Formation Defusing Method
There was a… fire in the distance, presumably on the other side of the river bank. There was some cursing in a faint voice and flashes of green coming from their magical weapon.
“He must be the one you mentioned. He shouldn’t have started a fire. He gave off his location to the fiend beasts. I’m not surprised they jumped him,” voiced Ol’ Tan.
In consideration of more manpower increasing their chances of survival, Mu Yu asked, “Can we help him?”
“How do you suggest we do that? If he has his wits about him, he’d extinguish the fire. Otherwise, more and more fiend beasts will climb up. Sooner or later, they could just crush him under their weight alone.”
The fight waged on for a while longer before the fire went out. The green flashes continued flashing for a while before stopping, and peace was restored. Mu Yu went back inside to rest.
It took a long time for sleep to onset. Mu Yu then had a nightmare where Gui Xuanyue trapped him. Feng Haochen then arrived in the nick of time to stop his attempt to commit suicide. Before he could celebrate, Third Heaven Palace rocked up and took them away. Mu Yu swung in his sleep and woke himself up when he smashed his hand into the cave wall. He resumed sleeping but forgot the nightmare the next day.
It was as foggy as it was yesterday when Ol’ Tan woke Mu Yu up at noon. Mu Yu couldn’t even tell it was noon; he thought it was morning. Mu Yu went to the riverbank to have a morning stretch. He tried to get a visual of the other side to no avail. He proceeded to wash his face with the frosty water, then tried another futile attempt to escape the formation.
“I told you you’d end up back here,” said Ol’ Tan, seeing Mu Yu return.
Mu Yu did another two laps, and the frustration kicked in. He gave up and sat down to run a cycle of Dustfallen Mental Cultivation for its calming benefits.
Xiaoshuai told Mu Yu, “If my memory doesn’t fail me, this should be a mirror formation. The old man mentioned it ages ago.”
“What’s that?” Mu Yu asked.
Xiaoshuai stopped to think with his head angled. “Dumbed down, it’s a straight path with two ends reflecting off each other. Think of it as two ends. Once you reach one end, you’ll come out of the other end, which is where you started. You need to find the two ends to escape it.”
An epiphany hit Mu Yu. He did a lap around the river bank again, making sure to count his steps this time. He discarded the poisoned vine after walking roughly a hundred steps beyond the green mist. From there, he walked approximately 2645 steps. It then took another 1350 steps to reach the vine. In total, the maze was roughly four thousand steps long.
Mu Yu did another lap, stopping after each step to observe changes in the environment. The borders’ left and right sides had to hold some key. For example, there could be a split on the ground. Alas, he couldn’t spot anything. There was a chance the caster addressed the flaw when they realised it.
“Since this is a straight path, three steps should equate to a metre. Thus, the path is over a kilometre. If we can mark the centre and then walk away from it, it will be out of sight once we pass the boundary and return to the start. By logic, the marking will be our rear. We, therefore, can confirm where the boundary lies.”
“What will we use as our marker? You wouldn’t recognise your mother if she was two metres away from you in the dense haze.”
“Damn, you’re right. We wouldn’t even see a fire during the day. We did see that fire last night, so I guess it’s probable at night, but then there are the fiend beasts to worry about. According to Ol’ Tan, they’re not fodder, either,” Mu Yu reasoned.
“You’re a genius. I didn’t even think of that after spending half a year here. How do you plan to execute it? We can give it a try,” Ol’ Tan enthused after hearing Mu Yu’s recount.
“The only thing we can use as a marker is a fire. There aren’t any trees, so pill flame stones are our only option. As the fire requires a ceaseless supply of spiritual energy to burn, we need someone there to act as the replenishment. If the flame is too small, we won’t see it. We need it to burn as bright as possible. That’s where we have a conundrum. Whoever is maintaining the fire is in peril of becoming the next skeleton. No fire, though, means the plan fails.
“By the same account, the person searching for the boundary will be traversing the valley in darkness. There’s no guarantee fiend beasts won’t ambush them. Tackling them with zero vision as just as dangerous as the one maintaining the fire. Either way, if either team goes down, it’ll all be over.
“Lastly, and most importantly, I can’t promise I can defuse the formation even should I locate the boundary.”
Ol’ Tan knew he had to be the torch bearer because he was stronger than Mu Yu and possessed superior spiritual energy, allowing him to produce a brighter flame. Ol’ Tan’s concern, besides his own safety, was if Mu Yu could hack it against the fiend beasts at his level.
“I want to give it a go. If you don’t play the game, you have no chance of winning it. The only way you have a chance of winning is to play the game.”
Mu Yu gave a nod, and they then began fleshing out the details. All that was left was to rest up and wait for the night to swallow the day.
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