The moment Raqin and his group ventured deeper into the cathedral, more trial takers immediately realized why it was called a Trial of the Mind rather than the body.
The cathedral stretched endlessly into the darkness like a labyrinth. Towering pillars vanished into the heavens while countless eyes embedded within the walls, floor, and ceiling blinked silently.
Some were human.
Some were beast-like.
Some were so large that they occupied entire sections of the walls.
Every eye watched them with hidden madness and rage. Every eye seemed to remember every action committed by the trial takers.
Unlike most participants, however, Raqin's group possessed advantages the trial had never anticipated.
Raqin had the System and his Martial Spirit.
Jekyll possessed the Mountain Sword Bull Sovereign Martial Spirit.
Hyde wielded the Blazing Sword Eagle Monarch Martial Spirit.
Little Meenah was still unconscious.
The first wave of mental attacks barely affected them.
Whenever hallucinations appeared before Raqin, his Martial Spirit devoured them like mist.
When the cathedral attempted to twist reality around Jekyll, his spirit exposed every illusion.
When Hyde encountered mental corruption, he simply laughed.
The insanity-based attacks only strengthened them instead.
Their first obstacle appeared as a corridor lined with thousands of mirrors.
Each mirror reflected not their current selves, but their greatest failures.
The older cultivators suddenly saw countless individuals they had failed to protect.
Jekyll witnessed comrades he had lost during the undead outbreak.
Yet the trial made a mistake.
When Raqin looked into the mirrors...
Nothing happened.
The System immediately isolated the illusionary frequencies.
The reflections fragmented.
Then something unexpected occurred.
The mirrors began cracking.
One after another.
The cathedral itself seemed confused.
It had never encountered a soul linked with an artificial intelligence.
Hours later, Raqin's group entered a vast chapel.
Thousands of skeletal priests hung from chains.
Their mouths opened simultaneously.
The hymn began.
The sound wasn't music.
It was memory.
Every note forced hidden trauma to surface.
Cultivators who entered after them immediately began screaming.
Some clawed out their own eyes.
Others attacked invisible enemies.
But Hyde and Jekyll stepped forward.
The two old monsters grinned.
"These things are really trying so hard to drive us insane?"
Their respective Martial Spirits erupted.
The gigantic shadows of their spirits appeared behind them.
Instead of resisting the song, they absorbed it.
Fed upon it.
The more the choir sang, the stronger their spirits became.
Eventually, the hanging priests began shrieking in terror.
For the first time in countless years...
The predators had become prey.
Hyde and Jekyll's laughter echoed throughout the chamber as the choir dissolved into black ash.
Raqin could not help but shake his head.
These old men really acted like siblings.
The cathedral soon changed tactics.
Entire sections of the structure reshaped themselves.
Long corridors appeared.
The group became separated.
At least, that was what the cathedral intended.
Suddenly, Raqin found himself standing beside several copies of his companions.
Three Meenahs.
Four Jekylls.
Five Hydes.
Each appeared real.
Each possessed memories.
Each could speak.
The cathedral wanted him to choose incorrectly.
Anyone who trusted a false companion would be dragged into the walls by the eyes.
Unfortunately for the cathedral...
Meenah was already unconscious, so there was no way she could be active, let alone walking around and talking.
Raqin simply used his System to scan their spiritual signatures.
The fake companions possessed slight inconsistencies.
Within seconds, every imposter was identified.
Raqin casually unleashed several Lightning Thrusts from a sword that appeared in his hand.
The false companions exploded into flesh-like sludge.
Deeper within the trial stood a library stretching beyond sight.
Books floated through the air.
Each volume contained memories stolen from previous challengers.
The danger wasn't the books.
It was reading them.
Every memory absorbed became part of one's identity.
Most cultivators eventually forgot who they originally were.
Thousands of broken souls wandered the library endlessly.
The two old men quickly discovered a solution.
Using their Martial Spirits, they created a protective barrier around themselves.
Seeing this, Raqin used his own spirit to widen the barrier's range.
No matter how many memories attempted to invade, they remained protected.
Together, they crossed the library with minimal difficulty.
