novelraw Chapter 1516 - 1515 - Bridge the Gap
Chapter 1516 - 1515 - Bridge the Gap
Examining the Dao had revealed 3 things to Lind.
The most important was he was far too weak to reverse the function the artifact twisted the Dao of Reincarnation to do. Just feeling the pure Dao power told him that.
Another was that the only power he possessed against Fiend constructs was to destroy them. If it was made of natural, demonic, or Celestial Qi, he could do something, but Fiend Qi and his harmonic Qi were water and fire.
If he even tried to touch the formation, it would react explosively.
It would also kill the spirits in the backlash. Lind would not dare.
The last thing, however, he felt the spirit world was actually above him! It was not just the spirits manifesting the aura. The golden sky was an actual slice of the world!
Lind realized why the lifeforce was so insufficient now! There was not enough life in the entire 4th layer to compensate for a slice of the spirit world!
He came up with an ambitious idea. Instead of trying to reverse the effects of the artifact, he would simply bypass the damned thing!
Most would call him insane but he had something they did not. He had the memory of being in the spirit world itself!
He began simply enough. He wove sigils and connected them in a complex shape that began to condense solid matter.
It was unlike anything the cultivation world had ever seen. It was made of a combination of magnesium-tungsten alloy with a core of pure selenium. Fantasy in his old world became fact in the current one.
It was not simply having been forced to watch the movie for 7 Halloweens in a row!
Oddly enough, the metals actually helped pull on spiritual power unlike anything else he had tried over thousands of years.
It had literally been something he wanted to try and the shock that it worked made him want to wonder if cultivators had been reborn on Earth with such knowledge!
It did not, of course, summon ghosts or anything to the soul at all, but for spiritual power it did quite a lot!
The material took the form of a massive disc as the weavings transformed elemental Qi into solid form. It settled around the trefoil artifact and the flow of energy shifted drastically.
The anchor now resisted the simple base he had created but he let it do its thing as he moved to the next step.
He had his own anchor and now he had to channel that power to fuel the next step. It was far harder!
Rather than weaving or any other skill, he used his Dao alone! The spirit world and the Celestial Fields shared 3 things alone. Spirits were born in tools or weapons, elemental Qi, and Dao.
The first 2 were not enough at all to reach the spirit world. Dao, on the other hand, was woven into everything.
Even mortal realms, despite being unable to grasp them, were built with the power of Dao.
It was the one constant thread between all worlds!
Lind used all the Daos he had grasped, to the extent he could use them, to connect to the base anchor and begin to reach up into the sky.
Strange structures began to take shape unlike anything he had seen before but unlike his Dao Weapon, the world hardly seemed bothered.
He did not understand all of it but he let his instinct guide him. The base integrated the Daos and a pillar slowly began to build up.
It was not simple light but a distortion of the very fabric of the world.
Sweat poured down his body as he channeled energies far beyond the 4th tier. He felt a strain on his body until something broke.
The firmament shattered like glass and powerful Qi flowed into the Phantasm Forest. The Fiend souls ensnared by the spirits screamed as they were wiped from existence.
The pressure from above made Lind collapse as he could not resist it in his current state. He was too weak!
The spirits cheered as they flowed up the pillar and completed the connection themselves. For all their power, they needed someone to shatter the division between the Celestial Fields and the spirit world.
Lind looked on as the flow of spirits flowed like a storm up into the sky.
It was not the only change that occurred. He saw the souls that were twisted and partially formed flow happily into the sky.
It then went far beyond his expectations. The flow of spiritual power and souls actually became a storm!
The Dao bridge he had built was like a lifeline for the various partial souls as well as the spirits. The power far exceeded what he had attempted.
Lind felt his own soul nearly pulled from his body!
The storm of souls and spirits nearly destroyed him! Lind then fell unconscious.
He awoke to find the silent forest all that was left. He slowly stood up and looked around but then saw the Fiend artifact was gray and cracked. It was dead!
