Chapter 1775: Straw Entrapment
Inside the hall, Li Yan and the sisters searched relentlessly for the entrance they had arrived through.
No one spoke. Every corner of the hall was scrutinized with meticulous care.
An hour later, Nether Qi retracted her Divine Sense from the ceiling. The spot they had entered from was now just solid, empty stone.
She pondered for a moment before breaking the heavy silence.
“It seems we entered through a one-way teleportation channel. I suspect the other rooms will yield the same result.”
Her heart continued to sink.
They hadn’t entered a sanctuary; they had stepped into a snare designed to leave visitors with no return, trapping them here until they withered away.
The habitable area was small, like being a frog at the bottom of a well. Over time, such isolation would be worse than death.
Nether Yu remained silent, her expression mirroring her sister’s grim outlook.
Li Yan stood near the main door. He largely agreed with Nether Qi’s assessment but offered a slightly different perspective.
“While this is indeed a magical treasure, we cannot yet certain it is truly a trap.”
“Senior, are you referring to that exit in the backyard? What if that attack wasn’t an illusion, but real?”
“The creator clearly has the power to blanket this entire space with those attacks, yet they chose not to. I believe the goal isn’t to kill quickly, but to drive captives to despair and madness!”
“The spiritual energy here is decent, but there are no other resources. I don’t know if a Body Integration Realm cultivator could break this vessel, but we certainly can’t.”
“Even if we reached the Void Refining Realm, we would still be powerless against such an onslaught! And I suspect those attacks are mostly real; otherwise, a simple probe would render the illusion meaningless.”
Nether Qi seemed to anticipate Li Yan’s line of thought and spoke her own views.
She and Nether Yu had been conferring privately, weighing every possibility. Their long path of cultivation had been paved with enough danger to make them wary.
They quickly deduced that the intent behind this “snare” was deeply sinister.
“That possibility exists,” Li Yan replied. “But I also wonder if this place could be viewed as the mountain gate of a sect, serving as a defensive perimeter.”
“Senior, even if it is a sect’s gate, how do we leave?”
Nether Yu’s beautiful face was etched with frustration. A grey-robed elder with the strength of a Void Refining cultivator at best didn’t offer much hope.
“First, we must fully map out the parameters of this place, starting with the backyard. We need to know if we can withstand those scarecrows’ attacks.”
“Is the vessel truly indestructible, or were those attacks feints? Even if they are illusions, breaking them won’t be easy, but it offers the most hope.”
“Of course, your point is valid—the chance of them being entirely false is slim. My greatest fear is that they are partially real and partially illusory…”
Li Yan concluded.
Nether Qi listened carefully. The elder was thinking more thoroughly than she had initially credited him for. She glanced at Nether Yu and took a deep breath.
The elder was right; they needed to understand the mechanics of this place first.
“Senior implies that it might be a sect’s illusory formation? If we can break the illusion there, perhaps we can reach the true inheritance?”
“It is a guess. Whether the attacks are real or not, their range seems limited to the backyard.”
That was precisely Li Yan’s point.
“I hope it isn’t the ‘mixed’ scenario Senior described. Purely real or purely illusory would be easier to devise a plan for.”
Nether Qi nodded. A consistent threat was something they could prepare for. A fluctuating one would introduce too many unknown variables.
Nether Yu, who had been quiet, looked at Li Yan.
“Then let us conduct a more rigorous test. I will go to the moon gate. Senior and Sister will stay at the corner of the building and try to intercept the straw stalks with techniques.”
“Sister, once the attack is launched, you must immediately sever your connection to the spell. Just sense the force of the collision!”
Nether Yu spoke with firm resolve.
“Very well. Be careful!”
Nether Qi shared a mental link with her sister. Seeing her sister volunteer for the most dangerous role, she agreed without hesitation or postponement.
Li Yan’s opinion of the sisters improved.
At the very least, they were cooperative and didn’t bicker over duties. This proposal, though seemingly casual, was strategically sound.
They were here to find secrets. Being trapped made their presence meaningless. To escape, the moon gate was their only lead.
If the sisters had asked Li Yan to trigger the moon gate, he would have suspected they planned to trap him.
If the attacks were real and they blocked his retreat even once, he would be doomed. He would have refused such a suggestion unless all three went together.
Cooperating with intelligent people made everything smoother.
“Then Fellow Daoist Nether Yu must exercise extreme caution. I will not intervene; Fellow Daoist Nether Qi will handle the testing.”
Li Yan didn’t stand on ceremony.
The sisters noted his refusal to help and his strategic positioning, realizing his cunning was formidable.
He had quickly identified the most stable way to cooperate after they proposed the plan.
By having Nether Qi stay with Li Yan, they had their own safeguard.
Li Yan likely understood this too: Nether Qi was there to keep an eye on him. If he tried to prevent Nether Yu from returning, she would stop him.
Admittedly, the chance of her succeeding against him was only fifty-fifty given the strength gap.
However, the distance between the courtyards was short. If Nether Qi fought with her life, she could manifest Void Refining power, offering a glimmer of hope.
If they hadn’t agreed to this arrangement, all three would have had to go, but they couldn’t fully trust each other not to strike during a retreat.
Total trust was impossible at this stage.
They didn’t stop Li Yan from using his Divine Sense to observe, however. Li Yan likely wouldn’t have agreed to that anyway.
Besides, the sisters’ yellow-dress defensive treasures had properties that resisted Divine Sense attacks. Without that, they truly might have insisted on all three going together.
