I Cultivated Too Long and Got Isekai'd Into a Game-Chapter 204: Henrietta’s Condition

As soon as they left the Bloodline Trial space, everyone moved quickly. Time was of the essence.

With Alexis at the lead, they carried Henrietta back to the hotel suite reserved under his name. Inside, it was as quiet as the party venue—completely deserted. The corridors were narrow and still, as if they were the only ones in the world at that moment.

Only the low hum of distant music leaked through the walls.

In the center of the room, on a plain bed, Henrietta lay motionless.

Her chest rose and fell shallowly. Her skin, still warm, bore the wounds she had earned from the Trial—blackened edges where the flames had licked and stubborn dark scars from the fight.

Uriel hovered at the bedside, hands clenched so tightly her knuckles shone white.

Jehanne and Zetian stood by the window, ready to act at any moment if needed.

Xu Tao assessed them all with slow, quiet eyes.

"She’ll sleep like this for hours if we do nothing," he said. "And when she wakes, that madness will still be inside her. It will flare up again until someone either kills her or breaks what’s left of herself."

No one argued—after all, they had already seen how she acted earlier. The weight of that truth settled in the small, too-ornate room.

"Master... Is there nothing we can do?" Uriel asked, her voice raw with emotion.

Xu Tao answered without blinking. "Of course. I can go into her soul-space and sort it out," he explained. "But I’ll need you three to anchor her body and keep this place sealed. Nobody is allowed to come in until I return."

Jehanne’s fingers tightened around her spear handle as she voiced her doubts.

"Sir Tao... can you really do that? We all saw what that technique did to her. She is nearly indistinguishable from a beast."

"I can," he said. "But it’s delicate. I’ll have to open a direct pathway—one only blood can draw—and I’ll need a physical channel to anchor my spirit while I’m inside. Help me prepare."

They moved fast and methodically.

Jehanne and Zetian cleared the room of needless furniture, even chasing out Alexis and the rest. Only Jehanne, Zetian, and Uriel remained in the room with Xu Tao and Henrietta.

Uriel knelt by the bedside, clasping both of Henrietta’s hands while whispering nonsense—endless small things as if trying to placate her desperate heart.

Xu Tao then moved, grabbing the last piece of cloth covering Henrietta’s body.

"You don’t have to—" Uriel started to protest, but Xu Tao’s look silenced her.

This was not an exhibition; it was a necessity.

The next moment, he pulled out a small, ornate dagger from his pouch and cut a wound across his palm. Blood dripped down but mysteriously floated idly instead of hitting the bed or Henrietta’s body.

Slowly, he drew the first sigil with a fingertip, tracing a delicate pattern just above Henrietta’s sternum. The line burned faintly; the ink of his blood sank into her skin and did not stain like a wound.

Although he was touching a maiden’s bare skin, Xu Tao’s expression remained firm. His seriousness was such that Uriel and the two others couldn’t fault him for casually drawing over a naked woman’s body.

One after another, he drew looping spirals and crossing sigils over the central meridian points—over the chest, the throat, and the crown of the head—maps of passage and lock. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Each symbol hummed with a low tone only those sensitive to Qi could hear.

"You’re opening her gates," Zetian observed, watching the lines glow faintly. "Be careful. Once open, they can be used by anything to slip through."

"I know. That’s why I’m asking you both to guard us during the process," Xu Tao replied, his hands not stopping for a moment. "This pattern is both lock and ladder. It will let me step in and help Henrietta regain her senses—if all goes well."

He stepped back and began to weave threads of Qi.

Golden fibers flowed from his palms and wound around the room, anchoring to Jehanne and Zetian’s throats and to Uriel’s wrists, where she held Henrietta’s hands.

"These are tethers. They keep the body stable and allow me to find my way back if the worst comes to pass." His words hinted not only at the dangers to his own life but also at the difficulty of the matter at hand.

"Master—" Uriel began, voice small.

"One more thing."

He touched Henrietta’s forehead, not with force but with careful pressure.

"I will need you to keep calling to her. Physically or spiritually. Say her favorite fruit out loud, and tempt her with her vices. When I am inside, receiving calls from the outside will help me locate her again.

Uriel bent over the bed and whispered the words like a prayer:

"Ritta, if you don’t wake up, I’ll eat all the sugarbound peaches from the south market you’re keeping... If you don’t wake up fast, I’ll tell everyone about how you wet your bed until you were twelve..."

The list tumbled out in a breath.

The repetition anchored a memory like a bright ribbon tied to a drifting balloon.

Xu Tao’s eyes softened—just for a second—then hardened. He lay back on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes, and began the projection.

Just as he moved, Zetian also began. She waved her hand, calling upon a small Astral Tower.

The next moment, it covered the entire room in a faint purple film. A protection against spiritual invasion. A barrier to protect not only Henrietta but also Xu Tao’s "empty" vessel.

The first sensation Xu Tao felt was the familiar hollowing—the feeling of stepping out of one’s body like sliding from wet cloth into air. He felt light, lighter than breath.

Around him, the tethers thrummed—the Qi threads vibrating with his heartbeat, and the ribbons tethering him to the three others. Seeing that the first step was a success, he moved toward Henrietta’s body.

As soon as he approached the sigil he had drawn himself, he felt a powerful suction force. In a blink, his ethereal body vanished.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the hotel.

Henrietta’s soul-space was a fragment of memory and motif: a narrow street at dusk lined with market stalls, the scent of sugar and smoke, and an echoing hearth. But the scene was fractured—panes of black glass interspersed between market stalls, from which a cold blue flame leaked.

The sky was an impossible, braised orange that shuddered whenever he moved.

At the center, a tall pillar of flame rose—coiling like the smoke he had watched during the Trial—its surface dotted with faces that tried to speak at once.

"That’s it..." he whispered. "Henrietta’s core..."

He discovered the knot—the assimilation core—there, against the pillar.