Huang Xie held the five items in his hand and arranged them in his palm.
All during this, the room around them was still shrinking.
There was less and less space for them to stand as the room continued to shrink.
However, Huang Xie didn't seem worried at all as he casually looked at the items in his hand. He even looked at them carefully as if he was making sure that something was correct, though the others had no idea what he was doing.
Though they didn't say anything, it was clear by the way that everyone looked at him as if they were begging him to hurry up.
When he was finally satisfied, Huang Xie put the items in his hand into the panel based on the order that he had arranged them in.
When he put the final item in, the panel released a green light and suddenly opened up.
Behind the panel was the key, one that was just like the one that he had found in the previous room. At the same time, there was a key hole that suddenly appeared on the front of the statue.
However...that didn't stop the room from shrinking.
It seemed like the room would continue to shrink until they cleared this second task.
But even then Huang Xie just slowly walked over to the front of the statue even though the walls were closing in around them. In an even slower manner, he put the key into the key hole and turned it.
It was only when the key was fully turned that the room finally stopped shrinking.
Seeing the room stop shrinking, the rest of them let out a sigh of relief.
With how much it had shrunken and the rate that it was shrinking, it would have only taken a few more minutes to reach them. So of course they were relieved that it had stopped right there before reaching them.
"Congratulations on passing the second task."
The familiar mechanical voice of the statue rang out once again.
Everyone let out another sigh of relief before becoming tense again. After all, the reappearance of this voice wasn't exactly a good thing.
It meant that they would most likely be thrown into the next task right away. There wouldn't be a chance for them to relax and catch their breath.
As if on cue, the floor suddenly disappeared from under them and they were thrown down into the abyss again.
Everyone had bitter smiles on their faces, but they also let out a sigh of relief.
At the very least, they were leaving this room where they could have died at any moment. At least they no longer had to feel suffocated from being in this cramped room anymore.
Though there were still three more tasks ahead, at least they had Huang Xie.
He had shown that he had the abilities to clear these tasks for them, so they would depend on him to clear out the next few tasks as well.
It felt like they would be able to get through this trial in the end.
In fact, what he was really regretting was the fact that he had lost those servants just now.
Since he had their souls in his hands, it meant that as long as they didn't give up all hope, they would have no choice but to follow his orders.
Huang Xie didn't know what would be coming up, but he was certain that this wouldn't be the only floor where they would have to work together. So if he were able to gather more slaves and send them up, that meant that it would be easier for them.
As long as he had the souls of these people in his hands, then it would be easier for them in the future.
The loss of half of them was a serious blow...
Still, it wasn't as if he could keep moping about it forever.
All he could do was accept that half of them were gone and focus on the other half.
Just because he lost half of them didn't mean that it was all over. Instead, he should see it as still having half instead of losing everything.
Taking a deep breath, Huang Xie calmed himself and turned to head over to Xiao Ming's group.
When the others saw this, they revealed ugly looks.
They knew that since Huang Xie was going over to them, it meant that he still didn't trust them. It meant that he was still treating them as outsiders and they were the only ones that he really cared about.
That meant that there was no chance to get their souls back.
There were some that immediately turned to head up to the next floor.
Since they couldn't get their souls back, they would do the only other thing that they could do.
They would climb as quickly as possible so they wouldn't run into Huang Xie again. As long as they were able to avoid him, then they wouldn't be influenced by the fact that he held their souls.
Once they were out of this tower, all they had to do was go to their sect elders to put pressure on Huang Xie's Love Sect.
With all of the people that were here, there was no way that the Love Sect would ignore all of them. As long as the elders of all of their sects put pressure on the Love Sect, then there was no doubt that they would be able to recover their souls.
Though some of them headed up, there were some of them that remained.
It seemed like they still wanted to try and befriend Huang Xie to get their souls back.
But...they were completely disappointed by what happened next.
"Take these. Use them when the time comes."
Huang Xie said this as he handed a few balls of light to Xiao Ming and the others.
The ones that remained recognized these immediately as the soul fragments that Huang Xie had taken from them.
As soon as they saw this, they knew what Huang Xie was planning and didn't waste any more time.
They knew that it was impossible to get their soul fragments back, so the only thing that they could do was climb as quickly as possible to avoid meeting Huang Xie in the future.