At this point, Xu Yi still refused to give up. He repeatedly probed with his perception several more times, and finally accepted the disappointing truth.
His body went limp, and he leaned against the wall. Opening his eyes, he tilted his head back and gazed at the sky. A waning moon hung beyond the cave, its pale glow dim. Inside the cavern, everything was pitch-black, not even a glimmer of light to be had.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
A thought struck Xu Yi, and he suddenly remembered: ever since he had entered this place, the waning moon in the sky had barely shifted at all. The absence of light inside the cavern could be explained, since it was surrounded on three sides by enormous rocks that blocked the moonlight.
He looked through the cave entrance toward the boulder, withdrew his magic power, and shut off his night vision. When he looked closely, the boulder was dark and hazy, with not a trace of moonlight cast upon it.
At last, Xu Yi was certain. That waning moon in the sky might well be a fake. And if this fake moon happened to hang where people inside the cavern could see it, surely there had to be a reason for it.
The thought flashed through Xu Yi's mind, and in an instant, he understood. He didn't dare turn his head to look, but fixed his perception on a hazy crescent mark on the western wall. The mark was extremely faint and casually drawn; at a glance, it was no different from the countless other patterns in the cavern's rock.
He carefully examined it over and over with his perception, and was almost certain: the crescent was exactly proportional to the waning moon in the sky.
There had to be something strange