Chapter 88: Plane Conversion (2)

Thick, choking smoke had already seeped into the ward. The alarms, the panicked voices in the corridor, the cries of children, the feeble calls for help from the elderly—Shen Duo's mind grew more and more chaotic.

Her abdominal wound had long since torn open again, bright blood seeping through her hospital gown. Leaning against the bed, she pressed a hand over the injury to ease the pain.

The fire had reached the hospital's electronic equipment and medical instruments, setting off crackling pops and small explosions. It spread with frightening speed, and before long the entire floor was shrouded in smoke so dense it made people's eyes sting and their breathing turn into wheezing coughs.

Summoning the last shred of strength in her body, Shen Duo reached for the cup of water and towel on the bedside cabinet. She poured the water over the dry cloth and covered her mouth and nose.

No matter what, she could not give up the will to live. She had persuaded Squad Leader Yuan Hong to leave only because she did not want to drag her down. Though she had no ability to escape, she could still do everything in her power to hold on until the rescuers arrived. If she did nothing and simply surrendered, it would be far too unworthy of this hard-won life.

And yet time seemed to pass with agonizing slowness. The curtains in her ward had already caught fire, but the rescue team still had not come. Smoke filled the room. At first, lying flat on the floor had barely let her endure it, but now the dense smoke had spread all the way down to the floor, and even the damp towel had been smoked dry.

Everything reeked of burning. Her throat and eyes burned with a dry, stabbing pain. Shen Duo could no longer bear it and lay prone on the floor, coughing uncontrollably.

The violent convulsions of her coughing shook her abdominal wound, making the pain seize her like a blade.

Weakly, she lay on the floor. The clamor and cries seemed very far away. Smoke completely obscured her vision, and she could no longer make out anything in the ward. Life felt like a cup overflowing, gradually being poured away.

Just as she was about to lose consciousness, an anxious, angry voice suddenly rang in her mind.

"Xiao Duo! Xiao Duo! Wake up! Wake up now..."

That voice kept calling on stubbornly. It was a deep, magnetic male voice, wonderfully pleasant to hear. It sounded so familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before. Gradually, it grew louder and louder. Shen Duo suddenly opened her eyes, and a flash of light cut through her mind. It was Ben Yi's voice!

The smoke before her eyes vanished in an instant, and the scenes that had been even more real than reality dissolved away. Shen Duo blinked with all her strength. What should have been a simple motion felt as though it would drain the last of her body's power. Pain shot through her abdomen, her brows knitting faintly as fragments of memory flashed chaotically through her mind.

But her injuries were too severe. Her mind only cleared for a moment before it began to sink back into a haze.

At that instant, Shen Duo bit hard into her own lip. Her pink lips were torn bloody by her own teeth. The pain bought her a brief moment of clarity. Making a decisive move, Shen Duo slowly unfurled the scroll within her body, and after a burst of white light, she vanished from that eerie stone cave!

At that moment she no longer had the ability to escape the cave in an instant. The geographical conditions of the two planes were basically the same; perhaps only by transferring immediately to another plane would she have even a sliver of a chance to survive. If another plane also had a stone cave here, and within it the same rose quartz that induced extreme hallucinations, then she could only accept her fate.

A tremendous splash!

All at once, her entire body was plunged into the icy, surging river, jolting Shen Duo's mind and restoring a measure of consciousness.

Before her eyes was a raging torrent. A waterfall more than ten meters ahead roared like thunder in her ears, and Shen Duo could not help cursing inwardly.

She had no choice but to grit her teeth and endure the searing pain in her body, adjusting her posture in preparation to receive what was, by any measure, the highest high-dive in history.

Just as she closed her eyes and steeled herself, she heard a fierce wolf howl. Then Ben Yi seized Shen Duo in one claw, made a graceful glide through the air, and landed lightly beside the great pool.

She had escaped the terrifying leap from the platform. Shen Duo had finally snatched back a life. She lay on the ground, gazing up at the clear blue sky, gasping for breath.

There was no stone cave in this plane after all, or she would have fallen directly into the river above the cliff wall.

Thankfully Ben Yi had reacted quickly. If she had been swept down from dozens of meters by the waterfall, surviving would have been impossible.

Shen Duo's gaze was somewhat vacant. What she had seen of Squad Leader Yuan Hong earlier had felt as though it had truly happened. If Ben Yi had not called her through telepathy, perhaps she really would have died in that illusion...

She shook her head, scattering those images from her mind, silently telling herself over and over that this was the truth now.

After lying there for a quarter of an hour, Shen Duo tried to sit up. A burst of pain shot through her abdomen, and the upper half of her body immediately sagged back down, powerless.

She was truly injured. And badly.

"Xiao Duo, don't move for now. The wound on your abdomen is very large, and it's still bleeding," Ben Yi said in a worried voice.

What had happened before was truly terrifying.

Perhaps the fragrant scent released by the rose quartz, which induced hallucinations, had less effect on magical beasts, allowing Ben Yi to remain conscious.

Once it regained consciousness, it saw the wound on Shen Duo's abdomen and the blood pouring out of her. Worse still, she was having trouble breathing, as if the breath of life might vanish the very next moment.

Ben Yi had no choice but to call to her again and again through telepathy.

Then, all of a sudden, they were teleported to this plane together.

Shen Duo gave a helpless, bitter smile. The wounds on her body were probably self-inflicted after she had fallen into the illusion. She found some simple medicinal herbs and bandages in her storage pouch, and with Ben Yi's help, quickly treated the wound and stopped the bleeding.

She had overdrawn her strength and was sore all over. She really wanted to rest on the bank of this great pool for an entire day, but she could not do that. Feng Jun and Wei Dong were still in the stone cave of the other plane. If she did not go to rescue them, then when they woke, they would surely fall into different illusions again. From her experience, those bizarre illusions would only grow more dangerous, until they took lives.

Shen Duo dared not delay. After lying down for a little over half an hour, she recovered a bit of strength. She and Ben Yi ate and drank something simple, and while they ate, the two of them discussed how to carry out the rescue.

In truth, Shen Duo's body was not so fragile. She was a swordswoman and valued physical training above all. But just like Feng Jun, those caught in an illusion were completely defenseless. They had been injured while at their most vulnerable, and were no different from ordinary flesh and blood.

Because of the excessive blood loss, Shen Duo's face was pale, and her long magician's robe was stained with blood, but she had no time to care about that now.

She said to Ben Yi beside her, "We're going back right now!"

Ben Yi nodded its wolf head and returned to the beast space.

Shen Duo closed her eyes and once again unfolded the scroll within her dantian. In the next instant, she had returned to the shore of the enormous pool in the original plane.

The scenery around the two pools was nearly identical. Without careful observation, it would seem as though she had never left the spot at all.

Through telepathy, Shen Duo instructed Ben Yi, "Go find some sturdy vines, quickly!"