the water, it was like a ship that left no trace of its passage. The gash made from the sword instantly sealed up, returning to its previous state.

Lu Yang’s face darkened. Just as he was about to throw all caution to the wind and rush in, he abruptly remembered the legend behind the abandoned campus and how to trigger it. Perhaps he needed to follow the method detailed as he headed upstairs to be able to enter the barrier dimension.

Lu Yang frowned and abruptly stuck his left hand into the black water. When he got his hand in up to the wrist, he was only able to endure it for three seconds before he felt it was too cold to keep going. He took his hand out. His entire left hand had blackened, and there didn’t seem to be much feeling in it.

He helplessly said, “All right, don’t get agitated. I know I did something stupid again.”

Slay raced over and abruptly stopped. The sword twisted to touch the top of Lu Yang’s head, as if it was clobbering him, before returning to an upright position. Slay was trembling from tip to hilt, like it was distraught and furious.

“I’m just afraid that I won’t make it in time. There are classmates who are nearly about to suffocate!”

Lu Yang explained as he went down the stairs. With a bend at the knees, he leaped up past an entire floor. If Jiang Ziya were to see this scene, he would once again lament that this was beyond human.

Lu Yang ran to the first floor and shouted “I’m heading up to the xth floor now” as he went up each floor. There weren’t any oddities along the way, making Lu Yang feel uneasy. Don’t tell me the pathway can only be used once?

That would be bad. He wasn’t adept at handling barrier dimensions. Earlier, he really should have forcefully carried Jiang Ziya over no matter what!

When he was between the fourth and fifth floor, Lu Yang suddenly heard a loud sound. He stopped in his tracks before realizing that it was a gunshot!

As if he had been shaken awake by the gunshot, Lu Yang began to hear the sound of people’s voices one by one, as well as a very familiar voice…

“In the name of the Lord, I command you to stand down. Stand down immediately!”

Dad— Lu Yang sped up even more. If it weren’t because the stairs in this building had no handrails, Lu Yang would have been able to grab the handrails and jump through entire flights at once.

Even if the black water had still been blocking him, Lu Yang might have rushed right into it. Fortunately, there was nothing blocking the seventh floor from the eighth this time.

With a leap, Lu Yang landed onto the eighth floor. The division down the middle was clear at a glance. One side was dark while the other was bright, as if separated into two different worlds from within: one step to heaven and one step to hell.

The darkness crawled incessantly, wanting to encroach the territory of the light, yet it was blocked by a brimming white glow. Attempting to approach would only result in annihilation, with no room for invasion.

What was giving off the white light could be faintly made out to be in the shape of a book. The person standing behind the book was Liu Yishi. He was shouting while holding a cross in the air to put matters to a stop.

There were also a few policemen huddled in the farthest corner from the darkness. They had their guns lifted out of fear. If not for Hu Lican holding them back, there might have been several more gunshots.

Seeing that his father was fine, Lu Yang breathed a sigh of relief. He finally had the spare attention to observe the current situation. f𝐫𝑒𝗲𝙬𝒆𝚋𝐧૦𝘃𝗲l.c𝚘𝘮

The wide expanse of darkness was actually endlessly crawling hair. It was long and thick, and it was all over the place, from the floor to the ceiling. Lu Yang only then discovered that there was actually a woman hanging from the ceiling. She was nearly buried by the black hair, with only her face up to her chest still visible.

Her eyes were wide open, her mouth stretched to an extreme, as if it would split apart into two halves in the very next second. All of the black hair was coming from her head.

In contrast to the incessantly crawling hair, the main body was completely still. It was like the hair was the main body instead.

The white light wavered for a moment. Liu Yishi had noticed Lu Yang’s presence and couldn’t help but be slightly affected.

“Xiao Yang?” However, he couldn’t be sure that what was before his eyes was actually his son. It could be a mirage formed by the barrier dimension to throw him off his guard.

Slay shot out, slashing apart a strand of hair that had wanted to “sneak across” from the corner when the white light had wavered.

“Dad, quickly finish her off!”

Liu Yishi looked at the hair that had been cut apart, no longer moving on the floor after being cut short. This was so much more powerful than his book. Along with the familiarity, he could determine right away that this was indeed his own son. He had never seen anything more adept at slaying demons than Lu Yang’s sword.

“I want to finish this quickly too, but I really can’t. This barrier dimension isn’t simple.”

