"Alright everybody, disembark!" Crown Prince Feng Shun ordered.
~WHOOSH~WOOSH~WOOSH!~
Upon his command, the members of the expedition all split up and flew to different islands. Some of them had chosen to enter as teams, while there were a few that were intending to enter solo like Mei Nienzhen and Chang Fa.
"Let's go," Crown Prince Feng Shun said and went to the shrine in the middle of the island.
Lin Mu and the others followed after him, while staying alert.
A few seconds later, they landed in front of the shrine which looked the same as the others. Though the pulsing death energy coming from it was a bit nerve wracking. "What's this feeling?" Daoist Chu and the others who hadn't felt the energy before were able to sense it now too.
Lady Kang furrowed her brows as one of the pins on her hair shone lightly. A thin and translucent barrier surrounded her, preventing the death energy from getting close to her.
"Death Energy." She uttered, having recognized it.
"It's death energy?" Daoist Chu looked at Crown Prince Feng Shun.
"Indeed." He nodded.
"For Death Energy to be pulsing like this, there is definitely a major burial ground here… Millions upon millions would have to have died for Death Energy to reach this level." Monk Hushu spoke.
~shua~
Lin Mu spread his immortal sense and checked the shrine for a method to activate it.
~HUMM~
He didn't have to do much though, as the shrine seemed to respond to the presence of ten people on the island. ~HUALA~
"Ugh!" They grunted as a stronger wave of death energy swept over them.
"It's getting stronger." Min Ju muttered, causing Elder Ho to walk in front of Lady Kang as a protective measure.
They watched as the shrine glowed and the stone arch above it started to glow as well. Hundreds of runes started appearing from the rim of the arch and moved towards its center.
"Get ready, it's activating." Lin Mu spoke, sensing the spatial fluctuations that were getting stronger too.
The same process was happening on the other islands too, and a chain reaction had been set in motion. The expedition members all saw the stone arches glowing and knew that it would soon be the moment of entering. Though these shrines did not seem to be releasing any death energy even now.
Back on the main island, the runes on the stone arch seemed to be growing in number. They were joining up and soon enough a net was formed inside the stone arch.
It extended from the rim of the stone arc and formed a repeating pattern that looked like a sixteen sided polygon. ~humm~
At a certain point the pattern couldn't sustain itself and bulged inwards.
~SHUA~
Finally, a swirling black portal was created from which a stream of death energy poured out.
Lin Mu closed his eyes for a moment, and activated his spatial perception, taking a deep look at the portal. He looked past the fabric of space and saw the spatial fluctuations that highlighted the teleportation channel behind them. They headed deep into the void, and started to spread as they got further. is the owner.
"Be careful as you step in. There's a chance we won't all end up in the same place." Lin Mu informed from his experience.
He could already sense that the teleportation channel formed from the stone arch was not singular. It had a single entrance, but branched out into multiple channels midway and could throw one anywhere in the spatial plane. ~huu~
Everyone took a deep breath before they jumped into the portal.
~SHA~SHA~SHA~
The portal flickered with each entry with Lin Mu being the last one to jump in. 'Let's see who goes where…' Lin Mu thought to himself, keeping his Spatial Perception active.
He had intentionally entered last as he wanted to know where everyone landed. That way he would be able to find the others quickly.
And sure enough, his Spatial Perception allowed him to track the trajectory of everyone. This allowed him to see that the group had been split into duos now.
'Two persons to each channel.' Lin Mu determined.
Crown Prince Feng Shun and Qiao De ended up together going to the first channel, Crown Princess Shang and Monk Hushu entered the second, Daoist Chu and Min Ju entered the third, with Elder Ho and Ziran entering the fourth.
"That leaves…" Lin Mu looked to his side and saw Lady Kang there.
The woman couldn't see him in this state and didn't even know he was right next to her. This was the case for everyone as they didn't have the Spatial Perception to observe things inside the Teleportation Channel.
Lin Mu also glanced at the Lesser Void outside the Teleportation Channel, finding it to be different from others.
He could faintly see several lines extending through the lesser void and coming from the same place the Teleportation Channel had originated from.
'Those should be the teleportation channels from the other shrines.' Lin Mu guessed.
He tried to see where they were going, but could not determine their end due to being too far. Plus being inside the teleportation channel made it hard to look outside properly. It was as if he was trying to look through some frosted glass.
'Is this spatial plane singular and has different sections or are there multiple smaller spatial planes stuck together?' Lin Mu wondered what was the layout of this place.
If he knew what it was, he would have an easier time navigating it as well as having an escape route in case things went south.
~HUALA~
About fifteen seconds later, Lin Mu felt like he had reached the end of the teleportation channel and seemingly passed through a viscous membrane.
~THUD~ THUD~
He landed on his feet hard, cracking the ground below him.
There was darkness all around him, making it hard for him to see anything with his naked eyes.
~SHUA~
He immediately extended his Immortal sense, scanning the area around him.
This allowed him to sense the presence of Lady Kang near him, as well as the room that they were in.
~SHUA~
Then a second later, an orb of light appeared illuminating the entire area.
"We really did split up." Lady Kang spoke, seeing that the others were gone. "Though I feel better that you ended up with me." She added, turning to Lin Mu.
"I suppose I can say the same." Lin Mu replied while looking around. "We are in a room of some kind." He said trying to check if the walls had anything on them.
But the walls all seem to be plain, and made out of stone blocks. The blocks were all of an equal size being one by one meter. Though Lin Mu didn't know if this was the case for its thickness too.
~SHUA~
His Immortal sense tried to probe the wall, but was stopped just a few centimeters into it.
"Looks like we can't use Immortal sense here." Lin Mu stated. "The walls are enchanted." "Enchanted? Not restricted with formations?" Lady Kang asked, checking them herself.
She ended up getting blocked too and was surprised.
"Indeed… There are no formations here. The walls are able to stop us directly… as if it's their innate property." Lin Mu replied. "For this to happen, they would all have to be part of a whole… this is indeed a celestial's treasure." He said after a pause.
Usually a building or other structure would have many formations carved into it or written on it. This allowed one to modify how different parts of it functioned as well as improve the structural integrity.
But this also came with the disadvantage of instability when there were too many formations present. One would have to pay great attention in order to make all of them work in cohesion without any resistance.
This would often take more time to make, as well as greater resources.
A way to avoid this was by turning the entire thing into a singular tool. This way there would be a singular formation array managing it all, though it would probably be incredibly complex. Doing this would also ensure that the areas within the treasure would be able to have certain properties imbued into them as needed.
Thus, even if there were no individual formations present in those areas, they would still function as if they were there.
This was a change that was brought on a base level, causing the structure's entire properties to change. Doing this was something that was limited to great experts who had skills to refine such a treasure. For an immortal, making something like this was possible up to a certain scale.
They might be able to make something a few kilometers in size, but anything beyond that would enter the territory that they would not be able to handle. At this point, only a Celestial would be able to control and manage it.
"Hmm…" Having understood this, Lin Mu decided to try something else out.
He walked up to the wall and pushed on it.
"What are you doing?" Lady Kang asked.
"Seeing how this place works." Lin Mu said before increasing the force.
But no change happened to the wall, and it stayed firm.
"It is indeed quite strong." Lin Mu muttered before clenching his fist. "Wonder if it can take a direct impact?" he said before pulling his arm back.
~BOOM~
Then in the next second, Lin Mu punched the wall, causing an explosion to happen.
Lady Kang was unmoving as she watched Lin Mu testing out his theories.