Fang Shu stared brightly at the stone altar.
Again and again, he sent his divine sense into it, confirming that beyond the stone altar's gateway lay a hazy, mist-shrouded world.
"An opportunity!"
Delight surged through him. He nearly leaped inside at once, eager to see what kind of hidden realm lay beyond the altar.
But even with such an opportunity before him, Fang Shu kept his composure.
His gaze shifted, and with a buzzing hum, gu insects burrowed out of the ground and appeared before him.
At his silent signal, the gu insects rose into the air, their wings vibrating as they flew toward the spiritual-energy gateway atop the stone altar.
As the gu insects neared the gateway, their bodies flickered—and they truly vanished from where they had been.
Fang Shu's divine sense was attached within the gu insects. He had intended to carefully inspect the hidden realm, only to discover that mere breaths after the insects flew in, they disappeared from his perception.
It was not that the gu insects had suddenly died, nor that the divine sense he had hidden in their bodies had been destroyed. They had simply vanished into thin air!
The disappearance was clean and decisive, as if those gu insects had never existed in the world at all.
"What is this..." Alarmed, Fang Shu immediately performed divinations, only to find that no matter what method he used, he could not sense the gu insects sent into the hidden realm.
"All karmic ties have vanished; they cannot be sensed. Are my divination arts too crude, or is there something strange about this hidden realm?"
Frowning, Fang Shu paced back and forth around the stone altar.
He discovered that no matter from which direction he looked, the gateway atop the altar always faced him directly. It