Song Yi jumped to his feet.

“Who’s there?”

“Idiot! What are you talking out loud for? I’m here. In here!” The ancient voice rang through his mind once more.

“You’re in my head?”

“Didn't’ I just say not to talk out loud?”

“Then, you can hear my thoughts?”

“Sheesh, not too quick on the uptake are we? Yes I can read your damn thoughts!”

“Who are you?”

“Who am I? The real question here is who the hell are you!”

“This is my mind! What right do you have to question me?” Song Yi crossed his arms.

“A whelp like you is trying to posture to me...” The voice sounded astonished.

“How am I supposed to address you if I don’t know who you are?” Song Yi shot back.

“Well then, I suppose I can tell you. I have lived for countless years on this plane. I am the Sealer of Demons, the People’s Golden Lion, World Emperor Wang Yanjing!”

Song Yi’s jaw dropped.

“How could someone possibly possess so little shame?” was the first thought that ran through his mind.

“Okay, Emperor Wang, why are you in my head?” Song Yi asked, putting aside the elder’s boasting for the moment.

“You tell me, you blithering fool!” The monarch snapped. “For that matter, you still haven’t said who you are.”

“I’m Song Yi.”

“Song Yi, that book at your feet, the silver-lined one. Who gave it to you?”

“Well… I wouldn’t exactly say it was given to me.”

The monarch went silent. For what felt like an eternity, there was no sound at all in Song Yi’s head. Only the sounds of the bizarre forest critters could be heard.

“You stole it.”

“I stole it.”

“You goddamned BUFFOON! Do you know what you’ve done?!”

“Apparently I’ve put an annoying old man in my head!”

“Anno---” If the monarch had a physical body, he would be hyperventilating with rage. “If it weren’t for what’s at stake, I swear to the heavens above I would allow myself to die just to kill you!”

“If you’re so powerful why can’t you?”

“In my entire life, even when I was a mere brat, nobody dared to talk to me like this.”

“Well I am nobody.”

The simple reply stunned the monarch once more. He’d never encountered anyone so obstinate as Song Yi before.

“If that’s all, then I have more important things to do than entertain you.”

Song Yi sat down and, paying the monarch no further heed, began to read the leg-technique book that Elder Mo had given him.

As he read, however, even though the monarch hadn’t said anything further, he found himself unable to focus on the words. That, combined with the jargonistic nature of the book, made it impossible to understand anything about the technique detailed within.

While Song Yi didn’t fear many things, the thought of his body not being his own was one of them. His stomach was in knots as he tried to focus his attention on reading the book, but even as he did he felt light-headed. On top of everything, even despite the rest they had been allowed earlier, the fatigue of the last two days was catching up with him.

He let out a shaky sigh. “How can I get rid of you?” He asked internally.

The monarch didn’t answer for a while, but Song Yi didn’t get his hopes up. Now that he had conversed with the man, he could sense his presence internally.

Just as he was about to go back to his reading, the monarch spoke.

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“Get stronger.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“The time limit is up. I hope you’ve all prepared adequately. There is no turning back now. Please enter the caves.” Ninth Elder Mo stood in the same place he had all this time, the group once more assembled around him.

After giving up on trying to understand the leg technique manual, Song Yi had explored the forest for the remainder of the time allotted and found a spread of food to take on the journey. Furthermore, similar to Su Bai’s frog, he’d found a fruit that, when ingested, caused one’s hands to become luminescent. The light was bright enough to see at least ten meters in all directions.

Of course, he hadn’t tested this out himself, but had noticed that a group of surprisingly normal-looking monkeys in the forest seemed to love the taste. It was through observing them that he saw the effect for the first time.

When he felt he’d collected enough to last the month, he came back out

Following Elder Mo’s instructions, the first to enter a cave was Third Prince Zhang, his partner doing his best to put one foot in front of the other. The Prince ignored him. Soon, the pair was swallowed by the darkness, unable to be seen any more.

The other pairs began to walk into their separate caves, one by one. Without exception, every single one chose a cave as far away as possible from the one Elder Mo had previously tossed the rock into.

Song Yi and Su Bai were about to walk into their own cave, third from the far right, when a vicious ROAR, similar to the one twelve hours ago, rang out.

Su Bai’s head immediately snapped to look at the source of the sound, realizing it came from the cave the Third Prince had entered. A bittersweet smile flashed on her face for a moment, but was interrupted by the sight of a charred corpse flying out of the Prince’s cave entrance.

Everyone still outside the caves stared wide-eyed at the smoking heap of flesh. When the dust cleared, the figure of a scaled lion with two razor sharp tails could be seen. Its eyelids were frozen open, revealing blood-red irides that contained needle-thin pupils. It was not even close to humanoid, yet everyone got the sense that the expression on its face was one of unprecedented shock.

“The Third Prince is terrifying.” This was the thought that ran through all of their minds at that moment.

Meanwhile, Song Yi hadn’t seemed to notice. His wasn’t even looking in the direction of the dead beast, but rather towards the cave, a far-off look in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Su Bai’s words seemed caring, but her tone was annoyed.

“What?”

She turned to face him properly. “Ever since we met back up you’ve seemed distracted. Did something happen in the forest?”

Song Yi closed his eyes rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was finding it difficult to reconcile the whole body-sharing thing, and Su Bai had picked up on that anxiety. Still, what could he tell her?

