Chapter 3 Soul Echo
Everything in front of my eyes began to fall apart, my gnawing brain was constantly repairing itself, and eventually everything returned to reality.

My consciousness was hazy for a moment.

Xiao En felt his own existence again.

"calm!"

"Your thinking sparks are so brilliant!" A familiar voice sounded, and he seemed to have just heard this sentence.

A cold finger.

Before it touched him, Xiao En suddenly trembled all over, then took a big step back and avoided the other party's cold fingers.

"Huh?" The woman's voice sounded a little surprised.

She didn't expect Xiao En to be able to dodge her Undead Touch, especially at such a close distance, an ordinary person would never be able to do it. Even other extraordinary people couldn't dodge her Undead Touch within three steps, unless the other party predicted her actions in advance.

Xiao En feels his head buzzing now.

I died just now.

But now he was still alive, and his brain had not been eaten by the "living knowledge" and turned into a weird beehive.

"What the hell is this place? Will I die if I think too much?" Xiao En felt a sharp pain in his heart.

The heart is still beating.

I was still alive and my breathing was rapid, but there was something strange: I didn't seem that scared, and I was even a little excited.

Xiao En felt that he needed to calm down. He felt his body to make sure that his mind was not frozen and his brain was not idle. He involuntarily took another step back and stared at the dark corridor in front of him. Then he turned his head to look at the woman beside him and said slowly in a hoarse voice, "Wait a minute."

What just happened was all too real.

It was so real that he could no longer tell whether it was an illusion or he had been resurrected from the dead again.

wrong.

His thoughts were still a little confused, his lazy brain had not fully recovered. He did not come back to life, but returned to the time before his death.

He was a little confused.

There was a hint of surprise in the woman's eyes. Her eyes were very lively and bright, like stars twinkling in the darkness. She stared at Xiao En in front of her with a serious expression, as if she had noticed something. She whispered, "What did you just see?"

Xiao En opened his mouth, about to speak, but stopped. After a moment of silence, he said, "Can't you read my thoughts?"

The woman also took a half step back, keeping a proper distance from Xiao En. She looked very cautious and said thoughtfully, "Detecting thoughts is not a very powerful ability. It can only read the target's shallow thought fluctuations."

"I don't know what you are thinking deep down."

"The moment you just now."

“Very frightening.”

“It was as if death had come.”

Xiao En left the dark corridor. He hesitated and whispered, "I'm dead."

"I'm not sure if it's an illusion."

"But I just saw my own death. My brain was eaten by countless tiny living knowledge, and finally I became a parasitic body of a fictional character."

He needed help and needed to know more, because Xiao En had a strong intuition that if he really stepped into this dark corridor again, everything that had just happened would probably happen again.

The brain is eaten by knowledge.

it's painful!
He had absolutely no ability to resist and could only watch himself being devoured in the depths of his consciousness.

"Moty Lane?!" The woman looked shocked.

She really knew something.

She stared at Xiao En in front of her and said slowly: "Tell me everything you just saw."

Xiao En gradually calmed down.

He looked at the strange reliefs around him, and there were tree-like shadows spreading. He felt that his consciousness had become completely clear after his "first death".

"I saw a veil of shadows, countless knowledge, living knowledge, wriggling knowledge, they were like a huge swarm of bees, and a terrible blood-red angel with eyes."

Sean recounted everything that had just happened as calmly as possible.

"Death Retracement!" The woman's expression became more and more shocked. She stared at Xiao En in front of her and said in a hoarse voice, "The most powerful special ability of the Death Sequence."

"You can glimpse the future scene of your own death in an instant."

"An ability that is close to predicting the future."

"What you just saw was not an illusion, but one of the possible futures."

The woman was silent.

After a moment, she whispered, "Only a very few people in history have ever possessed this ability. It allows you to peek into any future scenes that may lead to your own death."

At this moment, Xiao En could already feel that the memory fusion was gradually stabilizing.

Because he was able to understand some of the characters around him. This knowledge did not belong to him, but came from his own body, the knowledge of another soul, that of a young man named Sean.

He stared at the dark corridor in front of him and asked solemnly, "Is there no other way out of here?"

If you go in, you will die.

The blood-red angel with countless eyes was watching him from behind the curtain of shadow.

"Have."

"But you must walk through this corridor first." The woman paused for a moment and said slowly: "This is the [Soul Echo] Corridor."

"Any alien soul that comes to this world must complete it."

"Because you do not belong to this world."

"Only after you complete the Soul Echoes can you truly become a part of this world, and not..."

Xiao En raised his head slightly and said softly, "Not to what extent?"

The woman paused for a moment and said in a deep voice, "It won't happen that after leaving here, you suddenly explode into an indescribable monster of flesh and blood at some point."

"You don't belong here."

