Chapter 652: Repair
Han Li and the others immediately turned to Immortal Lord Hot Flame upon hearing this, and at this moment, the True Mantra Bead in his hand was glowing brightly, as were all of the golden runes on its surface.
"Is there a teleportation array here?" Fox 3 asked with an elated expression as he brought the flying boat to a halt.
Immortal Lord Hot Flame nodded in response.
"Alright, looks like it's up to you now, Fellow Daoist Shi," Han Li said as he turned to Shi Chuankong.
Shi Chuankong offered no response as he closed his eyes and joined his palms in front of himself, then chanted a silent incantation, and a burst of radiant silver light and spatial fluctuations immediately emerged from between the palms of his hands.
All of a sudden, his eyes sprang open as he brought his hands apart, then thrust both palms upward, and the burst of silver light between the palms of his hands instantly began to expand rapidly, forming a silver light barrier.
As the light barrier continued to expand, the surrounding pond began to disintegrate, and the nearby illusory mist was also pushed further and further away.
The silver light barrier expanded to encompass an area with a radius of over ten thousand feet before drawing to a halt, and the swamp was revealed in that area.
Han Li's eyes were glowing with radiant purple light as he swept his gaze across his surroundings, and he immediately spotted a pile of loose white rocks up ahead, looking completely out of place.
"Over there!"
Under Han Li's guidance, Fox 3 immediately piloted the spirit boat in that direction until it arrived at the pile of rocks.
The pile of rocks was only several dozen feet wide, and it looked like the remnants of a destroyed stone pillar.
"This is a stone pillar that would've once belonged to a teleportation array, but at this point, the entire array is already completely destroyed," Immortal Lord Hot Flame sighed in a disappointed manner.
"It's alright, the ruins aren't supposed to be easy to track down," Fox 3 said, not disheartened in the slightest.
With that, the search continued.
......
Over a month passed by in a flash.
During this time, Han Li's group was able to find some sets of ruins, but most of them were just toppled buildings. As for the few teleportation arrays that they encountered, all of them had been destroyed beyond repair.
"We're already quite far away from Serene Floating Island at this point. Should we consider going in another direction, Fellow Daoist Li?" Fox 3 proposed.
"We can try heading toward Illusory Smoke City," Han Li replied after a brief moment of contemplation.
Right at this moment, Immortal Lord Hot Flame suddenly interjected, "Hold on a second, there's another teleportation array nearby."
"Alright, let's go check it out first," Fox 3 said in an expressionless manner.
At this point, everyone had already been drained of the initial joy that they had experienced whenever a teleportation array was discovered.
However, as Shi Chuankong cleared away the surrounding illusory mist, everyone was stunned by the sight that was revealed.
On a white sand dune around ten thousand feet away stood seven or eight giant white stone pillars that were riddled with complex array patterns, but they weren't giving off any spiritual power fluctuations.
As the spirit boat flew over to the sand dune, the entire teleportation array came into view.
Shortly thereafter, the entire group disappeared, and the light radiating from the array began to fade. Sure enough, the two stone lions remained completely unscathed, and most of the array tools that Han Li had set up were also preserved.
......
Moments later, Han Li and the others arrived in front of a giant mountain.
There was a majestic entrance standing in front of the mountain, beyond which was a giant hovering white stone plaza that was enshrouded in a cloud of mist. There seemed to be a spatial barrier within the mist that kept out all spiritual sense, and in front of the entrance stood several enormous stone pillars that extended all the way up into the clouds.
On top of that, the entrance was enshrouded under a white light barrier, which was clearly some type of powerful restriction.
Immortal Lord Hot Flame looked up at the majestic entrance, and tears began to well up in his eyes, while a reminiscent look appeared on his face.
All of a sudden, a resounding boom snapped him out of his train of thought, and he turned to discover Shi Chuankong attacking the white light barrier.
However, no matter what he tried, the light barrier remained firm, displaying no sign of breaking.
"Let me have a go!" Fox 3 said as his entire body abruptly swelled to over a hundred times its original size, and he raised a hand, curling his fingers into claws before swiping them viciously through the air.
Five massive claw projections appeared before tearing into the white light barrier.
A burst of radiant five-colored lightning instantly erupted out of the light barrier, causing the surrounding space to rumble incessantly.
However, after the lightning subsided, the white light barrier remained completely unscathed.
"Save your energy. This restriction is imbued with both spatial law powers and time law powers, so it's impossible to break it through conventional means," Shi Chuankong said.
Even though Han Li hadn't made an attempt at attacking the light barrier, he had arrived at the same conclusion through his observation.
Fox 3 immediately reverted back to his original form upon hearing this, and he asked, "Is it that troublesome to deal with? Can you see any way to break the restriction?"
"I can set up an array to weaken the spatial power within the restriction, and that might make it possible for us to break the restriction if we all attack it together," Shi Chuankong said.
"Alright, time is of the essence, so let's begin," Fox 3 said in an eager manner.
......
Meanwhile, on the edge of the Illusory Smoke Swamp stood a man who was built like a steel pagoda. His hands were clasped behind his back as he stood facing the swamp, and his fiery red hair was swaying gently in the wind.
His facial features were extremely chiseled and well-defined, and his appearance was quite similar to that of a human, except he had a rhinoceros horn for a nose, and his ears were also very long and tapered, with a large golden ring hanging from each of them.
At this moment, the man was peering into the illusory smoke in the swamp with an angry look on his face.
Right at this moment, a streak of green light shot forth from afar, and when it was still several hundred kilometers away, it was enveloped within a fiery red spirit domain, following which it was instantly teleported to the brawny man's side.
A resounding boom rang out as a green jade flying carriage abruptly appeared before slamming heavily down onto the ground.
On the carriage was a red-haired man, another man who was thin as a bamboo pole, and a third handsome red-robed man. All three of them jumped off the flying carriage at once, then extended a collective salute toward the brawny man in a slightly awkward fashion as they greeted in unison, "We pay our respects to Senior Chi Rong."
These three men were Gong Shutian, his senior martial brother, Wang Xiaosen, and his most prized disciple, Feng Qingyuan.
"You're late, and by two whole weeks, at that," the brawny man accused in a cold voice.