425: Chapter 425 Blank Nothingness

The crimson light ladder was not scorching; stepping on it felt elastic, like walking on the body of some animal.

The group walked in silence, the atmosphere heavier than it had been on the wasteland.

That "Heart-Questioning" strike just now appeared to have been effortlessly neutralized by Ye Tian, but in reality, everyone had taken a few heavy hits—not physically, but mentally.

After all, they were all Prodigies in the eyes of others, yet in the first trial just now, they had appeared so powerless.

Xiahou Ba walked in the middle, and his axe was no longer carried as steadily as before.

He would occasionally glance at Ye Tian's back from the corner of his eye, his gaze a mix of admiration and an indescribable awkwardness.

The admiration was because Ye Tian's manipulation of "fire" was both uncanny and powerful; the awkwardness was because... he himself had nearly been stunned by the destructive intent carried within those fire snakes, and he had almost lost his grip on his axe. How embarrassing.

Qin Pojun walked at the very front, his spine still straight.

He came from a military background, which valued strict obedience and an iron will.

But when the intent of "what is fire" slammed into his mind, what flashed before his eyes was a burning border city, the ferocious face of an enemy general in the flames, and that night after he first killed someone, when he could not wash the stench of blood from his hands.

Distracting thoughts. He loathed any distracting thoughts that made his spear tip waver.

Yun Wuji, Yu Miaoqing, and Feng Xuan stayed close, their steps synchronized—a tacit understanding born of long-term cooperation.

But the expressions on their faces were not good.

Yun Wuji's lips were pressed into a straight line, Yu Miaoqing would occasionally touch her brow with her fingertip unconsciously, and Feng Xuan could not help but look at his sword-wielding hand.

When blocking just now, his hand had trembled.

The sword of the Liuli Xuan Sect emphasized the unity of heart and sword.

If the heart was shaken, the sword would become sluggish.

For them, this was harder to accept than being injured.

Pei Tieshan supported Dongfang Xinghe; the old Formation Master's face was ashen, his forehead covered in cold sweat, and he was still muttering words like "Formation Eye circulation" and "mental projection," clearly trying to understand the recent encounter in a way he was accustomed to, but his mind seemed still in chaos.

Han Xiao carried the Ghost Girl on his back, his steps the steadiest, but the aura around him was colder than before.

Shui Qingdie followed half a step behind Ye Tian's side.

She had not suffered any injuries and her consumption was minimal because most of the attacks had been invisibly neutralized by Ye Tian.

But as she looked at Ye Tian's profile, which appeared paler than before, and the dark red faintly seeping out from under the bandages on his neck, her heart tightened.

She wanted to ask, wanted to support him, but Ye Tian walked very steadily, his gaze fixed on the end of the light ladder, filled with a depth and calm she could not fathom.

She dared not disturb him and could only bury her worry deep in her heart.

The light ladder was very long, so long that one almost forgot the passage of time.

Just as this silent trek, where each was digesting their own wounds, was almost becoming a torment, they reached the end.

It was a volcanic crater formed of dark red crystals.

There was no magma, only a bottomless abyss in the center, swirling with misty red light.

On the edge of the abyss stood a simple stone archway; inside the gate was the vortex of red light, leading to an unknown destination.

On either side of the archway was a stone lamp. Inside the lamps were not flames, but two spheres of crimson light halo, floating quietly and slowly changing shape.

"That's it?" Xiahou Ba craned his neck to peer into the abyss, and a scorching yet pure breath rushed toward him; he quickly pulled back. "Jump down from here? Or enter the gate?"

"It should be to enter the gate." Yun Wuji observed the archway and the stone lamps. "This place is the end of the trial space; this gate is the exit, or... the entrance to the next stage."

"Shall we enter?" Qin Pojun turned back, his gaze sweeping over everyone, finally resting on Ye Tian.

Unconsciously, this decision again required Ye Tian to make it.

Ye Tian did not answer immediately.

He walked to the archway and reached out, seemingly wanting to touch the crimson light halo, but stopped the moment his fingertips were about to touch it.

He withdrew his hand, frowning slightly.

"What is it, Junior Brother Ye?" Shui Qingdie immediately noticed.

"It feels... a bit strange." Ye Tian said in a low voice, his gaze fixed on the two crimson light halos. "This gate, these two 'lamps,' give me a feeling that is very... 'empty.'"

