Mist Abyss

Early the next morning, the river hanging upside down overhead once again shone with a dim blue light.

Xiao Yan said nothing about the faint trace of blood he had detected the night before. It had been too faint, gone in a flash, and he could not even be sure where the other party was. To speak up rashly now would do nothing but throw these young members of the Luo God Clan into disarray. Besides, given his current position in the group, they might not believe him even if he did.

He merely drew Luo Lan a little closer to his side without attracting notice as he got to his feet.

The entrance to the Mist Abyss lay beneath a Stone Island at the easternmost edge of the Jade Abyss. There, a massive torrent hung overhead, plunging vertically into the darkness below and forming a curtain of water dozens of zhang wide. Beyond it, a vast expanse of white mist could dimly be seen churning.

Luo Feng stood before the curtain of water and turned back. "Spiritual Energy will be suppressed in the Mist Abyss, and soul perception will be disrupted," he said gravely. "Once we go in, everyone stay close. Don't get separated."

With that, he was the first to leap into the curtain of water, and the others filed in after him. Xiao Yan held on to Luo Lan and followed at the very back. The instant they passed through the water, an icy dampness rushed against their faces. Then everything before them turned white. Mist-mist so thick it would not disperse.

The mist was so thick that they could not see their own hands before their faces. Xiao Yan looked down and found that he could not even make out the tips of his own feet. The footsteps and shouts of the Luo God Clan disciples around him seemed to drift near and far in an instant. Someone was clearly speaking right beside him, yet it sounded as though a mountain stood between them. He tried extending his Soul Power, but as soon as it left his body, the thick mist swallowed it whole, like a clay ox sinking into the sea.

"Xiao Yan? Xiao Yan!" Luo Lan's voice rang out beside him, tinged with panic.

"I'm here." Xiao Yan tightened his grip on his wrist, but Luo Lan sounded even more panicked. "The people ahead... where are the people ahead?"

Xiao Yan did not answer. He narrowed his eyes and stared into the white mist ahead. Something was wrong with this mist. He could sense an exceedingly faint yet exceedingly regular fluctuation flowing through it. Ring upon ring, layer upon layer, the fluctuations enveloped the entire space like a giant net. He had encountered this feeling before, in the Bewildering Tracks Array in the outer city of Luo Shen City that had led him back to the same street three times.

"Spirit Marks..." Xiao Yan murmured.

Half a day later, the twenty-three Luo God Clan disciples gathered once again before the gray stone stele that stood half a person's height. This was already the fifth time. After entering the Mist Abyss, the group, led by Luo Feng, had managed with great difficulty to reunite by sensing one another's communication jade talismans. They had then kept walking in one direction, but no matter which way they went or how long they walked, they always ended up back before this stele.

A line of ancient seal script was carved into the stele. Worn away by the passage of who knew how many years, it had long since become blurred, and only the characters "Luo" and "heart" could faintly be made out. A stir began to run through the crowd.

"What on earth is going on?"

"Didn't the records say the Mist Abyss was just a stretch of thick mist? Why can't we get out?"

"Could it be... a trial left behind by our ancestors?" Luo Feng stood before the stele, his brows tightly furrowed. A grave look had finally appeared on his usually composed face. He had tried everything: using Spiritual Energy to clear a path, using Spirit Marks to scout the way, and even using sword Qi to cut through the mist. But whenever the mist was cut apart, it closed up again in the blink of an eye, as though nothing had happened.

"Enough!" an impatient voice rang out. Luo Xiao strode out of the crowd with his spear in hand and said coldly, "We've gone around and around, but it's just a patch of damned mist. I refuse to believe I can't pierce through it with one thrust!"

"Luo Xiao, don't!" Luo Feng shouted gravely. But it was already too late. Luo Xiao flicked his spear, and a silvery-white spear light, like a roaring silver dragon, stabbed fiercely into the thick mist ahead.

"Hiss!"

The spear light plunged into the mist, piercing an opening several zhang long. But the next moment, mist abruptly churned along the edges of the opening. Strands of it gathered and twisted, and in the blink of an eye, they formed more than a dozen wolf-shaped beasts made entirely of white mist. Dim blue light flickered in the eyes of the mist wolves, and low growls rumbled in their throats.

"Roar!"

The dozen or so mist wolves pounced at once. Luo Feng shouted, "Form up!" and his longsword flashed from its sheath. The scene instantly descended into chaos. The Luo God Clan disciples drew their weapons one after another and fought the mist wolves, but the creatures were exceedingly strange. Whenever a blade struck one, it scattered into mist, only to reform in an instant. There was no end to them, while their sharp claws left bloody gashes deep enough to expose bone whenever they struck someone.

