"I told you long ago that this palace is under my control, and you will never be able to escape!" The voice of the illusionary consciousness rang in everyone's ears.

The androgynous voices laughed shrilly, filled with mockery, as if they were taunting their impending doom.

Several giant hands appeared in their field of vision, and were already very close to them!

The giant hand, carrying an evil power that withers all life, hurtled toward them at incredible speed!

"Give it to me, die!" The illusory consciousness laughed wildly, the satisfaction of the brutality making it feel incredibly good.

Luo Chu's face was as pale as paper. They were all in this room, and now they had nowhere to escape.

It's over, everything is over!

The others also stared at the giant hand with grim expressions.

Feng Heyun and Wen Xuan were also frozen in place, their wide eyes reflecting the giant hand rapidly closing in on them.

Ten meters, five meters, one meter!

They were moving so fast they couldn't react!

Until the suffocating sensation brought by the giant hand appeared before them, they instinctively closed their eyes tightly, awaiting death.

But the next moment, that feeling suddenly disappeared.

It has completely disappeared.

Feng Heyun and the others opened their eyes in confusion, only to find that the several pairs of extremely oppressive giant hands in front of them had disappeared at some point.

The clamoring, illusory consciousness has also vanished without a trace.

What... is going on?

A flood of questions arose in his mind, and he couldn't help but look to the side.

Then they saw that the unpleasant looks on Ye Huai and the others' faces had completely disappeared, and they had all returned to their usual expressions, as normal as could be.

His composure stood in stark contrast to the three people waiting to die, plus the man who was already half-dead.

Their faces showed no sign of panic at being in dire straits, as if they had known what was about to happen and that their previous expressions were merely an act.

Before the three could think further, the surrounding scenery began to change again.

The surrounding walls turned into countless grains of sand, and the once magnificent palace was reduced to a pile of gravel in an instant, with a clear blue sky appearing above their heads.

Having spent so long in the dim light, the sight of the new day made them squint slightly.

Looking around, they stood in the red desert, with the semi-transparent barrier at the edge of their vision.

Or to put it another way, they had always lived in the Red Desert, without any palaces.

Feng Heyun and the other two looked around, rubbing their eyes hard at the sight before them.

"Could this be another illusion?"

They seem to be out of the loop.

Ye Huai had already started walking in one direction. "Let's go, it's time to find Junior Sister and Jiang Chu."

Feng Heyun and the other two then discovered that there was another cave entrance in this red desert, which was the same earthen yellow color as the palace they had seen before.

It extends downwards, like an entrance.

"Is this the real palace?" Luo Chu pondered for a long time before finally realizing it.

But no one answered him; the others had already headed toward the entrance.

Just as they were about to enter the entrance, Chen Sangruo and Jiang Chu appeared in their sight and walked out of the entrance.

Upon seeing Shen Sangruo, Ye Huai and the others finally smiled.

Su Xiyu stepped forward and hugged Shen Sangruo's arm, her voice joyful, "Junior Sister, I knew you would find the true core of the formation."

"Of course! With our junior sister here, there won't be any surprises!" Song Weiyan smiled, revealing a set of bright white teeth.

"Let your senior sister take a look, are you injured?" Su Xiyu took her hand and checked her over from head to toe.

There must have been many obstacles in the real palace as well.

"I'm not injured at all, so there's no need to worry. It's you all who are in trouble." Shen Sangruo's gaze swept over everyone.

Everyone lost their vitality to varying degrees due to the strangulation formation, and now they look much worse than before.

When she saw the burn marks on Bai Ruoan's body that were clearly different from those on others, her gaze froze.

"Third Senior Brother, what happened to the burns on your body?"

"I was just burned by the flames in the illusion." Bai Ruoan chuckled as always. "My illusion seems to be different from others. Before that choice, there was an illusion full of flames."

Shen Sangruo's face darkened, and she turned to look at Luo Chu and the unconscious Lu Shiqing with a terrifying gaze.

Bai Ruoan also looked at the two people. When her gaze shifted away, the smile on her lips vanished instantly, and her peach blossom eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of ice.

Several gazes fell on Luo Chu, making her feel extremely guilty. She wished she could kick the unconscious Lu Shiqing awake.

Lu Shiqing did most of the work, but he just fainted and knew nothing. Now, only Luo Chu is being judged by the public eye!

Fortunately, Jiang Chu spoke up at this moment, "Your injuries are all very serious, you should leave the barrier quickly to treat your injuries."

Shen Sanruo calmly withdrew her gaze from the two people, "As for other matters, we'll deal with them after we leave the barrier."

Her words were pointed, and Luo Chu's face turned pale, her nails digging deeply into Lu Shiqing's arm.

Even though Feng Heyun and Wen Xuan were completely bewildered, they vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

During their departure, the others also learned from Shen Sangruo what had happened earlier.

"I wasn't the first to discover the problem; it was Jiang Chu. He was the first to guess that the palace we were in might also be an illusion."

After she left with Jiang Chu, Jiang Chu told her his guess.

Jiang Chu felt that the existence of this palace was very unreasonable.

“Those ancient powerful beings built palaces to store treasures, and naturally did not want others to discover them easily, but this palace just appeared on the Red Desert.”

He had a strange sense of unease ever since he entered the palace, and it wasn't until he was searching for the array's core that he suddenly realized what was wrong with it.

“I remember hearing that the palaces of those ancient powerful beings were usually built beneath the Red Desert for easy concealment.”

"Given the frequent occurrence of mirages in the Crimson Desert, I speculated that the group of evil cultivators may have used some means to project the real underground palace onto the ground."

They had created a false palace, and having destroyed one layer of illusion, they would no longer have any doubts about the palace that appeared before them.

This fake palace is more accurately described as an illusion.

The illusion creates a new space, but this palace is essentially still an illusion of the real world.

The barrier's area is only so big; the real palaces are either in the sky or underground.

He and Shen Sangri, with a try-it-out mentality, dug down beneath the palace and actually found the real underground palace.

Then, using the information transmitted by the dodder flower fairy, they located the true core of the formation and destroyed it before the strangulation formation could touch everyone.

Second update! Thank you all for your support! *tweets*

(End of this chapter)