Mu Chen and Xiao Diao stepped across the threshold of the courtyard's inner building, leaving behind the lush, medicinal fragrance of the hidden garden. The transition was abrupt; they moved from a place teeming with life into a structure that felt profoundly still.
The interior did not house the expected furniture or decorative artifacts one might find in an ancient master's dwelling. Instead, the duo found themselves standing within a spacious, hollowed-out hall that echoed with the sound of their own breathing.
The room was entirely empty, save for a massive, glowing arrangement etched directly into the stone floor. It was a formation of staggering complexity. Runes, ancient and jagged, intertwined with one another in a chaotic yet mathematically precise dance.
To look at them was to feel a sense of vertigo, as if the symbols themselves were older than the continent, predating the very concepts of language and law. They hummed with a low-frequency vibration that resonated deep within the marrow of the bone.
Xiao Diao hopped down from Mu Chen's shoulder, his small paws treading carefully near the edge of the glowing lines. He tilted his head, his whiskers twitching as he scrutinized the arcane geometry. A look of genuine puzzlement crossed his feline features. He had lived for thousands of years and seen the grand formations but nothing like this.
"A formation?" Xiao Diao muttered, his voice echoing in the vast hall. "But what kind of formation is this? I've spent centuries studying the arrays, yet I've never read about or seen anything that even remotely resembles this layout. It's... nonsensical, yet it feels terrifyingly complete."
As Xiao Diao was racking his brains, trying to correlate the runes with the ancient texts he remembered, a sudden tremor shook the Origin Stone tucked away in Mu Chen's robes. A faint, ethereal light bled out from the artifact, and a moment later, the stone spirit, Shi, manifested beside them. His translucent form shimmered with a solemn light as his gaze fell upon the stone floor.
Shi's voice was calm, carrying the weight of eons. "Master, this formation is not a common array. It bears the residue of the Heavenly Seals."
The air in the room seemed to grow heavier at those words. Xiao Diao's golden eyes widened as he looked from the spirit back to the glowing floor. "You mean to say a Heavenly Seal is hidden inside this thing? Is this the gateway to the treasure?"
Shi shook his head slowly, his gaze fixed on the pulsating runes. "Maybe, or maybe not. I cannot say for certain that the seal itself is here. I can only tell you that this formation was constructed using the same fundamental essence. It carries the distinct aura of the Heavenly Seals."
"So even you, the spirit of the Origin Stone, don't know exactly what this is?" Xiao Diao asked, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone.
Shi fell silent for a moment, his eyes half-closed as he accessed the deep, fragmented memories left behind by his creator. Finally, he spoke again. "Before his death, my master, Hong Zun, designed several hidden formations and scattered them across different corners of the world. These were not defensive perimeters or simple teleportation gates. He designed them by meticulously copying and mimicking the runes found upon the Heavenly Seals themselves."
Xiao Diao leaned in, his interest piqued. "So this is one of those hidden structures? One of Hong Zun's secret anchors?"
"It is likely," Shi replied. "Master Hong Zun knew that after his passing, the Heavenly Seals would inevitably scatter and seek out new owners. He understood the chaos that would follow. Therefore, he designed these formations to act as cosmic anchors. They were created to react whenever the Origin Stone or a holder of a Heavenly Seal drew near. Their purpose is to serve as a gathering point—a place where the holders of these primordial powers can find one another across the vastness of the realms."
Xiao Diao let out a long whistle, the pieces finally falling into place. "I see. It makes sense now. That's why you reacted so strongly, and why you could feel the resonance. It's a beacon."
Shi nodded, though his expression remained cautious. "Indeed. But as to whether this specific formation is one of the primary anchors or merely a secondary outpost, I cannot be sure until it is activated."
Mu Chen, who had been listening to the entire exchange with his usual air of detached boredom, finally spoke up. He looked at the center of the swirling runes, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. "We won't get any answers by standing here talking about it. We'll know what it is once we enter."
Xiao Diao let out a short, sharp laugh, his previous tension vanishing. "Correct. There's no point in overthinking a door when you can just walk through it."
Mu Chen didn't hesitate. He took a single, deliberate step forward, planting his foot directly into the heart of the complex formation. The moment his weight settled, the runes reacted. A blinding flash of white light erupted from the floor, and a sharp swish sound cut through the air.
In the blink of an eye, the young man and the small mink vanished from the courtyard, leaving behind only the cold, empty hall and a silence that felt heavier than before.
...
The world shifted in a blur of colors and spatial distortion. When the sensation of weight returned to his feet, Mu Chen found himself standing in the center of a dense, unfamiliar forest. The formation beneath his feet flickered one last time with a dim, dying light before the runes faded into the dirt and disappeared entirely, leaving no trace of the gateway they had just used.
"Where exactly are we?" Xiao Diao asked immediately, shaking out his fur. He sniffed the air, his whiskers twitching. "This spiritual energy... it's laced with ice. We're not in the Sky Continent anymore."
