.
Ronan reached out and touched the blazing white flames ahead of him, then came to a preliminary conclusion:
These were Rule Flames that had shed their physical form, yet remained etched into this stretch of space.
And the "bait" from the Hundred Peaks Monarch that radiated those flames was increasingly likely to be a fragment of Tu Ge's "Trump Card"...
How many fragments were there? Ronan had once taken the most conservative view and assumed there was only one. But that would mean Luo Yuan's Plane Crossbow and the "bait" were the same thing. He had thought so for a time, but after leaving Test
Spacetime and gaining a clearer understanding of the arrangements in the Fog Maze, his thinking had changed.
Now he had further confirmation: Luo Yuan still had not appeared, even at this point, which made that possibility unlikely. Nor had Ronan ever imagined he would obtain this crucial "bait" so easily—a prize Li Wei and Tu Ge had plotted for years to seize without success. Raven had brought her talents and abilities to bear
to the fullest. Her brisk, straightforward approach was truly a cut above the rest. She had given Ronan such a wonderful surprise that he no longer knew how to put it into words.
Of course, Ronan did not yet have it in hand. The Rule Flames ahead might not be lethal, but they probably would not stand in his way.
Bringing it back afterward, though, might not be so easy.
Ronan did not rush into the area shrouded in Rule Flames. Instead, he turned to look behind him. This suddenly open, relatively stable space gave the Space-Time Architecture of his Relay Station a chance to catch its breath, but only for the moment. The space itself was held open by the