"Unlike the lava giant before, which had a clear will and testing intent."

"Empty?" Dongfang Xinghe struggled to straighten up from Pei Tieshan's arm, squinting to examine the archway and the stone lamps, his fingers beginning to calculate again. "Hmm... indeed, the Formation circulation is nearly stagnant, only maintaining the most basic spatial channel."

"This doesn't look like a mechanism, but rather like..."

"Like an ordinary door." Han Xiao suddenly spoke. "Once you pass through, it's the next place. No traps, no trials."

"That simple?" Xiahou Ba did not believe it. "That big rock lump just now gave us a headache with its questions, and now it's just sending us out? Could there be such a good thing?"

"Perhaps," Yu Miaoqing looked at the red light vortex, "the 'Heart-Questioning' trial was already outside the gate. If you pass, there is a path. If you don't, there is no path. The gate itself needs no further obstacles."

The reasoning seemed to hold up.

But precisely because it was too reasonable, it made people feel uneasy.

Along the way, this Secret Realm had been full of strangeness and danger everywhere; suddenly providing a seemingly normal exit made them feel that something was wrong.

"Brother Ye, what is your opinion?" Qin Pojun asked again.

He trusted Ye Tian's judgment, especially when it involved this kind of "feeling."

Ye Tian was silent for a moment.

He closed his eyes, his spiritual sense slowly probing toward the archway and the red light vortex.

There were no barriers, no dangerous aura; his spiritual sense passed through smoothly, perceiving that the other side was a vast, empty space with an aura completely different from this one.

It was very safe.

But the moment he was about to withdraw his spiritual sense, the chaos bead moved within his Sea of Consciousness.

Immediately after, an indescribable feeling of "incoordination" was fed back along his spiritual sense.

The feeling flashed and vanished, as fast as an illusion.

Ye Tian opened his eyes, a trace of doubt flashing in them.

The chaos bead's sensing would not be wrong, and that feeling of "incoordination" did indeed exist.

Yet the spiritual sense investigation clearly showed everything was normal.

"There is something strange," he finally said, his tone certain. "But the spiritual sense cannot detect it. This gate... might not be that simple."

"Shall we enter or not?" Feng Xuan asked the key question. They could not just keep wasting time here.

"Enter." Ye Tian spat out one word. "But we must be careful. I will go first, and Brother Qin will bring up the rear. No matter what we see inside, do not scatter, do not easily touch anything, and first confirm each other's positions and the environment."

The arrangement was prudent.

Everyone nodded, bracing themselves and suppressing the unease in their hearts.

Ye Tian took a deep breath, took the first step, and crossed into the red light vortex.

There was no spinning of the world, no spatial tearing.

Just a blur before his eyes, the crimson faded, replaced by a vast... expanse of gray-white.

He stood in a space so huge it was unimaginable.

Up, down, left, right, front, and back—the six directions were all uniform, glowing gray-white, boundless, with no sky and no earth.

The ground beneath his feet was solid, the touch hard, and it was made of the same gray-white material.

There were no reference points here, no sound, no smell, and one could not even feel the flow of Spiritual Qi, only a deathly silence of "emptiness."

Immediately after, light and shadow flickered behind him, and Qin Pojun, Shui Qingdie, Xiahou Ba, Yun Wuji, and others appeared by his side one after another.

Everyone's faces wore the confusion and vigilance of having just entered this place; they quickly gathered together and formed a defensive Formation.

"This... what kind of place is this?" Xiahou Ba swung his axe and turned in a circle; every direction looked exactly the same. "A maze? An illusion Formation?"

"It doesn't look like it." Dongfang Xinghe's face turned even paler. He looked around, and for the first time, a confusion bordering on fear appeared in his eyes. "There is no Formation fluctuation, no Spiritual Qi nodes, no boundaries... This is impossible! Every space has its principles, but here... there is nothing!"

"Brother Han?" Yun Wuji looked at Han Xiao.

Han Xiao shook his head silently, indicating that he also had no clue.

The Ghost Girl on his back remained unconscious.

Shui Qingdie subconsciously moved closer to Ye Tian and whispered, "Junior Brother Ye, it feels... so uncomfortable here."

It was a sense of emptiness, of being completely stripped away and having nothing to rely on, which made one's heart panic.