I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 232: Following The Robe

Author’s Note: Do Not Unlock Yet. Chapter Is Still Under Construction.

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"Guys..." Brin voiced with a disturbed tone. "We’re not alone."

From the shadows, slithering shapes crawled forward. They were insectoid in appearance, with glistening black exoskeletons and too many eyes.

A low screeching sound began to echo.

Victor barely had time to react when one lunged at Xuan Qing.

She turned to bolt left but her body flung itself right, directly into the path of the beast.

"Xuan!" Victor shouted and moved without thinking.

He turned right, slashed left, and his blade surprisingly found its mark.

The beast let out a strangled hiss and crumpled while twitching after two of it’s limbs had been cleaved off.

"Right is left and left is right... Up is down and down is up..."

Victor muttered as he hoisted Xuan Qing onto his shoulder as she yelped in protest.

"Don’t drop me again!"

"Stop running off then!"

Another creature shrieked.

This one leapt at Mirael, and she dodged straight into a player’s sword swing.

Blood spattered, not from the creature, but from her arm. "You idiot! That was my side!"

"It’s not my fault! I thought you were on my right—"

"You mean your left, dumbass!"

She had leapt in the opposite direction of where she intended to.

Victor growled whe adjusting Xuan Qing on his back. "We can’t fight like this. No one moves unless they call it out. Treat left as right and right as left."

"You expect us to remember that in the middle of battle?!"

"Do it, or we die here."

Another shriek—larger, more guttural—rumbled across the bizarre landscape. From behind a floating cliff, a massive predator emerged. It looked like a spider, but with wings made of smoke and eyes that flickered like broken lanterns.

Aeri Fan immediately took the lead. "Defensive formation! Back-to-back! Call out all movements!"

Victor passed Xuan Qing to Mirael. "Keep her safe."

Xuan Qing huffed, kicking lightly. "I don’t need to be kept safe."

Victor ignored her. He activated his Void Emperor Bloodline. His body radiated with that now-familiar milky glow, and arrow-like marks lit up along his arms. His perception sharpened despite the world’s nonsense.

The monster lunged.

Victor sidestepped—recalculating the reversed physics in real-time—and slashed upward. His blade caught the wing. Black ichor splattered the ground, hissing where it landed. The creature screamed, its entire body unraveling into shadow before reforming again.

Aeri Fan leapt in, activating a soul pulse. A golden ripple burst from her palm, disrupting the creature’s cohesion.

"NOW!" she shouted.

Victor followed up. His blade ignited with qi and Void energy. He cut left—and hit true. The monster shrieked and collapsed, melting into the earth.

Silence. Panting. The group stayed tense for a full minute.

"Is it over?" Mirael asked.

"For now," Victor muttered. He glanced up at the seven moons. They hadn’t moved.

Aeri Fan walked over, wiping her blade. "What is this place? It’s like we stepped into another dimension."

Victor stared into the shifting shadows of the strange world. Even with his bloodline active, he could barely sense what lay ahead. But he knew one thing:

"Tarkos is here. I’m sure of it. But we’re no use to him dead... We first need to make sure we survive this hell hole."

They began to move—slowly, cautiously—relearning every step, every swing, every breath.

Welcome to the inverted world beneath the Blight Swamps. A place where the laws of reality refused to play fair.

And survival was a luxury.

---sss

The strange world beyond the waterfall was nothing short of surreal. novelbuddy-cσ๓

Victor crouched inside the moss-coated alcove that served as their temporary refuge. Faint blue light shimmered from the glowing spores growing from the walls, providing just enough visibility to make out the others as they collapsed in exhaustion. Half a day of navigating this twisted realm had taken its toll on everyone—cultivators and players alike.

The air was thick, almost syrupy, and pulsed subtly like the very world breathed alongside them. Their qi—normally flowing like a river—now felt sluggish and muted, as though the very fabric of this place resisted their power.

"Whatever this place is..." Victor muttered, eyes narrowing, "it’s not meant for mortals."

"We barely made it out alive," Mirael gasped, sitting on a stone with her sword drawn. Blood caked the blade and streaked her robes. "One more wave of those monsters and I would’ve lost an arm."

Xuan Qing pouted as she sat beside a crumbled pillar. She still struggled to master the strange reversed navigation of the realm. "Forward is backward, left is right—who designed this place, a drunk array master?"

No one laughed. Not because it wasn’t funny, but because fatigue and caution had dulled their humor.

Victor leaned back and exhaled. "This realm’s logic... it warps everything. Even qi behaves differently here. I can’t channel as much force through my Shadow Crescent Strike anymore."

"And those creatures," muttered Aeri Fan, wiping grime from her cheek, "their skin is absurdly durable. It’s like their flesh is reinforced with metal threads."

Kaisen, the quiet archer of the group, nodded. "I had to coat three arrows in venom just to pierce the skull of that centipede-like thing."

