110: Soul breakthrough, protection from side effects!

Human Emperor Path.

Li Yan frowned. Just hearing the name, he knew it wasn't that simple.

A single log bridge was the Human Emperor Path.

There must be some trick to it, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for a large number of Immortal Emperors to fall to their deaths.

One must know, falling from this height, let alone an Immortal Emperor...

Even a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage wouldn't die from falling.

But below were piled the skeletons of numerous Immortal Emperors, indicating that he must have suffered some attack to fall from the bridge and die.

Li Yan, however, was fearless, looking at the thousand-meter-long log in front of him.

"You all wait here, I'll be back soon."

Under the worried gazes of his disciples, Li Yan leaped onto the log.

If an ordinary person walked this path, they would fall into the abyss if they accidentally slipped.

However, for a cultivator, walking a log bridge was not difficult.

Li Yan walked a few steps forward and could already vaguely feel something.

He lowered his head and saw a line of text carved on the log.

【As a Human Emperor, face the fear of your Heart Demon directly.】

Heart Demon?

Li Yan raised an eyebrow. What was his Heart Demon?

Could this Human Emperor Path materialize his inner Heart Demon?

Interesting.

Li Yan wanted to see what his Heart Demon truly was.

He walked forward without apprehension, with bottomless abysses on both sides, as he walked alone on the thin log bridge.

Stepping onto this Human Emperor Path, the scenery before Li Yan's eyes gradually began to distort, and the System also displayed a prompt.

【Host is about to enter the Dream Core world and face the Heart Demon directly.】

Dream Core?

And a dream within a dream?

Interesting!

Fearless and unafraid, he resolutely stepped into this Dream Core.

Until a dazzling white light enveloped Li Yan's entire world, and his vision cleared again.

His pupils contracted violently.

What met his eyes was an old residential area from the 1990s, a familiar sight from his memories.

The iron gate of his home was crooked and rusted, making a hoarse sound when the wind blew.

The paint on the stairwell walls was peeling, revealing yellowed newspapers and faded posters, and a thick layer of dust accumulated on the stair steps.

Li Yan turned sharply and found that he had returned to his original world.

The familiar urban village community, the sheds filled with bicycles and electric bikes.

The familiar musty smell permeated the air, and everything before his eyes was too familiar.

"This... is my Heart Demon?"

Li Yan looked around with interest, not feeling any terror or fear.

If his Heart Demon was these things, then it was too simple.

Knowing that everything in front of him was fake, just a dream, what was there to be afraid of?

Returning to the modern world and seeing everything familiar did not have much impact on his heart.

This empty residential area also constantly reminded him that this was merely a dream within the Human Emperor Path.

Having not seen the modern world for a long time, Li Yan even thought this dream was not bad.

But just as he was gradually getting used to the surroundings, the situation suddenly changed!

The sky darkened, and dark clouds covered his head, plunging the already poorly lit urban village community into gloom.

A strange wind blew towards him.

A rustling sound arose!

"Could it be... a ghost-like Heart Demon? Suddenly making it so eerie?"

The old residential area and the rusted iron gate reminded Li Yan of the horror movies he watched as a child.

Those plots often took place in such places: corpse hiding cases, dismemberment cases, ghost mom cooking incidents...

Those were indeed Li Yan's childhood fears, but if they were to be considered his Heart Demon? They were too ordinary.

At this moment.

The iron gate of the residential area was blown open by the strong wind, and countless paper fragments surged towards Li Yan like snowflakes.

Suddenly, torrential rain poured down, mixed with the distant sound of thunder.

Li Yan's eyes were covered by the countless flying papers. He curiously reached out and grabbed a piece of paper floating in the wind.

【The effort you think you're making is just self-pity.】

【Your message list is full of work groups, where are the people who truly care about you?】

【No one contacts you actively at class reunions, your presence is lower than air.】

【So-called dreams are just a fig leaf for you to escape reality, long since rotten.】

【Your parents' disappointed eyes are sharper than any knife, yet you are powerless to change them.】

【The way you desperately fawn over your boss makes even you feel disgusted.】

The negative emotions carried on these slips of paper, like a tide, almost submerged Li Yan.

Wearing a cloth Daoist robe, he stood in the familiar modern environment, looking at the heartbreaking words.

Li Yan read them and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Truly worthy of being the Human Emperor Path."

"As a Transmigrator, what I fear has never been the difficulties in front of me."

"To use such knives to kill me, do you want to kill the heart as well?"

This scene of Li Yan laughing uproariously was also seen by others.

In his eyes, he had entered a dream within a dream.

But in the eyes of his two disciples, OHazy moon and Zenmatsu:

Master was standing on the log bridge, with a meaningful bitter smile on his face.

"Revered Master... is he entangled by a Heart Demon?"

"What kind of Heart Demon could make Revered Master fall so deeply into it?"

OHazy moon was a little worried about Li Yan's situation, and Fairy Zenmatsu also clenched her fists, sweating for Li Yan.

An incense stick's time had already passed, and Master was still in the dream.

And that large snake, with its golden snake eyes, was staring at Li Yan.

"I'm very curious, what kind of Heart Demon can trap this guy?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot probe his Divine Soul."

Although the large snake wanted to see what Li Yan was dreaming, it found that it couldn't enter Li Yan's dream.

Strange.

This was the first time it couldn't observe someone else's Heart Demon dream.

If it could sneak into Li Yan's dream, it would probably be shocked to discover that Li Yan came from another world.

However, a powerful energy isolated the large snake's probe from the outside, preventing it from entering the dream.

And in the dream.

Li Yan looked at the overwhelming words floating towards him and chuckled softly.

"Why should I care about the gaze of others? I only need to follow my inner self and pursue my own Dao."

When Li Yan spoke these words, the dream before him instantly shattered, beginning to collapse uncontrollably, returning him to the Emperors Prison.

At this moment, several lines of text appeared before Li Yan's eyes.

【Host overcame the Heart Demon on his own without relying on the Side Effect System.】

【Host absorbed the Dream Core, and his Divine Soul advanced from Seventh-Grade Soul Condensation Stage to → Sixth-Grade God Glimpse Stage.】

【Due to the Host's self-resolution of the dream, a new ability is unlocked → Side Effect Protection.】

【Side Effect Protection effect: You can bear and absorb side effects for others.】

Seeing this, Li Yan almost burst out laughing.

How was this a prison? To him, this was a cultivation Holy Land.

A place full of various side effects, it was simply his nightmare paradise.

Li Yan slowly opened his eyes, rarely revealing a slight smile.

It seemed Li Yan had a great time in the Heart Demon dream.

The large snake monitoring him showed novelty on its human-like face.

"He broke through the Human Emperor Path within an incense stick's time? Even ancient gods couldn't do that."

Little did it know.

The stronger and longer-lived a person was, the more difficult it was to pass through the Human Emperor Path.

Li Yan was not yet twenty years old, and the negative energy accumulated in his heart was not much, so his Heart Demon was very weak.

Unlike those old monsters who were thousands or even tens of thousands of years old, the longer they lived, the more experiences they had, and the heavier their Heart Demon became.

After Li Yan easily crossed the log bridge, he looked back at the people behind him.

"OHazy moon, Zenmatsu, come over one by one. I, your Master, will act as your Protector!"