I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 201: Trapped

The soil still bore the mark of his corpse... a long streak across the rocks and a gash in the broken pillars behind it.

A low growl trembled through the ground.

Victor activated his Void Emperor Bloodline causing glowing marks to appear all over his body.

As the creature phased from the ground again with its stithed together skin and horns that seemed to be made of solid shadow—Victor didn't hesitate.

He reached into the distance with his Void Qi, wrapped it around a tree the size of a tower and yanked.

The tree exploded from its roots and flew toward the beast like a missile. The creature bellowed but raised a claw and shattered the trunk midair.

Victor dashed forward, jumping from boulder to boulder, then flicked his hand.

Wind Dash activated, launching him into a spiraling motion as he slashed with Shadow Crescent Strike.

The blade met flesh, opening a thick gash across the monster's shoulder.

But it fought back.

With its tail, it whipped Victor into a nearby archway.

Pain shot through his body but he rolled upright and summoned his sword once more.

The creature tried to phase again and vanish into the ground but Victor anticipated it.

With his bloodline, he tracked the creature's spatial fluctuation and slammed Frost Bloom Palm into the floor just as the monster emerged.

[ Frost Bloom Palm Activated ]

Frost surged up the beast's body, slowing its movements.

Victor summoned all the Void Qi he could muster and jumped high with his sword arched back.

He came down with a roar and buried his blade into the monster's spine.

The creature let out one last tremor-filled screech before turning into dark mist and dissolving into the soil.

[ You Have Killed The Undying Horror ]

[ +20,000 Wisps Of Qi ]

Ahead of him, the gate could be spotted.

Thousands of massive chains wound like serpents around the enormous stone arch. Talisman seals hovered in midair, flickering between ancient languages. The pressure here was suffocating.

His bloodline integration was only 52%, and every step toward the gate felt like dragging mountains behind him yet he moved forward slowly.

All he had to do was touch the seals so that analysis could begin and that was what he proceeded to do. freeweɓnøvel.com

Each time Victor touched a seal, visions struck him like thunderclaps.

Flashes of the war—giants battling in crimson skies, black-scaled immortals wielding chaos blades, and explosions that turned landscapes into oceans of ash.

[ Seal Analysis In Progress... Transmitting to Scroll... ]

System messages appeared over and over.

He kept going despite the increased pressure, making sure he touched every single chain, talisman and seal used.

For thirty straight minutes, Victor inspected each seal until the scroll the City Lord gave him was glowing bright blue.

Then he turned around and limped away.

It was time to leave.

Victor picked up his pace as the very roots of the trees curled and twisted in his path.

Phantoms hissed in the distance. A distant bong echoed, and the light bent sideways.

But since he knew his way back, he avoided everything that he needed to and kept pushing forward non stop.

Victor exhaled in relief as the final stretch of the ancient grove appeared ahead.

He could already see the hazy boundary that separated this cursed battlefield from the rest of the world, where sunlight existed, and breathing didn't feel like inhaling liquid metal.

He was mere steps away...

When...

In a blink, everything changed.

There was no transition.

No flicker.

No warning.

The world just transformed...

And instantly, Victor found himself somewhere else entirely.

He turned around.

Everything was gone.

The ancient grove's mist, the talismans, the threshold? Nothing.

In their place was a cracked stone path winding through an eerie black forest under a violet sky.

The trees bent unnaturally toward him as if whispering secrets only they could hear.

There was no wind, yet the leaves rustled.

While this place looked similar to the Ancient Groves... it still looked somewhat different.

A low buzzing sound rang out beneath the silence like an ancient war drum barely remembered.

"Where... am I?" Victor muttered.

Suddenly, his interface flickered to life.

[ Warning: You have entered an Albridge Reflection of the Ancient Grove. ]

[ Status: Trapped within a constructed spatial domain. Escape is impossible unless the caster of the Albridge Reflection is defeated or chooses to release you. ]

[ Objective Added: Discover the creator of the Reflection and eliminate or persuade them to dissolve the realm. ]

Victor's hands clenched into fists. "A trap?"

...

...

Over an hour earlier...

