"."
Chen Qiu stood there in expressionless silence, staring into the absolute darkness before him without speaking for a long while.
The faint thread of hope that had only just emerged was shattered once more.
This was the first opportunity he had encountered to escape this place in the seven and a half years he had been trapped here.
This Mocking Heaven Hall truly was a fine thing, but right now, he felt like a man trapped inside a mountain of gold. It reminded him of a distant fable buried deep within his nearly dust-sealed memories.
It was said that a thief had snuck into a Dragon Race treasure cave and stuffed countless treasures into his clothes. Yet when he tried to leave, the treasure-filled garments got him stuck in the cave entrance, leaving him unable to get out.
But he could not bear to let go.
At dawn, the dragon returned home, discovered the thief, and swallowed him in a single bite.
The thief had died to his own greed. Chen Qiu's current predicament somewhat resembled that thief's; the only difference was that he had not known he would be trapped here forever before entering. Otherwise, no matter how precious this Mocking Heaven Hall was, he would not have given it a second glance.
Within the Void.
Other than blindingly intense light, there was only blindingly intense light. There were no reference points whatsoever, and he could not distinguish east from west, north from south.
He had tried constantly ascending, but after rising for an entire day, he had still found nothing. The Void was not a flat expanse of space, but a three-dimensional emptiness.
As long as he could enter these Heavenly Dao Shackles, he probably would not be able to return home, but at least he could