Rift in the World
“Whoever told you there was only one? If I’m correct, there eight colours. There are innumerous of them, and they’re bloody strong!” Xiaoshuai swore.
“If you’re correct?” Mu Yu asked, looking at Xiaoshuai out of his peripherals.
“Hehe.” Xiaoshuai scratched his head. “My intuition. Just know that I’m familiar with this feeling. I swear Old Geezer brought me here before but on the other side.”
Mu Yu’s gaze followed Xiaoshuai’s finger to the opening and queried, “What’s on the other side?”
“Something I hate. Just fix the seal first. Old Geezer’s formations wouldn’t just crumble unless something is wrong.”
Mu Yu scrutinised the opening in the text and then the boundary of the spherical formation that contained the shattered rocks within. Its circumference was, at least, a kilometre wide. The aperture was only one metre, yet it was enough for Chi Yue to escape from. He deduced the structure of the formation and said, “That’s a rather daunting task. Formation Palace and Formation and Talisman Stone can only defuse common formations. This is anything but common. This is comparable to Nine Heavens Demon Sealing Formation.”
The closer Mu Yu went to the aperture, the more frantic his breathing became. The air outside the formation was suffocating. On the other side were white lights flitting across a field of darkness, albeit for a fleeting moment. As he reached his hand to the other side, pressure smacked him in the face!
“A Heaven and Earth Barrier?” Mu Yu remarked.
“A Heaven and Earth Barrier? The rat burrow you mentioned last time?”
“Rat burrow? Big Earthworm, get educated!”
“Weren’t you two the ones who said you crawled through a hole to return to Third Heaven from Second Heaven?”
Seeing the dragon vine stretch its claws to the aperture, Mu Yu pulled it back hurriedly. “Don’t stick your hand to the other side, or you’ll lose it before you can blink.”
“Heaven and Earth Barrier! If I’m correct, this is another world,” Xiaoshuai notified.
“So… this place leads to Second Heaven?” Mu Yu queried.
“Well, yes, an aperture between Second and Third Heavens would appear if the spiritual qi potency between both heavens was out of balance; however, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this leads to Second Heaven since there are other worlds out there. There are other ways of crossing a Heaven and Earth Barrier besides via spiritual qi cores. It’s hard to explain Heaven and Earth Barriers, but you can consider it a wall between two worlds. Some places are fragile. Some places are wide beyond your wildest imagination.
“Mm… The fragile parts are as fragile as paper and are easy to turn into spiritual qi cores. It won’t take long for the path connecting both worlds to be accessible. Even though it’s as thin as a sheet of paper, not even Ascension Realm cultivators can break through it.
“When I say wide, you won’t have any means of telling where you will land on the other side. If we carelessly enter, I’m willing to bet we’ll end up lost in the barrier. If we can’t find the exit, then…” elucidated Xiaoshuai, sounding as though he was slowly recounting old memories trickling back to his mind.
The dragon vine questioned, “If Flesh-Winged Horny Monster came over through here, doesn’t that mean the barrier isn’t wide? Shall we go see the world it came from?”
“Hell no! I don’t want to be grossed out to death!”
“I’m with Xiaoshuai on this one. Our goal isn’t to explore other worlds. That still leaves a few questions unanswered: first, where is the corpse water summoned from? Second, how did Ghost Gate know an entity from another world was coming?” Mu Yu ran his hand over the formation text, checking the spiritual qi within. “Compared to the text that’s unscathed, the damage to the formation text didn’t happen too long ago. In saying that, the damage is spreading. By my estimation, this formation text will disappear in a few more years. Xiaoshuai, what can we expect to happen once the formation text completely fades?”
“The world won’t come toppling down. Did you notice how durable the rocky walls in the valley are? We didn’t damage a single rock despite the violence we committed. The only rocks we broke were the ones above the ditch.”
“You have a point.”
“If you view the valley from a bird’s-eye view, you’ll see that the ditch is actually this world’s opening. By that logic, entering the opening is the equivalent of entering the Heaven and Earth Barrier – minus the fact that the spiritual qi core here isn’t as flimsy as the one connecting Third Heaven to Second Heaven. That’s why I was saying we’d end up lost if we entered…
“Maybe Old Geezer cast a formation to keep the barrier all the way down here to hide it. I’m also basing the conjecture off the fact that the piles of rock are solid despite having gaps in between them; they’re so robust that the Heaven and Earth Barrier can’t force its way through. I’m guessing Chi Yue’s self-destruction unintentionally triggered some defensive mechanism.”
“Damn, just how strong is Shifu? Next question: how did that freak break through such a convoluted formation? It was evidently an amateur at formations given the fact that it never noticed the traps I set. Even if it was able to defuse the formation, how would it create this massive cave or whatever you want to call it?”
“This is my guess: this formation stopped it after it arrived in this world. Since its corpse water is corrosive and can absorb spiritual energy, I hypothesise its corpse water corroded a small hole for it to then control the dead above the small hole.”
“I reckon it’d have taken centuries to melt a small hole. It’s patient; I’ll give it that. Anyhow, fixing this formation. The first thing I need to do is familiarise myself with every line’s function, lest I draw a line that conflicts with Shifu’s original lines and damages it. How ironic is it that I’m the one fixing your formations when you didn’t teach me formations, Shifu. I hope you’re safe.”
“I hope Old Geezer is fine. Now, let’s block this aperture first.”
Text in the distant flashed and circulated rapidly. The flowing light dimmed whenever it edged close to the aperture, though.
“This is going to be a big task, figuring out the formation’s structure from the text and lines.”
In the Heaven and Earth Barrier, at the far outer perimeter of the seal, a glowing human silhouette ambled as fast as lightning through the barrier, as if the pressure inside the barrier was just a gentle breeze.
Previous Chapter l Next Chapter
