58: Talisman

The sea breeze grew stronger, fluttering Lin Mo’s robes.

He stood atop a cliff overlooking the sea, gazing far to the east where the water met the sky.

It was the seventh day since leaving the Crimson Flame Mountain Range.

Lin Mo stood at the edge of a coastline jagged with black reefs.

This was already the far east of the continent, a place where few humans ever set foot.

Looking out as far as the eye could see, at the limit of his vision where the grey water met the sky, he could vaguely discern the outline of a massive grey vortex.

Even from such a distance, he could feel a heart-palpitating pull and a sense of spatial distortion emanating from that direction.

The Endless Sea Eye.

“That’s the place,” Lin Mo whispered to himself.

He first sat down cross-legged, closing his eyes to regulate his breathing. Once he had adjusted his state to its peak, he began to observe carefully.

The tides here were chaotic and disordered.

As far as he could see, all floating objects eventually slid slowly and irresistibly toward that grey vortex.

Lead-grey clouds centered around the vortex, forming a massive funnel shape, with silent lightning occasionally flashing through the layers.

“The spatial structure is unstable.”

Fly across directly? He didn’t have the ability. Go by boat? Ordinary vessels would likely be torn to shreds instantly by the chaotic undercurrents and the suction of the Sea Eye.

His gaze fell upon the reefs along the coast, which were as black as iron.

These reefs had been washed and eroded by seawater containing alien energy for years, giving them a faint metallic luster and making them more resistant to that suction than ordinary rock.

A plan took shape in his mind.

He stood up and walked over to a giant black reef several people tall.

He pressed his fingers together like a sword, and pale gold True Yuan condensed at his fingertips.

Chish—

His fingers carved into the reef as if cutting through firm tofu.

Wherever his True Yuan passed, stone powder fell in showers, leaving behind gouges several inches deep.

He was carving a crude, enlarged variant combining the “Water Condensation Talisman” and the “Wind Control Talisman.”

Based on the rudimentary talisman principles included in the Basic Qi Cultivation Art and driven by True Yuan, the effect was unknown, but it was worth a try.

A moment later, the prototype of a reef raft appeared, about twenty feet long and five feet wide, shaped like a shuttle boat.

He separated it from the giant reef and used his True Yuan to carve more reinforcement and balance runes on the bottom and sides.

Finally, he untied the coarse cloth bundle on his back, revealing the demon suppressing sword.

He inserted the longsword upside down into a pre-made hole at the front of the stone raft; the blade flickered with starlight, and an invisible sealing and stabilization field spread out from the sword, enveloping the entire crude stone raft.

“Whether this works depends on you.” Lin Mo patted the hilt, took a deep breath, and pushed the stone raft into the sea.

The pitch-black seawater immediately surged around it; the stone raft sank slightly and then floated steadily.

The moment the carved runes came into contact with the seawater and the alien energy in the air, they lit up with a faint pale gold glow and did not collapse.

Instead, they began to slowly draw in trace amounts of moisture and wind from the water and air, forming a thin film of air around the stone raft, slightly reducing resistance and increasing buoyancy and stability.

The field of the demon suppressing sword effectively repelled the chaotic undercurrents and some of the suction, allowing the stone raft to travel as if in a relatively calm river channel.

It’s working!

Lin Mo leaped onto the front of the stone raft and sat cross-legged, his hands pressing against the raft’s body. He continuously output True Yuan to maintain and fine-tune the operation of the runes while communicating with the demon suppressing sword through his mind, guiding its field to counter the increasingly strong sense of spatial distortion.

The stone raft began to move, slowly at first, but as Lin Mo became more proficient in controlling the runes and using the demon suppressing sword's field, its speed gradually increased, like a black arrow piercing through the viscous seawater toward the massive grey vortex in the distance.

The closer he got, the more obvious the environmental anomalies became.

Light seemed to bend here, and the scenery in his field of vision appeared with double images and distortions.

Sounds became intermittent and distorted; the roar of the waves was sometimes right in his ears and sometimes distant like a hallucination.

The spatial suction grew exponentially; even with the demon suppressing sword's field weakening it, the stone raft began to accelerate uncontrollably, as if being dragged by an invisible giant hand.

The color of the seawater changed from deep black to an eerie grey-white mixture, like poor-quality stone slurry.

Occasionally, he could see the remains or fragments of strange, translucent, glowing creatures of indeterminate shape floating by, only to be instantly sucked into the depths of the vortex.

The temperature fluctuated violently and without pattern, sometimes unbearably hot and sometimes bone-chillingly cold.

The most dangerous things were the spatial cracks.

Without any warning, a long, thin fissure with edges flickering with unstable black light would suddenly appear on the sea surface or in the air ahead, silent yet emitting a terrifying aura that could destroy everything.

Some were only a foot long and vanished in an instant; others were several yards long and lasted for several breaths.

Lin Mo concentrated fully, pushing his True Yuan and perception to their limits. Combined with the faint early warning of spatial anomalies from the demon suppressing sword, he maneuvered the stone raft to evade at the last possible moment. Twice, when evasion was truly impossible, he could only fiercely activate the demon suppressing sword; the starlight surged as he struck out with a single slash!

The pale gold True Yuan, mixed with the Star Sealing Power, did not strike the spatial crack head-on but instead slashed at the unstable fluctuating nodes at the crack's edge.

Chila!

The crack twisted and contracted violently like a scorched wound; though it failed to close completely, it bought a sliver of a gap for the stone raft to pass through.

And so, during the heart-stopping voyage, after an unknown amount of time, the stone raft finally broke through an invisible barrier.

His vision suddenly broadened!

The "wall" of the grey vortex was right before his eyes. Inside the barrier was a bottomless darkness and vaguely visible shattered patterns.

Those were the remaining pulse lines of the foundation of the Ancient Seal Formation after it had been completely damaged here.

In the center of the vortex, where the barrier was relatively "thinnest," there was an irregular circular "hole" about ten feet in diameter.

The "other side" of the hole was neither the depths of the ocean nor rocky strata.

Instead, it was a bizarre scene that could not be accurately described in words!

There seemed to be broken mountains and rivers hanging upside down, and frozen flames growing like crystals; all the scenery presented an unreal sense of distortion and fragmentation.

The void rift!

The pulsing of the world quelling ruler fragment reached its peak at this moment, nearly bursting out of its confinement.

The demon suppressing sword also let out a high-pitched clear hum, its starlight more brilliant than ever before, as if echoing something or perhaps warning of something.

Lin Mo stared fixedly at the scene behind the rift, his mind suffering a massive shock.

That was not another world, or at least not a complete one. It was more like a "gap" between different worlds!

The ancient Array Guardian’s message of "nine deaths, no life" was perfectly understandable; in a place like this, let alone a Mortal, even a Golden Core Cultivator who barged in would likely be instantly shredded by the chaotic spatial rules and energy.

But "a sliver of a chance"... Lin Mo’s gaze fell upon the strange, glowing fragments slowly drifting along the edges of the rift.

Some fragments looked like the remains of certain metals or crystals, some looked like solidified clumps of energy, and one or two even vaguely showed the outlines of books or Jade Slips!