Earlier, he had also been unsure of his son’s situation. Liu Yishi had been in a hurry and had wished he could grow wings like an angel to fly over. If he had been able to resolve this, he would not still be here.

“This hair is endless. I have used the name of the Lord to burn the filth many times. But even though it can be burned, it grows again afterwards in the blink of an eye. There is no way to clear a path to the exit.”

Lu Yang turned to look. The stairway he had come up from was once again flooded by black water—No, it wasn’t water. It was a tight tangle of black hair that was writhing like water!

Seeing that, Lu Yang’s face nearly turned as dark as the black water.

Jiang Ziya and a bunch of students in mortal peril were waiting for him to bring reinforcements. If he was delayed too long, lives would be lost.

“What about attacking that woman?”

Right now, Lu Yang didn’t have the capacity to care about whether or not that was a college classmate. He had already helped her ascend. If he were to call that thing Li Yao, even Jiang Ziya wouldn’t believe it.

Liu Yishi was about to shake his head but stopped and said, “You might as well give it a try.”

Lu Yang tried it immediately. He used his full strength at once.

“Natural order of Heavens and Earth, disperse the foulness from the air, mighty gods of the eight cardinals, cut down demons and bind evil. Let the evil impurities dissolve away, let Taoism last for all eternity, let this imperial decree of Taishang Laojun be heard—”

As the ancient incantation was recited, the ancient sword flew up and took position, spinning several times to gather the surrounding energy around its blade. Its power exploded to the point that even the policemen could see Slay’s prowess. Hope blossomed across their faces.

“Eliminate!”

With overwhelming power behind it, Slay pierced straight at the main body of the woman on the ceiling. Lu Yang had thought that the black hair might rush forward to block it, so he had used his full strength right away, but unexpectedly, the black hair didn’t come forward to block it. Instead, it retreated to the corner and allowed Slay to pierce straight through her heart, gouging a huge chasm in the woman’s chest.

I succeeded? Lu Yang was doubtful. Even though Slay had always been powerful, his father was no amateur himself. While Liu Yishi wasn’t the attacker type, a barrier dimension that could ensnare him could not be this easy to break…

A strand of black hair suddenly moved, pouncing toward the woman’s chest, filling up the chasm. The black color gradually transformed into other colors and shapes; skin, the color of the shirt, and even small details like the collar of the shirt were present.

Liu Yishi sighed. That didn’t work either.

“It was like that earlier, too.” Fang Da was nearly to the point of tears. “We couldn’t kill it no matter how many shots we fired. Even Mr. Liu couldn’t do anything.”

Hu Lican smacked Fang Da so hard that his head dipped. He scolded him, “If he wasn’t able to do anything, you’d long be dead!”

Liu Yishi shook his head to indicate that he did not mind or blame Fang Da. These policemen were pretty decent. They had only taken a few shots at the female corpse despite being under the effect of this kind of high caliber barrier dimension. Hu Lican had a good eye for the people he had selected.

“I am afraid the only path left is upwards,” Liu Yishi said helplessly.

He had known this, yet he had not chosen to head upstairs because this trap was entirely too obvious. Going upstairs was definitely the worst choice possible. He had his book to protect himself, so he might be able to hold on until the barrier dimension vanished, but he could not guarantee the safety of these policemen.

Although he had worried about his son, Liu Yishi still could not do something that would jeopardize the safety of these policemen.

“Even though this is the only choice, it is also a dire one. It would be best for us to wait here for the barrier dimension to disappear. A barrier dimension of this caliber won’t be able to last very long. I give it an hour at most, and this is under the scenario that the black hair does not go on the offense, or else it will be even shorter.”

Lu Yang knew that his father was much better at figuring out barrier dimensions than he was, but he could not follow his father’s suggestion at this particular moment. Right now, it was a matter of life and death where every single second counted! He couldn’t wait a single minute, let alone an hour!

“We’ll head up immediately!”

Hearing that, Liu Yishi frowned, but he also knew that his son would not say that for no reason. There definitely had to be something even more serious outside waiting for them to solve, so they didn’t have time to wait here for the barrier dimension to disappear.

“Okay.”

Fortunately, his son was here to add to their strength. Liu Yishi was slightly more assured now.

“Open the way for us. Attack with everything you have. I’ll take up the rear and protect the others.”

Lu Yang nodded. His father’s abilities were indeed better for defense than offense.

