Behind the vortex was a void, with tiny points of starlight in the distance, akin to countless small worlds. Tang Jie felt like he had really ascended from the mountain to space.
Not far from Tang Jie, a star was twinkling.
Tang Jie looked at the star, and the star seemed to sense Tang Jie and began to approach him.
Thus, Tang Jie flew over, but while that star seemed close, he actually needed quite a while to finally reach its side. There, he found that it was actually an asteroid, bright from a distance but rather unremarkable up close.
Tang Jie landed on the asteroid, and that asteroid began to fly through space, taking him to another giant rock.
Tang Jie realized what he had to do and jumped onto the rock. The asteroid that had taken him here flew in a circle and went back the way it had come, while the new rock whisked Tang Jie away. A while later, it paused next to two rocks.
Tang Jie finally had an idea of what was going on, but he couldn’t be too certain. Looking left and right, he finally stepped onto the rock on the left. His former asteroid returned to its location while the new one shot off, flying here and there before arriving at a set of nine asteroids.
Tang Jie was now certain that this was a maze. Compared to the maze from before, it was even larger and more complicated. Tang Jie didn’t know how many of these transportation asteroids there were, but recalling all those stars he had seen, he estimated that their numbers were in the tens of millions.
Tang Jie recalled that there was a formation from High Antiquity called the Celestial Maze Formation, drawing inspiration from the stars to create a massive maze. This was very likely to be the formation he was dealing with. When this formation was complete, there was a fixed method of traversing it. One wrong step would render every step after it a mistake.
Once Tang Jie understood that this was a maze formation, he relaxed.
He was a formation expert, and solving formations was his specialty. Thus, he chose an asteroid and let it take him away, also making a mark on it. At the same time, in the Mountain River State Diagram, a star chart appeared. Whenever Tang Jie traveled on an asteroid, a corresponding mark would appear on the board so that Tang Jie could analyze them.
This was long and slow work. Solving a formation meant first understanding how it operated before taking it apart. The more one wanted to take shortcuts, the less likely one was to succeed. But Tang Jie ended up taking far more time than he had imagined.
Tang Jie began to drift about this sea of stars, patiently recording every asteroid he rode and calculating their position and path.
Initially, Tang Jie thought that he would quickly figure out how the formation worked, but he soon realized that this place was far bigger than he had imagined, and its complexity left him horrified. Just recording the stars took him ages.
Fortunately, through his original body outside, Tang Jie knew that the flow of time was very different compared to the outside world. Time here was accelerated to a hundred times faster than normal, such that one day outside was one hundred days inside.
This meant that Tang Jie could solve the formation in peace.
In this seemingly ageless sea of stars, Tang Jie quietly worked away, until one day, Tang Jie felt a ripple as if someone had thrown a rock into a calm lake.
Tang Jie focused and found that the Flame Celestial Sovereign had come in.
After being injured by the finger, he had recuperated on the outside, and he was probably going in now that he had recovered. Alas, the finger was no longer there to push him out again.
Although the Flame Celestial Sovereign had come in, Tang Jie was unconcerned and continued to work away on his analysis. This maze formation was huge, and the chances they ran into each other were basically nil.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign was delighted now that he was inside.
He didn’t try and solve the formation like Tang Jie, nor did he have a body on the outside to inform him of the changed flow of time. Thus, after making several attempts and finding this maze formation difficult to solve, he decided to not try, flying straight into the void.
He clearly planned to push through with the power of an Earth Immortal.
But he didn’t get far before there was a boom in the distance, as if something had been awakened, followed by a resounding roar. It was like the roar of a behemoth from ancient history, instilling an inexplicable fear in all who heard it.
Stunned, the Flame Celestial Sovereign immediately stopped, and he saw two points of starlight light up in the darkness.
No, those weren’t stars, but eyes.
Those two giant star-like eyes illuminated the darkness, revealing a savage face. Upon closer inspection, this was a giant snake, slithering through the void, its body exuding power and age.
“This is… an Epoch Behemoth of Remote Antiquity!” the Flame Celestial Sovereign cried out.
This was clearly a being from the ancient times of Remote Antiquity.
Such existences were difficult to classify in terms of strength. After all, living this long was an expression of strength all on its own.
The Remote Antiquity serpent seemed to sweep across the sea of stars as it slithered to the Flame Celestial Sovereign, and then it swung its tail at him.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign didn’t dare to stay still, immediately shooting off in a streak of flame.
