Gao Ming felt like he was standing at the top of the clouds. As he moved up, the absurd scenes in the Soul Temple entered his eyes. Gao Ming saw many familiar figures.
As he went up, the glow applied greater pressure on Gao Ming. He couldn’t maintain Dream Release for long. When the nightmare and the God of Flesh and Blood returned to his chest, the cloud that enveloped him disappeared. The holy glow flayed his bones and flesh. Gao Ming gripped his fists and accepted the pain. The glow crawled into his body so that the wounds couldn’t heal. The glow wanted to scratch off the imprints made by the abandoned pills.
“You espouse kindness and morality. However, when you are threatened, you are worse than the evil ghosts!” Gao Ming cackled despite the blood in his mouth. He was certain of one thing. Fu Shu was right. There was no divine in Dream Break Town. They were all ghosts taking on a holy disguise!
“Fortune clouds, divine glow and peaceful aura, everything in this temple is fake. I am curious: what are their original appearances?” Gao Ming latched onto the sensation of pain. “Is your furnace a big pot filled with cooked humans? Your divine glow should be a venomous bug covered in sharp teeth. The peaceful aura is a miasma. The fortune clouds are broken flesh. I can see it!”
As he screamed, Gao Ming bumped into something heavily. His spine almost shattered. His screams dissolved in his throat. The divine glow coursed through his body, but it failed to wipe away the imprints. With the God of Flesh and Blood’s protection, it also couldn’t break down Gao Ming’s will. It attempted to enter Gao Ming’s heart and remove Gao Ming’s nightmare from the source. However, no matter how hard the divine glow tried, it would disappear as it approached the heart. The nightmare hidden inside Gao Ming’s heart could be stronger than the nightmare of Dream Break Town.
“Are you curious about the locked room in my heart? Do you want to know where it leads? Haha! That is the divine palace that you’re looking for! The locked door is the heavenly gate that leads to another world!
“I don’t need to rely on your hallucinations or the power of the nightmare because everything I say is the truth! This is the truth!”
The booming sound travelled through the Soul Temple. Spiritual rain fell. Something at the top of the temple was shaken. The divine glow that enshrouded Gao Ming instantly weakened. Some of the glow shot out in different directions of the village.
“I knew someone was controlling it.” The pain Gao Ming suffered eased. His physical body slowly healed. “Something good is bound to happen after that tragedy. The seal on the room in my heart loosened. If this happens a few more times, the door might really open.” Gao Ming got more than that. Endless abandoned pills entered his body. The divine glow inadvertently helped him polish off the impurities on them. The abandoned pills shone with perfection.
When his body recovered, Gao Ming would welcome a new improvement to his physique. Perhaps he might even become a divine temple that was worshipped by the world. Gao Ming opened his eyes with difficulty. His heavy lids opened a bit. He saw the jade dome above his head and the heavenly gate that stood at the top of the Soul Temple.“Which floor is this?”
Small pebbles hit him. Gao Ming sucked in a cold breath. He tried to turn his neck. He saw a pickaxe nail into the Soul Temple wall. There were sparks.
“What are they doing?”
Many cultivators dressed in simple clothes strung themselves to the wall with simple rope. With different tools, they gouged out rocks from the temple walls.
“Are they trying to dig their way out of the Soul Temple? Have they come to their senses?”
There was another loud boom. Gao Ming saw a giant stone fall from the top. The shadow expanded in his eyes. The boulder landed in the water puddle beside him.
A cultivator who had his robe tied around his waist rushed over. He spotted Gao Ming, who lay prone on the ground. He was worried about him.
“Thankfully, you were not harmed. If not, I’d be tainted by the sin of murder.” The man had already noticed Gao Ming before, but he was too attached to the wall to move away from it.
When the divine smoke around Gao Ming fully dispersed, his eyes could no longer move away from Gao Ming. His mouth fell open. A few seconds later, he uttered, “You’re blessed by the divine. Your body is a Xuan Treasure weaved by divine energy!” He ignored the boulder he used a lot of effort to crack. He removed his robe, patted off the dust and covered it over Gao Ming. Then, he looked around nervously, afraid that others might have noticed the treasure that was Gao Ming.
“Our meeting is destiny. I’ve cultivated for so long, and finally, the divine temple is showing me love!”
“How long have you been here…” Gao Ming was too injured to retort. With the torment he had been through, he should look horrible. However, the cultivator looked at him like he was the greatest treasure in the world.
The God of Flesh and Blood helped Gao Ming repair his body. The remaining divine glow kept flashing as it created chaos inside Gao Ming’s body. It refused to leave.
“What is the origin of the divine glow? How annoying!” Gao Ming frowned. The thing that he couldn’t wait to get rid of was a precious treasure for the cultivator. While no one paid them any attention, the cultivator silently carried Gao Ming on his back. They left the wall, walked around the puddles, avoided the fallen rocks and came to the centre of the floor.
Gao Ming knew the Soul Temple became larger the higher it went. However, when he saw the spacious scene, he was shocked. A lot of cultivators were gathered on this floor. They did not sleep or rest. They gouged out stones from the walls endlessly and tried to carve them into statues. Most of the statues would crumble the moment they were completed. Only a very small portion could elicit a reaction from the divine temple above them.
“They want to carve out the divine in their hearts. Only then can they achieve true cultivation.” The man noticed Gao Ming looking around, so he explained the situation to Gao Ming. This made Gao Ming feel better because at least they could still communicate with each other.
Gao Ming tried to move his lips, but a layer of skin peeled off. Talking made the injury on his face worse.
“Did you also come from upstairs?” The cultivator finally asked the question he was the most interested in.
Gao Ming didn’t answer. Instead, he asked in a slow tone, “Which floor is this?”