The spiritual energy here was not the vibrant, refreshing essence of the Sky Continent. Instead, it carried a biting chill—a cold that wasn't just physical, but spiritual, as if the very air were infused with the stillness of ice.
Xiao Diao spread his divine sense outward, scanning the surroundings. "This way," the mink directed, pointing a claw toward the north. "Someone is there."
Mu Chen followed the direction, walking with his typical leisurely pace. After a few minutes of navigating through the ancient, frost-tipped trees, the forest opened up into a wide, circular clearing.
In the center of the clearing stood a simple thatched hut, its construction modest and weathered by time. It was enclosed by a low wooden fence, and the entire scene felt like a painting of a hermit's life.
In the front yard, a black-clothed old man lay in a wooden lounge chair. His eyes were closed, and the chair rocked back and forth with a slow, rhythmic creak-creak-creak that seemed to match the heartbeat of the forest.
Beside the old man stood a young woman. Her appearance was striking enough to give even the most beautiful of flowers a sense of inadequacy. Her skin was as white as fresh snow, and her long, black hair was tied back in a style that was both simple and elegant.
She wore a green dress that caught the pale light of the clearing, the fabric outlining a figure that possessed a strange duality—she looked fragile, like a porcelain doll, yet there was a palpable sense of hidden, coiled strength beneath the surface.
Her exquisite features were flawless, but it was her eyes that truly drew the attention. They were bright and deep, containing a mystery that felt ethereal and profound. She was the kind of beauty that would leave even any other girl feeling a sense of instinctive jealousy.
Her attention shifted instantly to the sudden intrusion. She watched as a boy emerged from the trees, his hands in his pockets, looking as relaxed and indifferent as if he were the true owner of the property. On his shoulder, a small, purplish creature lay down with equal casualness.
"Who are you?" the girl asked, her voice clear and melodious, though it carried a sharp edge of caution. "How did you manage to come here?"
Although she was clearly shocked by their sudden appearance, she did not look scared. The source of her confidence was undoubtedly the old man resting in the chair beside her.
At the sound of her voice, the old man slowly opened his eyes. "Shen Xi, you've disturbed my nap. Is the world ending, or just your patience?"
He looked at the girl with a gaze that was soft and paternal, but as his eyes shifted toward Mu Chen, the entire atmosphere in the clearing underwent a violent change. The air grew heavy, pressing down on the grass until it flattened.
The old man's eyes were incredibly ancient, carrying the weight of eons within them. A deep, thick sense of twilight and decay enveloped his body, the aura of someone who had stood at the end of time and looked back.
The girl, Shen Xi, kept her eyes on Mu Chen as she replied to the elder. "Grandpa Yan, they appeared all of a sudden. Do you know them?"
Old man's attention shifted to the visitor in a heavy, pregnant silence. He reached out with his soul, a massive, invisible wave of consciousness attempting to read the fluctuations of the young man's being. He looked for the telltale signs of cultivation—the swirl of a core, the flicker of a birth flash, or the resonance of an ancient bloodline.
He found nothing.
There was no aura for him to read, no realm for him to perceive, and no fluctuation of Qi. It was an absolute, terrifying absence, as if the measures he had used to judge soul flame for thousands of years were no longer applicable to the object standing in front of him.
Mu Chen stood there like a void in the middle of reality.
The old man waited, his rocking chair having come to a complete halt. With his level of strength and the vast number of years he had lived, there were very few things in this world that could provoke shock or a sense of mystery in him. But now, he felt both.
Mu Chen looked at the pair and answered simply. "I walked into a formation, and now I am here."
Grandpa Yan's brow furrowed in deep puzzlement. "What formation? There are no active teleportation nodes in this area."
Xiao Diao, who had been observing the old man and the girl with a sharp, calculating gaze. He could sense the old man's power—it was a level of strength that reminded him of his own father at his peak.
This man was not a common expert; he was a cultivator who had undoubtedly reached the Ascendant Realm, a level of existence where one could rewrite the natural laws of the world.
"It's like this..." Xiao Diao began.
The mink proceeded to narrate the entire sequence of events—the discovery of the hidden courtyard, the ancient stone door, the runes that mimicked the Heavenly Seals, and the activation of the anchor. As he spoke, the expressions on both the old man and the girl grew increasingly grave.
Grandpa Yan sat forward in his chair, his eyes locking onto Mu Chen with an intensity that could have withered a forest. "So... you are the owner of the Origin Stone?"
The old man understood the gravity of the situation far better than anyone else. The Origin Stone was the number two divine artifact, the cosmic balancer meant to stabilize the primordial forces of the seals. If the stone had reacted and brought the boy here, it meant something monumental.
Yan realized the terrifying implication: these formations only reacted to the Stone or to a Seal. If Mu Chen had the Stone, and the formation had anchored here, then there was someone nearby who held a Heavenly Seal.
He looked toward Shen Xi, his face a mask of shock and somber realization. The girl was equally stunned, her bright eyes wide as she tried to process the whole situation.