He sighed. “It’s nothing, my own burden to handle. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well I am going to worry about it!” she raised her voice. “You heard what Elder Mo said. We’re putting our lives on the line in this next trial, and if you aren’t able to perform, my ass could be over the fire.” She paused for a moment before turning her head. “You’re really getting on my nerves right now.”

Song Yi stared at his feet, squirming.

“Sorry.”

She said nothing in response, only sparing him a sideways glance before treading into the cave entrance.

As she walked ahead, Song Yi looked at her back. Her chin was held high, her shoulders squared back. He felt as though he were looking at her for the first time.

“I’ve yet to find my reason to live. I’m not afraid of death, but Su Bai... Wang Yanjing was right, I am an idiot.”

“That’s ‘Emperor’ Wang to you.”

“Shut it.”

“Do you recall which idiot put me here?” The monarch sighed, which Song Yi didn’t quite understand, given that he didn’t have a body with which to do so. “Go follow her tiger. The sooner you do the sooner you can be rid of me and, more importantly, I can be rid of you.”

Not bothering to try to get the last word, Song Yi did as he said and followed Su Bai into the cave.

The moment he entered, he could see Su Bai holding the glow-frog bag that the prince had given her previously. It revealed that they were in a small cave, too small to even swing a sword in. As of yet, there was no visible danger.

After walking for a while through the narrow cave, they decided to stop for a rest. They both munched on some of the faster-perishing food they’d gathered in the forest earlier. The meal was consumed in silence.

Song Yi could tell that Su Bai was in a bad mood. But he also felt that it wasn’t simply because of him. While he believed her upset was justifiable, this degree seemed excessive to him. He had trouble believing the chatty girl from before would change so much only because he’d been acting off.

Still, he didn’t pry. Frankly, he wasn’t confident that doing so wouldn’t make things worse.

In this fashion, their journey continued until the cave they were in widened vastly. With the amount of light they had, they could no longer see the sides of the cave. In fact, it could no longer be called a cave, but instead a ravine.

After exploring their new surroundings carefully, they discovered that the ravine was around 150 meters wide, and reached a dead-end no more than five kilometres ahead. Looking upwards, though, the darkness was as thick as ever.

All along the walls they’d discovered a myriad of square rooms that were completely empty on the inside. The doorways were little more than open holes in the walls, as were the windows.

Above the rooms, there were terraced platform walkways that jutted out of the ravine walls.

“No way but up, huh?” Song Yi said.

~~~~~~~~~~

Concealed by the darkness of the caves, two figures were crouched, whispering with each other.

“That’s the Third Prince right there.”

“I didn’t expect we’d run into anyone else during this second examination, let alone that monstrous guy.”

“Me neither. But think about it, this could be a stroke of good fortune for us! The techniques in our books are good, but can’t compare to what he did to that monster earlier. If we could get our hands on his book…”

The other figure licked his lips. “Not to mention the wealth he must be carrying.”

“And they don’t know we’re here.”

“If we can catch the Prince off guard, the other will be easy to deal with.”

Both of them drew knives that they had previously concealed on their bodies and continued to follow the Prince from the shadows.

~~~~~~~~~~

Song Yi and Su Bai were walking along one of the terraced platform-walkways that they’d become accustomed to, continually trying to make their way up. By now, they’d begun to relax. No strange creatures or terrifying beasts had appeared since they’d first entered the cave. Inwardly, Su Bai was praising herself on her choice of cave.

They had been climbing for hours, and still there was no evidence that they’d reach the top of the ravine any time soon. However, as they climbed higher, they noticed that the quality of the residences carved into the cliff sides was improving. In stark contrast to the barren square rooms at the bottom, some of the homes here had multiple floors, glass pane windows, even some leftover carved wooden furniture.

Eventually, Su Bai stopped in front of one small window. When she’d looked through the window, she’d noticed a golden buddha statue sitting on a table along the back wall of the residence.

She reached her hand into the red silk bag, making sure she had a solid grip on the slippery glow frog before she took it out. Immediately, the light around her grew ten times stronger, surprising Song Yi.

Su Bai didn’t hesitate to slip into the building.

“Wait!” Song Yi shouted, but she had already entered.

He instantly sprinted in after her.

“He noticed, huh?” Emperor Wang thought to himself.

Song Yi wrapped an arm around Su Bai’s waist, making her let out a small yelp of surprise.

“What are you-” she began, but choked on her words as Song Yi used all his body weight to fall backwards, bringing her falling down on top of him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she sputtered as she rolled off him, winded.

Song Yi sat up with effort and pointed to where Su Bai had just been standing. “Look.”

The stone walls to either side of that spot were cracked, with arrows embedded in them.

Su Bai’s eyes widened in shock. She couldn’t imagine what kind of force would be required to put an arrow through a stone wall.

Song Yi had to put his foot against the wall and use both hands to wrench one of the arrows out. Just doing so left him slightly out of breath. The arrow itself wasn’t damaged in the least, speaking to the superlative craftsmanship that would’ve been required to make it. On the tip, however, could be seen a viscous black liquid.

“Even if you survived the impact, a scratch from one of these would probably finish you off.”

He received no response in turn.

He looked at Su Bai with sincerity. “Are we even?”

She looked at him with a conflicted look for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by a smile similar to the one she’d shown him when they first met.

“Yeah, we’re even.”