Chapter 874: Soul Fire

Lin Yun was fully aware of the danger of gravity, especially if it reached a certain degree. Every increase in gravity would create an exponential increase in its destructive power.

"Hurry up, the gravity is increasing at a very rapid pace. In about fifteen seconds, someone might not be able to handle it anymore."

Lin Yun put away his Draconic Staff, as even with a Mana Shield, he would be unable to raise his staff. Even with his shield up, his body felt like it had more than doubled in weight. If he hadn't advanced to the Archmage realm and strengthened his body several times, he would have been unable to even lift a finger.

Lin Yun started chanting, and runes started flying out. He cast Haste, Float, Flight, and a series of spells that decreased the effects of gravity. He then condensed an Ice Wall in front of him, but just as the Ice Wall appeared, it started falling down again at a terrifying speed.

At that same moment, Lin Yun dashed forward. Thanks to Float, Flight, and Featherfall, he was able to move as if he hadn't been greatly affected by gravity.

He stepped atop the Ice Wall and jumped forward. The Ice Wall under his feet shot down like a cannonball because of him kicking off of it, and it was shattered into powder by those spikes.

Immediately after that jump, Lin Yun cast another Ice Wall in front of him, which also began to fall down. Right when Lin Yun's foot reached it, the top of the Ice Wall just happened to be under his foot.

As he continuously released Ice Walls, Lin Yun looked just like an ordinary person crossing a river by jumping across a series of stones. In such a manner, he moved forward meter by meter.

After thirty seconds of running, Lin Yun jumped out of the trap and escaped the range affected by the abnormal gravity. As the gravity around him returned to normal, Lin Yun's body couldn't help rushing towards the ceiling involuntarily.

That was due to having Float, Featherfall, and Flight active while losing the suppression effect.

And behind him, Enderfa was the 2nd fastest. He was attached to the Ten Thousand Spell Wheel and had cast a large number of defensive shields as well as multiple Float spells before casting numerous spells to use the backlash to unsteadily float over.

Xiuban swung Carnage to alternately hit the walls on both sides to propel himself forwards, using the power of the recoil to ricochet between the walls like a bouncing meat ball.

The puppet was huddled over, its body emitting long jets of blue flames and using the recoil to slowly float over.

As for Reina, she seemed even more relaxed than Lin Yun. An icicle appeared at every step, and her terrifying ice aura started freezing the air, but she was able to rely on her Frost Dragon nature to resist it as she walked out.

Wagner was once again the one in the most awkward situation. He ultimately lagged behind. He had walked halfway through by the time Lin Yun left that trap. He had wanted to use Fire Elemental Incarnation to escape the trap, but after using it, he was crushed into a ball of flames that started to fall. He could only change his plan and try what Lin Yun did, using a series of anti-gravity buffs before jumping out as if he was crossing a river.

But the gravity had been getting stronger and stronger, and Wagner's movements were getting slower and slower. He had already been having trouble, and it was only getting worse.

When Lin Yun saw this, he took out his Draconic Staff. A huge wheel shadow appeared behind him and generated countless runes. A flaming vortex appeared above Lin Yun's head and quickly expanded.

It was as if boundless elemental flames were rushing out of the flame vortex, flooding through the passage.

The rich deluge of flames coursed into that gravity passage, and as if they had been snapped off from their source, they began to fall.

The flames that fell into the hole were quickly snuffed out, but even more flames rushed in. Slowly, those flames were able to rise up just like the stagnant water of an overflowing pond. And due to the gravity, those torn flames transformed into a sea of fire.

Seeing this, how could Wagner not know what to do? He instantly used Fire Elemental Incarnation and crazily flashed through the sea of fire. Each flash was done at an upward angle. Wagner's trajectory was akin to the teeth of a saw blade. If his angle was just a bit too low, he would directly sink to the bottom of the hole.

After three seconds, Wagner jumped out of this gravity passage and instantly knocked into the ceiling.

After falling back down, Wagner didn't complain at all. Instead, he looked as if he had gotten a new lease on life before looking back at the gravity passage with lingering fear.

He had never expected that something "worthless" like the Gravity spell could actually display such a frightening effect.

