Chapter 1168: Manipulative Mind

The valley was so cold that the chill burrowed straight into Sheyan’s bones. He watched helplessly as the endless abyss pounced on him like the huge mouth of a demonic beast. His mind was confused, and an icy chill crept into his heart.

Although Sheyan was already falling into the abyss, he could still clearly hear the unrestrained laughter coming from the spot which was now more than ten meters above him. The voice was familiar to him; he clearly remembered that the man who performed the act was called Taba, one of the Nepalese porters he had hired.

Sheyan did feel Taba getting close to him a moment ago, but he thought the guy was afraid that he would fall down and so approached with the good intention of helping him. He did not expect Taba to push him down!

Sheyan did not even need to think to understand the motive of the crime, and it was a simple motive:

Money.

Sheyan was a lone foreigner who was in a hurry and knew no one else in this place. His generous, unrestrained spending along the way fully demonstrated his potential as a fat lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

Because Sheyan believed in his strength as a powerful contestant, in order to save time, he directly traded for the local currency with a large amount of US dollars and gold at the black market in Kathmandu instead of going to the official institutions with better security measures. Hashemi and company personally witnessed all these, so they knew that there was still a large amount of cash and gold left in his bag….

They were poor people who worked long-term as guides in the snowy mountains, a high-risk job. Their personalities were naturally filled with brutality and risk-taking. These locals knew that someone meeting with an accident and dying on the snowy mountains was a common occurrence. Would the police be so dedicated as to come to this place thousands of meters above sea level and risk their lives to check the crime scene?

All these factors combined formed an obvious motive for the crime. With how low the risk and how high the benefit was, why would they not take the gamble?

More surprisingly, Taba was actually not too greedy. He did not choose to knock Sheyan unconscious or tie him up to squeeze more money out of him, instead choosing to push Sheyan down into the bottomless ice abyss straightaway! The first two methods were totally ineffective against Sheyan, but pushing him down was!

Although Sheyan’s Perceptive Sense was very strong, it could only warn against the kind of threats which would cause huge damage directly, such as sniper shots. It had no deduction ability.

Technically speaking, Taba’s push could not injure Sheyan in the slightest, and Sheyan’s Perceptive Sense could not deduce that Sheyan would fall into a deep abyss after being pushed, so of course it would not issue a warning. As for the deep abyss itself, Sheyan’s Perceptive Sense kept warning him that it was really dangerous to fall down there. All these factors combined caused Sheyan his downfall. Sheyan wanted to cry but no tears came out.

***

The cold wind howled past his ears. Sheyan felt as if there were countless hands frantically stuffing chilly air dozens of degrees below zero into his ears and nostrils. His field of vision was entirely filled with icy spikes that were like frost blades and snow lances, gleaming sharp and fierce.

As his body rapidly fell, the feeling of death was getting more and more intense. There was great terror when one experienced a moment of life and death. Now, Sheyan was tasting this feeling of terror and despair bit by bit. He had never felt so wronged before, nor such rage and indignation!

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

When Sheyan saw an ice cliff adjacent to him in the process of falling down, he instinctively punched it in a frenzy, but right now, he was in the real world and most of his equipment had been removed, so the only thing he had to rely on was his own body! He tried to break a way out of his predicament with his fists on the ice which had been accumulating for thousands of years on the Annapurna Massif!

The ice which had been accumulating for thousands of years on the Annapurna Massif was even harder than steel. It did not take long for Sheyan’s fists, which were punching the ice without any protection, to turn into a mush of meat and blood.

But Sheyan barely noticed that at all as he fell into a frenzy in this moment of life and death. He slammed the glacier again and again while falling down. He could only feel his blood surging all over his body, and his body felt like it was burning!

As the blood drops splattered onto the ice, they had initially solidified into frozen blood rapidly. However, after a while, the blood drops which splattered onto the ice actually remained in liquid form without showing any signs of freezing. On the contrary, they started corroding into the glacier while producing vapours, as if they were hot acid!

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At the same time, the description of Sheyan’s innate ability, ‘Stronghold’, which was glowing red, appeared more dazzling, more intense! The glow was so bright that it looked like it would explode any second!

