Dark Wizard: Rise! My undead army!

"Impossible..." Heishan gritted his teeth, "I'm from the Second Ring Road...you're just from the First Ring Road..."

"You're noisy," Lynn said.

With a flick of his finger, Heishan was lifted up and suspended in mid-air.

The Shadow Armor finally shattered, and pieces of black armor peeled off Black Mountain's body, like a crab with its shell ripped off.

Black Mountain struggled, but his limbs were as if nailed to the ground and he couldn't move.

"Where's Lin Chen?" Lin En asked.

Black Mountain's face turned bright red, and he made a "hoarse" sound in his throat, even having difficulty opening his mouth.

Lynn loosened his grip slightly, and Black Mountain felt the force lessen, allowing him to speak again.

"He...he fell into the River Styx."

Black Mountain was panting.

"I found that black bead in a ruin in the Shadow Realm. It's a one-time consumable item that leads to the Underworld, but I don't know its exact location... I really don't know..."

Where is that node on the River Styx?

"It's broken... The bead is broken and gone... That joint was already on the verge of collapse, I've been keeping it safe for twenty years without daring to use it, and now that I've used it, it's ruined..."

Lynn's fingers tightened.

"So you threw my son into the River Styx, into a fissure that could collapse at any moment, and then you told me you didn't know where he went."

Montenegro shook its head frantically:

"I really don't know! The nodes in the River Styx are randomly connected; they could lead to anywhere in the Underworld... There's no point in me lying to you..."

Lynn was silent for a moment, somewhat doubtful of Black Mountain's words.

Is that old bastard Black Mountain able to open the underworld?

Words can deceive, but the soul cannot.

Lynn raised his left hand, and a small, grayish-white flame condensed in his palm.

The flames danced quietly, the surrounding air slightly distorted by the heat.

Feeling a faint fear in his soul from the power contained within the grayish-white flames, Black Mountain suddenly began to struggle violently.

"What are you going to do!"

Lynn's hand remained firmly gripping his, and he said casually:

"Don't rush, I just want to verify something. All the memories about the River Styx are in your mind; I can find them with a simple search!"

With that, Lynn flipped his left hand, and the flame went into Black Mountain's forehead.

Black Mountain froze, his eyes rolled back, and he completely lost consciousness.

Lynn's spiritual energy followed the flames and searched deep within Black Mountain's soul.

He saw it.

Black Mountain obtained the Styx Pearl from a shadowy ruin twenty years ago. The pearl contained a fragmented node of the Styx River.

Montenegro has studied this for many years, but has only figured out two things.

First, this node leads to the underworld; second, the node is extremely unstable and becomes unusable after one use.

So he kept it, intending to use it to trick people in a life-or-death situation.

He truly did not know where the node led to the underworld.

Lynn withdrew his mental energy; Black Mountain's soul had been thoroughly searched, leaving it in a chaotic mess, like plowed land.

Black Mountain was suspended in mid-air, its eyes staring blankly at the sky, unfocused.

"It seems... you really don't know," Lynn said.

He put the flames back.

Heishan thought he had escaped a disaster, and a slight expression of relief had just appeared on his face.

The flame suddenly burst forth from his forehead again, and this time it didn't stop, burning directly into his soul.

"But you threw my son in there."

Black Mountain opened its mouth and let out a scream, a sound that was not human, but like that of a wild beast being choked.

His soul was burned from the outside in by the fire of the soul, peeled away layer by layer.

The pain was deeper than any physical torture, directly affecting the core of his soul, so intense that he couldn't even faint.

The screams formed a piercing shriek in Black Mountain's soul, surging outwards.

Arya covered her ears and squatted on the ground, her face scrunched up, the sound drilling into her brain like a drill.

The Swift Wolf sprang up from the ground, its feigned death completely gone, and ran away with its tail between its legs.

After running a few steps, he looked back and saw that the shriek was still spreading, so he ran a little further away.

The soul of Montenegro melted in the fire, dripping down like a candle being burned away.

His screams grew weaker and weaker, eventually turning into intermittent sobs, and then into barely audible gasps.

Finally, the soul fire burned the last wisp of remnant soul to ashes, and the flame went out on its own.

Black Mountain's body fell from mid-air and crashed to the ground.

His eyes were still open, but there was no longer any light in his pupils.

The physical body is merely a shell; the soul is the core. The annihilation of the soul caused Black Mountain to lose its true "self."

Lynn stood still, carefully sensing the powerful energy surging into his body, when suddenly the surroundings became quiet.

The wind stopped, the chirping of insects ceased, and even the movement of air slowed down.

He felt a warm current spreading from his chest to his limbs, like a river that had been frozen for a long time finally thawing.

The sealed memories in my mind surfaced one by one.

The Spire of Bones, Mid-Tier Saint Mark, Lord of All Things, The Great Web of Three Thousand Rules, Marfa, Cersei, Ghost Market, Saint Mark World...

They're all back.

He looked down at his hands.

A grayish-white light flowed in his palm, and he could control his Saint-level aura at will.

At this moment, a flood of memories was pouring into his mind, finally making him understand.

It turns out, it was just a game.

"It's fake," he said softly.

The moment those words were uttered, the world began to fade.

The sky changed from grayish-white to a lighter grayish-white, and then became transparent.

The earth was like ink diluted by water, slowly dissolving.

Lynn stood in that faded world, watching everything slowly disappear, preparing to return to her own world.

Just as the world was about to dissipate, a voice suddenly came from behind.

"Brother En."

It was a very soft sound, tinged with a slight tremor and fear.

Lynn turned around.

Arya was still standing in the same spot.

Her body was already translucent, her outline blurred in the grayish-white light, but her eyes were very bright.

She looked at him, her eyes filled with confusion, as if she didn't understand what had happened, yet also as if she did understand something.

"Brother En..." she called out again, her voice even weaker than before, "Am I... going to die?"

Lynn looked at her.

Behind her was the crumbling courtyard wall; the Gray Feather family's house was crumbling, the stone table was crumbling, the vegetable garden was crumbling, and the old trees were crumbling one by one.

The things he built with his own hands, the things he spent nine years living in and immersing himself in, are peeling away layer by layer.

According to his usual personality, he wouldn't respond to Arya's words.

After all, he was just a fictional character, merely a pawn for Lynn to strengthen the bond between father and son.

But seeing the fear and expectation in her eyes, Lynn finally softened.

"Don't worry," he said.

Arya looked up at him.

"Wait patiently, I will bring Chen'er back," Lin En said.

Upon hearing his words, the fear and confusion in Aria's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a bright smile.

She smiled just as she had when she first met him in the courtyard, clean and bright, like the rising sun.

She nodded.

"Yes, I'll be waiting for you," she said.

Then her body began to break apart.

Starting from the toes and gradually moving upwards, the legs disappear, the waist disappears, and the arms disappear.

In the end, only a face remained, still holding that smile.

Finally, the face shattered, breaking into grayish-white shards that drifted in the faded world and were blown away by the wind.

Lynn stood there, watching Arya disappear and the entire simulated world shatter.