Defusing Stone Pillar Formation
Played like fiddles, Mu Yu and Gui Ximing were lured out of the stone pillars’ vicinity before they knew it.
“Oi, braindead, what are you trying to lop my head off for instead of finding an escape!” Mu Yu blustered, teleporting out of Gui Ximing’s axe’s range.
Mu Yu’s attempt to rise off the ground led him into a field of nothing but white mist all around, forcing him to return to the ground. He tried to leap onto the cultivator statues; however, they emitted a force that shunted him back into the stone pillar formation again. He tried teleporting to the palace, yet the sticky spiritual qi impeded his ability to do as much as void travel. There was no outrunning the pillars since they moved awfully fast, while he was forced to move slower. The only good news was that the formation hampered their speed drastically to the point that Gui Ximing, who was looking to swing at Mu Yu at every chance, wasn’t a threat.
The pillars divided the two and would occasionally force them into the same space. As a result, Gui Ximing’s axe throw – his attempt to beat the pillars to the punch – also ended up going nowhere.
“All right, I’ll hitch a free ride, then.”
Mu Yu timed a jump toward an incoming pillar and created a force toward the pillar using a formation, allowing to stand on the side of the pillar, essentially riding the pillar. There was no time for him to devise a strategy since the pillar led him back to the edge of the formation again. If that wasn’t bad enough, Gui Ximing, who also happened to be led to the same spot, true to character, forced Mu Yu to duck another swung whilst being led deeper into the formation.
“I need to figure out the precept of this formation on the go, or I won’t get anywhere.” Dodging the next pillar, Mu Yu cursed, “Why can’t they be as slow as Celestial Staircase?! It’s bloody hard to think at this pace! Calm down now. Deep breath…”
In order to determine the location of every pillar, Mu Yu marked an incoming pillar to track where it went even once it was out of sight. Unfortunately, the limitations Reverend Xuan Jizi’s formation imposed on his senses limited the range of effectiveness to a meagre ten metres.
“Southeast to northeast. Now to the northwest. Great, it’s out of range now. Marking one pillar isn’t enough to give me a full picture; I’m going to have to mark more pillars.”
Even though Mu Yu always ended up being led out, he was positive there was a correct path that led to the palace. Nevertheless, it was going to take him time to decipher it due to the array of movements.
Mu Yu spent two hours in the formation, noticing half of them were repeats, and half had yet to be marked.
I haven’t memorised all of the pillars, but I do know how to avoid being led outside again. I should be onto something if I can figure out the route of the two marked pillars that don’t ever come near me again.
Mu Yu saw a window to switch to bounce off a pillar by his side then clung to the pillar that tried to avoid him.
From the southeast next.
Mu Yu straightened his posture, priming himself to leap to a pillar he hadn’t marked by the time a marked one almost grazed his nose. He marked the unmarked pillar, catching the attention of Gui Ximing, who happened to be led to the same spot.
Gui Ximing copied Mu Yu, marking pillars with ghost qi, confident he could also deduce the formation’s formula. Sadly, it didn’t play out the way he imagined as analysis wasn’t a strength of his. The more he tried to read their movements, the more difficult and confusing he found it. Even when he could tell the direction a pillar would approach, the path inward would be blocked, cutting off his evasion route.
Upon being led back out, Gui Ximing saw Mu Yu using his spiritual energy to scribble on the ground. Mu Yu broke out a smile and looked up at Gui Ximing with his head on an angle. Mu Yu waited for the obligatory swing, but, instead, Gui Ximing questioned, “You figured out how to get through?”
“Bye, Ghosty, hahaha!” Xiaoshuai mocked from Mu Yu’s shoulder, standing akimbo.
Mu Yu shrugged and jumped back into the formation.
The eighty-one pillars operated in groups of nine. Each group was delegated a different task and operated according to how the people inside the formation proceeded. Relying on formations to evade was futile because the pillars would modify their path accordingly. Through his ability to sense the pillars within ten metres in conjunction with the trajectories of the ones outside of his sense range, Mu Yu used the changes he could see to deduce the positions and movements of pillars outside of his range.
Assuming he could keep up, Gui Ximing followed Mu Yu’s qi signal into the formation, only for pillars to cut him off. Dodging was the easy part. Locating Mu Yu after he was out of sight and figuring out how to catch up was the challenge.
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