She felt she had been running for at least the time it takes to burn two incense sticks, yet the path ahead remained endless, with mist swirling everywhere, its end nowhere in sight.
Something wasn’t right.
“This mountain path never ends,” Feng Miaojun stopped and frowned, saying, “I remember this bluestone by the path—I’ve already passed it once.” She had even made a mark on it, but when she encountered it again, the mark was gone.
Bai Ban’s voice, produced through friction vibrations, sounded very strange: “An illusion. It’s easy to set up illusions in this environment.”
Feng Miaojun was furious: “Why didn’t you say so earlier!” Time was what she lacked most right now.
Bai Ban felt wronged: “Everyone’s specialized illusions are ever-changing. I needed some time to confirm this was an illusion rather than Lord Ao’s spatial divine power.” These two methods of infinitely extending space—one virtual, one real—naturally required completely different approaches.
Feng Miaojun was extremely angry: “Look at the lush vegetation by the roadside. Isn’t it obvious this is an illusion?”
“…Oh, right.” Bai Ban suddenly realized, and Feng Miaojun gave it a hard knock on the head. This poisonous fog was so potent, almost to the point of corroding everything, so the plants along the path should have rotted away. How could they still be so lush and green?
The only explanation was that they were all fake, merely visual deceptions.
“You dare say you possess a Mirage Pearl?” Feng Miaojun had broken through illusions set by Bai Ban when traveling with Yun and knew that the first method to break an array was to disrupt established patterns and never follow the array-maker’s intentions. Since there was only one winding mountain path in the mist, what she needed to do was forge a new path.
On either side of the mountain path, the left was a vertical cliff face and the right was a precipice. She casually picked up a stone and threw it down, hearing a “splash” only after a long while.
Below was seawater.
Cone Tail Mountain formed a sixty-degree angle with the sea surface, and indeed part of it hung over the sea.
If this was an illusion, it was truly realistic.
Feng Miaojun’s first choice was naturally to climb the cliff face on the left.
With her now abundant strength, she climbed up like a gecko, reaching the top almost effortlessly.
When her feet touched solid ground, she discovered that before her was another winding mountain path…
Damn it, wasn’t this just the same path as below? Even the curvature of the bends was identical!
In her original world, this would be called a ghost maze, right?
It seemed going up wouldn’t work, so should she jump down? Feng Miaojun approached the edge of the cliff and looked down, but as expected, she could see nothing but whiteness.
Dangers lurked everywhere in an illusion. She dared not be careless and took out her Star Heaven Spike, planting it firmly in the rock face, and climbed down step by step.
Then, her feet touched solid ground again.
It was that familiar path that made her want to explode with rage.
Feng Miaojun gritted her teeth: “No way out?” Even the most complex arrays would leave those inside a slim chance of survival. In a situation like this, where neither heaven nor earth offered an escape route, it could only mean the “exit door” was too well hidden.
She had explored everything. The mountain wall was solid, not hollow. That meant the only way to escape from here was… she turned her gaze toward the cliff.
“What if the creator of this illusion is certain we wouldn’t dare to jump off the cliff directly?”
Bai Ban was startled: “You want to jump down directly?” What if there were jagged reefs below or a drop of over a hundred zhang…
“I mean jump ‘across’,” Feng Miaojun corrected it. “Come, change your form.”
She kneaded Bai Ban into two silver threads, threading them through the tail of the Star Heaven Spike to make a line shuttle, then firmly planted the spike into the rock wall.
Holding the end of the thread, she accelerated and leaped from the edge of the cliff with all her might, instantly being enveloped by the thick cyan mist and disappearing!
Ordinary threads would be instantly devoured in the cyan mist; only Bai Ban could resist such corrosion.
This flying leap carried her at least twenty zhang (over sixty meters).
And then, the fog that had made it impossible to see one’s hand before one’s face suddenly vanished, revealing a pitch-black stone wall directly ahead. She had jumped with such force that she should have crashed into it, suffering a bloody head wound.
However, her reactions were extremely quick. Taking a deep breath, her body became as flexible as if boneless, almost flat against the stone wall, and then she used the momentum to climb upward.
Looking back now, where were the cliffs and clouds? Behind her was just a small hill, which perhaps once had some vegetation but now was bare, corroded by the cyan mist.
During those two cups of tea worth of time, she had been led by the illusion, circling around this hill countless times.
Thankfully she had jumped out. In the illusion, the bottom of the cliff was a rocky reef, and few people would dare to leap out like she did. The stone wall she was now clinging to was the real Cone Tail Peak!
Whether this was set up by Fu Lingchuan or the Crab Spirit, it was truly ingenious.
It must be understood that the mermen were numerous and powerful, while Fu Lingchuan, as an outsider, had no foundation here. She couldn’t even imagine what methods Fu Lingchuan could use to block so many pursuers, let alone with powerful beings gathered on the island, none of whom would sit idly by while he collected the divine artifact.
No matter how he resisted, it would be like an ant trying to stop a chariot. In the current era, it is no longer possible for a lone hero to defeat an entire group.
So instead of resistance, he chose disguise. To fight against superior numbers while conserving energy, the best method was to set up illusions, causing confusion without awareness.
She shook her head, put away the Star Heaven Spike and Bai Ban, and climbed up in just a few movements. A faint cyan mist floated in the air, and almost all the mountain vegetation had rotted away.
Fearing Fu Lingchuan might have more tricks, she simply abandoned the mountain path and climbed vertically upward, bending her knees and extending her arms, more flexible than a monkey.
Spiral Float Mountain became narrower toward the top. After climbing for a short while, she heard human voices ahead.
The voice sounded somewhat familiar.
Without waiting for her command, Bai Ban activated an illusion, allowing her to blend with the surrounding scenery even while moving. Finally, she climbed over the terrain and hid behind a cluster of dead bamboo, looking outward. Sure enough, she saw the Merman King, with four or five others standing beside him, all with extraordinary bearing, though not all were sea folk.
The entire Spiral Float Mountain was shrouded in a faint cyan mist. Those who could stand here unharmed must have astonishing cultivation.
Someone was saying: “We’ve searched three times, but found no one. Could Fu Lingchuan be performing the heaven sacrifice ritual in the city?”
This was the pointed tip of the spiral shell. Though the entire island was not small, the pointed end of the spiral crab’s tail was less than eighty zhang in circumference. Apart from a few trees killed by the poison, everything was visible.
When he said they had searched three times, Feng Miaojun was grateful she had arrived late and had Bai Ban to help conceal her form; otherwise, these people would have spotted her immediately.
Speaking of which, where was Fu Lingchuan? The Spiral Tail Peak had so little space that not only these powerful beings but even ordinary people could see everything at a glance.
She intuitively felt her deduction should be correct. Earlier, seeing the mermen guards defending the mountain, she had thought Fu Lingchuan’s resistance was particularly fierce, so much so that even the Merman King couldn’t subdue him for a time. Who knew these people had simply vanished, leaving no trace to be found?