Chapter 1773: Layered Spaces
“Is there no way out from here? Or is the exit at the back?”
Li Yan seemed to be talking to himself, but his voice reached the ears of Nether Qi and Nether Yu.
“There are spatial ripples on the front courtyard wall. There’s likely not just a formation there, but it might even be the edge of an independent secret realm.
I don’t know if it can be forcibly broken; I doubt I could do it. Even if it is broken, if there’s a spatial turbulence outside, we’ll be in grave danger if it leaks in.”
Nether Qi replied after sensing the area.
Possessing Spatial Laws made her and her sister much more sensitive to spatial changes. Nether Qi felt an extreme sense of danger beyond the wall behind the bamboo.
Combining this with their current location, she could roughly guess what was behind that wall.
Li Yan nodded. Though he lacked Spatial Law divine abilities, his perception of danger was equally keen.
He also sensed an unsettling presence behind that wall.
With Nether Qi’s assessment, he felt that since they had used a teleportation array to get here, it indicated a deliberate attempt to hide this place.
Furthermore, there was another possibility: this was an independent space, separate from the shimmering rainbow river.
No cultivator would willingly step into the unknown dangers between two secret realms.
“Then let us search other areas first. Do not disturb those things. This wall might be a protective barrier,” Li Yan retracted his Divine Sense.
He looked toward the diagonal rear. Beside the main hall were several rooms, and behind them was another courtyard…
Yan Qingchen stood by the riverbank. His body was currently transparent, his feet resting on the rainbow-colored pebbles of the bank.
His injuries had miraculously healed by about eighty percent—a staggering rate of recovery.
Yan Qingchen’s total injuries were actually heavier than the Nether sisters’, especially the damage to his Natal Magical Treasure. The backlash from such an injury far exceeded physical damage.
Cultivators didn’t fear physical wounds; as long as the body hadn’t been obliterated beyond repair, they had countless ways to recover.
They feared damage to the soul, Sea of Consciousness, or Nascent Soul. Once those were wounded, recovery often required a long period of rest.
This time, Yan Qingchen’s Sea of Consciousness had been significantly affected. To recover quickly, he had been forced to use two pills given to him by his sect.
One was a seventh-rank pill for physical healing, and the other was an eighth-rank sacred pill for the Sea of Consciousness. Even someone as wealthy as Yan Qingchen felt a sharp pang of regret, as if his heart were bleeding.
As soon as his injuries improved slightly, he immediately returned to search for the location he had been at.
He had been successfully ambushed, but he could sense the other’s strength. At most, the man was at the Mid-stage Void Refining Realm. Since the man hadn’t captured him, he didn’t fear him.
The sect had allowed Yan Qingchen to impersonate another disciple to execute this mission; naturally, he had more than just surface-level strength.
Otherwise, it would be too easy for him to be killed when encountering danger. Yan Qingchen had many ways to deal with Void Refining cultivators. The thing he was most wary of regarding that grey-robed elder was the man’s concealment technique.
Yan Qingchen hadn’t detected a single trace of his aura. Furthermore, the elder had completely bypassed all four of the warning formations he had set.
This realization sent a chill through him. It indicated two things:
First, the man had powerful Divine Sense, allowing him to detect the hidden warning formations and silently bypass them.
Or second, the possibility he dreaded most—the man had been tailing him for a long time.
If it was the second case, then this man would be very difficult to deal with. And when had he started tailing him?
The second guess was crucial. If he had been followed from outside the rainbow river, then things were dire; the man had seen too much that shouldn’t be seen.
Regardless, Yan Qingchen had to go back and look once his injuries were somewhat stable.
As long as there was a shred of a chance, he would kill that elder and the two sisters. Otherwise, whether he could return to Huangqi Valley safely was a question.
He was also skilled in concealment and quite confident in it. However, he couldn’t use his strongest concealment technique here.
That technique required using someone else’s shadow to perfectly mask his own aura.
Now that Liu Siyu was no longer available, he had to rely on his other concealment arts. He would see if the stranger could find him.
When Yan Qingchen reached a certain segment of the river, he noted that although the scenery was similar to elsewhere, there were subtle differences.
During his exploration, he hadn’t left Divine Sense markers, but with a cultivator’s formidable memory, he had memorized the subtle features of many areas.
He recalled that this segment was not far from where he had found the purple cowry.
He took out the jade slip recording the terrain and began a cross-check of the surroundings while hidden.
He soon confirmed that he should be no more than five li from the purple cowry.
But after traveling stealthily for a long time, he not only failed to find the shell but also lost all trace of the three people.
“Something is wrong!”
Yan Qingchen stood still and looked around. He felt the subtle features of the environment were familiar—had he already been here?
But he hadn’t been here days ago; he had just been here moments ago…
After a brief thought, he left a hidden marker at a certain spot and continued forward while hidden…
About half a cup of tea later, Yan Qingchen was still walking on the rainbow riverbank when his face suddenly changed.
He stopped in disbelief. A sliver of Divine Sense reached out stealthily and cautiously to scan a stone emitting a green light.
After a moment, shock appeared in his eyes. On that stone, the hidden marker he had left was clearly visible.
“I have fallen into a trap…”
A chill ran through Yan Qingchen’s heart as he confirmed the realization he didn’t want to believe.
However, he hadn’t realized his reaction was much slower than a man named Li Yan.
In that torrential rain, Li Yan had quickly noticed something was amiss. But Yan Qingchen couldn’t be blamed; the surrounding scenery here was too similar.