Hearing that, Hu Lican knew that he and the others were holding them back. If he knew this would happen, he would have stood outside to keep watch, pretending he was patrolling. Why had he thought to bring some people in to observe and learn? He had wanted the convenience of having a few more people understand these kinds of matters a bit more so that when they came across these kinds of cases, they could promptly hand matters off to the right people.

But this was not just understanding a bit more. This was knowing too much!

Hu Lican felt he had really done a disservice to his fellow policemen. But now that things had come to this, all he could do was make sure that each and every one of them followed Lu Yang and Liu Yishi closely to prevent any casualties. If casualties were to happen, he would truly regret it forever.

Lu Yang rushed straight upstairs. Seeing how hurried his son was, Liu Yishi felt uneasy and quickly beckoned the policemen to follow.

Once upstairs, they all immediately discovered something wrong. They had clearly been on the eighth floor, but once they headed upstairs, they actually reached a dirt field that was rather wide. However, they could not see far into the distance because the entire world was ashen. Ash floated in the air everywhere. It appeared to be like snow at first glance, but a closer look revealed how wrong that was. The ash was dark gray and drifted super slowly, so slowly that it was nearly motionless, stretching across the entire world, dying their sight gray.

For some reason, unease seized their hearts, and they even had the desire to turn back and face the black haired corpse instead. However, when they turned to look at the stairway they had come up from, they realized it had turned into a small pond. The water of the pond was as black as ink. They did not dare to step in it at all.

This pond was a very familiar sight to Lu Yang. It was the Pond of Meditation that had the wishing corpse. Taking a closer look at his surroundings, he realized that it was the university!

Fang Da suddenly sucked in his breath and grabbed Hu Lican’s arm in fright.

Someone was floating in the Pond of Meditation, face up, eyes staring widely up at the sky above.

Lu Yang calmly took a look, his heart plummeting. This was the male student who had died without a sound at the Pond of Meditation after making his wish.

A corpse did not scare them, but what did was the fact that ever since they had stepped into the abandoned campus, none of the corpses had obediently remained still. Each and every one of them had scrambled to crawl back up, like zombies in a movie.

Lu Yang stared at the corpse in the pond without taking his eyes off of it. However, this time, it did not seem like it was about to stand back up. It merely floated in the pond serenely.

Rather, it was the surface of the pond that rippled. Water swirled and surged until it formed a great whirlpool, except it did not cave downwards. Instead, it swirled upwards to form a long entity.

“Slay!”

Lu Yang, who had plenty of experience slaying demons, was not about to wait for this thing to take form. He was definitely going to get rid of it while he had the opportunity to do so! The sword shot out, piercing apart the unknown thing in its midst.

However, a person fell out from within. She struggled in the water, but when she discovered that it was shallow, she stood right up and walked to the shore dripping wet. She looked at the group of people in front of her with fear on her face.

It was Li Yao, yet she was not a corpse. She looked completely like a normal university student.

The black hair that had crawled everywhere had returned to its normal length. Even the color had changed, turning into the chestnut brown that she had dyed her hair to. Lu Yang remembered that Li Yao’s hair was indeed this color. The clothes on her body had even returned to their original condition. If it weren’t because she had been in the water and was now dripping wet, she would look entirely like some random university student one could see anywhere on campus.

“W-Who are you?” Li Yao’s eyes wandered in fright. She shouted in fear, “And where am I? What happened?”

They had all frozen and did not know how to respond. When a corpse turned into a monster, they would run away in fright, but when a corpse turned back into a living person, how were they supposed to respond?

Lu Yang snorted coldly and warned, “Cut the crap. You can trick normal people into thinking that a dead person has come back to life, but do you really think you can trick a practitioner?”

Li Yao stared blankly at him before suddenly returning to herself and crying in alarm, “Lu Yang? You’re Lu Yang, right?”

Lu Yang’s face froze. The normality of her actions was unable to trick him, but giving voice to his name indeed startled him. If this fake knew his name, it meant that the mastermind behind this knew who he was. That also meant that the reason for Li Yao becoming a victim might be because she knew him and Jiang Ziya?

“Sweetie, don’t let it affect you.”

Liu Yishi clasped his son’s shoulder. A father knew his son best. Even though Lu Yang remained calm, Liu Yishi had perceptively sensed that his son’s emotions were off. Getting influenced by things in a barrier dimension was extremely dangerous. A moment of weakness could result in paying with one’s life.

