<strong>Chapter 4817: Clench in the Heart</strong>


    “Great! It looks like I can really take it off.”


    Chu Feng had long noticed that the armor could be removed, just that he wasn’t sure about it at the start. However, it looked like his guess was spot-on.


    “Lad, do you really take me for a fool? Cheating is futile. Even if you remove the armor here, it won’t save thatss,” that mysterious voice said.


    “Of course I know that I won’t be able to save Zi Ling like this, but will it still be against the rules if I do this?”


    Chu Feng ced the armor he had just removed from Zi Ling’s wooden puppet and ced it on his own.


    Wu!


    The moment he put the armor on, he immediately reached for his chest and grabbed it rightly. An unbearable pain was swiftly rippling from his chest to the rest of his body. It was so excruciating that even Chu Feng was hardly able to bear it.


    “Lad, are you out of your mind? You actually ced twoyers of restraints on your own soul? You must be desperate to die!” that mysterious voice eximed in astonishment.


    “Elder, is this against the rules?” Chu Feng repeated his question once more.


    “It isn’t, but you’ll die at this rate. Are you intending on sacrificing yourself for thatss’ freedom? Is it worth doing so?” that mysterious voice asked.


    “Zi Ling would be freed if I do this?” Chu Feng asked, wanting to verify this fact.


    “If you’re willing to take on her share of the burden, she’d be free. However, don’t you get what I’m saying? There’s no way you’ll survive twoyers of shackles on your soul!” that mysterious voice said.


    “That isn’t a problem at all. It’s fine as long as Zi Ling can be freed,” Chu Feng said with a smile on his face.


    He quickly formed a series of hand seals and constructed a formation on his fingertip. He tapped it on his chest, and the pain that was torturing him immediately vanished.


    At the same time, the twoyers of armor that were shackling the Chu Feng wooden puppet also vanished too.


    “That is... Lad, it can’t be that...” that mysterious voice remarked in shock.


    However, Chu Feng was unsurprised by the other party’s reaction.


    He was obsessed with leaving thebyrinth the first five days, but when he was unable to find the exit, he decided to turn his attention toward the inscribed patterns on the walls instead.


    He would always spot an inscribed pattern after walking a distance, but most of them were repetitions of already seen patterns. All in all, there were only eighteen of them, and each of them contained a secret.


    They were meaningless individually, but Chu Feng realized that if he were to ce them ording to the order they appeared, their shapes would form a formation.


    And that formation had the ability to neutralize the armor.


    From the moment he realized that, he decided to embark on this n.


    If he couldn’t escape from thebyrinth, he would put the armor on Zi Ling’s wooden puppet on him and neutralize both of them together. It was just that it was hisst resort.


    If possible, he would prefer to escape from thebyrinth since that was the promise the mysterious voice had made with him.


    It was just that he failed in the end.


    That was why he kept asking the mysterious voice if this was against the rule. He was worried that the mysterious voice would deny the legitimacy of what he had done if he were to neutralize the armor directly.


    “You actually noticed it. It shouldn’t have been easy to find that formation. It looks like I’ll have to take back my words. You do have some brain after all,” the mysterious voice remarked with a hint of approval.


    “Thank you for yourpliment. Are Zi Ling and I free now?” Chu Feng asked.


    “Of course,” the mysterious voice said.


    The two wooden puppets that had morphed into Chu Feng and Zi Ling’s form swiftly reverted back to their original forms before dissipating into thin air.


    This was a sign that the owner of the mysterious voice was truly intending to free the two of them.


    “Elder, may I know who you are? Are you acquainted with the sect founder?” Chu Feng asked.


    Chu Feng wasn’t able to meet the owner of the mysterious voice in person, but just through thebyrinth, he could tell that thetter was a formidable individual. This made him curious about the other party’s background.


    He wondered if the other party was rted to the sect founder.


    “I don’t want to answer that question,” the mysterious voice replied.


    “May I ask another question?” Chu Feng asked.


    “Go ahead.”


    “Do you know a way to neutralize the cmity shrouding the Hidden Dragon Martial Sect?”


    Chu Feng felt that the owner of the mysterious voice had a deep connection with the Hidden Dragon Martial Sect, so there was a way he might know of a solution to the crisis currently faced by the sect.


    “What does your cmity have anything to do with me? Don’t ever ask me such a question again,” the mysterious voice replied impatiently.


    “May I ask questions about thebyrinth then?” Chu Feng asked.


    “Go ahead,” the mysterious voice said.


    “Elder, there’s actually no way to escape from thebyrinth, right?” Chu Feng asked.


    “Why do you say so?” the mysterious voice replied with a question.


    “It’s just a guess. Even though I’mcking, I did see the full form of thebyrinth, and I’m confident in my ability to calcte the exit route even with just a partial memory of thebyrinth’s map. However, no matter how I calcted, I was unable to find a way out. That’s why I had this doubt in mind,” Chu Feng said.


    “Thisbyrinth does have a solution to it. Your inability to escape from it only means that you’re stillcking. However, it’s alreadymendable that you were able to figure out the formation to free yourself from the Soul Lock. That’s something that thess wasn’t able to achieve,” the mysterious voice said.


    Chu Feng was relieved to hear those words.


    It turned out that there was indeed a solution to thebyrinth, which meant that those inscribed patterns were actually unnecessary and only left there out of generosity. If not for that, not only would he be unable to save Zi Ling, he would have very well been trapped here as well.


    “You should leave now,” the mysterious voice said.


    A spirit formation gate swiftly surfaced before Chu Feng.


    Strangely enough, Chu Feng felt a bit reluctant to leave now that the other party was letting him off.


    Initially, he was filled with enmity toward this mysterious existence due to the pain he was inflicting on Zi Ling, but after realizing that thetter wasn’t as bad as he thought and the high likelihood that he was rted with the Hidden Dragon Martial Sect and the sect founder, he started feeling respect for him.


    There were many questions Chu Feng wanted to ask the owner of the mysterious voice, but since the other party had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in satisfying his curiosity, he had no choice but to swallow his questions back in.


    “Elder, I’ll be taking my leave.”


    Chu Feng directed a bow in the direction of the voice before entering the spirit formation gate.


    Weng!


    The next moment, he returned to the Abandoned Land, standing at the same spot where the abyss had appeared earlier. It was just that the area had reverted back to its original form.


    Zi Ling and Yu Ting were standing nervously not too far away, though it was worth noting that there was another person with them.


    Chu Feng felt a clench in his heart the moment he saw that third person with them.