Chapter 1288: Analyzing Failure

Chapter 1288: Analyzing FailureLin Mu kept on looking over his shoulder to make sure that the woman didn’t actually follow him out. By now he was nearly twenty kilometer away from the asteroid but even then the screams of the woman could still be heard.

The almost fatal encounter had made Lin Mu a lot more anxious than before. But at the same time he was now feeling enlightened. 

He had obtained a placeholder that he could use as his target. That figure of woman was certainly at the peak of the immortal realm, or perhaps even beyond that. But at the same time it was restrained for some reason.

‘Why is it that she can’t leave that asteroid? Is she trapped there? Or perhaps sealed?’ Lin Mu wondered.

With the level of strength she had seen, Lin Mu didn’t know for sure if she could dominate the Rust Sky world, but at the very least she should have been able to break her confines.

“Even if I consider that she had been sealed, then how strong must that person be?” Lin Mu was greatly intrigued.

He continued to analyze the situation of the woman as well as the Asteroid.

Empty hall…

Offices with rotting wood…

Rooms full of ashes…

A clan worship temple…

Walls made out of high quality spirit bricks…

And a woman’s illusory figure that could ‘create’ life…

Combining all these points only made things confusing and complex for Lin Mu. Several questions popped up in Lin Mu’s mind.

For example: why would there be a clan worship temple on top of a set of offices?

Or why were the offices rotting with dampness and the document storage rooms burned?

Even the high level defenses of the clan worship temple were a bit strange. Lin Mu didn’t know if it was because they had been broken down, or if they were always like that, but he now felt like they were actually not meant to defend against ‘external’ forces.

‘Were they intended to keep that woman… or whatever that is inside?’ Lin Mu considered this possibility.

“No… that can’t be. Those defenses aren’t much for her power.” He rejected that option.

Even Lin Mu himself would be able to break them at his current level given enough time, not to mention someone on the level of that woman.

Continuing to think of this, a rather absurd idea came to Lin Mu’s mind.

“Wait… could it be that the defenses are really meant for outsiders? And seeing that it is a clan worship temple, people should have worshiped there. So this was meant to keep those worshipers outside?” Lin Mu deliberated.

It didn’t make entire sense, but it there was also the factor of missing information. All the guesses that Lin Mu was making was on the basis of incomplete information. There were likely to be a lot of things that might shine a light on this matter somewhere else.

‘Still, there is one thing I can confirm for sure.’ Lin Mu thought as his eyes glinted. 

“The Chasm Beasts are definitely made by that woman. That energy she uses can imbue life or perhaps some level of consciousness into matter. And that dark dusty fog is some kind of material that is being used by her to make Chasm Beasts.” Lin Mu noted.

“And considering that the Chasm Beasts were out searching for that small square of hidden plane, it should be on the orders of that woman. She wanted that broken statue of legs, or more accurately that wisp that was hidden in it.” Lin Mu muttered to himself.

His spirit sense entered his Dantian and glanced at the bracelet that was on the Nascent soul’s wrist. Its glow had dimmed a little, and its presence also seemed to be weaker.

‘That thing protected me and melted away that woman’s powers. I can safely assume that they are foes in some regard. This would make sense if the woman was searching the statue out to destroy it.’ Lin Mu thought.

He wondered if that wisp was also sealed in that broke statue, perhaps. And the reason it came out of it was because of Lin Mu being there and touching it.

The bracelet couldn’t help but seem like a special thing to Lin Mu now.

“The power it contains is mysterious yet powerful. It could even help Senior Xukong’s avatar recover faster.” Lin Mu reckoned.

While Lin Mu continued to think about the woman and what the strange wisp was, he was also searching for a way out of the lesser void.

The thing was, there was a very clear way to get back to the Rust Sky world. But that also meant going back to the asteroid where the woman was. This wasn’t something that Lin Mu wanted, as it would only mean his death.

There was only one option left for him, and that was to find another place that might be close enough for Lin Mu to open up another portal. Or at the very least, a crack and possibly slip out of here.

Thankfully, he had sufficient supplies of air in the ring along with spirit stones, so he didn’t need to suffer for long. His spirit Qi stores were restored and most of his injuries were healed with the help of pills.

And for the first time since getting the golden body of the True gold Body forging arts, Lin Mu had a scar. Or rather, two scars.

The scars were spiraling around Lin Mu’s legs all the way from his ankles to his knees. This was the same spot where the tendrils of the woman had wrapped and burned him. 

‘Even after the skin is healed, the scar is still there. Though the effect of the True Gold Body forging arts is also active and the scared area is as tough as the rest of my body.’ Lin Mu noticed.

As it was just a cosmetic flaw, Lin Mu didn’t mind the scars being there. If it was something like the scarred area being weaker than the rest of his body, he would have to be worried quite a bit.

At that point, it would become his Achilles Heel. Or rather, in his case ‘Achilles leg’.

That would be really unfortunate and Lin Mu would have to change a lot of his tactics in order to make his vulnerability less severe.

~Thud~

~CRACK~

Suddenly, Lin Mu heard the sound of something colliding.

“Huh?” Lin Mu’s eyes tried to find the source of the sound in the darkness of the void.

~Crack~

Thankfully, the sound was heard again, allowing Lin Mu to lock onto it.

~Shua~

Lin Mu amped up his spatial perception to the maximum and looked at the area where the sound had come from. There he saw two ‘blots’ on the spatial fabric. One of the blots was several times bigger than the other and they seemed to be touching each other.

Lin Mu flew towards them, wanting to take a closer look.

‘Maybe it will be the solution I need to get out of here.’ Lin Mu hoped.

It was a saving grace that Lin Mu could still ‘fly’ in the void. Though it might be more accurate to call it floating instead.

In the Rust Sky world he was forced to stay on land due to the laws of the world. In the Lesser Void, while he was still technically under its rules, there was one thing missing: Land.

Without Land there wasn’t any specific ‘direction’ to the gravity and therefor no way for Lin Mu to be forced in some position.

One could also say that Lin Mu was simply a weightless feather that was being propelled by the spirit Qi being spread out from it.

A couple of minutes later, Lin Mu finally reached the two ‘blots’ that were visible in his Spatial perception. He switched back to his normal vision and created a fireball to illuminate the area.

“More Asteroids?” Lin Mu discovered that the two ‘blots’ were in fact, two more asteroids.

They were considerably smaller than the one before but were still quite large.

The bigger one of the two was about half a kilometer in diameter, while the smaller one was just a hundred meters in diameter.

The smaller asteroid seemed to be hitting the bigger one every so often and was the source of the sound that Lin Mu heard. Looking closer, Lin Mu saw the cracks that had been created on the larger asteroid along with the equally large crater.

“The smaller asteroid is tougher than the large one, huh…” Lin Mu saw no large cracks or craters on the smaller asteroid.

But just as he was observing them, he felt a very faint fluctuation in the space. Narrowing his eyes, Lin Mu got closer and tried to track the fluctuation he felt.

~THUD~

The small asteroid slammed into the larger one again. The sound produced from it coincided with the spatial fluctuation!

“THERE! That’s a node between the lesser void and the Rust Sky world!”