But no—no jailers on patrol, no sorcerers who arrived after hearing the news, not even iron lattices to stop prisoners from escaping from prison. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Do they trust the height of the walls of the cell, or are they confident in their own spells to limit the prisoners?, Frick couldn't help but wonder if the "prison" was almost equivalent to the non-existent guards, because the surroundings seemed too quiet.

After he had struggled for a long time to climb the near-vertical wall through the tentacles that connected the ground floor to the wall, Frick was presented with a narrow passageway. The "birdcages" that the sorcerers used to transport personnel hung right beside him, swaying slightly with a tiny crunch.

This was apparently the place where the group was holding some of the prisoners, and when Frick took a breath and climbed the passage, which could only accommodate three or two people walking side by side, he realized that the prison in which he had been trapped was just one of many shafts. On either side of the road, there are many black doorways open on either side of the aisle, all of which are connected to the cells that have been dug downward.

Flick looked at the "prison" that was still wrapped in darkness and couldn't help but take a shallow breath, and in an instant, a dead and rancid stench poured into his lungs along with the cold air, making him frown. There was not a trace of living creature in the entire cell, and even the occasional unnatural movement could be heard, only the metallic sound of the birdcages hanging in mid-air as they shook.

His intuition told him that he was not alone in this lifeless prison, but he did not have the hustle and bustle and instability that is common in mundane prisons. It might be said that this is the exact opposite of these words, sealing all life in a dead silence.

In the past, some prisoners were kept in claustrophobic towers, but from those isolated towers, at least you could see the scenery in the distance, and you would not see only the oppressive blackness of the present. Perhaps the people who were imprisoned in this prison by the magicians didn't need to change their minds - the metal "birdcage" around the door of the head obviously affected the prisoner's sanity as it seemed.

He could feel that the prisoners in these well-bottomed prisons were in a strange state of sleep, their biological reactions almost suppressed to the limit, while their spirits were expanding in some anomalous way, almost connected into something like a network.

In other words, it is not only the physical body that is imprisoned, but the spirit of each of them—or soul—seems to have escaped the confines of their own body, but is captured by a much larger dream, and until now it has been lost in an artificially constructed spiritual realm.

Frick wondered if the prisoners were also used by the group of sorcerers for experimentation, or if he was lucky enough to escape from the same bondage. The memories of that time when he lost consciousness were so vague to him that he could barely remember what had happened at that time.

In fact, he didn't know if he had really escaped from the shackles of the mages now, perhaps this little freedom was just an illusion that the larger dream had built up in his mind. Frick suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of powerlessness, not only because of the many limits of his existence as a mortal, but also because his nerves had been tortured a little weakly by the experiences of these days.

Perhaps since he had been lost in the spiritual realm, he had developed a great distrust of the many visions he had seen. After all, if it weren't for some unnatural force controlling all this, these illusions that seemed like magic should not have eroded into reality.

Or the last thing he wants to admit is that the knowledge and experience he has accumulated over the years is being dismantled little by little by some incomprehensible "facts". What makes Flick even more reluctant to believe is that these hallucinations that flash from time to time have become frequent, tearing apart the real world he sees little by little.

If what you have seen and come into contact with in the past is an illusion that manifests itself in a certain situation, and the so-called truth itself is a lie, then what do you think? Their perception of "reality" is only stepping from one illusion to another, and the chain of dreams seems to have no end.

Frick wasn't so quickly and easily overwhelmed by the engulfing confusion, but the new knowledge he had gained from his own experience was enough to shake the foundations of the logic he had built up in the past. If he could, he wished that the still expanding visual illusion in his body would stop a little, so that he could sort out the information that had been forcibly poured into his brain and rest a little.

However, he still can't control the ability to gradually erode his own spirit, and even if he doesn't need to use the vision in the illusion to open his way for himself, he can't control it freely, and can only hope that it will disappear after a certain amount of time, as he did a few times before.

Of course, while the mental pressure has become great, at least Frick now has time to adjust his body and regain enough strength to move. The road, covered in a shadow as black as sludge, stretched infinitely to the left and right, and he didn't know which side connected to the exit.

But even so, he could see that the space in this prison was quite strangely constructed, and he could vaguely feel a strange magic circling around. To the left and right, small doorways connect the narrow aisles, each of which is an entrance to a deep well-like cage below, while the only elevator connecting the upper and lower sides is suspended high by a chain.

He noticed that several nearby wells seemed to be imprisoned at the bottom of people like him, but he couldn't think of anything that could help them. The handles that control the elevator can obviously only be operated from above, and although they can be lowered to the bottom of the cell by adjusting the mechanism, there is no way to use them to get up.

Although he had felt the urge to free the prisoners from bondage not long ago, he did not translate his thoughts into action in the end. He knew very well that it was not the "birdcage" that seemed to be a torture instrument that bound those people, and that some inexplicable technique that was wrapped around it was the key to maintaining this state.

And even if he could find a way to physically destroy the "birdcages" and shackles that bound them, he didn't know how to break the technique that bound the souls of the prisoners. After all, Frick couldn't even figure out how he managed to escape from that strange state, so what could he talk about helping others?

Perhaps the current state of those people was not even alive, as Frick found that there was nothing around him that humans needed to live normally, and he knew that the sorcerers could not have been interested in providing meticulous care to the delirious prisoners.

In order to maximize the role of the prisoners, it is likely that they injected them with some kind of medicine that can suppress their physical abilities, so that the prisoners in the prison will be as quiet as death. Perhaps when they are in this state, their life reactions will be weakened like those of animals in hibernation, and they will not even need to prepare food or other necessities for them.

"It's not a state of 'suspended animation', more than half of the people in this prison are really dead - anyway, as long as there is a body as a container for the soul, then it is theoretically possible to bind them to a dream-like mental space. After observing the faint breath of life in several deep wells around him, Frick muttered, "Presumably, in the eyes of those guys, a dead soul is more valuable than a living person who needs to consume resources. ”

Even though the mana projectile he threw at the prison below emitted a piercing pop inside the prison, the spirits that were still bound in the dream did not react in the slightest. As if all external stimuli were not enough to wake them up, their spirits had been completely lost in the world of dreams.

He didn't like the hustle and bustle of the city, but now he wished that some voice could break the almost solid silence of this prison. The cages hanging above the deep wells on both sides sometimes make a slight grinding sound, but it only makes the whole space seem more lonely.

So after a long rest, Frick finally gave up thinking about how to get these dying people out of their cages, and instead chose a random direction to move on. Since you can't find a definite direction, you can simply walk around, at least find the walls of this prison before considering other options.

It was not clear that his actions would recruit the prison guards - this was of course just wishful thinking, because even though the bursts of spell had echoed in the narrow corridors for a long time, the jailers who were supposed to patrol the prison were nowhere to be seen.

It seems that the mages who use this facility don't care if anyone wants to escape from here, as most of the people left here are almost like dead people.

Soon, he walked down the narrow passage into the deep darkness on his left, and the sound of lonely footsteps, even if it was as low as possible, still seemed a little harsh in the extreme silence. He gradually realized that the prison was much larger than he had imagined, and that it housed a large number of prisoners.

Undoubtedly, these prisoners were the source of the strange flow of magic that Frick felt, and their souls lost in dreams constructed an indescribable web. He was almost certain that this "network" was one of the goals pursued by the mages, which was why a large and bizarre prison was built here, locking people with some special credentials in a thick darkness.