They came across their first dead body. The corpse was in relatively good condition. There were some cuts and bruises, but it was otherwise unblemished. Wu Jian and Tang Tiantian knelt beside it as Master Yun Chi and Lili Ling stood further away. The young alchemist woman looked a little green. She wasn’t used to seeing dead bodies like this. The rest of their guards were spread out around them.
“Take a look at this. His neck is bent at an awkward angle. I bet that’s what killed him,” Tang Tiantian said.
“Mmmm. It looks like he received a powerful attack to the head and it snapped his neck,” Wu Jian agreed.
Tang Tiantian furrowed her brow. “The question is: what killed him? Was it a trap, or another party?”
“That is the question, isn’t it? We won’t know unless we continue on.”
They continued on and ran into three more dead bodies, all of whom Wu Jian recognized.
“These are the Master Ruo Chong’s guards,” Tang Tiantian said.
“I think that’s all of them too.”
Each body they ran into had been killed by either an extremely powerful blunt force or the fire element. One of the corpses had been burnt so badly that they could smell the cooking flesh before they saw the body. Lili Ling had deposited all of her food when she caught sight of the blackened husk.
“Didn’t that one over there have a fire element…?” asked Wu Jian.
“I believe he did. I remember seeing him use it when we were attacked by a magical beast,” Tang Tiantian confirmed.
“And this one over here is burned to a crisp… do you think maybe there was some kind of dispute?” Wu Jian looked at Tang Tiantian to confirm.
She tilted her head, then shook it. “It’s possible, but I doubt it. I don’t know much about Master Ruong Cho, but I do know she’s quite adept at manipulating the hearts of others. I doubt she would allow a dispute or mutiny to occur, especially in such a dangerous place.”
“Hmmm…”
“C-can we just keep going already?” asked a frightened Lili Ling. “I don’t want to be near these disgusting bodies anymore.”
“Yeah… but we’ll want to be even more careful going forward. We have no idea what we might run into,” Wu Jian said, standing up.
They moved on. This place was very much like a maze. It looked like they had passed all the traps at least, for they didn’t run into any, but all the corridors seemed to meld together. They would take one only to find themselves circling around to the starting point. Wu Jian had thought there might have been a sealing array that warped them back to the beginning, but that theory was disproved by Tang Tiantian when she marked several areas with ink to see if they wound up where the were.
“The fact that this area doesn’t have any of my ink tells me it’s not the same place. It just looks the same. I assume it’s to confuse us,” Tang Tiantian said.
“I see. Well, I am certainly confused. I have no idea where we are right now,” Wu Jian said.
“So we are lost, is what you’re saying?” asked Master Yun Chi.
“Seems like it.” Wu Jian shrugged.
“How could we get lost?!” Lili Ling shrieked. Wu Jian flinched. He didn’t hate this girl, but he really wished she wouldn’t be so loud.
“You’re beginning to panic. Calm down,” Tang Tiantian said.
Lili Ling took several deep breaths. “You’re… right. I’m sorry. I don’t usually go with you all when you travel to get ingredients, so…”
“I understand. I had similar issues during my first excursion. Anyway, let’s calm down and think about this logically.”
Wu Jian tapped his mask. “We’ve disproved the idea that a sealing array is causing us to return to the start, but I think the idea still has merit.”
“What do you mean?” asked Master Yun Chi.
“I mean it’s possible that there’s a sealing array here that distorts time and space. Supposing we step into an area where time and space are distorted. We could wind back at the beginning of the maze during a time before Tang Tiantian inked the wall.”
Tang Tiantian grimaced. “In which case, the wall doesn’t have ink on it because I never used ink in the first place. How troubling.”
They decided to test that theory. Tang Tiantian drew on the wall, and Wu Jian traveled on ahead. If his theory was correct, Wu Jian would wind up at the beginning of the maze, but at a time before Tang Tiantian added ink to the wall. He kept his senses open as he walked, and eventually, he felt the unique tug of space folding around him. It was easier to sense now that he was alone. Very soon, he wound up standing next to Tang Tiantian and the others. They all looked at him in shock.
“Didn’t you just--wait.” Tang Tiantian’s eyes widened. “Are you from the future?!”
“Seems so,” Wu Jian muttered. “I guess that proves it. The sealing array distorts time and space to make us travel to the beginning of the maze to a time before we first entered.”
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“How are we supposed to get past this maze then?” asked one of the guards. He was an older man. Wu Jian didn’t know his name.
“It won’t be easy, but I assume there are areas where time and space won’t distort. We’ll need to sense out those areas.” Wu Jian hooked a thumb at himself. “Fortunately for all of you, space is something I specialize in.”
Now that he knew what to look for, Wu Jian kept his senses open, using his technique, Spatial Awareness, to create sense changes in the space around him. Traveling with a group made it a little more difficult to use. The more things he needed to keep track of, the harder he had to concentrate and the more chi he used up. However, now that he was at the Deva Realm, it was still a lot easier than he expected.
They eventually bypassed the areas they had been stuck on and headed deeper into the maze.
Lili Ling huffed at him. “If you could do this, why did you wait until now?”
“Because this technique takes a lot of concentration to use, especially when I have to sense distortions in time and space,” Wu Jian answered. They were about to turn a corner when he paused, his eyes narrowing. “Everyone, stop!”
“What is it?” asked Tang Tiantian.
“Multiple people are coming this way,” he said.