He had not destroyed it but it was completely dead now.
He examined the remaining formations and the inscriptions were totally shattered.
He examined the forest around him and the spirits were gone. Further, the souls once haunting the entire lands were also gone!
The sky was also pure blue as if nothing was odd at all!
Lind frowned as he wondered why nothing was left to let him know if he had succeeded until he realized what was missing!
The physical anchor he had constructed via weaving was gone!
He had succeeded! Lind was about to leave when pressure slammed into him from above!
It was not a tribulation but he felt suppressed as if he was a mortal!
[Lind Frey. You have returned what was stolen. We cannot guide you on your path but a warning. The Betrayer has sent more forces to kill you. Beware large cities and other high occupancy areas. They are focused on your capture or death.]
Lind felt the spirits of Heaven and Earth deeply at that moment but he also smiled.
He had succeeded! The spirits and souls were free! He studied what he had done and he frowned. He could rebuild the anchor easily but the bridge via Dao was foggy.
His goal had been to bridge the gap between the Celestial Fields and the spirit world but he had no idea if he had the power to do it! The effect in front of him confirmed he did!
The artifact was dead entirely but he did not do anything to destroy its hollow shell. It had happened while he was passed out!
The warning was not anything new but after experiencing the reality of it, he knew the spirits were not warning him for their own gratitude.
It was simply the karma he had incurred by his actions. Once the message was delivered, the pressure had vanished.
Lind took a few days to recover but his adventure in the Phantasm Forest had resolved the issue for the future.
⬧⬧⬧⬧
"Fools!" An older Fiend slapped his juniors to death! The elite prodigies were all gone thanks to the foolish expectations of those that came after him.
They had sent their freshly filled out numbers of elites after their hated enemy but all of them had died!
They had gone to the one place they should have avoided at all costs!
The Phantasm Forest was worse than a death trap for them. It was suffering and torture for millions of years and maybe True Death at the end if they were lucky.
Now, their forces were depleted for almost a whole generation! They did not have the numbers they once did to lose so many at once anymore!
"G–Grand Elder! We were not going to engage him directly. They took the various artifacts, traps, and other items we have gotten from our thralls and other food stores." Fiends referring to thralls as food stores really told how they viewed even those that served them.
They were all to be consumed one day.
The bleeding young Fiend was reminding the senior that they had been ordered to capture or kill Lind Frey now.
His soul is injured and he cannot do the miraculous things as before without paying a heavy price.
They were unaware that during the auction he had healed more with some items but their theory still held.
The older Fiend frowned deeply but then slammed a map on the far wall. It was not as detailed or as adaptable as the one Lind had once demonstrated, but it was far more accurate than most out there.
In one sector was a large dark glow to it. The disturbing feeling was familiar to any that had been to the Phantasm Forest. Even the Fiends in the room did not like to look at it. That was the point of it.
"Now–" A new tirade was about to begin when all in the room froze. The map was starting to glow! The very area the elder Fiend had pointed to had a small orb of emerald light appear.
All in the room knew the connection between the map and the forest was live thanks to the artifact planted there. Even isolated, it continued to report on events in its range.
Now, however, emerald flames spread out and engulfed the sector! Before anyone realized what was happening it spread across the map!
The danger was too sudden for many of them to react but the elder Fiend actually grabbed the injured juniors and tossed them at it as he fled.
The flames began to pick up speed as fuel was all around them! The intensity rose quickly enough that even grade 7 or Law Grade defenses were nothing to it!
Their base was deep in the Hollow Lands but now all powers nearby turned in unison as emerald flames consumed the Iridani Sect and its associated city.
Humans, demons, and other innocents were unharmed and even benefited but the very foundations of the sect were made by the Fiends!
The spires and structures were consumed like they were kindling!
All powers knew what that meant and many of them moved swiftly to retrieve their members to hope they were not infected!
The fallout of the attack had one mystery no one could solve. How had Lind Frey attacked when every single piece of evidence said he was nowhere near it?