C124-2: Drink The Sea

By the time he had reached those conclusions, he was standing beside Kong Ye, observing the scene as all the elders from the mountain peaks flew up in the air to greet Luo Yi. Kong Ye himself took off a moment later, leaving an intrigued Xuhan behind.

Truly, having the skills to fly as one wished was a goal he desperately wanted to reach. How exciting and entertaining would it be?

Hurried footsteps came from behind, followed by the stormy reappearance of Mu Ran, Yuen Zhou and Xiao Wu.
"What happened? What did I miss?" Mu Ran said, huffing from exertion.

"There. That lady is a representative of the Beasthaven Sect, here to welcome us to the tournament." Han Xuhan pointed at the spectacle above where the elders and sect master Xuan Zi were exchanging some unnecessarily lengthy greetings with Luo Yi, all of them floating up so high that the disciples couldn't catch much of their words.
"By the way, boss, are our houses intact? Apparently some infrastructures have been left behind-"

Mu Ran instantly waved off Xuhan's worried enquiry.
"Oh, don't worry about that, underling. Nothing has actually been left behind. This entire floating island of mountains we're standing on right now is just a copy of our real sect. The real Crimson Snow Sect is still in its original place. Except, if any newcomer enters the boundaries of the sect, they'll be transported to here via the gateway we have opened through the formations. So our sect there is as safe as a locked up treasure, and our sect here is a copy made up of materials the host sects kept in here, designed by the formations that consists our own gateway. We can actually return back there easily."

". . . . Oh!"

Struck speechless, Xuhan silently digested the information while squiting all around him carefully, looking for evidence that supported Mu Ran's answer.
He found it very fast.

In every mountain, a significant portion of its mass now consisted of black smoke that definitely wasn’t there before the teleportation. After looking around a bit, he found the same element in his own mountain peak, more specifically, in the areas where he himself had laid down formations.

The clues connected easily in his mind after he personally examined the smoky substance. It was very malleable under high amount of force, but didn’t show any response toward qi. It did not seem to have any impurities or mixtures of other elements  regardless of its vast amount all over the mountaim, unlike regular soil on mountains where small rocks, litter and vegetation could be found everywhere.

The smoky substance was the result of the first level formations of the Celestial Gateway Technique, he realized. That type of formations was supposed to treat everything within its range pure mass.

The second level formations should have been the ones behind the creation of the rest of the infrastructure that was identical to the original sect then. As for the third level...it was supposed to grant the practitioner the power to modify and control the affected area as he wished.

Han Xuhan whipped around, curious to see what new changes might have been implemented by the elders and geniuses who had reached the third layer of the Celestial Gateway Technique.

However, at that moment, a voice came from above, stopping him in his tracks.

"Uh-oh! Take cover, everybody!"

Before he could understand what was happening, the booming sound of a tsunami wave hit him sqaure in the eardrums, which was followed by actual tsunami waves that seemed to have come from at least three different directions.

Water washed over the mountains like a legendary flood from epics. None of the disciples were in the position to investigate what exactly was going on, least of all Han Xuhan whose physical prowess was the worst of the lot.

"Glllrrg! Grrrr~"





A.N: Had a presentation in uni, hence the small chapter. There will be a part 3 tomorrow.