They had no idea where they were, how deep they had fallen, or how large this hidden world stretched. But one thing was certain—it was dangerous.

As they debated their next steps, Victor stood up and walked to the edge of their hideout, gazing out over the twisted landscape.

**To the north**, jagged peaks pierced the sky like obsidian spires. Chained trees floated sideways between them, some swaying as though caught in a perpetual storm. Black birds with ember-like eyes cawed and vanished into the thick clouds swirling above.

**To the east**, the land descended into what looked like a massive basin filled with glowing purple marshes. Thick fog blanketed the area, and strange serpentine shapes occasionally writhed within it, just beneath the surface.

**To the south**, a chasm yawned wide, splitting the terrain. The crack glowed faintly from deep within, as if magma or something far more mysterious pulsed in its heart.

**And to the west**, endless twisted forests stretched out, where the trees whispered unintelligibly. Even from afar, Victor could feel a faint psychic pressure emanating from that direction.

"Every path looks like death," muttered Mirael.

"But we need to find Tarkos," said Kaisen. "He came here for the plant. It must be somewhere in this... hellscape."

Aeri Fan suddenly snapped her fingers. "Wait. The robe piece. Let’s try it again."

Hope flickered in the air.

Without wasting a second, Brin—the martial monk who had previously performed the technique—stepped forward and retrieved the piece of Tarkos’s robe from Victor’s pouch. He didn’t ask how Victor had it this time, and Victor didn’t offer an explanation.

Brin channeled qi through his fingers, eyes closing as he formed a precise set of gestures in the air. Pale green light enveloped the ragged piece of cloth. A low hum echoed, and then the cloth floated—tethered by a thin golden thread that shimmered into view.

It didn’t hover like it did before.

This time, it jerked forward, as though yanked by an invisible hand, and began gliding through the air—slowly but decisively—toward the east.

Everyone stared.

"East... toward the fog-covered marshes," Victor muttered.

"Then he’s here. Tarkos is in this realm and he’s alive," Aeri Fan whispered.

"Or barely holding on," Brin added grimly.

Victor clenched his fists. "Then we move. But no unnecessary fights. We conserve our qi."

Xuan Qing stood up, brushing her clothes with faux dignity despite looking like a mess. "About time we stopped sitting around."

The group packed up what little they had, tightened weapon straps, checked for injuries, and formed a single line behind the floating cloth, which moved steadily through the blue-lit environment.

As they followed, Victor couldn’t help but reflect. This place wasn’t simply a pocket realm—it had rules. Twisted ones. It affected qi flow, changed orientation, and somehow felt... ancient. Older than anything in the game. Maybe even something left behind by the corrupt immortals themselves.

His thoughts were broken when Mirael stumbled into a floating branch, cursing as it turned into a swarm of spiritflies.

Another battle was barely avoided as the team cloaked themselves in low aura signatures, sneaking away from potential confrontation.

Hours passed, and the sky—if one could even call it that—remained in eternal night under the eerie watch of seven pale moons. Each moon seemed to shift slightly as they moved, changing shape and orbit like they were alive.

The cloth stopped once or twice, spinning in place before continuing again—almost like Tarkos was on the move, or worse, being moved.

Victor’s expression tightened.

He would find Tarkos. He had to. But first, they had to survive this alien domain, this accursed space beneath the waterfall where nothing made sense and danger loomed behind every rock and shadow.

As they crossed into the fog-drenched basin, a monstrous growl rumbled through the mist.

"Keep moving," Victor ordered. "Quietly."

But all of them could sense it.

They were being hunted.

And the real trial had just begun.

--

The eerie silence of this twisted realm was only broken by the sound of uneven footsteps and the occasional grunt of frustration. The group moved forward cautiously, following the piece of Tarkos’ robe as it drifted steadily through the floating landscape, weaving between jagged cliffs and levitating ridges. But their pace was painfully slow.

"Damn it, I turned left again!" Kaisen shouted, skidding and bumping into a moss-covered stone outcrop.

"I told you—it’s *right* when you want to go *left*, and *backward* when you want to—wait—no, shit, I’m confused too now," Mirael groaned as she awkwardly spun around mid-air and nearly collided with Brin.

Xuan Qing clutched Victor’s arm tightly, her balance still far from ideal. "This is ridiculous! My body says one thing, but this realm... it disobeys me!"

Only one person seemed unfazed—Brin. He moved like a shadow, eerily graceful in this environment. With each step, he seemed more comfortable, like he was adapting faster than the rest.

Victor observed silently, noting the subtle movements. *Of course he’s a monk... must be something in their training.* Still, even he had to admit, this place was infuriating.

They’d already passed two floating root bridges and a shimmering ridge when the terrain began to shift again. A soft sound of water reached their ears. Up ahead, nestled between floating plateaus and jagged ridges, was a stream—yes, a *floating* stream—flowing horizontally through the air like a serpent of glistening silver. Strange violet mist rolled from its banks, giving it a ghostly aura.

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