Li Yao ran toward Lu Yang but was stopped by the ancient sword. The tip of the sword was only a few centimeters away from her neck. Like a normal girl, she was frightened and screamed.

Tears burst out from fright, and she wailed, “I-I’m Li Yao. We met before. Have you forgotten? When we went to the infirmary, the windows of the school even shattered!”

Lu Yang grew angrier and angrier the more he heard. They had researched it so thoroughly. Li Yao getting chosen really was my fault, wasn’t it? Damn it! He had only met her once. Was that really all it took?

Seeing such a scene, Liu Yishi knew that things were dire. Slay’s glow was even beginning to turn a threatening red. Lu Yang had indeed been affected. No matter how powerful he was, he was still a young man. Facing someone he knew would affect him after all.

Liu Yishi did not know whether he should feel worried or relieved. His son had been practicing by himself for a long time. If one day he faced an opponent and wavered, that would not be a good thing at all. However, if he never wavered at all, his heart hardening despite his young age, Liu Yishi would still worry as his father!

Liu Yishi stepped forward. With a swing of his hand, the book flew close to Li Yao and gave off a strong glow.

“In the name of the Lord, I command you to discard your disguise and face us with your true visage!”

Without Li Yao’s skin, Liu Yishi believed that his son would immediately cut her down, and he would even use great force to do so. After all, Slay’s red glow was growing more and more intense…

However, what resulted was a Li Yao who stared with wide eyes and great confusion. However, she did not jump away again, as a book was not as scary as a sword, and she hadn’t understood Liu Yishi’s words. She only knew that they at least did not include anything about killing or harming her, so she wasn’t that scared.

“Why is there no change?” Hu Lican asked in confusion, “Earlier, Mr. Liu used this same technique to force her to show her true identity, but why isn’t it working this time?”

Liu Yishi frowned. Even though his offensive power was not as strong as his wife’s or his son’s, he was unrivaled in other areas. Under the light of his book, there were few things that could keep their true visage from him. She did not even show the slightest struggle, as if she was a normal human and wasn’t affected by the book at all.

“C-Can I go home?”

Li Yao slowly stepped backward, looking like she wanted to put some distance between her and these strange people, including Lu Yang, a classmate who had clearly met her before yet was pretending that he did not know her. She still believed that she was on campus. Even though her surroundings were a bit ashen, it was often overcast lately, so it wasn’t strange for the sky to be gray.

Lu Yang stepped forward. He had hesitated for long enough. No matter what this thing before him was, she could not be Li Yao!

Slay hung in the air, threatening the harmless-looking female student. Lu Yang growled, “Let us out right now!”

Li Yao cried, “What? I don’t understand what you’re saying at all!”

Lu Yang did not hesitate any longer. With two fingers pressed together, he pointed his sword at Li Yao’s heart.

“W-What are you doing…”

Seeing the sword actually fly at her, Li Yao’s eyes grew large. She shrieked, “Help, murder—!”

The sword stopped, but it was not that Lu Yang’s heart had wavered. No matter if it was his classmates who were in mortal peril or the injured Jiang Ziya, neither allowed him the leisure to hesitate. Instead, someone had intercepted and blocked Slay’s attack.

Lu Yang’s face was downright ugly. This was not the first time Slay’s attack had been stopped before. No matter how highly he thought of himself, he wouldn’t dare to claim that he was so powerful that no one could stop him. However, this was the first time he had ever seen someone stop Slay’s attack so completely, to the point that Slay could not move. He could even feel Slay’s unbridled anger in response to this.

Had the true enemy finally appeared?

Liu Yishi stepped forward first. His book flew into the air and released a strong light. However, it was not harsh to his allies’ eyes. Rather, it felt gentle, like sinking into a hot springs.

Seeing the direction his father was facing, Lu Yang’s fingers turned. Slay’s red glow grew even stronger, as it tried to break free of its restraints. It turned ninety degrees in the air and pointed straight at the sky!

There was actually someone in the air!

That person wore an old-fashioned black robe with golden trim. He held a golden scepter in his hands. His hair was tied into a bun, with a small black-based coronet lined with gold holding it in place. He even wore a mask on his face. It was a golden mask, with a mottled pattern on it, and a sharp nose like that of a crow’s beak.

The light illuminated the masked man.

Fu Taiyi?

Lu Yang could not hold back his anger as he shouted, “You’re the one behind this?”

Fu Taiyi removed his mask. From high up in the air, he looked down at this group of people, and smiled.