"Your souls are like torches in the darkness, constantly attracting some unknown and strange ancient beings."

Sean smiled.

"Exploded into an indescribable monster of flesh and blood?" He confirmed again.

"Yes." The woman nodded calmly, without any doubt.

Ok.

It seems to be true.

It was as if I had traveled through time and was reborn in the body of a young man who had just died. The memories of the two souls were slowly merging, and some of the merged knowledge was emerging in my mind.

It seems that I have traveled to a very absurd and outrageous world.

This is a definite start to hell.

Sean's brain is no longer lazy. It is working, memories are integrating, thoughts are clearer, and rationality is returning.

"Soul echo." Sean tried to understand the strange characters on the wall.

He is looking for clues.

--"Always remember, there will be reverberations."

A woman's voice sounded, and she whispered, "A branch of the ancient elven language. It was left behind by a master from the Third Age. She is also a descended soul from another world, from a very distant country, Avandor."

"Avando?" Sean muttered to himself.

It seems that there are quite a few time travelers coming to this world.

But it seems that they are not fellow villagers.

"I think I may not be able to get through this corridor alive." Xiao En sat down, looking at the deep corridor in front of him, smiled, and looked up at the woman beside him. She was so beautiful, like a pure white doll. He took a deep breath, touched his body, and then sighed: "He is watching me."

"I can feel."

The bloody angel, the Lord of Darkness, was attracted to him.

Right in the corridor where souls echo.

Under the veil of shadow.

He now seemed to have no ability to resist. According to the other party, if he did not go through the Soul Echo Corridor, he might explode into an indescribable monster of flesh and blood at any time. If he went through the Soul Echo Corridor, he would most likely be eaten and parasitized by the "living knowledge".

That brain-gnawing knowledge!
Just one time was enough to leave Xiao En with a psychological trauma.

“It’s rare that a newly arrived soul from another world would attract a being as ancient as the Lord of Darkness.”

The woman was silent for a moment, then said softly, "The Great Detective - Motilan is a fantasy that does not exist in the real world. He, or the mysterious words that make up him, the living knowledge, will only appear under certain circumstances."

Xiao En raised his head and asked in a serious tone, "What specific circumstances?"

"You were a writer in your previous life. Motilion loves to gnaw on writers' brains. Those living brains that create fictional characters can also give him inspiration. The crazier and more absurd the thoughts in the brain, the hungrier he becomes. He will use the bodies of writers, their shells, to enter the real world from the illusion." The woman's voice was a little erratic.

Xiao En shook his head and said, "I'm not."

"It probably isn't."

He just read too many novels in college and wrote some bizarre supernatural stories. He can't be considered a writer.

Also, are all things in this world so dark?
Could fictional characters in novels also become such weird and terrifying things?
The memories of the previous life were being awakened. Although he was still in a dazed state, Xiao En had recalled many things and was sure that the world he traveled to was probably very, very bad.

The woman hesitated for a moment and said softly, "Then there is only one possibility left. Your inspiration is too high."

"High enough to see them."

“When you see them, they see you.”

“It’s a gift.”

“It was also a disaster.”

Xiao En chewed over the other person's words and murmured, "When you see them, they also see you."

"Then can I...close my eyes?"

The woman's expression was slightly stunned, her beautiful face, as delicate as a doll, was a little dull, and she quickly shook her head and said, "No."

“You don’t see Them with your eyes.”

Xiao En sighed when he heard this, stared into the other person's eyes, and smiled bitterly: "So, I'm almost dead?"

The woman nodded calmly: "You can say that."

"It is difficult for ordinary people to resist the pollution of Motilan. He is a creation of the Lord of Darkness, an evil creature close to the level of an angel."

"Direct confrontation will almost certainly lead to death."

Xiao En looked up and said, "Evil thing? What is that?"

The woman whispered, "Evil things are indescribable illusions, the festering abscesses of the earth, the distortions of flesh and blood, and the hatred and pain of the world..."

"All those who are polluted will eventually degenerate into evil."

well.

Another good news.

"Is there anything to eat?" Xiao En thought for a while and then asked.

He is hungry.

Living, eating brain knowledge, good, this is very interesting, he also wants to eat something to fill his stomach now.

"Yes." The woman was still observing him.

This was the second alien soul she had come into contact with, and she had to submit everything she assessed to her mentor.

The instructor should also be watching here.

a piece of bread.

"Thank you." Xiao En took it and took a bite. It was delicious. When you are hungry, everything tastes delicious. He was very hungry now. His body had fully recovered, but the hunger made him feel a little weak. He looked up at the other person's face, that beautiful, unreal, and delicate face that looked a bit like a doll, and asked, "Have you ever died?"

"No." The woman's expression was calm, and it was impossible to guess what she was thinking.

