After entirely submerging himself in the water, Li Ban instantly transformed into a small nebula.
If an uninformed priest saw this, they might think Li Ban had turned into starlight, but there was a fundamental difference between a nebula and starlight.
The nebula was also irregular in shape.
Spinning around a core, it struggled to swim toward the upper reaches of Heaven Beyond Heaven.
Although Li Ban retained his consciousness and controlled the nebula's movements, he still had to resist the powerful torrent crashing down from above.
It felt as though it wasn't the water's gravity and impact resisting his ascent, but a powerful priest standing before him, continuously unleashing attacks.
After confirming he could control his body in the water, Li Ban didn't leave immediately.
He tried to swim upward, just like the other fragments.
He worked hard to compress the nebula, shaping himself into a boat to reduce the water's resistance.
But when Li Ban finally succeeded in the transformation, he suddenly realized that his connection with the Star River had grown much closer.
With one success under his belt, he now had the experience to attempt even more.
However, now wasn't the time to experiment with other forms.
Li Ban maintained his focus. By observing the movements of the other fragments in the current, he searched for gaps in the water's impact force.
He hid behind several pieces of debris, letting them block a massive impact, then dodged to the side and swam several meters higher up the opposite flank.
Just then, a distorting force suddenly appeared in the water, violently shoving Li Ban outward.
If Li Ban wanted to leave right now, he only needed to ride this force to quickly reach the edge of the water column and break free.
But right now, he wanted to see the very top of Heaven Beyond Heaven more than anything else.
He didn't necessarily believe that his unique nebula state guaranteed he could escape the Recycling Station.
Still, he wanted to seize this opportunity to figure out a way up there and get a little closer.
Because ever since he entered the water column, a vague, indistinct voice had been drifting down from above.
The voice was incredibly muffled, mixed with the chaotic roar of the currents and the crashing debris.
Yet, Li Ban subconsciously felt that the voice was calling out to him.
Calling his name.
"Li—Ban—"
"Li—Ban—"
"Li—Ban—"
Could it be a trap?
Or was someone genuinely calling for him?
Lost in thought, Li Ban's focus wavered, and the nebula he had formed instantly lost its shape.
He hastily refocused his attention and continued swimming upward.
Since he had already made his decision, he needed to commit to it fully, while maintaining the vigilance to adapt at a moment's notice.
Meanwhile, on the outside, Zhu Yao was blocked by an invisible force as she followed Li Ban's ascent.
That was the sky of the Recycling Station.
It was an inescapable seal. Beyond this sky, there was no universe—only an impassable barrier.
Zhu Yao lingered beneath the barrier, her heart filled with worry as she watched Li Ban continue his climb up the water column of Heaven Beyond Heaven.
"This wasn't part of the plan. He said he was just going in to take a look."
In Zhu Yao's eyes, Li Ban wasn't a nebula. Like everyone else, he had merely transformed into an irregular lump.
Because of this, Li Ban was supposed to investigate briefly and then find a way out. Who could have known he would head straight up, venturing into a place where Zhu Yao couldn't support him?
"Looking on the bright side, at least Li Ban can swim upward, instead of being washed down by the current like most of the others."
Zhu Yao could only console herself with this thought.
Because he was so focused on swimming upward, Li Ban didn't realize he had already breached the upper limits of the outside sky.
He knew that failing to leave quickly as planned would definitely make Zhu Yao worry.
But he was even more certain that the voice calling him from above wouldn't last forever.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
He had to go up there and see for himself.
Deep down, he had a premonition: if he missed this chance, he might never hear that voice again.
After an unknown amount of time, Li Ban finally arrived at what appeared to be the end of Heaven Beyond Heaven.
Having focused solely on swimming upward, he violently burst out of the water.
The moment he left the water, all resistance vanished.
But Li Ban discovered that he—to his utter shock—had turned into a bug!
And all around him, densely packed together, were countless other bugs!
'Could it be that all lifeforms entering the Unreturning Place eventually turn into bugs?'
Li Ban suddenly remembered the bugs he, Shi Ming, and the others had killed before.
Were there people among them who had desperately fled the Recycling Station for the Wizard World?
His mind reeling from the shock, Li Ban remained motionless for a moment.
However, he quickly recovered his wits. 'After those bugs entered the Wizard World, they clearly showed no human reactions. They just constantly ate and killed people. Even if they used to be human, they must have lost their minds after swimming against the current through Heaven Beyond Heaven and the Unreturning Place.'
