I was cornered against the wall and forced to chant the Golden Light Mantra; it was a last resort.

In a sense, faith is about brainwashing yourself and purifying your spirit and will.

I'm betting that the Night Feast of a Hundred Ghosts is an illusion.

If everything we encounter is truly just the result of being misled, then theoretically, as long as we can maintain a high level of mental concentration, we can break free from this entanglement.

Standing before the cliff, I closed my eyes and recited aloud, yet I could still hear footsteps growing clearer.

To stay calm, I had to raise my voice, gradually turning my recitation into a roar.

"Found him! He's here!"

"Tie them up!"

"..."

Soon, the villagers' voices could be heard, and throughout the whole process I kept chanting the protective golden light mantra, concentrating my mind to tell myself that everything I was experiencing was an illusion.

Suddenly, a cold hand grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground.

The Golden Light Mantra is ineffective!

No, it's not necessarily that the spell is ineffective; perhaps they are still creating illusions for me.

Immediately afterwards, I felt myself being dragged on the ground, and someone was tying my body with rope.

I felt pain.

Hallucinations are like dreams, and in theory, people cannot feel pain.

Could my guess be wrong? Are these guys not ghosts, but monsters?

Thinking of this, I suddenly opened my eyes.

The same villagers were still in front of me. They had already tied up Song Laosan, and two other people were holding me down.

Go to hell!

I picked up a stone from the ground and violently smashed it towards the temple of the person in front of me.

"Bang!"

With a muffled thud, the man was unharmed, only swaying slightly: "You little brat, you'll get your comeuppance soon!"

"Get out! All of you, get out!"

At this point, I had gone mad. I don't know where I got the strength, but I broke free from the person holding me and started punching and kicking the person in front of me.

Just then, I suddenly saw a ghostly figure appear behind these villagers.

That's right, it's Ghostly Shadow!

The thing looked like a human shadow standing up, unusually tall, swaying in the air like a reflection in water.

I tried hard to see what this guy looked like, but the more I tried, the less I could see.

The ghostly figure quickly caught up with the villagers. It stretched out its palm, grabbed a villager's head, and forcefully squeezed it off.

In an instant, the villagers vanished into thin air.

Like a burst soap bubble, it vanishes in an instant.

Immediately, the ghostly figure darted left and right among the villagers, and several villagers were quickly killed.

The shadowy figure seemed to be everywhere; no matter where I looked, it was always in my sight.

Suddenly, he appeared in front of me.

I saw a rotting cheek.

On his bloodied and mangled face, maggots swarmed, and a pair of round, lifeless eyes stared at me.

"ah!!"

Upon seeing the monster appear before me, I roared and hurled a stone at it.

The monster easily grabbed my arm, and then choked my neck.

A sudden, intense feeling of suffocation washed over me, and my vision went black.

The thought of this thing attacking and killing the villagers filled me with fear.

I'm afraid that if this monster exerts force with its palm, I will meet the same fate.

"roar!!"

The monster opened its mouth wide and roared at me.

Instead of a tongue, what was in his mouth was an infant's arm, which scratched wildly at my face, causing me to struggle violently.

Immediately afterwards, a sticky liquid smeared all over my face, causing me to instinctively close my eyes.

"Smack!"

I felt like I'd been slapped, and I involuntarily tilted my head to one side.

"Smack!"

Another slap.

This time, I felt a burning pain in my cheek.

I was completely enraged by the way this demon killed people. I opened my eyes and hysterically roared, "Damn it! If you want to kill, then kill! Why are you hitting my ass?"

"Smack!"

The baby's arm that the demon spoke of was still slapping my face.

The immense force made my vision blur.

In a moment of distraction, my gaze shifted.

For a fleeting moment, the enormous ghostly figure transformed into the shape of a person and slapped him across the face.

Then, it transformed back into that rotting, nauseating monster.

"Smack!"

"Smack!"

The sound of slaps kept reaching my ears. Just as my cheeks were going numb from the blows, a loud shout suddenly rang out: "Kid, open your eyes and see who I am!"

The roar jolted me awake, and I could smell a faint aroma of bezoar in my nostrils.

With my vision blurring, I finally made out the person in front of me.

This was a man wearing a gas mask. He was shining a flashlight into my eyes and waving his hand in front of my face: "Kid, are you back to consciousness? Can you see what number this is?"

The flashlight beam stung my eyes, bringing tears to my eyes. The man's movements seemed to be in slow motion to me; his swaying hand left afterimages.

However, I could clearly see the butterfly tattoo on the web of his hand.

We're saved!

Seeing the man's butterfly tattoo was like a sudden awakening, and I snapped back to reality.

Beside me, Song Laosan had already fainted, his expression one of pain.

Looking around, I was utterly shocked.

We were inside a huge cave, and within the light's reach, the ground was covered in bones. What I was holding in my hand wasn't a stone at all, but a skull.

Looking around the cave, one can see that the surrounding mountain walls have been carved out into caves, each with a wooden fence.

In the corner, there were also firearms and some ammunition boxes, with their types and numbers written on them in traditional Chinese characters.

This is a prison!

Looking back, I saw the very passage through which Song Laosan and I had crawled out of the cat-ear cave.

In other words, Song Laosan and I were trapped in an illusion from the moment we left the cat ear cave.

From our rescue from the cliff, to being taken to the village to spend the night, and even to the villagers asking me for sperm donation today, it was all an illusion.

Judging from the time on our watches, less than half an hour has actually passed in reality, according to what we experienced that day.

I don't know if I inhaled something or if I was hit by the butterfly man, but my head is throbbing with pain.

I struggled to sit up, but then froze in place like a statue.

My clothes have been changed.

At that moment, I was wearing a tattered burlap garment, and the skin beneath it was covered in foul-smelling mud.

And this is the very spot in the village where the doctor applied the ointment to my wound!

At that moment, my body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Looking back on what happened, it was absolutely absurd! How could this have happened?!