Chapter 214: Chapter 214

If Zhou Qiming used the【Stone of This Life】, maybe he could recall the memories that were wiped.

But the【Stone of This Life】was still considered valuable, and Jiang Ye wasn’t about to let Zhou Qiming use it for free.

If it were to be used, it would be after turning Zhou Qiming into one of his clones, and then he’d use it himself.

Jiang Ye pondered in his heart, but didn’t bring up the memory loss to Zhou Qiming.

That guy might even have some suspicions of his own—just hadn’t said anything.

Jiang Ye couldn’t help but consider another possibility—

What if Zhou Qiming had sealed part of his own memory?

But could this guy really have reacted that fast, and the moment he realized he was about to be questioned with the【Mask of Deceit】, he stealthily sealed away a portion of his memory?

Jiang Ye thought… it was possible, but not likely.

After a bit of thought, he simply decided to leave the【Mask of Deceit】on Zhou Qiming. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel·fire.net

Then, using the expendable clone that looked like Jiang Ye, he continued questioning Zhou Qiming for more details.

Meanwhile, the Administrator clone flickered away toward the cross-shaped tombstone.

That cross-shaped tombstone still exuded a chilling and terrifying aura.

It wasn’t so bad from a distance, but once you got close—even in death state—the Administrator couldn’t escape its influence.

Earlier, Jiang Ye had avoided it specifically because of that ominous pressure.

But now, he had no choice but to get closer.

The nearer he got, the stronger the sense of dread and discomfort became.

It made him almost instinctively want to flee.

Even to collapse to the ground and crawl!

At first, Jiang Ye relied on sheer willpower to endure it.

Then, he had a sudden flash of inspiration and fused the light-element clone into the Administrator clone.

And it actually worked!

Once the fusion of light and dark was complete, he no longer felt that fear or unease!

This strange phenomenon made Jiang Ye ponder—

This Reincarnation Graveyard was clearly steeped in dark-element energy...

It was the best place to nourish Shadow Puppets with the dark clone!

So logically, this should be paradise for dark-element beings!

But why did the aura from the cross-shaped tombstone make dark-element beings feel so repelled, so unable to approach?

On the contrary, the light element seemed to be tolerated by the tombstone.

So could it be that this tombstone had some connection to the light element?

The thing sealed beneath it had something to do with light?

That would sort of make sense.

But here’s the problem—

All dark-element beings instinctively feared the light, like they were inherently beneath it.

Which led to a clear conclusion: light was stronger than dark, maybe even countered it!

So how could a dark tombstone suppress something of the light??

Does that even make sense?

Jiang Ye’s mind spun with possibilities.

At the same time, he used【Light and Shadow Escape】and in a flash appeared right under the cross-shaped tombstone.

Even from far away, it had looked enormous.

But once up close, he realized it was even bigger than it had appeared!

Its base covered a vast area as well.

The iron chains coiled all over it—no wonder they were visible from such a distance.

Up close, they were terrifyingly thick!

Within the dark red color, molten lava seemed to flow, radiating an intense, horrifying energy...

Even with【Light and Shadow Escape】, Jiang Ye didn’t dare get too close.

He just hovered several meters away, circling around the giant tombstone.

Even though he wasn’t right on top of it, he examined it carefully and quickly noticed something odd—

On that towering tombstone, tall as a building, there was a door!

Or more accurately, a door-shaped engraving right at the base, as if etched into the surface.

Like someone had drawn a door with graffiti on a wall—it wasn’t an actual door that could open.

It didn’t even have a door seam.

And outside the “door” were the same bizarre iron chains, wrapping around and locking it down.

Even if it were a real door, it would be impossible to open with all those chains.

Jiang Ye focused his thoughts, and a pitch-black key appeared in the light-shadow fusion’s palm.

The【Reincarnation Key】...

He’d promised to hand it over to the Apartment Trader.

Thinking he probably wouldn’t get to use it for a long time anyway...

So now, he summoned up his courage and brought the dark key close to the door-shaped etching on the tombstone.

He fiddled with it for quite a while in front of the “door.”

But the door didn’t respond. Heck, the entire tombstone showed no reaction whatsoever.

Jiang Ye was a little annoyed and flew a few more laps around the massive tombstone, still holding the cross-shaped key.

He even made up a set of chants on the fly, mumbling a bunch of mumbo jumbo...

In the end, after confirming that the tombstone had zero response to the key, he finally gave up.

So yeah, the idea of using the【Reincarnation Key】was scrapped.

But another thought struck him—

The effect of【Light and Shadow Escape】was that it could phase through any physical object.

