34: Chapter 34 Retreat is the Best Policy

The white silk ribbons wrapped around him.

A dull, crisp sound came from his throat bone, and Wu Xi's vision went black instantly.

His hands frantically clawed at the thing around his neck, but what his fingertips touched was no fabric; it was warm, slick, living flesh that was breathing, expanding and contracting!

That thing's contraction was locked tightly into the intervals of his heartbeat.

Every time his heart beat, it loosened a fraction; as soon as the heartbeat finished, it tightened violently, catching every breath he tried to draw into his lungs and choking it off right in his throat.

Two Tentacles instantly burst out from Wu Xi's tailbone, the muscles at the base of his tail knotting tightly.

The slick, icy Tentacles let out a piercing shriek as they tore through the air, viciously strangling the white silk ribbons on his neck!

The Tentacles wrapped around them tightly, but they didn't break.

Not only did they not break, but more white silk ribbons surged out from all directions.

They hung down from the ceiling, drilled out from the floor, and seeped from the walls—dozens, hundreds, covering the sky and earth!

Their goal was never to kill him, but to trap him to death, to strangle all his resistance in the cradle.

One white silk ribbon bound his left wrist tight, another wrapped around his right elbow, and a third passed under his armpits, crossing tightly behind his back.

Wu Xi's feet instantly left the ground, and he was hoisted up entirely.

His toes dangled three inches in the air, his entire weight hanging on that white silk ribbon around his neck.

He opened his mouth, his tongue pressing hard against the roof of his mouth, trying to inhale even a sliver of Qi through his teeth.

Not even half a bit.

It was as if an invisible hand had reached into his lungs, scooping them clean, along with the very last remnant of Qi in his alveoli.

His ribs caved in tightly, like two overturned iron pots, pressing his lungs and viscera so hard they couldn't even tremble.

The two Tentacles from his tailbone erupted again, their tips hardening instantly.

With a piercing shriek that tore through the air, they struck madly toward the densest core of the white silk ribbons!

Wu Xi's heart leaped with joy; the Tentacles transmitted a clear sensation—they had wrapped around it!

They had strangled it!

He poured all his strength into the Tentacles, flooding them with wild force!

The white silk ribbons shuddered violently.

Just at the moment the Tentacles tightened to the limit, the white silk ribbons slid away from the point of force to both sides, scattering into hundreds of thin threads.

They floated lightly past the Tentacles and reassembled on Wu Xi's wrists, tying a tight, dead knot.

It was even tighter.

His right arm was instantly twisted behind his back, his shoulder joint letting out a groan of unbearable strain before dislocation.

Veins bulged on Wu Xi's forehead, and a repressed grunt squeezed from his throat.

The first attempt, defeated.

Wu Xi stopped struggling outward.

He violently sucked in his chest, tightened his abdomen, and pulled his elbows inward hard.

Puchi, skin and flesh burst open.

From the inside of his left and right elbows, two shorter, harder Tentacles, carrying bone fragments and blood droplets, shot out instantly.

Like two iron-tempered bone whips, they pushed outwards with all their might!

He had to forcefully carve out a space to breathe within this airtight confinement!

The white silk ribbons were pushed, caving inward into a distinct arc, and a breath and a half of Qi surged into Wu Xi's chest!

The two Tentacles at his elbows were instantly wrapped in two new layers of white silk ribbons, locked dead, unable to move.

The Tentacles and white silk ribbons twisted together into an inseparable, dead knot.

Wu Xi's left arm instantly lost all sensation; he could feel the white silk ribbons tightening circle by circle.

No, he couldn't keep blindly charging hard.

The previous two times had already smashed the bloody truth into his face: these white silk ribbons were not afraid of a hard confrontation at all.

The harder you were, the more it would dissipate force, disperse, and reorganize.

The more force you used, the larger the circle it would wrap around you, finally locking all your own force onto yourself.

Wu Xi shut his eyes tightly, feeling the rhythm of the white silk ribbons tightening—seamless, not a fraction off.