But the snake’s tail was even faster, slamming into the Flame Celestial Sovereign. Fortunately, he had activated his crown in time, at the same time casting his Original Divine Flame Shield.
This was his strongest shield, but when the snake’s tail made impact, the shield crumpled as if it was made of paper. The tail continued, slamming into the crown’s barrier in an eruption of rainbow light.
Living up to its reputation as a Dao armament, the crown managed to block the Epoch Behemoth’s strike, but while it had stopped the attack, it couldn’t neutralize the impact. The Flame Celestial Sovereign was sent flying like a ball, wailing as he accelerated toward the vortex, and in a flash, he had gone through.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign had survived thanks to the supreme defense of the crown, but this setback left him angered and confused. How could there be such a terrifying fiend in this maze formation? With such a fiend, even a True Immortal might not be able to push through.
Tang Jie had gone in earlier, and if he had run into this Remote Antiquity fiend, he would undoubtedly have died. Of course, his death was secondary to the loss of the precious Deicide Flame. However, when he had been flying through the void, he had been able to sense the Deicide Flame’s presence.
Could Tang Jie still be alive?
If he was, how had he endured the strike?
But after some thought, the Flame Celestial Sovereign soon realized that Tang Jie probably hadn’t tried to force his way through, choosing to patiently solve the formation instead, which spared him the wrath of that fiend. Right now, that giant serpent had stopped moving after sending him flying. It was clear that it bore no hostility to those on the asteroids.
Realizing this, he managed to calm down, and he began to wonder if he should go back in.
As he was thinking, a group of cultivators flew over, cheering once they saw the vortex.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign hadn’t expected other cultivators to come here. In the middle of his shock, one of them pointed at him and said, “There’s someone over there. I’m guessing all this uproar has to do with him.”
“It seems like he suffered a setback and ran back out again without getting anything.”
“Ask him what’s inside,” a cultivator said.
One of them flew over to the Flame Celestial Sovereign.
The Flame Celestial Sovereign was furious. He was no native of the Vast Wilderness Continent and had come across this place while wandering the myriad domains. Upon hearing that the Court of Myriad Domains was open, he had gone inside, arriving later than all the other groups by several days. Thus, he didn’t understand the organizations and factions of this place.
Seeing that this yellow-robed cultivator approaching him wasn’t very strong, he impatiently said, “Go away. I don’t have time to worry about you.”
“Mm?” In the group of cultivators, a white-browed elder suddenly opened his eyes.
The moment he did, a flood of power rushed out, making the Flame Celestial Sovereign shudder. “True Immortal?”
“Audacious!” the white-browed elder roared, thrusting out a palm.
With the crown, the Flame Celestial Sovereign was sure that he could block this attack, but in his many years of traveling, he knew that he couldn’t show his treasures lightly. He had put the crown away the moment he had spotted those cultivators, and he certainly wouldn’t use it now that he saw a True Immortal was among them. Rather than dodging, he let the elder slam him into the ground, pleading, “This lowly one was wrong to offend a True Immortal!”
The elder saw that he wasn’t resisting and snorted. “This old man hates wandering cultivators like you, incompetent and blind, only living so long thanks to your shamelessness.”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign was inwardly furious, but he could only plead, “This lowly one was truly blind!”
“You truly are blind to not recognize the uniform of my Heaven’s Equal Sect. Telling us to leave? That’s no different from suicide!” a cultivator harrumphed.
“‘The Heaven’s Equal Sect’?” The Flame Celestial Sovereign trembled.
Although he was ignorant of this place, he still knew about the Heaven’s Equal Sect. He felt like kicking himself for inadvertently offending the Heaven’s Equal Sect.
The white-browed elder said, “Tell us what the situation is inside. If all the information is correct, I will spare your life.”
The Flame Celestial Sovereign immediately told him everything he knew. Of course, he glossed over the matter of Tang Jie, only saying that a brat he had a grudge against had fled into the formation.
The white-browed elder was unconcerned once he heard that this person was only at Soul Projection. After some thought, he waved his hand and ordered, “Let’s go in!”
He still dared to go in, even after learning that there was a fiend from Remote Antiquity inside. It seemed like the Heaven’s Equal Sect was extremely confident in their strength!