Chapter 1414: Crimson Flowing Fire

Elsewhere, Qin Sang and his companions had run into much the same predicament.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Scorching, uncanny winds blew past in an unbroken stream. Beyond those winds there was nothing to see in any direction, above or below, not a single point of reference by which to fix their position.

At first glance the winds seemed unremarkable. Only on contact did their true menace become apparent. Within them coursed not only currents of crimson flame heat but also an unidentified golden substance resembling molten gold.

Ordinary defensive measures were all but useless against it. The four of them tried several protective secret techniques, their bodies erupting with light of every kind, yet the moment the golden substance touched them, those defenses proved as fragile as paper and were pierced straight through.

Whenever they tried to collect a sample for study, however, no method availed them. Every time, it vanished into nothingness right before their eyes.

Not one of the four had ever heard of anything so uncanny.

Fortunately the golden substance was not inexhaustible. It did not appear in every gust, and the intervals between left them considerably more room to maneuver.

"It disregards true essence entirely... To think such a thing exists in this world!" Daoist Qi exclaimed aloud. If they could master this substance, would they not be able to slaughter their way across the world unopposed?

Every art cultivator would be countered by it, and in the immortal cultivation world of the present day, nearly everyone was an art cultivator.

"This thing may not truly exist at all!" Valley Master Mu was staring intently at a silver shield in his hand.

The shield was one of his protective astras, and moments ago it had grown into a shield three zhang tall to block one of the winds. Several pools of golden liquid clung to its surface.

He had barely begun to move when a flash of golden light played out the familiar scene once more, and the liquid was gone without a trace.

He drew a deep breath. "In all likelihood it's an outward manifestation of the array's power. That power exceeds our own realm, which is why it appears so bizarre to us."

Qin Sang had said nothing throughout. Hearing this, he gave a silent nod.

He shared the assessment. Even if a treasure so miraculous did exist in the world, had Pure Sea Sect obtained it, they would surely have balked at spending it on an array. Refine it into astras instead, one for every member, and would Pure Sea Sect not have stood invincible beneath the heavens? The cultivators of the North Sea would have been lambs for the slaughter.

The likelier explanation was that this array, or the one who laid it, stood at a realm too high for their comprehension.

This is Pure Sea Sect's protective array, not some ancient relic like the one in Ziwei Palace. The array's provenance is extraordinary and whoever laid it was a great cultivator at minimum... Yet why would a power like this, a figure of such strength, remain unknown in the North Sea?

The thought surfaced suddenly, and Qin Sang found it strange. Casting his mind back over all the legends and curious tales he had heard in the North Sea, he could recall no mention of a Divine Transformation Realm Buddhist master.

Valley Master Mu said again, "The winds carrying that golden liquid only appear at intervals. That supports our conjecture. The array must need a certain amount of time to build them up."

"Even so, it's no good news for us." Daoist Wang sighed. "If it were only the golden liquid, that would be manageable. But those winds carry crimson flowing fire, and their force is staggering. Combined with the golden substance, they can strike the body of an astra itself without the slightest impediment. None of our life-bound astras are defensive in nature, and the highest quality among them is my high-grade Thousand-Pattern Shell. If we're trapped here too long, I'm worried that our astras will suffer for it."

The Thousand-Pattern Shell was the tortoise-shell astra she had produced earlier. Defensive astras renowned for sheer durability like it were uncommon to begin with.

As a rule, the highest-grade astra an immortal cultivator possessed was their own life-bound astra, since that was the easiest one to improve.

Among the four present, Valley Master Mu cultivated a life-bound insect gu. His Snake Spear served both offense and defense, but the serpent armor it conjured was useless against the golden liquid, and his silver shield was of lesser quality than Daoist Wang's Thousand-Pattern Shell.

Daoists Qi and Wang were both only early-stage Spiritual Infant cultivators and had not even refined their life-bound astras to the top grade. Fortunately Daoist Wang had come by the Thousand-Pattern Shell unexpectedly, or their position would have been more awkward still.

As for the treasures Qin Sang relied on most, none of them served him well here.

If only the Nine-Life Black Tortoise Shell were still usable. Qin Sang thought.

With a shell of that quality he would have had nothing to fear. But in recent years his energies had gone into refining the Divine Sun Tree and the Golden Sinking Sword, leaving him with only a few casually made defensive astras to keep up appearances.

A middle-grade copper mirror hovered before his chest, its surface pocked in several places from the battering it had just taken.

"The crimson flame qi cuts both ways for us," Qin Sang cut in, channeling true essence to smooth out the mirror's dents. "Pure Sea Sect's protective array is formidable enough that without the crimson flames battering it and shifting its configuration, perhaps even opening fissures in it, the Myriad Spirit Fruit's aura could never have escaped. Otherwise the Fire Jade Centipede would not have sensed it so easily."

"Well said! Every disadvantage carries its advantage. What's more, we've been in here a good while now and the array's configuration hasn't changed at all, which means it's a dead array. Breaking it won't be difficult, only time-consuming." Valley Master Mu nodded firmly, endorsing Qin Sang's reasoning. "Daoist Master, can the Fire Jade Centipede sense the Myriad Spirit Fruit at present?"

Qin Sang roused the centipede. A moment later he nodded slightly. "There are too many auras tangled together inside this array. It can only fix a rough direction."

He raised a hand and pointed to the left. The other three looked. The view there was no different from any other direction.

"For us, one direction is as good as another. Rather than hunt aimlessly for a flaw in the array, we may as well head that way!"

Valley Master Mu decided at once. The other three raised no objection, and they immediately changed course, flying off into the boundless space on their left.

Gust after uncanny gust assailed them as they went, but they had gained experience in handling them, and the passage proved uneventful.

Qin Sang had not neglected to observe Valley Master Mu's every move.

He suspected Pure Sea Sect and the witch race were bound together by countless threads, and that the valley master understood far more about the sect than he let on, withholding a great deal.

As matters stood, other Spiritual Infant cultivators might arrive at any moment, and seizing Pure Sea Sect's treasures quickly was the only sensible course. If Valley Master Mu knew anything that would help break the array, now was the time to produce it.

The result left Qin Sang somewhat puzzled. The valley master genuinely seemed to know nothing about the protective array.

Could Hundred Flowers Valley's grandmaster have obtained the witch race inheritance from somewhere else entirely, with no connection to Pure Sea Sect at all? Is this really nothing but coincidence? He began to doubt his own judgment.

Still, it was too early to draw conclusions before they had entered the sect proper. He resolved to shadow Valley Master Mu covertly once he had the Myriad Spirit Fruit in hand.

While his thoughts wandered, the array's configuration finally began to shift. As time passed, the winds grew steadily more frequent and more powerful, and the pressure on them mounted.

Before they knew it, they had flown through this space for four full hours and still had not reached its end!

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