Han Yu had been walking for two days now.

The forest around him had not changed in the slightest. Each step he took seemed to lead him deeper into the same scene he had already walked through hundreds of times before.

The same thick trees covered in moss, the same twisted roots curling out of the ground, and the same faint mist that hung low like a ghostly curtain. It was as if the forest had become a looping illusion, trapping him in an endless maze with no beginning or end.

Yet, Han Yu was no fool.

He had checked his marks over and over, even backtracked his own trail to confirm that he was not walking in circles. The carved arrows on the bark were all still there, each one showing the direction he had taken.

He should have been moving forward, but nothing around him ever changed.

The sky remained dim even during the day, its false light filtering through the illusionary heavens that the inner realm projected. The sunlight here was never more than a pale veil of illumination hidden behind layers of murky clouds, casting weak light through the canopy.

Han Yu could not even tell the difference between morning and afternoon anymore.

"This place..." He sighed quietly as he sat down on a fallen log to rest.

His boots were caked in damp mud, and his robes were damp with sweat and mist. Even though the air was cool, the humidity clung to him like a living thing. He rubbed his temples, trying to calm the quiet unease that had been building in him since the moment he arrived in this strange place.

"What are you, really…" he muttered, looking around.

The forest did not answer. It simply stood still, silent as a painting.

Not a single cry of a bird. Not a single buzz of an insect. Not even the sound of a frog croaking in the wet underbrush. Only the faint dripping of moisture from leaves and the soft rustle of his own movement filled the air.

It was unnerving.

Han Yu looked down at his feet. The ground was soft, spongy, and covered in thick mats of moss that had grown over old, blackened roots. Sprouting out of this were mushrooms of every shape and color, forming a silent garden of strange, toxic beauty.

"Even you guys are eerie." Han Yu muttered.

Some were tall, thin, and pale like ghostly fingers, their caps dripping with dew that shimmered faintly with a bluish hue.

Others were squat and bloated, with crimson tops speckled by white dots like tiny stars. The largest ones resembled flattened parasols, their undersides showing gills that glowed faintly green in the dim light. Han Yu recognized some of them from his studies under Li Mei.

Fly Agaric, with its red and white cap, beautiful but deadly.

Blood Tooth Mushroom, its underside oozing a dark crimson sap that looked disturbingly like real blood.

Poison Drip Cap, slender and delicate, constantly releasing a clear liquid that corroded whatever it touched. It looked harmless due to the liquid dripping on soil harmlessly, but Han Yu had gotten some on his shoes before, and it had corroded a hole into it.

He had seen their pictures in the herbal codices and compendiums back at the sect and could still remember Li Mei's words echoing in his head, "If you do not know what it is, Han Yu, do not eat it. Especially mushrooms. The forest tempts the desperate."

And so he avoided them, no matter how tempting they might look. He had food, at least for now. Dried meat, spirit grain balls, and a few gourds of water. Most of his supplies were stored safely in his Spatial Storage bags, though he kept a few at hand in his rucksack.

Still, even knowing that, he could not help but glance occasionally at the mushrooms. Hunger was not the issue. It was curiosity and unease. The forest seemed too deliberate, as if it wanted to test him, to see when he would make a mistake.

The longer he stayed, the stronger that feeling became.

When he walked, his steps echoed faintly, though there should have been no echo in such a dense place.

The trees all looked identical, their bark mottled with patches of dark mold and streaks of silver fungus. Sometimes he thought he saw faint lights flickering between the trunks, but when he looked directly, there was nothing there.

He knew illusionary arrays when he saw them, but these were not like any formation he could understand. There were no stones or runes, no focal points of power. The air simply was.

On the first night, he had tried to meditate, hoping to restore his Qi and center his mind.

But the moment he closed his eyes, he felt a cold pressure behind him, like something was standing just out of sight. When he opened his eyes, there had been nothing. The fire he had lit was still burning steadily, the mist swirling lazily around the edges of the light.

By the second day, Han Yu had begun marking trees every few meters, carving symbols into the bark. Yet his sense of direction refused to work. The needle of his internal compass, his spiritual awareness, twisted aimlessly.

Even when he used a detection charm talisman, it returned blank results.

"This place is wrong," he whispered to himself, tightening his grip on the charm before putting it away.

He thought of the others again: Wu Shuan, Junior Lin, and even the younger disciples who had only joined Inner Court recently.

Were they alive?

Had they been teleported to a different part of the realm, or had they been destroyed like Junior Jun?

The memory of Jun's sudden death still haunted him. The way his body had burst apart like dust scattered by the wind was burned into Han Yu's mind.

He looked at the faint glow on his wrist where the communication jade slip was tied.