Xiao En seemed to be in the mood to chat, trying to break the deadlock with chatting, and said: "After a person dies, his consciousness is muddled, I don't remember anything."

“I just remember floating around in the void.”

"Is there anything left to eat?"

The woman took out another piece of bread out of thin air. This little detail was not important because Sean had seen things that were even stranger than taking things out of thin air.

This piece of bread is sweeter and seems to taste of honey.

After his hunger was relieved, Sean's mind became clearer.

"Can I only rely on myself to pass through this corridor?" Xiao En stared into the other person's eyes and said in a deep voice: "Your mentor should be the one who truly decides my life or death."

"I want to talk to him."

Now that he has lived his life again, he will definitely not give up easily.

Xiao En is sure of one thing.

He, in himself, is valuable, otherwise in the death flashback scene, the woman would not have tried her best to save herself. She clearly rejected herself and hoped that she would rest in peace on her own initiative, but she still desperately dragged him out of the wriggling shadow.

Where there is value there is the possibility of negotiation, and Xiao En’s bargaining chip is himself!
The woman was silent for a long time, then she said softly, "You want to see my mentor?"

The man in front of him regained consciousness very quickly. The chaos after death often affects people for a long time. That is [weak soul]. The other person's thinking has now returned to normal, even exceeding the level of ordinary people.

This is a good thing and a bad thing.

Because if an accident happens, the man in front of him will be extremely dangerous.

She knew that the man in front of her was different, but she was still very, very vigilant.

She won't make the same mistake twice.

"Teacher." The woman suddenly leaned forward and lowered her head with a respectful expression.

A ripple emitting a faint light opened, and in front of Xiao En, a snow-white skull appeared. The ruby ​​inlaid between the eyebrows was very eye-catching. He looked at Xiao En in front of him with interest and said slowly: "Of course not."

"You can ask me for help."

The moment Sean thought of meeting him, this lich-like creature had already become interested in him.

The rationality of this soul from another world recovered very quickly.

Confusion, helplessness, fear, despair, etc., these negative emotions are what the newly resurrected souls from another world should have. After all, they have just crossed the illusion and entered reality, but he did not see any of them in Xiao En.

This soul from another world is a little too calm.

"What do I need to pay?" Xiao En took a deep breath.

The other party was asking for help.

There's no such thing as a free lunch in this damn place.

"No need." The skull floating in the air shook its head and said, "At least not for now."

"The most important thing for you now is to survive."

"Life is valuable!"

The shadows of nothingness gathered into a pair of arms, like ferocious ghost hands. The skull took out a monocle, which appeared out of thin air and handed it to Xiao En.

"What is this?" Xiao En held out his hand to take it.

The skull in front of him smiled, with a richer expression than the woman beside him. His jaw opened and he said slowly, "Confused."

“It’s called confusion.”

"A little gadget I got while I was still alive that can cloud your inspiration."

If Sean was attracted to the great detective - Moty Lane because of his writer's nature, then he would still be dead for sure, but if he was attracted to Moty Lane because of his high inspiration, then he might survive.

Writers are very excluded here.

Of course, painters may not be much better.

If fictional characters created by writers can be transformed into knowledge that gnaws at the brain, then it is probably normal for paintings created by painters to come alive.

The artist's crazy inspiration can become the most terrifying thing here.

The former dies and the latter lives.

If you survive, you have proven your worth.

Xiao En hesitated slightly, then put on the monocle with a determined look.

next second.

He felt a little dizzy, and then everything in front of him began to change, just like a mottled and faded black-and-white photo. In the deep and empty corridor, the wandering shadows gradually dissipated, some visible and invisible things were disappearing, and the floating knowledge was melting. He saw a corridor without any relief murals, any text patterns, just an ordinary dark corridor.

When he came to his senses again, the expressionless beautiful woman was the only one left by his side.

——When you see them, they also see you.

Sean can't see them now!

"Let's go." The woman said softly.

This time, Xiao En didn't see anything. He passed through the dark corridor safely. Then, the moment he finished walking, countless memories began to flash back in his mind.

Soul echoes!

Always remember, there will be reverberations.

Those unforgettable memories flooded his mind frantically, from past lives, this life, his own, and others. For a moment, Xiao En could no longer tell himself apart. He didn't know whether he was the Xiao En from Earth, or the young man named Xiao En.

He is integrating into this world.

It was like a dazzling torch, obscured by the traces of this world, blending with the light and dust, and disappearing into the deep darkness.

The ominous things that were spying on his soul gradually lost their target.

In the corridor.

The faint echo seemed to reveal a hint of madness and unwillingness.

"I will definitely catch you next time! Cunning criminal!"

There is no carrier more suitable for allowing the indescribable illusion to enter the real world than the souls from other worlds. Those living knowledge, the wriggling knowledge, have not given up.

…………

(End of this chapter)