They already knew from before the Drowned Crescent Cult had access to teleportation talismans and more. So it was better to be careful.
Elyon clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "Smart move, then. Let’s unravel it properly."
Daoist Chu gave Lin Mu a look. "Together, then?"
Lin Mu nodded.
With practiced ease, the two began working in tandem, setting up a spatial isolation barrier first—so no external senses could detect their tampering—and then moving to parse the outermost layers of the complex formation.
Cattaleya stood off to the side, arms folded as she watched the two at work. She hadn’t said much since they’d arrived, but her sharp eyes didn’t miss a single movent.
’He’s an array master, too,’ she thought, mildly surprised.
It wasn’t rare for Qi cultivators to dabble in formation arts—most sect disciples were taught the basics. But very few committed enough to truly master the art. Even fewer built an entire Dao Path around it.
And when Lin Mu reached into his Dantian and pulled out a long, silver-white brush with intricate golden veins running down its shaft, Cattaleya raised an eyebrow.
The Rune Shaping Brush Dao Embryo shimred faintly in his hand, its very presence resonating with the surrounding qi. It pulsed like a heart of refined essence.
Daoist Chu didn’t even blink—he was already used to Lin Mu’s bottomless bag of tricks.
But Cattaleya tilted her head slightly.
’He’s turned array crafting into a Dao Path?’ she thought, intrigued. ’That’s not dabbling. That’s commitnt. A second Dao Embryo...’
She rembered what Elyon had told her during their flight here: the man had erged from the Path of the Sealed Swords, ford a Sword Dao Embryo, and even earned the recognition of the entire Xian Sword Sect. But now—now she was seeing the layers.
’A Sword Dao... and a Formation Dao? That’s already more than most cultivators manage in a lifeti.’
She didn’t speak. She rely watched, the corner of her lips curling faintly—not mockery, not disdain, but subtle interest.
’What else are you hiding, Lin Mu?’
For his part, Lin Mu was already absorbed in his task. The brush’s tip glowed with strands of spatial and rune energy, his hands moving in elegant, practiced strokes. Daoist Chu mirrored him with seal slips and ntal probes, the two alternating between disabling the outer alert systems and slowly mapping the runes beneath.
They worked with the precision of surgeons.
It would take ti—at least a few hours, maybe more.
But that was the price of care. A single misstep here could jeopardize everything.
As they continued, the others waited in silence, occasionally scanning the surrounding abyss for signs of movent.
The air was heavy. Not with imdiate threat—but with the sense of sothing vast and terrible slumbering below.
And all the while, Cattaleya Duskthorn stood with her blade across her back and a gaze that never left Lin Mu.
Whatever had brought her here, it was clear now:
She hadn’t just co for sirens.
Lin Mu and Daoist Chu continued their ticulous work on the barrier array, their hands and immortal senses weaving through countless layers of inscriptions, runes, and complex chanisms.
What had initially seed like a complex formation had now fully revealed itself to be a true masterwork—a labyrinth of interlocking arrays, safeguards, and defensive counterasures built for secrecy, security, and lethality.
By the ti they had spent six hours continuously parsing the outer shell, they both knew the truth.
"This is going to take a full day," Daoist Chu muttered, brow furrowed. "Maybe even two."
Lin Mu nodded, his expression calm but focused. "Rushing it would be a mistake."
The two of them were surrounded by a gentle barrier of isolating energy, blocking out external senses and fluctuations. From the outside, it appeared they were simply studying the array in silence—but within, countless layers of their own protective arrays were being erected and dismantled as they worked their way deeper into the structure.
The others had spread out slightly, keeping guard. ng Bai was seated on a flat stone, spear across his knees, eyes closed but alert. Cattaleya leaned against the wall, her gaze distant, watching the darkness below with a mix of boredom and wariness. Elyon stood atop a jutting rock ledge, arms crossed, his senses sweeping the abyss like a net.
It was during one of the quiet lulls—when Lin Mu was redrawing a secondary mapping seal onto the inner shell—that he heard the voice.
Not aloud. Not with his ears.
It was a familiar presence in his mind, soft and poised yet edged with curiosity. A voice he recognized imdiately.
"Lin Mu."
His hand did not falter. His immortal sense remained steady. But his thoughts stilled for a mont.
It was the Saintess—not in person, but projecting her voice and senses across a vast distance. She wasn’t present in the Crooked Abyss, but she was watching. Her senses could cover the entire world if she wished to.
She had many ways to watch them.
"Who is the new one?" she asked. Her voice was gentle, curious. There was no hostility—just interest. Perhaps even amusent.
Lin Mu didn’t hesitate.
"Her na is Cattaleya Duskthorn. She’s a bounty hunter we ca across earlier—she was hunting sirens at the ti. After so... initial tension, we struck a deal. She’s strong, experienced in dealing with strange threats, and most importantly, unaffiliated. We hired her on for this mission."
There was a pause on the other end.
Lin Mu felt it—not just her silence, but the flicker of emotions behind it. Intrigue. Appraisal. A touch of sothing else he couldn’t quite na.
"She’s interesting," he added, keeping his tone neutral. "Her power’s well-contained, but unmistakable. I can’t identify her bloodline. And despite her appearance, she doesn’t feel like a normal cultivator."
Another pause.
Then the Saintess spoke, a little more slowly this ti.
"You’re right. She’s hiding more than she lets on. That na... Duskthorn... it’s familiar, but I can’t recall exactly where I’ve heard it."
Lin Mu didn’t reply imdiately. He was still engraving a layered thread of qi into the outer node junction of the array. Only after anchoring it and letting it settle did he respond.
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