Evidently, in the face of the great crisis which Sheyan was currently experiencing, all of Sheyan’s power and potential were surging wildly. The terrifying threat of death was like a huge furnace which forcefully raised the power of Sheyan’s entire body to the limit and beyond!

Eventually, with a shout, blood shot out of Sheyan’s mouth, nose and ears, and the burning power which swelled in his body was all concentrated in a single punch! The punch penetrated deep into the glacier, causing a huge number of cracks dozens of meters long to appear on the transparent ice wall that was as hard as steel! The giant glacier even showed signs of collapsing.

However, this earth-shaking punch still could not stop the momentum of his fall, but it did push him more than 10 meters across the air horizontally.

Following that, Sheyan fell heavily to the bottom of the ice valley on the Annapurna Massiff! This was a forbidden territory for human beings. Apart from people who had accidentally fallen down like Sheyan, almost no one had set foot on this place for thousands of years.

Sheyan had already closed his eyes to await the terrifying impact, as well as the crushing and shattering of his body to follow! Sheyan knew very well that contestants were not invincible. The terrible impact force from falling thousands of meters was absolutely not something the human body could endure!

However, although some pain was transmitted from his back as expected, and there was even the crisp sounds of his bones fracturing, Sheyan also clearly felt the bizarre sensation of the land on his back suddenly sinking down.

How was that possible?

At first he thought he was imagining it. How could the earth sink down? But soon, Sheyan discovered that it was real, a fact which brought him great joy!

If one were to look down from above with a bird’s-eye view, they would see that the moment Sheyan reached the bottom of the valley, a large amount of snow instantly rose. It was followed by some crisp noises. Then, they would see a large area of mist and snow rising at the bottom of the valley which was almost a square kilometer in size. After that, a circular pattern of dense cracks like a spider web appeared; the spot Sheyan slammed onto was the very center of the spider web.

The next second, the entire area collapsed downwards, causing a large number of water columns to soar up! The water columns carried with them some hot smoke and also a strong smell of sulphur.

When the warm water splashed over Sheyan’s body, crept into his mouth and nose, and brought pain to the wounds on his fists, Sheyan finally understood what had happened, as if all his confusion had been washed away by the water.

The bottom of the seemingly bottomless ice abyss was a hot spring lake! A hot spring lake with a thin layer of ice on its surface!

Although the hot spring had a peculiar smell, it was top-grade treatment for Sheyan at the moment. Sheyan could also feel a powerful force wandering all over his body. He did not even need to check to know that his innate ability, ‘Stronghold’, had broken through the bottleneck and successfully upgraded!

“That old fox!” screamed Sheyan in his heart.

Of course, these three words were not aimed at the attempted murderers above, but the owner of the mysterious voice.

The mysterious voice had been manipulative since the beginning, taking into account all psychological factors. The instruction to jump from the Lotus Stone was clearly meant to select someone who believed in him unconditionally. Even if the person used advanced technology to understand the situation below the ice abyss in advance before jumping down, it would not work.

That’s because the “path” shown by the mysterious voice actually referred to the understanding, madness, and breakthough in the moment of life and death! Without the pressure of death, one could not force out the full potential in one’s body. If the person knew beforehand that the bottom of the abyss was a hot spring lake with a frozen surface, it would only feel like bungee jumping; there would only be excitement, no threat of death. There would of course be no breakthrough either.

Based on Sheyan’s personality, there was absolutely no way he was going to jump down initially. How would he know that he would meet with a porter blinded by greed who would push him down?

Sheyan grew up in the sea and his Physique had also undergone explosive strengthening after becoming a contestant. He also had the ‘Pirate Captain’ title. He had no problem soaking in the water for up to an hour without taking a breath, so he simply lay down for a while on the warm hot spring. The injury on his back was rather severe, so blood kept flowing out of his body, making for a gruesome sight. However, the strong self-healing ability of a contestant was at work, quickly restoring his body from the inside.

While he was lying there, Sheyan checked on his original innate ability, ‘Stronghold’, and found that it had now been replaced by a lot of new data!