Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Chapter 2185: Creepy Forest

Feeling the turbulent spatial currents around him as he was pulled through the invisible door into the seemingly empty void on the other side without any way to resist, Xuan Hao found himself silently preparing for his time inside the ascension realm tower to come to an end. Understanding that whatever awaited him on the other side that had been able to pull him in so effortlessly undoubtedly far exceeded anything he could deal with at his current cultivation realm. The only positive to the entire situation being that he wasn’t the only one who had been pulled in by the invisible door and if he was lucky, those three would be able to mitigate the danger on the other side for him to some extent.

Of course, given the danger he expected to encounter on the other side, he wasn’t exactly confident in those three being able to block whatever waited for him for long.

Still, even if it wasn’t optimal to get forcibly pulled through the invisible door, it was undoubtedly better than remaining within the small hallway that was being torn apart by the beak of the flying demon beast that had been chasing after the two stronger Void Integration Realm cultivators earlier.

Although he couldn’t properly assess the strength of the demon beast in question just from seeing the large beak poking through the hallway, the presence it gave off was stronger than even the giant skeleton. Making it clear that it wasn’t a demon beast he would be able to do anything against.

In other words, even if he hadn’t been pulled through the invisible door, the beak of the terrifying flying demon beast would have forced him to escape through the invisible door a short time later anyway, as there wasn’t any other passage leading out of the small hallway.

Continuing past the invisible door was an option but didn’t exactly present any hopeful way out and was difficult to traverse with the different traps one had to avoid along the way that would give the approaching bird beak from behind time to catch up.

Deep in thought thinking about all this as he continued being pulled through the empty void on the other side of the invisible door with no control over his own body, Xuan Hao found the journey to be longer than he had initially anticipated as the force pulling him through the darkness that should in his opinion only have lasted a few seconds had already lasted over half an hour.

Normally, this kind of travel time wouldn’t be considered long, but this was a spatial channel of sorts that had been constructed by someone whose comprehension of the Dao of Space had far exceeded his own.

If he only needed a few minutes to half an hour to traverse across the entirety of a large empire like the Blue Sea Empire if he had a proper map and knew what spatial anomalies to avoid along the way, it was obvious that the distance covered within this half hour was far greater than what he himself would be able to cover on his own. Not to mention, this was an already established spatial passage. Meaning it was far more stable and faster compared to a hastily constructed one.

In other words, the distance traversed within this half hour was terrifying and at the same time also made it clear that he shouldn’t be inside the ancient city center or the palace complex at the core of this ancient city center any longer.

After all, no matter how complex the spatial environment of the ancient city center, there was no way he would be stuck in travel for such a long time just to reach some other corner of the ancient city center that had been hidden within some complex spatial maze.

Well... It was possible, but he doubted this was the case, as he could still sense his surroundings to some extent and knew that he wasn’t moving in circles navigating some complex spatial environment, but was instead moving in a straight line towards the unknow.

Where he would end up was a mystery, though he had a feeling he would soon find out, as the pulling force that had kept a firm grip on him so far was slowly loosening and had already weakened to the point where he could break free from it if he wanted to.

The reason why he didn’t forcibly break this strange force was because it was also this force that was dragging him through the spatial passage and in turn also guiding him through this empty void.

If he broke it and ended up stranded, he would only be able to leave by forcibly breaking out of the empty void... And given the state of the fragmented continent, he had a feeling that doing so would almost certainly land him somewhere outside the fragmented continent itself, something that was an immediate death sentence compared to the potential chance of survival he had from following this strange pulling force and seeing where it led him.

And so, another thirty minutes flew by travelling through the strange empty void with nothing to do outside trying to deepen his understanding of the Dao of Space from observing the strange spatial environment he found himself in before a change finally appeared within the empty void in the shape of a door similar to the invisible door he had been sucked into an hour ago.

The main difference compared to the invisible door from back then being the fact that the door before him wasn’t invisible and could be seen without him extending his divine sense outwards to try and observe it-

Thud~

Not that he had much of an opportunity to try and observe the invisible door with his divine sense, as he slammed straight into it almost the second it appeared within view at a terrifying speed that gave him no time to prepare. The only reason he was able to recognize the door as being no different from the invisible door having to do with his strong soul that allowed him to process information far faster than normal... Although... The only information he managed to obtain this time around was the appearance of the door he slammed headfirst into, he had no way to stop the inevitable...

"That hurt..." Silently cursing to himself as he got back up and took in his new surroundings, the first thing that stood out was the dead body of the weaker Void Integration Realm cultivator who had been forced through the invisible door first. A simple look was all it took to understand he hadn’t been killed after reaching the other side but had instead been caught up by some kind of spatial anomaly during the hour-long journey that had ended up erasing his soul. Leaving behind an intact physical body with no soul.

The only reason why he didn’t think this was done by the other two Void Integration Realm cultivators, having to do with the fact that the locals of the fragmented continent had no way to utilize this kind of terrifying soul annihilating techniques.

Not just that, but the two in question weren’t exactly in an optimal state either, as he spotted them knocked out somewhere a bit deeper inside what he perceived to be a vast, yet creepy forest filled with towering trees without a single leaf on them.

The appearance of the two looking exactly like the now dead Void Integration Realm cultivator at his feet. The main difference being that they were still very much alive with their souls having been weakened to the point where they had been knocked out.

If not for the fact that he could sense the power within their souls slowly being drained away after subtly investigating their situation through his divine sense, he would have truly believed they had also been forced into their current state because they ended up running into a deadly spatial anomaly during the journey through the empty void, but... Now it began looking more like the creepy forest was slowly devouring their souls. In fact, there was an increasingly good chance that the weaker Void Integration Realm cultivator hadn’t encountered some spatial anomaly and had instead just had his soul devoured by the creepy ancient forest.

Still, the invisible door or rather visible door that had opened briefly to dump him into this deadly place had already decided to run away and left him with no real way back the way he had come-

Whoosh~

Or that was at least what the forest and the spatial door had wanted him to believe, as he decided to not follow in the footsteps of those two reckless Void integration Realm cultivators who had decided to jump headfirst into the creepy forest and instead decided to spin around and move in the exact opposite direction of the creepy forest without the slightest bit of hesitation. Not daring to carelessly step into such a creepy looking forest cable of directly targeting the soul through some unknown means.