He didn't know if he would also become like the other bugs—knowing nothing but slaughter and parasitism—if he truly broke out of Heaven Beyond Heaven and entered the Unreturning Place.
However, carrying the Star River within him gave him a sliver of hope that others lacked.
Bolstered by this hope, Li Ban didn't back down. He lowered his head to observe himself.
Although he had turned into a bug, he was different from the ones surrounding him.
Around him were some of the bugs he had previously seen in the Unreturning Place. He himself, however, resembled a gigantic centipede. He bore a deep blue carapace dusted with faintly shimmering starlight, hundreds of pairs of legs, and a set of hideous, terrifying mandibles. Inside his mouthparts, which could bloom open like a flower, hid a straw-like tongue capable of extending dozens of meters.
'I can't stay in this form for too long.' Li Ban could already feel a tyrannical, ravenous urge crashing against his mind.
If he ignored the impact of this urge on himself and continued forward just to escape the Recycling Station, it was highly likely that he would become a complete slave to this instinct before even entering the Unreturning Place, thereby losing his human consciousness.
'So the closer one gets to hope, the closer one inches toward madness.'
Feeling out his current state, Li Ban tried moving forward a short distance.
There was no powerful resistance in this empty space. By clumsily working his myriad legs, Li Ban flew a hundred meters forward.
But the higher he went, the stronger that tyrannical urge became, making it almost impossible to suppress the agitation in his heart. He just wanted to scream.
'I can't go any further. Otherwise, even with the Star River, I won't be able to stop my sanity from slipping away.'
All around Li Ban, the other bugs were flying upward.
Some vanished abruptly at the edge of the space, while others inexplicably exploded into fragments, leaving only severed limbs drifting in the air, which were quickly devoured by the bugs rushing up from behind.
The bugs that consumed the remains noticeably grew a bit stronger.
If the bugs here didn't refrain from actively attacking the living, this place would have likely devolved into a chaotic battlefield of slaughter long ago.
Li Ban observed the situation for a brief moment. Realizing that he wouldn't be able to suppress his inner fury if he stayed in this position any longer, he decided to turn back.
But just as he turned around, he suddenly heard that calling voice once more.
"Li—Ban—"
"Li—Ban—"
The voice was much clearer this time. It seemed to be coming from directly overhead.
Li Ban raised his insect head, attempting to tap into the spiritual rhinoceros within his body.
But it didn't work.
Here, spiritual rhinoceros felt as unresponsive as a corpse.
However, Li Ban quickly realized that it wasn't a lack of spiritual rhinoceros in this place; rather, there was too much of it, and it was far too dense.
He used to be like a fish in water, able to use the water's buoyant force to swim freely.
But now, the water had suddenly turned to ice.
As a 'fish,' it was hard enough for Li Ban simply to maintain his existence, let alone rely on the water to swim.
'Who is it?'
Li Ban tried to vocalize to answer the call from above, but his insect mouth completely prevented him from speaking human language.
All he could produce was a thunderous bug's screech.
The voice above didn't seem to hear it, or perhaps didn't realize that the thunder-like screech was Li Ban's response.
He just kept calling.
"Li—Ban—"
"Li—Ban—"
'What do I do? If I move forward, I'll likely lose my mind and be unable to respond. But staying here won't catch the attention of the voice above, either.'
He couldn't stay here for much longer.
'I'll try one last time. If it fails, I'm leaving immediately.'
Li Ban could only try to activate his Star River once again.
Great Wizards could freely enter and exit the Recycling Station. Li Ban believed that his Star River should also have some ability to influence the rules of this place.
He abruptly closed his eyes and ignored the calling from above, forcing himself to focus entirely on his intent.
Fortunately, his recent experience of transforming into a nebula had somewhat strengthened his control over the Star River within his body.
Li Ban quickly opened his eyes. A beam of light shot from his gaze, piercing straight into the clouds and sinking into the end of this space.
Everywhere the beam passed, all the bugs touched by the light were instantly annihilated into dust.
There wasn't a single shred of struggle.
For a moment, the rest of the bugs in the space ceased their movements, freezing in place out of terror.
Although they were enveloped by a tyrannical aura, they were still afraid of death.
Soon, the light in Li Ban's eyes faded.
He gasped heavily for breath.
Channeling the power of the Star River placed a massive toll on his mind. Now, the time he could remain here had grown even shorter.
If the voice overhead didn't resume within a short period, Li Ban would have no choice but to turn around and leave.
Just as Li Ban was burning with anxiety and agitation, a different voice finally rang out from above.
