745 Unexpected

Within the space-time vortex.

The huge top-shaped black war fort advanced slowly through the colorful space-time continuum.

The war fort flickered with the layers of faint glow from the formation runes. That was a space-time type formation rune which originated from the Heavenly Devil World.

The layers of colorful light around it pressed against the war fort like an incoming tide.

Lu Sheng stood alone within the war fort's main control room. The others stayed within the empty space of the war fort. They were sleeping within the custom-made space-time crystal capsules.

They were not Heavenly Devils, nor did they have extremely formidable physical bodies and spirits. They had no way of adapting to the huge changes in the rules outside.

Hence, isolating them from the space-time vortex like this was the only way of keeping them from harm for now.

They could only slowly begin to adapt to the conditions of the new world after they transmigrated there. Besides, this process would probably take a long time.

Lu Sheng stood within the war fort's main control room. He looked at the windowpane which had been reinforced with hundreds of layers of arcane art barriers. The pane was already full of cracks.

Under the wash of the space-time vortex, the arcane art barriers could not even last an hour before they disintegrated. Fortunately, Lu Sheng had unleashed his main body's Soil Qi in time to resist the impact from the vortex.

However, this was a huge trial for his main body's cultivation base.

Before this, he'd passed through the space-time vortex alone. Now, he had to bring along a colossal war fort the size of a small country with him. The toll this took on him was more than 1,000 times greater.

Even with his current cultivation base, which had been strengthened greatly, he was feeling hard-pressed to keep going.

The top-shaped war fort spun slowly. The glowing formation rune merely provided some small form of protection.

The bulk of the defense relied on Lu Sheng's main body's powers.

"Click."

Suddenly, cracks appeared on a part of the war fort's outer shell.

Even though it was constructed from a high-durability material harvested from the abyssal layer with the worst environmental conditions, it was not enough to repel the impact of the space-time vortex.

"This is bad!" Within the main control room, Lu Sheng immediately noticed the damage on the war fort.

'At most, this fort is only going to hold for another 30 minutes before it completely disintegrates! I was too careless. I didn't expect that it'd be this difficult to bring a war fort along even with my cultivation base.'

Beads of sweat started appearing on his forehead. The yellow Soil Qi all about himself surged out of his body swiftly and seeped into the floor, merging with the entire war fort.

"I must come up with a plan!" Lu Sheng glanced at the small formation on the wall which calculated the distance. He was only halfway to his target world.

He mused for a while. Then, he suddenly reached out and grabbed at the air.

A sliver of colorful radiance entered the room through the crack on the window.

Lu Sheng grabbed the colorful radiance with his hand.

"Is this the space-time vortex?" This was Lu Sheng's first time seeing such an object.

The colorful radiance resembled flowing water. It quickly formed on his palm a small cluster which fluctuated with countless shifting colors.

At the same time, he felt as if his palm was being cut by countless sharp shards at the same time.

Every time the colorful radiance fluctuated, there would be a sensation of his palm being cut.

Even with his main body's toughness, he felt the sting from the cut.

'This isn't like water. There are many particles contained within it…' Lu Sheng raised his hand gently. A drop of colorful radiance hovered before his eyes. His pupils immediately widened.

The colorful radiance before himself was instantly magnified 1,000 times.

The countless minute grain particles contained within the flowing colorful radiance were spiked crystals which flickered with colorful fluorescent light.

"Magnify again." Lu Sheng's pupils moved. He quickly reached the limits of his magnification, 12,000 times.

This was the upper limit achievable by his body without the aid of any arts or tools.

A small colorful crystal was swiftly magnified. The slits among the spikes were also rapidly magnified as his eyesight was bolstered.

The slits were clean and white. Materials which resembled floating continents slowly rocked along within the particles.

Lu Sheng could faintly see various peculiar creatures living on these continents.

'Are these particles individual dimensions and worlds?'

He sighed softly. With a thought, he shifted his focus onto another particle.

This time, the particle contained no living beings. It was merely a mass of thick, gooey, clear liquid.

The liquid kept rocking within the particle. As it collided with the inner wall of the particle, it shifted colors.

It started as a light shade of gray, and then it changed to red, orange, yellow, and other colors.

From the different colors, Lu Sheng could faintly feel some sense of time passing him by.

'These are… time… time fragments?' Lu Sheng suddenly thought of a possibility.

'If the fragment before this was a space fragment, then is this a so-called basic building block of the world?'

It was highly possible that everything within space and time was constructed by countless such particles.

Lu Sheng looked at the colorful radiance before himself. He felt as if he had touched upon the deepest secrets of space and time.

He suddenly thought about himself. As a living being, he was made up of countless cells, with every cell being an individual entity.

In the same sense, the world and the universe might actually be made in the same way…

"Crack."

Suddenly, another crisp sound reached him. The war fort cracked again.

Lu Sheng immediately snapped out of his deep thought. His current priority was to quickly overcome the problem of the war fort's survival.

