Chapter 4219: You Can't Turn Back
Lin Moyu passed through the small garden and found himself before a palace lake, above which water bridges crisscrossed in a lattice. Suddenly, the space around him began shrinking, and the scenery in his vision distorted.
An immense force slammed into him from the front, as though a solid, unbreakable wall crashed hard into his body. With a bang, Lin Moyu was knocked back several hundred meters before coming to a stop almost returning to the small garden he had just left. This force took him by surprise, but it wasn't strong enough to injure him.
Once steady, Lin Moyu understood what had happened: after that tree escaped, the previously expanded space rapidly collapsed back to its original size, forming a spatial wall that knocked him back. The space inside the Heavenly Void Palace seemed independent and extremely sturdy; had a battle of that scale occurred elsewhere, the entire void would have shattered, but here, space remained unmoved.
Looking back at the small garden, Lin Moyu let slip a barely perceptible smile and swept his gaze toward the sky. Then he continued on toward the lake, his movements on the surface appearing utterly normal. Inwardly, though, Lin Moyu remarked, "So it really is you; looks like you want to get inside the Heavenly Void Palace too. What is truly in there?"
Just now, as he was nearly forced back into the small garden, he noticed something: within the network of spatial Daos overhead, he sensed the butler's (guan jia's) aura. The house steward hid himself well, but not well enough to evade Lin Moyu's perception. For the steward to silently enter the Heavenly Void Palace and trail behind meant he must be up to something.
Countless years ago, when the Kunlun Emperor came, the butler took advantage after Kunlun wounded Little Python, the steward killed the python, stripping this era's palace of its guardian. Over all those years, the butler must have entered the palace more than once, yet never achieved his goal. Perhaps he needed someone else's hand to succeed. By now, though, he had surely learned to circumvent the guardian and slip inside quietly, and as soon as Lin Moyu arrived, he followed.
Lin Moyu's curiosity only deepened: what was hidden within the Heavenly Void Palace? From his exchanges with the butler, he could already infer a few things: be the steward an artifact spirit or a living being, ultimately he sought one of two things power or freedom, and these are often inseparable. The butler likely wanted both.
He wasn't worried; the butler would show himself eventually, and Lin Moyu could then find out his intentions.
Returning to the lake, he stepped onto the bridges. The lake was sizable, and the bridges formed a dense maze. Here, a powerful force prevailed the sky pressed so low it was hard to fly. Lin Moyu tested the air, realizing it wasn't impossible to fly, but doing so would trigger a restriction and bring attack.
With his perception, Lin Moyu could see the restrictions above the lake: it was all one gigantic formation, grander than the Path of Seeking Truth but less complex, possessing some of the Dao's simplicity. Where there's a formation, he could take control, and by mastering the formation that blanketed the lake, he could pierce the maze's secrets.
Boom!
Suddenly, the lake erupted with spray, and a host of flying fish shot from the water, transforming into sharp arrows aimed at Lin Moyu. Each of these arrow fish was as strong as an Eternal. In the Heavenly Void Palace, Eternity seemed commonplace, making Lin Moyu feel a rare sense of awe after all, Eternity was already at the pinnacle of the domain, yet here it appeared almost everywhere, which only testified to the palace's overwhelming level.
A wave of undead servants appeared, morphing into shields to block the arrow fish. When arrow fish met undead, they erupted with thunderous blasts, disintegrating the undead instantly to dust. Each explosion was like an Eternal self destructing; the undead couldn't withstand it.
Strangely, though, the explosions only affected the undead, with no impact on the surroundings this made Lin Moyu cautious. If he, rather than his undead, were targeted, the explosion could reduce him to fragments too. While he could revive, if the number of deaths surpassed his limit, it might mean true death. His current limit was once per second, resetting every twenty seconds; he couldn't exceed that. If he did, actual death could occur.
But he still had enough undead. When one batch died, the next instantly replaced them and so the cycle continued, with neither side exhausting its numbers. Arrow fish kept surging endlessly from below the lake, as if infinite.
As the deadly cycle repeated, Lin Moyu realized something was wrong: no conjured enemy should sustain itself forever.
Examining the lake, at last he saw its true nature. The lake, too, housed a formation one integrated with the formation above. The heavenly formation supplied a flood of Dao, and the "arrow fish" were not real, but attacks born of the formation. As long as the Heavenly Void Palace's Dao was not exhausted, the attacks would never cease.
The more he studied it, the more wrong it felt the power here would overwhelm even him. If the Kunlun Emperor once came and walked a similar path, he must have faced something similar, and yet the Emperor clearly passed through. This meant a solution must exist; Lin Moyu's current approach was not the correct one.
Deciding to solve it by unraveling the formation, Lin Moyu focused on the sky's formation the one in the lake was too well hidden, with its workings uncertain. The formation in the sky was subtle and, paradoxically, more difficult to break for its simplicity. The whole thing maintained a kind of balance akin to a natural formation, stymieing easy efforts.
After some observation, Lin Moyu figured out the trick. "So that's how it works…"
He took three steps forward. Instantly, the tumultuous lake stilled, and all the arrow fish vanished as if the previous assault were a dream. He hadn't yet broken the formation, but he understood its operating logic.
The formation imposed a rule on the bridge above the lake: remain still on the walkway, and the lake's formation would attack. Try to retrace your steps, and you'd be attacked as well. You could only go forward never back. Only by continually pressing on would the lake remain calm.
But the walkways were as twisted as a labyrinth. If anyone lost their way and tried to turn back, they would be beset with overwhelming attacks that even most Eternals couldn't survive, much less anyone less than half step to Chaos Realm. If indeed the Kunlun Emperor once walked here, he must have simply kept moving, never pausing following the right path.
While pondering, the lake exploded again into arrow fish as Lin Moyu stopped a moment. With just two seconds of hesitation, the formation reactivated, unleashing another round of attacks.
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