Maria didn’t stay in Gorsa’s Wizard Tower for even five minutes. With the excuse that she needed to visit the next wizard, she quickly took her leave.

Gorsa returned to the laboratory, stepping right past the bucket on the floor. The Black Tide, which the two had just been discussing and studying, was casually left behind by him.

As he walked closer to the wooden shelf by the wall, the skin on his body began to regenerate layer by layer, as if the wounds from earlier were nothing but an illusion to fool others.

While walking, Gorsa reached for his chest, where pale skin had just grown back.

The robe automatically parted slightly.

His fingertip passed through the skin beneath the robe, sinking into his chest. With a hooked motion outward, he dragged out a shadow.

He tossed the shadow to the ground. It slowly wriggled, taking on shape and color, gradually becoming Yura’s figure.

But this Yura appeared dazed, with none of the madness she had shown when she tried to overturn the Wizard Tower.

Gorsa looked down at the girl sitting to his side on the floor. “Do you like that woman’s skin just now?”

A flash of disgust quickly passed through Yura’s confused eyes. “No.”

Gorsa shook his head with a faint smile. “What a pity.”

He continued forward, arriving at a wooden shelf Maria hadn’t noticed.

It was fixed to the wall. The lower layers held various commonly used magic materials, while the top four layers were filled with similar-looking spherical flasks.

Each flask contained a transparent liquid, and at the center of the liquid was a fine gray wisp, like a strand of hair.

These gray wisps gently swayed up and down.

Yura got up from the floor, curiously following Gorsa. “What are these?”

Gorsa replied, “These are soul fragments I’ve specially collected—some from my old Wizard Tower, others after coming to the Sea of Sighs.”

He pointed to a faintly white strand on the second row. “This one’s from a half-elf. Very cheap—I exchanged just a little magic for it.”

Then he pointed to another fragment on the third row. “This one’s from Prince Aruba of Kenas. Kira was too fierce—I only had time to collect this tiny bit.”

At the mention of Kira’s name, a ripple passed through Yura’s eyes, but it quickly vanished, replaced by a calm “Boring.”

Gorsa shook his head with a smile. “No, not boring at all.”

He picked up the fourth bottle on the fourth row. The “hair strand” inside looked unremarkable, but the moment it was lifted, it began to twist and wriggle, trying to pierce through the container and enter Gorsa’s fingertip.

But the spherical flask lit up with a glow, blocking the gray wisp’s attempt.

Gorsa smiled even wider. “Look how lively it is. Even as just a sliver, it still yearns for a body. This is my favorite soul fragment so far. It’s a piece of Saul’s soul—ripped off by those mouths when he mistakenly entered the candle ducts. By the time I got there, the mouth that devoured it had already mutated, but the soul fragment remained perfectly intact inside.”

“This is… Saul’s soul?” At Saul’s name, a complicated expression appeared in Yura’s previously drifting gaze.

“Yeah. Do you know what the mouth mutated into?” Without waiting for her to guess, Gorsa continued, “Every tiny lip seam… grew eyes.”

Eyes sprouting from lips isn’t terrifying on its own.

But when Yura replayed Gorsa’s words in her mind, her face suddenly turned to horror. “You mean… the mouth mutated after devouring Saul’s soul… and grew eyes?”

“Exactly. Isn’t it fascinating? A human’s soul can actually contaminate a wraith? Heh…”

Yura’s expression darkened. “Only wraiths can contaminate other wraiths.”

“Not necessarily. Saul’s consciousness was pure—unlike a wraith.” Gorsa swirled the flask in his hand. The dull gray strand inside once again twisted toward his finger but was blocked again. “The Black Tide and the stars can also contaminate wraiths.”

Yura couldn’t make sense of it. “What do you mean by that?”

This time, Gorsa didn’t explain. “I haven’t figured it all out yet—I can’t tell you. The next Black Tide is coming soon. I need to advance to the Third Rank again before then.”