Back at the apartment, he’d used this ability to casually kill tons of spectral beings.

He even used it to bypass floors entirely, skipping the red-glow elevator and just slipping through the building.

Could he use【Light and Shadow Escape】to phase into the tombstone itself?

It was a bold and risky thought.

But it wasn’t entirely reckless.

The key point was that, when he approached the tombstone earlier as a pure dark-element Administrator, he couldn’t even get close.

But once he fused with the light element—he could.

So maybe light really could enter the tombstone!

Jiang Ye’s guts had definitely grown bigger lately.

Even knowing full well that this tombstone was anything but ordinary, he still charged straight at it using【Light and Shadow Escape】.

Of course, in his light-shadow form, he deliberately aimed for a gap between the layers of those heavy chains.

And it actually worked—he slipped inside!

Normally, when phasing through solid objects in his Light and Shadow state, Jiang Ye didn’t feel anything special.

But passing through this massive tombstone…

He vaguely felt as if—

The entire tombstone was, in some strange sense, a kind of “apartment”…?

The moment he successfully entered the interior space of the tombstone, Jiang Ye got the uncanny impression that he’d just broken into a foreign apartment.

But the feeling vanished almost instantly.

Because right after that, it was like someone slapped him from head to toe.

His Light and Shadow Escape form was abruptly forced back into its original shape!

And in his restored form, under that top-down pressure, he fell to the ground.

He could clearly feel—

The gravity inside this tombstone space was more than ten times stronger than outside.

Any player with weaker strength would already be collapsed on the floor by now.

Weaker still—like some of his classmates—might’ve already coughed up blood from internal injuries.

Jiang Ye was starting to feel the strain himself, so he fused in his Super Stamina clone.

With his physical stats massively boosted, the crushing pressure became barely tolerable.

Once he was sure he could move safely, he began surveying the inside of the tombstone…

And what he saw made his eyes go wide in shock.

Wasn’t because the interior looked like a crystal palace carved from snow and ice.

Wasn’t because this massive space was mostly empty, with only two small tombstones standing at opposite ends in a straight line.

And wasn’t because the transparent ice-like walls were faintly etched with star-map-like patterns.

The reflection in the smooth icy surface.

It showed his own face.

The face of… “Jiang Ye”!

But here’s the thing—Jiang Ye was currently using the 4444 Administrator identity!

Which meant he should’ve had the face of the former 1010 Administrator, that poker-faced middle-aged man, Luo Qi!

Logically, fusing clones didn’t alter the main body’s appearance.

Whichever clone you fused into retained its original face.

So from the outside, no one could tell a fusion had happened…

That made perfect sense.

But what didn’t make sense was—

After his Light and Shadow form was slapped back into human form by the eerie force, it defaulted to his own face—Jiang Ye’s face!

That was seriously creepy!

Even Lin Ling couldn’t detect his fusion clone ability.

Not even the apartment’s system rules could tell!

But somehow, this icy crystal space inside the tombstone was like a magical mirror that revealed his true form!

A cold chill ran down Jiang Ye’s spine.

At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a newfound respect for this bizarre tombstone.

He tried using【Light and Shadow Escape】again to mask his appearance.

But it didn’t work in this space.

He even tried reshaping his features with blood and flesh—didn’t work either.

He even put on the bald disguise mask—and still, no disguise effect at all…

So this crystal space inside the tombstone must have a default rule: all must reveal their true form, with no disguises allowed?

Jiang Ye pondered briefly, but after confirming there weren’t any immediate threats in this space, his attention quickly shifted to the only two objects inside—

The pair of small tombstones.

They stood to the left and right, mirroring each other.

They too were made from that crystal-clear ice-like material—like they were carved from solid ice, yet they gave off no chill.

Both tombstones were etched with simple yet elegant star-patterns.

Jiang Ye could vaguely make out that the constellations formed two humanoid shapes.

The outlines and features formed by the star points were nearly identical, like copy-paste duplicates.

The only difference was in their hands.

The figure on the left raised one hand solemnly to its mouth, covering it.

The figure on the right raised one hand to its ear, as if swearing an oath.

Jiang Ye fused his True Sight Eye clone to take a closer look—but in this entire tombstone space, True Sight couldn’t reveal a thing.

Left with no other option, he flickered forward and appeared before the mouth-covering tombstone.

Could this be the “Wordless Tombstone” that Lin Ling once mentioned?

Jiang Ye took out the【Corpse Whisper Bone Charm】, but the tombstone didn’t react at all.

Until he worked up the nerve to touch it—then suddenly, a message echoed in his mind.