'I hope this guy doesn't waste time spouting nonsense!' Li Ban thought irritably.
"Spatial Guidance Art."
Upon hearing the voice, before he could even comprehend its meaning, he suddenly saw a small cluster of light refract back, shooting straight toward his head.
Li Ban knew that this was his own light and wouldn't harm his consciousness, so he didn't dodge, allowing the gleam to sink into his head.
The moment he received the light, Li Ban immediately spun around.
He could already feel his sanity slipping away; he had no way to linger any longer.
Fortunately, he moved at blinding speed and hadn't ventured too deeply into this space earlier. In the blink of an eye, Li Ban dove back into the water.
He successfully reverted from a giant centipede back into a nebula.
The maddening urge to kill that had been agitating him finally dissipated as well.
Despite returning to the swirling water column of Heaven Beyond Heaven, Li Ban still felt immense mental pressure.
He hastily commanded the nebula to change shape, struggling to close in on the edge of the water column.
"Splash!"
He finally managed to stick a portion of himself out of the water.
That portion then transformed into his arm.
Almost at the exact same moment, two somewhat rough yet slender hands grabbed Li Ban's arm, hauling him completely out of the water column without a second of hesitation.
The moment he left the water column, Li Ban regained his control over his spiritual rhinoceros.
He saw that even though Zhu Yao had pulled him out with all her strength, she was struggling to maintain her balance. It seemed as if she would be sucked into the water column in the next second.
Li Ban wrapped his arm around Zhu Yao's waist. Channeling his spiritual rhinoceros at maximum efficiency, he kicked off the thick, cotton-like clouds and forcefully burst out of the misty region of Heaven Beyond Heaven.
At this moment, at the foot of Heaven Beyond Heaven's mountain, the crowd—who had been craning their necks upwards for over ten minutes until they ached—finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Li Ban and Zhu Yao had gone to explore Heaven Beyond Heaven on their own, but they had been gone far longer than originally agreed.
Some feared that the duo had run into trouble inside, while others worried that the two had found a way to leave the Recycling Station from Heaven Beyond Heaven and simply departed without them.
Free from the powerful suction of the waterspout, both Zhu Yao and Li Ban were able to move unhindered.
Zhu Yao immediately pulled away from Li Ban's arm. Turning slightly, she adjusted her water-soaked clothes to hide her slightly flushed cheeks.
Li Ban didn't notice Zhu Yao's subtle movements. Now that he was out of danger, his first priority was to examine the light that had returned to his mind.
He had initially fired that beam of light into the space outside Heaven Beyond Heaven just to send a signal to whoever was up there.
But the person above had utilized the light much more thoroughly than he did.
The other party had directly laden his light with a massive amount of information before refracting it back to him.
Thus, the moment Li Ban inspected the light, a tremendous stream of data flooded his mind.
It contained the conceptual variations of a spell.
Embedded within it were three hundred and sixty-five variations.
'Is this the Spatial Guidance Art that person mentioned?'
'Does he want me to use this spell to leave the Recycling Station?'
'Could the person on the other side be a priest from the Myriad Ancient Pagoda? But the voice doesn't sound like anyone I know—wait, no, this voice...'
Now back in the outside world, with his rationality fully restored, Li Ban was finally able to analyze things more clearly.
'This voice belongs to Shi Ming!'
'But how would Shi Ming know I'm in the Recycling Station? Or could it be that it's actually Shaman Ming talking to me?'
Shi Ming was Shaman Ming's mortal corpse; if the two of them spoke, their voices would likely sound exactly the same.
Previously, when Li Ban communicated with Shaman Ming, it had always been through the Self-Seeking Mirror. Even later, when Shaman Ming wrapped up Li Ban's soul and left, it had been a direct exchange of intents, making it impossible to distinguish what the other party's voice sounded like.
Therefore, the voice outside Heaven Beyond Heaven could just as easily belong to Shaman Ming.
'Rather than making blind guesses, it's better to just go ask directly.'
But Li Ban's mind hadn't completely recovered yet. He needed to rest and recuperate before he could enter Heaven Beyond Heaven again.
By the time Li Ban snapped back to his senses, he found that Zhu Yao had already dried both of their clothes and was hovering nearby with a calm expression, quietly waiting for him.
"I've made some new discoveries. Let's head back and talk," he said.
Zhu Yao didn't mention how frightened and worried she had been outside, nor did she scold Li Ban for his sudden deviation from the plan.
She nodded and flashed a smile. "Alright. It looks like we have new hope again."