He carefully returned Saul’s soul fragment to the shelf.

Deprived of Gorsa’s touch, the soul fragment quieted down once more.

Yura looked surprised. “Didn’t you already reach Third Rank?”

Gorsa shook his head, his platinum eyes narrowing. “Last time was too rushed—I wasn’t satisfied with the result. I need to take a different approach and do it again. That way, I might be able to resurrect you.”

But the moment Yura heard the word “resurrect,” her entire body trembled violently. She shot her hands up to cover her ears and hunched over, screaming.

Gorsa merely watched the suffering Yura calmly. “Looks like the last contamination left you with quite a psychological shadow.”

He pressed a hand on top of her head, and Yura’s body immediately froze in place.

A moment later, Yura lowered her arms and looked up dazedly at the handsome man in front of her.

“Who are you?”

Gorsa smiled gently. “I’m your lover.”

…

A few days later, Saul and his group arrived at the entrance to Hanging Hands Valley.

Standing before the steeply sloping path once more, Saul’s expression was complicated.

“To enter the Borderland, we have to pass through Hanging Hands Valley.”

At this point, Saul was alone. All the other consciousness bodies had been sealed inside his diary. Even Penny had returned to her silver butterfly bookmark form, obediently pinned between two black pages.

This time, as Saul passed through Hanging Hands Valley and entered the Borderland on the other side, he needed to keep his mental fluctuations to a minimum.

The mountain road was steep—normal carriages couldn’t pass.

But Saul had Little Algae.

It emerged from the back of Saul’s neck and crawled outside. First, it tied the carriage up tight, then shot out eight tendrils that braced against the ground and lifted the entire carriage.

From afar, it looked like a giant black spider.

Then, with agile movements of its eight legs, Little Algae steadily carried the carriage down into the valley below.

The entrance of Hanging Hands Valley was very clean.

Saul spotted two apprentice corpses lying in the middle of the road.

The corpses were already in an advanced state of decay, but the robes they wore remained pristine—likely needing a far longer time to begin breaking down.

Despite the unsightly corpses, the valley’s entrance was indeed clean.

Saul narrowed his eyes and activated his Meditation Technique of the Evolution Diagram. He saw no soul bodies nearby.

It seemed someone had deliberately cleared them out.

“Let’s go,” Saul said as he put Little Algae away and let Marsh resume driving.

Marsh looked a bit nervous, though the mushroom on his head was squirming more excitedly than ever.

“Don’t worry. Though we’ll be passing through Hanging Hands Valley, we’ll avoid the most dangerous areas.”

Back during the great battle in Hanging Hands Valley, the most casualties had occurred in the central part of the valley. The two ends of the passage were relatively safer.

Morden had lived in the valley for over a hundred years. Although dazed through most of it, he still knew which places were more dangerous, where the terrifying wraiths and contamination were most concentrated.

With Saul’s current strength, as long as he didn’t head straight into the densest areas, he shouldn’t be in too much danger.

If they encountered a small group of wraiths, he could deal with them alone.

The horses pulling the carriage had their eyes covered and ears plugged, following only Marsh’s reins for direction.

But after the carriage had traveled deep into the canyon, Saul noticed that not a single wraith had appeared to cause trouble.

Everything was quiet—so quiet it felt like they were traveling along a proper highway in the Kema Duchy.

As the people inside the diary began to comment on how peaceful Hanging Hands Valley seemed, a corpse suddenly came into view, hanging from a cliff ahead.

The cliff sloped outward, wider at the top than the bottom, so the corpse hung swaying in midair, with nothing to brace against.

It hadn’t been hanged. The rope had been driven straight through the skull, suspending the body.

The blood that had flowed out long ago had turned a dark brown, soaking into the tattered robes.

With a single glance, Saul could tell that a wraith was attached to the body.

It was the first wraith he had seen since entering Hanging Hands Valley.

(End of Chapter)

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