Luo Xiao swept one mist wolf apart with his spear, only to turn and see it reforming behind him. His expression finally changed.

Xiao Yan pulled Luo Lan behind him, but his gaze did not fall on the mist wolves. Instead, he stared fixedly at the gray stone stele. Luo Xiao's thrust had disturbed all the mist and, for an instant, exposed the pattern of the Spirit Mark net that enveloped everything. Xiao Yan gathered all his Soul Power into his eyes at that moment, and he saw it.

The Spirit Marks flowing through the mist were not in disarray. Centered on the stele, they spread outward in rings, like ripples spreading across a lake when a stone was thrown into it. And all those ripples pushed outward, so no matter which direction a person walked, that unseen force would gradually push them off course until they circled back to the stele. But ripples had a source.

"Go against them."

Xiao Yan had not spoken loudly, yet his voice reached Luo Feng's ears clearly through the chaotic sounds of battle. Luo Feng cleaved a mist wolf apart and looked back at him.

"The mist is pushing outward. Anyone who tries to walk out will be pushed back." Xiao Yan pointed at the stele, speaking rapidly. "The exit isn't outside. It's inside. Go against the flow of the mist, directly beneath the stele."

Hearing this, Luo Feng frowned slightly and looked at the stele. "The ground beneath the stele is solid."

"It's solid ground, but it's also the array's core," Xiao Yan said. "This array works on the same principle as the Bewildering Tracks Array in the outer city of Luo Shen City, but this one is much older and much stronger. The gaps in the Bewildering Tracks Array are between its nodes. This one's gap is right in the middle of the array's core."

Several Luo God Clan disciples struggling nearby could not help turning to exchange bewildered looks. Luo Xiao panted heavily and was about to speak. "What makes you so-"

"I believe him," Luo Feng interrupted. He gave Xiao Yan a long look, then stepped up to the stele. He turned his longsword point downward, and an extremely condensed Spirit Mark flowed down the blade and stabbed fiercely into the ground at the foot of the stele.

Hum!

A dim blue light suddenly shone from the blurred characters "Luo" and "heart" on the stele. As the light flashed, the thick mist throughout the Mist Abyss churned violently. The mist wolves, which had been attacking ferociously, abruptly froze. Then, one after another, they turned into wisps of white mist and dispersed into the air.

Directly beneath the stele, a deep fissure slowly opened in the ground. Bone-chilling cold rushed out from it. It was the entrance to the Cold Abyss.

Silence fell over everyone.

All eyes slowly shifted from the fissure to the slender figure standing at the edge of the crowd, his blue robes hanging freely. The defiance and disdain in those gazes yesterday had quietly become something else. Luo Lan poked his head out from behind Xiao Yan, looked at the fissure, then at the dumbstruck faces around him. His chest gradually puffed out, and his chin rose almost to the sky.

Luo Feng sheathed his sword and walked over to Xiao Yan. After a moment of silence, he cupped his fists. "Thank you."

Xiao Yan smiled and waved a hand. "Hehe, that sword strike of yours was more precise than I expected."

Luo Feng was also taken aback for a moment, and a rare smile appeared on his composed face. Only Luo Xiao stood among the crowd, his face alternating between green and white, his knuckles pale around his spear. After a long while, he squeezed out a few words through his teeth. "...Just luck." No one responded.

The group leaped into the fissure one after another and made their way down. The cold grew more intense as they descended, and the lips of the weaker disciples turned purple, forcing them to circulate Spiritual Energy to protect themselves. After descending for who knew how long, they finally saw a faint ice-blue light ahead. They emerged from the fissure, and the view suddenly opened up before them.

It was an enormous ice cavern. Its walls were covered in profound ice that had not melted for ten thousand years, crystal clear and refracting a dim, cold light. At the center lay a frigid pool a thousand zhang across. Its water was black as ink and so still that not a single ripple disturbed it. Wisps of chilling cold rose from its surface.

And on a small island of ice in the very center of the pool stood a little tree, crystalline from top to bottom. It was only as tall as a person, its branches and leaves seemingly carved from ice. Three fist-sized fruits hung from its branches, a faint ice-blue radiance flowing within them. Each time that radiance flickered, the cold throughout the cavern trembled lightly in response.

"Ice Soul Spiritual Fruit..." someone in the crowd cried out. Xiao Yan's gaze swept over the little tree before settling on the ink-black water, and his brows furrowed slightly. Beside him, Luo Xiao's eyes, however, brightened little by little.