Every seven heartbeats, the white silk ribbons tightened once.

The tightening lasted for three breaths, then relaxed for half a breath—not completely loosening.

It was maintaining the existing force, pausing the pressure.

That half-breath was the only gap, the only path to survival in this desperate situation.

Seizing that half-breath gap, the two Tentacles on his chest didn't charge outward, but instead slid horizontally along the surface of his skin.

From under his collarbone, they drilled to his armpits, then followed his ribs, silently winding around to his back.

The white silk ribbons didn't move.

It didn't sense any outward threat, so it didn't stop them, letting these two Tentacles pad a thin layer of cushion between it and Wu Xi's body.

The two Tentacles precisely tied a slipknot at his upper back.

The seventh heartbeat fell.

The white silk ribbons tightened as expected.

Overwhelming pressure crushed in from all directions.

The Tentacles on his chest were pressed so hard they embedded into his flesh, and a mouthful of blood instantly rushed to his throat.

Wu Xi forcefully swallowed it back down, without even knitting his brows.

Just at the moment the pressure reached its peak, the slipknot at his back exerted force violently!

The crushing force at a single point was instantly distributed across his entire back.

The white silk ribbons at his neck loosened a fraction.

Wu Xi violently inhaled a breath of air.

Although it was only a third of a normal person's, it was a real, active breath, not just the lingering Qi of a dying gasp!

Did it work?

The thought had just flashed.

The white silk ribbons from all directions, like twisting a dough twist, came twisting over viciously with a rotating strangling force.

The path to survival he had just found was instantly welded shut, without even leaving a crack.

Three attempts, three directions, all defeated.

The white silk ribbons pressed against his chin, his groin, and the back of his knees.

He was like someone wrapped in thirty layers of plastic wrap; he didn't even have room to tremble, and even blinking, he could feel the slickness of the white silk ribbons against his eyelids.

The sensation of suffocation stacked up layer by layer, like the tide, washing over his chest, over his neck, and over the top of his head.

His brain felt like it was going to burst, his ears were filled with buzzing, and the sound of his heartbeat was so loud it was like someone beating a drum on his eardrums, one beat after another, shaking his Divine Soul.

His vision began to narrow, the black shadows on his left and right frantically closing in toward the center, and the world before his eyes shrunk into a thin tube.

His fingertips began to go numb, the numbness spreading from his knuckles, all the way to his wrists, then further up, crawling over his forearms, crawling toward his elbows.

This was a precursor to hypoxia.

If he dragged it out any longer, he wouldn't need the white silk ribbons to strangle him; he would pass out first and become meat on the chopping block, ready to be slaughtered.

Right within this field of vision tube that had narrowed to a mere sliver.

Wu Xi saw the flaw; every time the white silk ribbons tightened, there was a starting point.

That point was the convergence of all force, the root of all the white silk ribbons, the master key to this heaven-covering net.

It wasn't on him.

It was in the Void Realm three feet above his head.

There, a white silk ribbon was hanging.

It was thicker than all the others, white to the point of transparency, like a beam of solidified moonlight.

It was the main body, the core, the only source of all this restraint.

Wu Xi knew what to do.

Wu Xi didn't move, his whole body instantly going limp.

His head hung, his limbs hung, and even the restless Tentacles under his skin all hung down, devoid of even half a bit of strength.

Like someone who had truly been strangled into unconsciousness, he was devoid of any Life Qi.

Even the rise and fall of his chest was suppressed to the minimum, leaving only a faint, almost imperceptible breath, hanging on by his last gasp.

The tightening rhythm of the white silk ribbons indeed slowed down.

The rule of trapping without killing made it confirm that the prey had lost the ability to resist, so it stopped increasing the pressure, maintaining only the existing restraint without continuing to tighten.

Wu Xi's tongue pressed hard against his gums, counting his heartbeats in his heart.

One, two, three, four, five.

The moment the fifth heartbeat hit the bottom.

