novelraw Chapter 288
Chapter 288
Li Xun hovered in mid-air, lost in thought for a good while. When he finally snapped out of it, he realized his body had somehow drifted forward few dozen zhang on its own. Catching on to what was happening, he let out a wry chuckle. And at the same time, made his decision.
Hesitation invites chaos.
Since he had already made up his mind, there was no point in hemming and hawing. Especially with time running short. Any delay could lead to who knew what kind of change. He grunted and lunged forward.
But after flying only a few yards, Li Xun suddenly felt a jolt in his chest. His hand moved there on its own, pressing against it. The warm, smooth sensation unique to the Jade Bixie was still there.
What was going on?
The technique he had just used to erase his presence... how could it have been the Shadow-Devour Escape Technique?
Li Xun was dead certain he hadn’t misremembered. The Mingxin Sword Sect’s stealth and concealment techniques were nowhere near that eerie and sophisticated. So what the hell kind of freakish thing had just happened?
As these thoughts churned in his head, he'd already run through the formulas of the Shadow-Devour Escape Technique several times. Apart from churning his qi and blood into a roiling mess, nothing unusual happened at all.
It felt deeply wrong, but given the situation, he did not dare lift the Jade Bixie to check what was happening to his body. He could only swallow his doubts and charge ahead.
By now his initial edge had dulled, and his speed inevitably dropped. The deeper he moved toward the heart of the Taiwei Enclosure, the denser and more tangled the the stellar power flowing in the void and the shifting currents of qi became.
Li Xun’s confidence was already starting to waver. If he kept pushing like this, he might not even make it another hundred li before he completely ran out of steam.
Maybe heaven really was looking out for him tonight. Just as unease crept into his thoughts, a soft, luminous glow slowly rose in the empty space before his eyes.
It was also Soul-Piercing Light, but much clearer and purer. The sheer density of the astral power there was far greater than where he was now. Even from this distance, Li Xun could be sure of it. That had to be the Gathering Stars Platform.
The distance to his destination turned out to be more than half again shorter than he had expected. That meant the guy who doubled back earlier must have lingered there for quite a while.
Li Xun frowned and dropped down to the ground.
It was not that he wanted to stop flying. The crisscrossing undercurrents of astral power in the void had formed an immense, all-encompassing net. Without a special method to navigate it, moving through the air was practically impossible.
At this point, there was no sneaking in without alerting anyone.
Still, he decided to give it a try. Skirting the edge of a dark current of astral power, he took seven or eight careful steps before stopping.
Here, he could sense at least five extremely powerful restrictions, all subtly adjusting themselves in response to his movements. If he went any farther and crossed their threshold, he would probably set off an alarm loud enough to alert everyone in the entire Star River.
So after coming all this way, was he really going to fail at the very last step?
No matter how tough-minded Li Xun was, right now he couldn’t help feeling bitter about it.
He took a deep breath, lifted his head, and scanned the surroundings. But right in front of him was a small mound of earth that completely blocked his view. If he wanted to see farther, he had two choices. Climb the damn hill, or skirt the edges of those star-energy currents and take one hell of a long detour around it.
But time was already tight. Li Xun did not have the luxury of wandering around in circles.
But the damn restrictions ahead were formidable, leaving him no room to act rashly. He wavered for a second, then all of a sudden a nameless rage exploded from his chest and shot to his head, burning so hot his eyes stung. He found himself staring dead at the top of that mound, itching like hell to just charge right up there.
Maybe his eyes had been scorched. The scene before him suddenly went blurry. Startled, he quickly realized it might be his inner demons slipping out of control. He forced himself to steady his mind, and when he focused his vision again, his jaw dropped. He was utterly stunned by what he saw.
The shadow cast by the low earthen mound was gone. Instead, as far as the eye could see, the star-filled sky seemed to have been torn down by the hand of a god. Otherwise, how could anyone explain why stars that should have been buried deep in the far reaches of space were now scattered between heaven and earth, looking close enough to touch?
At a glance, Li Xun spotted seven or eight brilliant “stars” spread loosely across the sky above a vast, boundless plain, each one giving off a cold, pale light. Interwoven with the stars overhead, the effect was so disorienting that it felt as if space itself had been flipped upside down, leaving him unsure of where he stood.
The moment he saw it, Li Xun knew. This had to be the Gathering Stars Platform.
Even if this flew in the face of everything he’d known, as long as he could feel the dizzying web of layered qi mechanisms stretching across this vast space, the staggering flood of primordial qi surging through it, all linked together like some insane net... even an idiot wouldn’t get it wrong.
On his second look, Li Xun spotted two people standing far apart on the plain, facing each other across the distance. They were extremely far away, but under the glow of the “stars,” he could still make out their shapes. There was no doubt about it. One of them was Ming Ji!
He should’ve been thrilled. At the very least, he’d just pulled off something damn near miraculous. But in that moment, all he felt was an ice-cold dread flooding every inch of his body, turning into a clammy sweat that trickled down his spine.