He quickly spread his spirit outward. He pushed back against the space-time vortex and spread his spirit out further.

In no time, he found a slightly opened space-time rift.

The space-time vortex was like a colorful ocean. These rifts floated and sank within the colorful ocean like countless pieces of withered bark.

Most of the rifts were pale white. Some of them were slightly black or gray. They stood out in the colorful ocean, and they were exceptionally dangerous.

'I must find a world with basic rules that aren't too different! I'll have to bring this war fort somewhere safe for now!' Lu Sheng immediately split his spirit into tens of thousands of parts that spread into the various rifts.

Lu Sheng had used this technique many times inside the abyss. He was now familiar with it.

"Ugh!"

At the first contact, Lu Sheng grunted. He threw the space-time vortex in his hand away and embraced his own head. Fresh blood trickled out of his nostrils and eyes.

The instant he came into contact with the rifts, at least 80% of his spirit fragments were devoured by the space-time rift.

To put it more aptly, the instant a spirit fragment touched the rift, it was torn to shreds by the peculiar fundamental rules of the rift.

The worlds within these rifts were anomalous. No such thing as spirit existed within them. Hence, the instant his spirit touched them, the fragments disintegrated.

"I still have some left…"

He wiped the blood away from his eyes. Then, he focused his mind on controlling his spirit.

The spirit fragments he created would only be strong enough to survive for a few minutes. If he did not act quickly, the space-time vortex would swiftly sever the connection with his spirit.

About two minutes later, Lu Sheng suddenly displayed a look of joy.

"Found it!" Another immense surge of Soil Qi was unleashed from his body. The dense Soil Qi dyed the entire fort bright yellow.

With a rumble, the war fort slowly shifted direction and flew toward a small rift on the right.

In no time, the war fort shrunk. From a diameter of dozens of kilometers, it swiftly shrunk to the size of a fist and plunged into the rift.

***

It was an empty, spacious pitch-black dimension.

The black fort seemed to have blended in with the background. There seemed to be no light whatsoever. The war fort floated along silently like a site with ruins.

Lu Sheng sat upright on the main seat in the control room. He spread his spirit in all directions to probe his surroundings.

This situation had been going on for quite some time.

There did not seem to be any passing of time here. He could not sense any trace of time movement from his surroundings.

'In an ordinary dimension, time is a basic must-have. It complements space and both entities co-exist. However, I can't find any trace of time here…'

Lu Sheng stroked the leather cover of his seat. As time passed, the leather should slowly dry up, age, and eventually harden and turn brittle, breaking away with a single touch.

However, his formidable spirit sensed that the material of the seat did not change at all. It was the same as ever.

"This dimension only has a diameter of tens of thousands of kilometers. Besides some dust and ice, there's nothing here."

Lu Sheng retracted his spirit. He only retracted it swiftly when he finally touched the edge of the dimension.

There were no living beings within this dimension. He could not even find bacteria or viruses.

Lu Sheng opened the door of the main control room and floated out.

His surroundings were pitch-black. There was no gas or sign of life. It was a dead space.

"Looks like I can leave the fort here for a while."

He extended his hand. Soil Qi danced around him and shone behind him. He began testing the fundamental physical rules of this world.

However, due to the absence of time, he could not check any of the rules here. Everything stayed motionless.

"Forget it. Let's leave it at this." Lu Sheng grabbed some ice and gauged its age. He discovered that it was the same as new.

There was no way for him to gauge time.

This was because this dimension was devoid of time.

'Strange… If there's no flow of time, I shouldn't have been able to detect and enter this place. The instant I entered into this dimension, my thoughts should've instantly frozen over until I unconsciously drifted out of this dimension.'

As he suppressed the puzzlement he had in his mind, Lu Sheng checked the entire dimension several times more. He concluded that there were no signs of problems or threats here.

Then, he carved a simple inter-world formation on the war fort and began contacting the Heavenly Devil World.

Unexpectedly, it was easy to pass through the dimension here. After spending less than half the Soil Qi he would usually spend, Lu Sheng easily tore open a rift in the dimension and contacted the Heavenly Devil World.

"Hiss…"

With a slight tearing sound, the red glow of the formation gathered into a red sphere of light which hovered before Lu Sheng.

The sphere of light swiftly morphed into an arch. A red liquid-like substance flowed within the arch.

The peculiar thing was that black mouths with sharp teeth lined the silver-white posts of the door.

The mouths opened and closed as if they wanted to tear at something.

Lu Sheng suddenly had a strange feeling. He looked at the red substance in the arch. There seemed to be some faint mumblings emerging from it.

He seemed to hear countless cries and wailings, or maybe it was purely the whistle of the wind in a storm. He could even hear the forlorn song of a woman.

'This can't be right. This doesn't look like the portal to the Heavenly Devil World!' A chill ran down Lu Sheng's spine. He inspected his formation carefully, and found that it was connected to the Heavenly Devil World. The aura seeping out from behind the door was slightly familiar.

'What is the meaning of this?!'