Even without any interference, walking for a long time would make one wonder if they were just going in circles. The view ahead seemed eternally unchanging—an endless rainbow-colored pebble bank…
Thus, by the time he genuinely felt something was wrong and began to pay attention, it was already too late; he had long since fallen into the trap of visual fatigue.
Sensing something was wrong, Yan Qingchen didn’t hesitate; he immediately turned back toward the direction he came from. He needed to find the formation’s barrier.
At that moment, a figure quietly emerged above, launching an attack at the walking Yan Qingchen…
Outside the main hall, Li Yan walked toward a room on one side.
It looked like a cultivation room; naturally, Li Yan’s first choice was such a room.
‘I wonder if Yan Qingchen fell into the trap. That man must be killed!’
Li Yan thought rapidly while walking.
He didn’t attack the wall behind the bamboo. Aside from sensing danger, it was because he had completely lost all connection with his avatar since arriving here.
This confirmed that this was a completely isolated space, which was why he had agreed with Nether Qi’s view.
He didn’t try to break the wall to see what was behind it; it was almost certainly a dangerous spatial barrier.
He had left an avatar outside to control the illusion array he wasn’t very familiar with. Li Yan had originally thought of leaving his main body outside.
But according to the Nether sisters, the purple cowry at the riverbed wasn’t necessarily a formation; they might still be within a formation after entering.
Or perhaps it was a passage leading somewhere else?
If the place they entered was where the Undead Nether Phoenix inheritance was, it would only be more dangerous.
He had come here to save Bai Rou’s life. While killing Yan Qingchen was important, finding the Moon-Gazing Pure Immortal Grass was even more so.
Furthermore, there was an inheritance left by an Undead Nether Phoenix in this secret realm. Such a chance was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Whether the grass was here, Li Yan didn’t know, but since this was the Inheritance Ancient Hall area, he wouldn’t miss any possibility.
However, Yan Qingchen’s purpose here was also mysterious. Did the Yin-Yang Primordial Chaos Sect also want something from here?
In deciding who would stay outside, Li Yan carefully weighed everything and eventually sent his main body in.
Saving Bai Rou had to be his top priority; he couldn’t afford any move that might cause him regret.
As Li Yan headed toward the cultivation room, the Nether sisters immediately followed him. What they sought could appear here at any time.
Since they had an agreement with the elder, it was better to explore together.
Otherwise, if they separated, they could hide treasures they found, but the elder could do the same.
In such a case, if something they needed fell into the elder’s hands, they wouldn’t even know.
But what happened next disappointed all three.
All the rooms—Spirit Beast Rearing Rooms, cultivation rooms, alchemical/artifact refining rooms, even the rest chambers—looked as if they had been ransacked.
Aside from empty shelves, tables, and beds, nothing of value was left. It felt as if this place had already been searched by others.
Perhaps Huangqi Valley disciples had entered here long ago; otherwise, how could not a single item of value remain?
“Let’s check the back. If it’s the same there, we might be too late!”
Nether Qi’s face was grim. She didn’t want that to happen. Li Yan had no objection to her suggestion.
After exiting the last room, the three walked toward a side courtyard wall. Judging by the sun, it should be the western wall.
A stone path wound behind the front rows and led to the rear. They had already roughly scanned the rear with Divine Sense.
The western wall was also lined with green bamboo. They could still sense the extreme spatial danger beyond the wall.
But the wall seemed to isolate everything, making this place like a reef in a turbulent sea.
They followed the path to the rear of the rooms. The rear courtyard was also essentially empty.
Two dried-up ponds sat there, without a single drop of water.
At the very back of the courtyard was another wall, but it had a circular moon gate leading outside.
The three quickly bypassed the ponds and arrived at the gate. Looking through it, they saw a vast expanse of open fields.
The gaps between the fields indicated they were likely spirit fields, but they were now overgrown with weeds.
Though they had seen this with Divine Sense, they didn’t want to miss anything and searched the rear courtyard first.
Curiously, in the overgrown fields outside, about twenty dilapidated scarecrows were scattered about. Such things were rarely seen in immortal spirit fields.
But they only found it strange; some cultivators had eccentric tempers and liked refining odd things.
For them, these could be memories of the past, or perhaps they were used to set up formations to draw in worldly essence.
Li Yan led the way with the sisters behind. They moved at a steady but quick pace, soon arriving at the rear gate.
They had been sensing the area during their walk and felt no danger beyond the wall, nor any formation or restriction at the gate.
Since there was no formation, Li Yan prepared to step through.
“Why have you come here?”
Just as Li Yan was about to exit, a voice suddenly rang out from ahead.
Li Yan shuddered; the voice was too sudden and sounded as if it were right in front of him.
He was startled, and the Nether sisters were even more so. They felt a light breeze, and Li Yan vanished.
They hadn’t sensed anything either; if the voice hadn’t spoken, they would still be unaware.
Li Yan instantly retreated to the side of the gate, his heart racing. His Divine Sense erupted.
A moment later, he stopped. He had found the source. A figure had appeared in the circular moon gate.
Its posture was bizarre: arms held out horizontally, with only one leg below. A tattered straw hat sat on its head.
The figure wore no clothes; instead, a mass of blackened, withered straw covered its body.
It had no mouth, but a tree branch was stuck where a nose should be. It stood there in a cross-shaped pose, blocking the entire moon gate.
Its eyes, which looked like two black, shriveled mulberries, resembled black tear streaks. It stared directly at the three of them…