This grand celestial circuit formation contained countless smaller formations, meshing and turning like precision gears, cycling endlessly without cease. They maintained a stable, hidden balance while tightly sealing everything beneath the formation.
Fan Dazhi tried probing underground with his divine sense, but the moment it touched the ground, it struck an incredibly tough barrier and was swiftly repelled, unable to penetrate at all.
Stranger still was the unremarkable stone stele. When his divine sense touched it, it vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea, as though plunging headfirst into an endless, chaotic fog. His soul instantly reeled with dizziness, and even his sea of consciousness grew sluggish.
Through that daze, Linu's anguished, haggard face, her eyes swimming with tears, surfaced clearly in his mind once more. The glaring red mark on her neck seared his heart.
"A-Nu..." Fan Dazhi shook his head hard, shaking off the dizziness, then slapped himself, using the pain to force himself alert. He murmured, "I'll get you out... wait for me. You have to wait for me!"
Stars dotted the night sky, and a crescent moon shed its chilly light. A mountain wind suddenly rose, passing through jagged rocks and lonely tree shadows with a sobbing howl. Fan Dazhi shivered, his mind clearing with it.
His gaze sharpened. He spread his hands, his fingers shifting and crossing in a distinctive rhythm and speed, forming several intricate, mysterious hand seals in an instant.
As his finger seals stirred the energy, the dense, heavy earth-attribute primordial energy around him was precisely separated and drawn out, strand by strand, gathering into a small, soft halo of yellow-brown light before his palms.
He attached a wisp of divine sense to it and flicked his finger.
Fan Dazhi closed his eyes and carefully sensed its progress.
Attached to