After all, the ordinary Gravity spell was a 4th Tier Spell, and the Ultimate version of the spell could only triple or quadruple the gravitational pull. It had no use against enemies of the same level, as a Swordsman only needed to have his Aura burst out, or it could be cleansed and there would be no effect.

No one thought that this kind of fixed array would turn the entire area into an extremely powerful gravity space with such formidable power.

"Sir Merlin, should we still keep going forward? Could there really be no other way to leave this place?"

Wagner was already despairing. He had originally planned on grabbing some leftover points while acting as a subordinate, but he hadn't thought that it would be like this.

He'd almost died several times already, and if he had known earlier that this would happen, he would have directly returned to the Odin Kingdom. Being mocked after returning was better than losing his life.

Lin Yun saw Wagner's look of despair and nodded. "This is leading to the core of the base, and it's also the core area in charge of the base's controls. We have to go there, as controlling this huge puppet is our only way to settle this crisis. But that puppet already knows our target, so it'll definitely set up many traps along the way."

Wagner stood up, looking resigned to his fate.

As they continued onward, the passage became a lot quieter and darker.

Lin Yun suddenly stopped and raised his hand to buff himself with a Spirit Defense.

In an instant, the surrounding darkness and silence disappeared, and the sound of the others' footsteps could once again be heard.

The others saw Lin Yun's movement and also used Spirit Defense on themselves. Lin Yun also helpfully added a Spirit Defense on Xiuban.

As they continued, the road ahead of them slowly turned into a bone floor, and both walls had started turning into piles of bones.

Every ten meters, the floor beneath their feet and the bones on the walls would start slowly squirming, and the soul fires of miserable skeletons would start shining.

Boundless Undead beings rushed out of the ground and the walls and started charging towards Lin Yun's group. Those miserable pale hands kept grabbing at everyone, and it looked like these Undead were sealed in the wall and wanted to drag everyone in with them.

A faint crack appeared within the walls, from which some sort of endless flaming hell could be seen. There were only tormented Undead Skeletons within.

Lin Yun remained expressionless, completely ignoring them.

These Undead Skeletons were relatively low in rank, but they were completely unaffected by Undead Predator. Thus, Lin Yun didn't need to think to know that this was an illusion, and a fairly strong illusion, too. Spirit Defense was unable to remove this illusion.

Lin Yun looked ahead as he walked with large strides. When those skeletons touched him, it felt as if his body was illusory as they went through his body.

When Xiuban, who was ready to attack, saw that, he rolled his eyes and sneered with disdain at the skeletons on both sides. He then rested Carnage on his shoulder and followed behind Lin Yun, acting as if these skeletons didn't exist.

The others also understood that everything appearing behind them was an illusion and didn't have the ability to attack. The skeletons below their feet kept squirming, but they weren't able to affect anything.

As they kept moving forward, something else appeared on the squirming skeletons on the ground. There was a layer of sinister white flames on the bones of these skeletons.

Lin Yun stepped on it for a moment before frowning and casting a series of runes, adding a dozen Spirit Defenses on his body, but that didn't have too much effect.

"These are illusory Soul Fires, a different kind of mind attack. Spirit Defense isn't too effective against it, but if you stick to your belief, you can resist this kind of attack. As long as you don't have any distracting thoughts, this kind of Soul Fire won't have any effect."

An illusory Soul Fire was a rare type of mind attack. At the peak of Noscent, because of the appearance of the Mana Baptism, every mage was a genius and would have some accomplishments. Apart from natural resources, the only difference between mages was their psyches.

Thus, this kind of illusory Soul Fire was one of the methods used to strengthen a disciple, and it was one of the most important ones.

A mage's talent wasn't the biggest factor that decided how far they'd go in the path of magic. It was a factor that would affect their rate of progress in the early stages. The stronger they became, the higher their rank, and the smaller the impact of raw talent would be.

In the end, when they reached the peak of the Archmage realm, what decided whether they could reach the Heaven Rank was unrelated to talent... Unless it was the kind of person so unimaginably talented that they could compare to Chromatic Dragons, Pureblood Elves, the Sky Bloodline, and other such constitutions that could break the shackles to the Heaven Rank.

At that time, understanding one's abilities and mind was the main reason behind continuing to attain achievements.

This illusory Soul Fire was very dangerous, but it was also a huge boon.