Chapter 578 - 575: The Mystery Behind the Black Wall

It was Xi Chui's arrival that finally rescued Poke from the endless cycle.

After hearing what Poke had gone through, Xi Chui quickly asked, "What did the voice sound like?"

Poke pondered for a moment before replying, "It was like some kind of simulated voice. It spoke our healers' language, perfectly standard... It sounded like it was coming from the walls."

Hearing this, Xi Chui glanced at the surrounding black walls.

He guessed that the owner of the voice wasn't the black wall itself. 'The walls are just aggregates of non-sentient black spheres,' he thought. 'Someone else must be interrogating the healers.'

As Xi Chui was thinking, the chains piercing each of the healers shattered one by one.

Now that he knew why the healers were losing their memories, Mo Ling no longer needed to enter their Healing Spaces. The events within the Healing Spaces were all just things that had already happened. As long as their memories were returned, the healers would naturally realize it was all in the past and break free from their personal Healing Spaces.

So, Mo Ling extended his vision into the chains embedded in the healers' chests. Soon, the chains all crumbled into dust.

As the chains crumbled, a viscous black ooze flowed out from each healer's chest.

Instantly, a thick wave of negative emotions flooded the area.

The wave of negative emotions from the ooze stunned Xi Chui and Poke, freezing them in place. After a moment, they snapped out of it and rushed to their newly awakened companions. They healed their chests, then turned the ground beneath them into pools of water to free the healers who had been buried.

The newly awakened healers seemed completely unable to comprehend what had happened. It was only after the situation was explained and they had time to sort through their memories that they gradually regained their senses.

Xi Chui quickly asked a few of them what they had experienced.

Their stories were no different from Poke's. None of them knew who the voice belonged to or why they had been captured.

However, in his conversation with the healers, Xi Chui did learn something new...

"The voice didn't just ask general questions, it also asked some very specific ones. For example... it asked what disease the mountain ranges on Demon Mountain Island had contracted and what the cause was. No healer would know the answer to that unless they had personally been to Demon Mountain Island."

"Are any of our companions here from Demon Mountain Island?" Xi Chui pressed.

"No, but it asked the question anyway. That's what I find so strange. The voice doesn't seem to know who it's interrogating. It's using a sort of 'broadcast' method of questioning..."

Listening to the healer's words, Xi Chui glanced at the surrounding black walls.

'I get it,' he thought. 'These black walls are just some kind of speaker system.'

'The owner of the voice is using these walls to broadcast questions to different areas of the maze. It doesn't care who hears them.'

"Are there other companions in this maze?" Xi Chui asked.

"Of course. I know many of our companions came to the Central Island. They're probably locked up in other places, but I don't know where exactly," the healer said, a worried tone in their voice.

Xi Chui thought for a moment, then patted the healer's shoulder. "They should be safe for now. They're just trapped, like you were. The voice certainly wants to ask them something too... But why is it asking these questions?"

"Is it trying to use us? The Elders say many races covet our power."

"That's very likely, but... how can it use our power just by asking questions?" Xi Chui asked, confused. 'If it wanted to use us, shouldn't it be trying to force our submission, or strip us of our power?'

'What's the use of locking healers up, interrogating them, and stealing their memories? Even if it obtained our memories, it couldn't use our healing power.'

'Wait!' Xi Chui suddenly thought of something.

'Who healed Big Eye?'

'If all the healers were locked up and no one was using their healing power, who healed Big Eye? And who created the remedies that are just floating around this maze?'

'That clumsy healing technique, that haphazard use of prescriptions... it looks like the work of a novice.'

At this thought, a dreadful premonition took root in Xi Chui's mind.

'The owner of the voice may have actually figured out how to use healing power. It's just not very refined at it yet.'

'But if that's true, how did it learn to use healing power?'

Xi Chui shared his suspicions with his companions. He truly couldn't understand how someone could master healing power just by asking questions.

"Could it be that it found the method for using healing power within our memories?" Poke guessed.

"Even if it obtained our memories, it shouldn't be able to use our healing power," one healer countered. "This power originates from our unique consciousness. It's impossible for other races to master. I've never heard of any other race being able to wield our power."

"Then is it possible it extracted our power directly?" another suggested. "When we were trapped in our Healing Spaces, we were constantly releasing our power without restraint. What if it just collected that power, combined it into remedies, and used it to indirectly heal other patients..."

"Impossible. It sounds simple, but without our control, how could the power be combined into a remedy? Different healing energies can easily conflict. If the proportions aren't perfect, the power immediately dissipates. Combining them randomly would just waste it all."

"Besides, you all know about Big Eye's condition. The healing technique was clumsy, yes, but it did cure the 'diseases.' That proves the healer had some understanding of the afflictions, and there were no major issues with the power's application. It clearly wasn't used randomly."

"But didn't it ask us how to handle all sorts of diseases?"

"That's not the same thing! Even if it knew the ratios for the remedies, how could it differentiate between the different types of healing energy? Besides, only we healers can even sense healing energy, right?"

"Maybe it can sense it. There are so many races in this world; there's no reason to assume we're the only special ones..."

The healers chattered excitedly, discussing all sorts of possibilities but failing to arrive at a solid conclusion. They even speculated that there might be a traitor in their midst, one who planned to rule over all healers and consolidate all their healing powers.

At this point, Xi Chui told them about the black spheres.

"These black spheres can awaken our negative emotions. They tempt us to inject our personal feelings into our healing, leading to paranoia and causing terrible consequences."

"How do you know that?" Poke asked curiously.

"A senior told me. It's very likely I was being influenced back when I was on Hundred Flowers Island. That's probably why I became so paranoid," Xi Chui explained.

Poke's ball of light flickered. "No wonder. You were acting really weird back then..."