Behind him, at least twenty powerful restrictions stood on the verge of erupting. Each one capable of draining the astral-power currents for several li around.
These dense, hyper-sensitive formations had already detected an intruder. But in that split second, the “intruder” slipped through them like a goddamn ghost, moving with eerie speed and a weightless grace so faint it was almost nothing, threading straight through the gaps between all of traps.
In the end, none of the restrictions were triggered. His speed, the scale of his movement, even its intensity... were all far beyond the range those restrictions were designed to respond to.
To the restrictions’ senses, what had just passed through was nothing more than a sudden gust of wind.
The Shadow-Devour Escape Technique once, and just now, once again. This time, it was clearly a technique of the Blood-Shadow Demon Body. Li Xun pressed a hand to the Bixie Jade at his chest and felt his mind struggling to keep up with everything that had just happened.
He lost focus for a brief moment. Out on the plain, Ming Ji and the other person were still standing there, apparently in conversation.
Li Xun forced his thoughts back under control and studied the scattered “stars” hovering above the plain.
If his guess was right, these flickering points of light had to be the “Stabilizing Star Stones” Bisu had mentioned. The massive flow of astral-power revolved endlessly around them as its anchors.
Right before Li Xun’s eyes were just seven or eight of them. Judging from that, all 366 Stabilizing Star Stones must be spread out over hundreds of li.
That meant the spot where Ming Ji was standing had to be the place where Fat Ji had stolen the Star Stone. It looked like it was right at the outer edge of the Gathering Stars Platform.
That was the only thing that made sense. Otherwise, if that fat bastard could just waltz into the heart of the Gathering Stars Platform and swipe one of those stars, Old Tian Yuan, with his obsession over saving face, would’ve long since chopped the guy into mincemeat by now, then fallen on his own sword.
Luckily, that was not the case. And Li Xun now had an idea for how to quietly find out what was really going on.
He slipped a hand into his robe and pinched out a grain no bigger than a speck of dust. That “dust” was actually Sound-Penetrating Sand.
After checking the wind, Li Xun flicked his finger. The grain drifted off with the breeze, floating lazily through the air until it settled near where Ming Ji and the other person were standing.
A jade-white arm emerged from the void. Resting in its palm was a jade bowl. It's the thing used to gather and focus the sound waves carried by the Sound-Penetrating Sand.
Li Xun cracked a small smile, lowered the jade bowl, and dropped back into a cross-legged sit. He focused his mind, listening to the wind and faint voices vibrating off the inside of the bowl.
The path the Sound-Penetrating Sand took as it drifted down was itself proof of the skill Li Xun was showing.
Using the wind, he gave it only an initial push. After that, the grain was left entirely to rise and fall on its own. And yet, just as its momentum ran out, it landed only a few li away, not far from the two of them. It rolled a few times on what little force it had left, then came to rest against the grass, right by the feet of the person standing opposite Ming Ji.
The jade bowl responded at once.
“...In the west, the allied forces stand together. In the center, the Nightless City has pulled back, but its strength remains; they’ve got Mistress Tianzhi herself holding the fort with her supreme mystic technique. And then, right here in the East, our two great sword sects are at each other’s throats, deadlocked and wasting time. Fairy Ming Ji, with your clear and penetrating dao heart, you should understand where the real problem lies...”
The voice sounded kind of familiar. Li Xun racked his brain for a second before it clicked. This was Yun Xing, the guy who’d shown up at the Star River’s edge a few days back after getting wind of things. The same one who’d dropped those heavy “hints” to that Fatty Ji. Yeah, definitely an important character.
The next voice from the bowl made Li Xun's heart skip a beat.
This one was not as crisp and clear as Yun Xing’s, but calm and composed, carrying its own quiet authority. This voice... Li Xun knew it better than any other. No doubt about it, it was Ming Ji.
From the sound of it, her breath was still strong, her voice clear and bright, suggesting she was in good health. “Everyone has their own way of thinking. What’s true today might look completely different tomorrow. Is that what you mean, Daoist Yun Xing?”
"Exactly," replied Yun Xing, his tone brimming with admiration. “You’ve been confined here for nearly a month, yet you still have a firm grasp of the larger situation outside. That is truly impressive. Since you understand this, you should also see that delays only invite trouble. It took great effort for the various sects to finally reach an agreement, and the momentum is at its strongest right now. If conflict between our two sects causes the upcoming Water Mirror Assembly to end in discord, then later on, when the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance convenes, who will be left to keep it in check?”
Listening from afar, Li Xun finally understood.
Just as Gu Yin had predicted, the Tongxuan sects had reached their limit. They could no longer tolerate the Rogue Cultivators’ Alliance, that massive force challenging long-standing tradition. In the end, they had decided to join hands and strangle it at the source, forcing the Tongxuan world back onto what they saw as its proper path.
The Water Mirror Assembly, postponed because of Umbral City incident, was actually being used behind the scenes to prepare for an alliance of the various sects. That was something Li Xun had not anticipated at all. Gu Yin would surely find this news fascinating, though there was also a good chance that woman already had it all figured out.