High above the mist of the real ancient grove, suspended within a fold of warped space that normal cultivators would never notice, a figure stood atop a platform shaped like a blooming black lotus.

Their body was veiled in layered robes stitched with glowing runes and a face hidden beneath a porcelain mask cracked at the chin.

In their hand was a sphere of ink-like light swirling slowly like a captured black hole.

"So he returned... the new vessel of the Void Emperor," the figure murmured. Their voice was sharp but oddly melodic, like silk drawn over broken glass.

The orb in their palm projected Victor's every movement.

Victor scaling the grove.

Victor enduring its pressure.

Victor touching the talismans.

"He gets closer to the seals," the figure whispered, "Closer to undoing centuries of progress. If he truly stabilizes the Hollow Verdant, the ancient masters will never return."

The figure turned and pressed the orb into the center of the lotus platform. Black glyphs bloomed into the air.

They chanted.

A forbidden and ancient cultivation technique was activated.

"Albridge Reversal Protocol: Manifest the Grove's Echo. Trap the inheritor. Bind the Emperor's spawn within his own affinity."

The technique flared.

A ripple stretched out from the center of the lotus, carving a pathway through space and time itself, embedding itself in the route Victor would unknowingly take.

The trap was set.

---

Back to the present...

Victor growled and spun in a circle, inspecting his new prison.

The grove around him looked like a fragmented dream of the real one.

Trees with silver bark bled golden sap. The ground pulsed like a heartbeat. A distant mountain hovered in the sky with its base obscured by cloud but its tip shaped like a screaming skull.

[ New Status Effect: Spatial Disorientation. ]

[ Movement Speed Reduced. Certain Skills Disabled. ]

Victor immediately tried to teleport short distances using Shadow Void but nothing happened.

He tried to summon a map of the terrain... failed.

"Tch. So it's like that, huh?" Victor muttered.

Still, he wasn't going to sit around and wait to die.

He began to walk and scan the surroundings.

He marked every movement in the trees, every flicker in the strange sky. At one point, he noticed reflections of himself stepping between trees, always a few seconds late to mirror his own movements.

Another time, he swore he saw Tarkos walking beside him, silent and expressionless—until he turned, and Tarkos was gone.

Hours passed. Maybe more. Time flowed strangely here.

He stumbled across remnants of architecture—massive obelisks, some cracked, some hovering, all etched with runes far older than anything he'd seen in the real grove.

At the base of one, he found a glyph scrawled in ancient script.

[ Minor Void Beacon Discovered. Would you like to imprint your energy signature? ]

Victor pressed his palm to it.

A warm surge filled his core.

[ Quest Progress: You are being watched. ]

[ Hidden Objective Unlocked: Find the Watcher. ]

Victor gritted his teeth. "So someone really is playing dungeon master."

He continued onward, now more alert.

At one point, he heard singing.

The sound of a woman's voice...

It was beautiful yet familiar.

He turned and followed the sound to a pond that rippled backward in time—its waves receding instead of advancing. The woman singing at its edge wore a translucent veil

As Victor stepped closer, she turned.

It was Yan Rui.

But she was dead.

"What the..."

She smiled.

And then she exploded into crows.

Victor shielded his eyes.

"I am going to kill whoever made this place," he said under his breath with a look of anguish.

And then came the laughter.

Soft... Feminine... And echoing from every corner of the realm.

Victor stopped walking.

"That voice again..."

He didn't know who the Watcher was but he had a feeling they were somewhat tied to the ancient groves.

...

...

Victor continued to wander through the strange, twisted version of the ancient grove with his boots crunching softly on decaying leaves and moss-covered earth.

Despite having similarities to the ancient grove, it felt even wronger than the original.

Mist hung in the air like a choking shroud, and time felt loose, as if minutes stretched into hours.

At this point, it had already been a full day since he'd realized he was trapped.

However, every direction he explored only led him deeper into endless paths of shadowed woodlands.

Notifications had long since faded, leaving only silence in his mind.

No hidden quests.

No guidance.

Only the message burned into his vision: "Find The Watcher... To escape, find and confront the one who forged this realm or convince them to undo it."