Chapter 238: The Philosopher

Chapter 238: The Philosopher

After silently examining it for several seconds, Klein stepped forward onto the staircase and carefully walked downward one level at a time.

The light around him gradually dimmed. Only gray, hazy color shrouded this world, which was silent to the extreme. The farther down Klein went, the more he felt as though he had been sealed inside a soundless room without light. Slowly, he could hear the gurgling movement of blood through his body and the powerful beating of his heart.

The latter grew faster and faster, slowly becoming stained with irrepressible anxiety and panic. Klein hurriedly restrained his mind and visualized layered spheres of light, stabilizing his emotions and restoring his state.

Beside him, the gray-white cliff wall representing Groselle’s subconscious realm stood coldly, silent as though dead. Yet from time to time, a point of light would flash within the surrounding gray fog.

Klein fixed his eyes upon it and saw, from one of those points of light, a giant tearing a human apart and stuffing him into its mouth, while Groselle watched in terror. At that time, the latter was not even three meters tall, clearly still a child.

The point of light flashed by, revealing twilight scattered over mountain peaks, frozen and unmoving. Even time itself seemed to grow sluggish here.

Klein was just about to search for more valuable information within Groselle’s subconscious when the sound of a beast-like panting suddenly rang beside his ears.

With a swish, an enormous hand stretched out from the surrounding gray fog. Its skin was gray-blue and covered in rotting traces, bearing obvious yellow-green fluids. It moved swiftly, grabbing toward Klein’s ankle.

Amid hoarse breathing sounds, identical hands rose one after another from the staircase below, grabbing upward as though seeking to drag Klein’s spirit body by force into the deepest, most unfathomable part of the mind world.

For a moment, those rotting hands were like a forest, like a sea, densely packed. They constantly struggled upward, reaching and emitting terrifying panting sounds that could make every hair on a person’s body stand on end. Frightened, Klein instinctively leaped upward, jumping over three steps.

However, the countless hands belonging to what seemed like giant corpses did not stop. They propped themselves against the staircase surface and wriggled upward like a tide, submerging every inch of space below.

Klein was about to extend his right hand and draw Death Knell, planning to use purification bullets with Slaughter to eliminate this endless swarm of “monsters,” when two questions suddenly flashed through his mind:

Where did these hands come from? Why would they appear in Groselle’s subconscious?

As soon as the questions appeared, inspiration followed. Klein vaguely understood something and immediately gave up on using Death Knell. He calmed his breathing and visualized spheres of light.

The rotting, enormous hands seized the opportunity to surge to his feet, grabbing toward his ankles and calves.

At that very moment, they vanished silently, as though they had never appeared at all.

“As expected, they were hallucinations produced by my being influenced by Groselle’s subconscious. Here, mind and mind not only directly face one another, they also fuse. Without corresponding Beyonder abilities, the deeper one goes, the easier it is to suffer emotional collapse, be corroded bit by bit by the other party’s subconscious, and eventually have the Mind Body severely contaminated, turning the entire person into an incurable mental patient. And that would very likely lead to losing control… This is different from spirit channeling. It cannot be avoided simply by staying clearheaded and rational, because one is already inside the target’s Mind Body…” Klein silently muttered, gaining some understanding.

He hesitated for a few seconds, then turned around and climbed upward along the staircase, no longer going deeper into…