Wu Xi moved!

The two Tentacles from his tailbone didn't stab outward, but slid down the back of his thighs, wrapping tightly around his ankles, knees, and hip bones, locking his entire lower body into one piece.

The two Tentacles from his left and right chest instantly burst out, crawling up his neck along his collarbones, converging at his carotid arteries, winding around his jaw, and tying a cross-lock at the crown of his head, protecting his neck and skull tightly.

The two Tentacles from his left and right elbows shot out in reverse—not outward, but inward—wrapping tightly along the bone surfaces of his upper and lower arms, winding past his wrist bones, and wrapping around every knuckle, locking his two arms into two iron rods.

Six Tentacles, six exit points, erupting simultaneously, without a shred of hesitation!

The voice of Chu Niang exploded in his skull—not words, but a sensation reaching straight to his Divine Soul, only two words: "Wrap tight."

The Tentacles tightened instantly, and Wu Xi's whole body turned into a cocoon.

Six Tentacles frantically wove into a net on his body surface, from his toe tips to his hair tips, leaving not an inch of exposed skin.

The two from his tail coiled into a spiral on his lower limbs, interlocking root to root, wrapping from his ankles all the way to his waist.

The two from his chest wove into a tic-tac-toe pattern on his torso, the cross-nodes protecting his heart and spine tightly.

The two from his elbows tied into locks on his limbs, binding his forearms and upper arms into one, wrapping his fingers into iron fists.

The white silk ribbons reacted instantly, sensing a fatal threat!

It went completely mad.

Hundreds of white silk ribbons erupted simultaneously, switching directly from trapping mode to strangulation mode, with overwhelming force, intending to crush this disobedient prey, bones and flesh alike, into meat paste!

Terrifying pressure descended instantly.

The Tentacles and the white silk ribbons collided fiercely on the surface of Wu Xi's body.

The Tentacles constricted inward, protecting his bones and internal organs tightly, blocking all the pressure on the outside.

The white silk ribbons pressed outward, wanting to flatten this last layer of defense and completely crush the person inside.

In the narrow gap between the two layers of force, Wu Xi heard his own ribs groaning under the unbearable burden, heard the crisp sound of the Tentacle fibers stretched to their limit, and heard the hissing of the white silk ribbons cutting through the air.

His skin, sandwiched between the two immense forces, hurt piercingly, but it wasn't the pain of being cut; it was the all-encompassing pain of being stuffed into a closing stone mill, about to be crushed.

"Upward!"

Wu Xi let out a thunderous roar in his consciousness.

Chu Niang understood instantly.

Six Tentacles twisted hard simultaneously!

All the wrapping nodes contracted frantically toward the top of Wu Xi's head!

The Tentacles from his tail instantly pulled away from his lower limbs, climbing up his spine, vertebra by vertebra, like madmen.

With every vertebra they passed, they locked one tight.

The Tentacles from his chest released his torso and reorganized on the sides of his neck, winding into an indestructible neck brace, protecting his trachea tightly.

The Tentacles from his elbows detached from his arms and wound madly toward the top of his head, merging with the chest Tentacles into a single bundle.

The six Tentacles finally twisted into an invincible drill, a spear capable of splitting the heavens and earth.

They shot out violently!

Carrying all his Qi and blood, all his ruthlessness, and all the killing intent bottled up in this desperate situation, they defied the force of the white silk ribbons and stabbed fiercely into that transparent core body!

Hum—!

The entire illusionary realm instantly emitted a silent shriek.

The world spun, space vibrated madly, and even those white silk ribbons wrapped around him began to shake violently!

All the white silk ribbons wrapped around Wu Xi paused simultaneously, and the strangling force instantly dissipated by half.

Just that pause.

It was enough.

Inside the cocoon of Tentacles, Wu Xi curled his body violently and instantly vanished.

After the dizziness of the world spinning.

His feet landed heavily on solid ground.

He had arrived in the Dreamlands.