Soon, the three reached the corner of the western row of rooms. Li Yan deliberately put some distance between himself and Nether Qi, staying a few steps behind.
This put Nether Qi diagonally in front of him. Nether Yu glanced at them and walked silently toward the backyard.
The sisters approved of his positioning.
They had a Blood Covenant. So long as Li Yan didn’t launch a direct attack, but merely used indirect means to hinder them, the covenant might not trigger.
With Nether Qi in front of him, Li Yan couldn’t strike either sister directly due to the covenant.
If he wanted to sabotage Nether Yu, he would have to interfere with the incoming attacks, which he had already stated he wouldn’t do.
That eliminated any excuse of him “testing” the attacks if he were to move.
Nether Qi was on high alert. If Li Yan made any move, she would intercept him long enough for Nether Yu to reach safety.
In the backyard, Nether Yu adjusted her internal magical power as she approached the moon gate.
They had agreed that stepping onto the threshold of the gate was the trigger.
She reached the gate quickly. Li Yan and Nether Qi watched from a distance, their Divine Sense locked onto the area.
In the previous chaos, none of them had seen exactly how the scarecrows appeared.
Nether Yu was at the threshold, her defenses maximized, her eyes and sense fixed on the moon gate.
She stepped one foot onto the edge of the gate!
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
“Why have you come here?”
To Nether Yu and the two watchers, the air seemed to flicker. A figure appeared, arms outstretched, blocking the moon gate.
One leg, a tattered hat, a body of blackened straw—the Scarecrow had returned, its arms spread in a cross.
Even prepared, Nether Yu was startled. Her heart skipped a beat, and her aura wavered.
Li Yan’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks. He was focusing with everything he had.
He released his Divine Sense and secretly employed a soul technique, hoping to catch a different kind of resonance.
He still couldn’t tell how the scarecrow appeared, but he noticed one less scarecrow in the distant fields.
His powerful Divine Sense caught a faint spatial ripple outside the moon gate.
It was so subtle he couldn’t be certain if it was real or a phantom of his own perception.
‘Truly no signs of life, so soul arts cannot detect a spirit! And this creature moves with almost zero spatial disturbance. I only caught a trace because I was pushing my limits…’
Li Yan thought quickly.
Nether Yu stared at the scarecrow. She didn’t speak, waiting to see if it would do anything else.
She couldn’t sense life in it, so she wasn’t sure if it possessed sapience.
The scarecrow said nothing more. Its shriveled mulberry eyes stared eerily at Nether Yu.
Despite the blazing sun, the silence was absolute, save for the wind whistling past her ears.
The scarecrow stood on its lone leg, shriveled mulberries looking like tear streaks. Its outstretched arms looked ready to lunge and ensnare her.
Nether Yu felt the noon sun turn icy cold.
Time seemed to freeze. In her vision, the scarecrow filled the world.
A few strands of straw fluttered in the wind, pulling at its “face” like a distorted, forced grin.
Suddenly, the air behind the scarecrow blurred. The yellowish-black clouds rolled in again from the horizon.
More scarecrows appeared. Nether Yu’s scalp tightened. She turned and fled instantly.
Scarecrows lined the wall. A rain of straw needles shot forth, chasing her.
Nether Yu pushed her speed to the limit, leaving a wake of distorted space behind her.
Behind her, the mass of straw hissed through the air with lethal intent.
Even at the building’s corner, Li Yan and Nether Qi felt a chill.
They guessed the range was limited, but the sight of those “arrows” carrying the promise of death was terrifying.
Nether Yu reached them in an instant, darting past toward the front courtyard.
Seeing her sister safe, Nether Qi unleashed her prepared technique at the rain of straw.
The moment her spell collided with the needles, she severed her connection to it.
BOOM!
The spell hit several stalks, and a blinding light erupted in the air.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
More straw slammed into the ground and the back of the building. The entire rear courtyard was blanketed in a layer of dazzling light as the sheer volume of attacks merged into a single explosion.
The courtyard quaked again, as if the world were being shaken apart. The force was just as savage as before.
The moment Nether Qi launched her spell, she threw herself backward.
Li Yan didn’t help. Seeing the storm of straw and Nether Qi’s retreat, he also fled toward the front.
The intensity of the attack was overwhelming. He didn’t want to risk a mistake in judgment and be annihilated.
This time, during their retreat, they didn’t focus entirely on defense.
Every one of them kept their Divine Sense locked firmly on the backyard.
They reached the front of the house, though this time they didn’t huddle against the southern wall.
The courtyard was still shaking, but they felt a surge of relief. The attacks were indeed confined to the backyard.
Neither the ground nor the rear walls were actually damaged.
Stranger still, only a breath after they left the backyard, the scarecrows ceased their fire.
As the yellow light on the ground faded, the blackish-yellow straw needles rose from the earth and shot backward.
In moments, the needles had returned to the scarecrows’ bodies.
With a slight blur, every scarecrow on the wall and at the gate vanished.
The backyard was instantly restored to its original, serene state.
“Sister, what was the nature of the attack you felt?” Nether Yu asked urgently as soon as the phenomena vanished.
“It wasn’t an illusion. I felt… the power of an Initial-stage Void Refining attack, at least in the small area I intercepted.”
“Thankfully I cut the flow quickly. I could feel that if I hadn’t, I would have been severely injured in the next heartbeat.”
“There are likely even stronger attacks within that barrage. Regardless, once you engage them, escaping will be nearly impossible.”
Nether Qi answered immediately.
Her expression was grim. They understood the mechanics now, but how were they supposed to break through?