Tang Tiantian narrowed her eyes as she and the other guards readied themselves. A sense of tension hung in the air. It was like everyone had stopped breathing. Lili Ling hid behind her master, who moved further back to give the cultivators who would fight room to maneuver. While all this was happening, Wu Jian kept his senses open, watching as the people coming toward them drew ever closer.
“They’re here,” he announced seconds before someone burst out from around the corner. They attacked the person closest to them, which just happened to be Wu Jian, and he fended off their assault, redirecting their punch with the back of his hand before using the same hand to launch an attack of his own. The person had quick reflexes, however, and leapt backward.
That was when Wu Jian got a good look at them.
“What the--”
A blast of wind erupted from behind the man and slammed into Wu Jian, who was unprepared for it and sent skidding across the ground. Two more people leapt out from behind the first man. Wu Jian didn’t think his eyes could widen any further than they already had, but they did.
“Those are--”
He was quickly forced to engage one of them in combat. The other tried to attack him, but Tang Tiantian jabbed her bo staff into his chest and sent him stumbling across the ground. Another one of their party quickly moved to engage the man who had originally attacked Wu Jian. There was one more enemy behind that person, but none of them could reach him before he released another technique.
[Wind Cutter]
The man who stood in the back swept out his arm like he was sweeping away trash, and a distortion of greenish energy shaped like a crescent flew through the air. It traveled straight toward the man who first attacked Wu Jian. He was surprised they would attack their own, but then the man jumped, and the attack slammed into the person who had been fighting them.
I see. They’re using teamwork. One stands in front to hide the others attack, then leaps out of the way to surprise his opponent. Still…
Wu Jian focused on his own fight, using Nihility to reach into his opponent’s chest and yank out their heart--except there was no heart to pull out. He blinked and leapt back to gain some distance. At the same time, Tang Tiantian had also leapt back to distance herself from their opponent.
“Tiantian…”
“I know. Those people we’re fighting look just like Zhang Wei, Liu Ming, Chen Hao, and Wang Jie.”
Right. That’s their names.
Wu Jian had been introduced to them, but he had quickly forgotten their names because they weren’t that important. He had barely even interacted with them during this entire trip.
In either event, the people who were fighting them looked identical. Wu Jian had no idea what was going on here. Were they clones? There were cloning techniques, but they were something only the person being cloned could use a clone technique to create one of themselves. Another person could not create a clone of someone else. That being the case, what were these things and why were they attacking him and the others?
This wasn’t something he could dwell on for long because the battle started scarcely a second later. The two people fighting him and Tang Tiantian specialized in unarmed combat. They used their chi to strengthen their bodies and all of their techniques revolved around extending their chi to create attacks.
[Mountain Fist]
The man before him was Zhang Wei. He spread his feet apart to adopt a horse stance, tucked his fist in, and launched it forward. A powerful eruption of chi shaped like his fist flew at Wu Jian. It was larger than the average adult male. There was so much chi packed into that single attack that it would have pulverized a normal cultivator of the same level.
[Space Folding]
Wu Jian distorted the space around his hand to create a sharp blade, then swung it upward, slicing through the attack like a scythe through wheat. Zhang Wei was already moving forward. He reached Wu Jian within the blink of an eye and began another battle of fist and feet. Narrowing his eyes, Wu Jian used Nihility to let the man’s attack pass through him, then attempted to cut him in half with Space Folding again, but Zhang Wei bent his body backward to avoid being injured.
He knows my techniques…
[Wall of Mount Tai]
Wu Jian clicked his tongue as a massive wall erupted between him and Zhang Wei. He leapt back, but that seemed to be what his opponent wanted.
[Mountain Fist]
[Nihility]
Zhang Wei attacked with his Mountain Fist, but it went through Wu Jian when he used Nihility. He deactivated his skill. However, Zhang Wei had closed the distance and launched a punch that caught him in the chest. He staggered back. The attack hadn’t hurt too much since no chi had been put into it, but he was now left wide open.
Zhang Wei swept Wu Jian’s feet out from underneath him. Wu Jian didn’t let this go further. He stopped himself in mid air before falling to the ground and thrust out a leg, catching Zhang Wei in the throat. The man staggered back but didn’t react like a human would. A normal person would have grabbed their throat on reflex after having their larynx crushed. This person did no such thing. It was like he didn’t even feel the attack.
[Swords of Space Rondo]
Wu Jian expended his chi even further, creating multiple spatial swords that distorted the area around them. They offered in the air, all of them oriented toward Zhang Wei, and with but a thought, Wu Jian launched them at the man. While Zhang Wei did his best to dodge the swords, he could not dodge them all. Several of them penetrated his shoulders, thigh, and chest. As the man staggered back, Wu Jian stepped into his guard.
[Space Folding]
This time, Wu Jian summoned Pale Moon and engulfed the blade in spatial distortions, increasing its cutting power. He swung the blade faster than the eye could blink despite its massive size. His attack removed Zhang Wei’s head from his shoulders.
Time stood still. Wu Jian stepped back, warily eying his opponent, who remained standing despite losing a head. He thought maybe it would keep fighting, but then it fell onto its knees and pitched forward. It never hit the ground, however. He blinked several times as the thing burst into particles of light.
What the heck?
Wu Jian furrowed his brow, but then shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. The others were all battling their opponents still. He needed to help them quickly so they could figure out what was going on.