Unlike Raqin's group...
The Mollock Syndicate experienced the true horror of the cathedral.
The moment they ventured deeper after passing the goat-humanoid statue, the eyes targeted their greed.
The walls began showing visions of treasures.
Divine weapons.
Immortal herbs.
Ancient inheritances.
Several members immediately chased the illusions.
None returned for a long while.
When they finally came back, they looked mortified, traumatized, and utterly shaken.
Only after hearing the screams of other participants echoing through the halls did they regain their senses.
"Boss, it seems this trial really messes with our mental fortitude."
The leader sighed, though inwardly he was furious.
Why did he have to accept this mission?
He could have turned it down.
Yet he also knew it had seemed like a great opportunity to climb higher.
Now, however, the intuition he had felt upon arriving at the Black Mountain Range resurfaced.
Great opportunity or great disaster...
I'll brace myself for it.
He looked at his group.
At that moment, he knew.
They weren't surviving this trial.
Even his own chances had become slimmer.
Then he looked toward the constantly shifting maze.
I must get that brat. Maybe his secret is my great opportunity.
Many of the trial participants were criminals.
Assassins.
Slave traders.
Raiders.
The cathedral weaponized their sins.
Victims they had murdered appeared before them.
Entire families emerged from the darkness.
The hallucinations felt completely real.
Several participants broke mentally.
One stabbed himself, believing he was fighting a ghost.
Another jumped into an abyss that did not exist.
Within hours, their numbers dropped significantly.
Finally...
The cathedral unleashed one of its elite horrors after noticing how effortlessly Raqin's group was progressing.
A towering creature stitched together from countless eyeballs.
Each eye contained a stolen soul.
The monster could project different realities simultaneously.
One person believed he was burning.
Another believed he was drowning.
A third saw everyone around him as undead monsters.
The resulting chaos nearly destroyed everyone's hope.
Only the Mollock Syndicate leader's ruthless decisiveness saved them.
He executed several mentally corrupted members before they could attack the rest of the group.
When they encountered the Choir of Witnesses, they lacked the advantage possessed by Raqin's group.
They had no powerful Martial Spirits to counter it.
The song devastated them.
Half of the syndicate collapsed instantly.
They began fighting one another and other participants.
Several forcefully tore off their own cultivation seals, destroying their foundations.
One elder became convinced he was still trapped in a battle from years ago.
The syndicate ultimately survived by sealing their hearing with spiritual techniques.
Even then, they lost four members, leaving only three survivors, including their leader.
Near the end of the trial, they reached a staircase leading upward.
Or so they thought.
After climbing for three days, they discovered they had never moved.
The staircase fed on despair.
The more hopeless one became, the longer it grew.
Several cultivators simply sat down and refused to continue.
The syndicate leader eventually sacrificed one of his strongest subordinates.
The man's death shocked everyone awake.
The illusion shattered.
The staircase finally ended.
Now only two members remained.
The leader and a single subordinate.
After countless hardships, the two surviving members of the Mollock Syndicate finally pushed open a set of gigantic black doors.
The sight that greeted them nearly made them curse aloud.
At the far end of the throne chamber sat Raqin and his group.
Relaxed.
Calm.
And discussing cultivation.
Meenah was sleeping.
The two old men were engaged in a cultivation discussion with Raqin.
Meanwhile, the syndicate looked like survivors of a nightmare.
Blood covered their armor.
Their bodies were riddled with injuries.
Several participants had lost limbs.
Others looked half-insane.
The contrast was so absurd that nobody spoke for several moments.
One survivor finally growled.
"How long have you been here?"
Raqin glanced at the timer displayed by his System.
"About three days."
Silence filled the room.
The two surviving syndicate members nearly coughed blood.
They had sacrificed dozens of people, endured madness, fought horrors, and nearly died multiple times...
Only to discover that Raqin's group had arrived days earlier and had simply been waiting for everyone else.
Yet none of them realized the truth.
The Cathedral of Ten Thousand Eyes wasn't finished.
The moment enough participants gathered inside the throne room...
Every eye in the cathedral opened simultaneously.
And the true trial finally began.