Chapter 2409 Presences And Ethereal Existence
The Saintess's response was seen as positive by the group and they felt better.
"Anything you say will be done as long as you go to the Dao Wind Empire." Crown Prince Feng Shun replied without hesitation. "With my authority as the Crown Prince, I'll employ the entire imperial resources and ministry to help." He added.
"Very well." The Saintess replied as the cloud ship changed its direction slightly and moved towards the Dao Wind Empire.
The group didn't know how long it would take them to reach their destination but with the speed they were going at, they knew it wouldn't be long.
Of course, to prepare for their arrival, Crown Prince Feng Shun took out his communication jade slip and sent off a flurry of messages.
"Where did we arrive though earlier?" Daoist Chu asked. "It didn't look to be the same shrines we had entered from." He noticed that there were no signs of the archipelago from before.
"There's only one person that would know that." Monk Hushu said as he glanced at the Saintess. 'She rescued us within seconds of arrival, so she either must've known where we were going to arrive from or, sensed it in those few seconds.' The monk thought.
Knowing that their questions were directed towards her, the Saintess replied.
"We were off the Western coast of what you all call the Eight Kingdom Alliance Continent." Her answer was rather surprising.
"That far? While I knew that we wouldn't appear in the same exact place as the shrines… this is still quite far." Ziran muttered. "Just how far did Lin Mu's skill manage to bring us?" he wondered.
Of course there was no way for the half elf to know that this was actually Lin Mu, or rather Lin Mo's first time ever using the Warp Dao Skill to teleport.
While Lin Mu at least knew that he could select a 'star' from the Four Faceted Nebula Dao Embryo and teleport there, he didn't know what the exact location of it could be.
He didn't mind it though as it was already a miracle that they could teleport to worlds not just in a single realm, but across the voids!
And this was all done without the heavy requirement that Teleportations of such scale needed. There were no arrays or channels, simply a skill at the cost of massive amount of Qi.
A minute later, Crown Prince Feng Shun had finished contacting everyone needed to.
~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~
"What the…" But he was stunned to receive a swarm of messages upon doing that.
He read through a few of them briefly as his face went pale. "All of you check your communication jade slips right now!" Crown Prince Feng Shun urged.
"What happened?" they all wondered, but still checked.
~GASP~
And sure enough, everyone in the group was left shocked.
~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~SHUA~
Similar to Crown Prince Feng Shun, they too started to receive messages from various sources at once. And upon reading them, they too turned pale.
The relief they had felt earlier after Saintess rescue had disappeared.
The only two individuals that were faring a bit better were Elder Hu and Ziran.
The two looked at each other, before glancing at the Saintess and taking a deep breath.
"Honored Celestial… Is this all, true?" Elder Hu questioned. "If it's you then your senses must've discovered it, right?" Ziran asked as well.
"I suppose you've learned of this world's condition now. And unfortunately it is true." The Saintess replied without turning around. "There's more to come, so you should prepare your hearts."
Hearing that, the expressions of the two men stiffened.
'We were gone for eight years and the world changed so much?' they knew even a day was enough to change a location for mortals, but them even a hundred years might not bring about much of a difference.
The change that had happened was rather shocking too and it took the others a while to comprehend.
And while everyone went through multiple states of shock, the two unconscious individuals had no idea of it at all. Lady Kang would at least wake up after a short while, but Lin Mu wouldn't be awakening for a long time.
In fact the man in question didn't even realize just how much he had taxed himself and his body.
He wasn't in just a state of 'sleep' where he could enter the Sleepscape. Rather he was in a coma and had no sense of what would be happening.
As such, even Xukong was now in the blind about all that was happening. And the only reason why he had not forced himself to check directly was the fact that he had sensed the presence of the Saintess as soon as they had crossed over to the Rust Sky World and a moment before Lin Mu had fully lost his consciousness.
Though there were two presences that knew more about him right now than even the Saintess and Xukong. One of those presences was deep inside him, while the second was far, far away from him.
In fact it was so far, that even Xukong didn't know about it.
The second presence in question had 'witnessed' all that had happened and was still 'watching' them right now.
'To think he would exceed my expectations by this much.' The presence thought to itself. 'The Upheaval he'll cause will certainly be worth it. The 'Main' will be getting a pleasant surprise if he awakens.' It reckoned before stopping its 'voyeurism' and leaving Lin Mu be.
Different from the Second presence, the first presence was already inside Lin Mu so it knew the best about him. In fact, he would claim that he knew Lin Mu better than Lin Mu himself.
For this was none other than Lin Mo!
The devilish man had been in control just a few minutes ago and was now in a completely different state.
"He really waited till the last moment to let me out… If only he had done it before, not only would that woman Kang be fine, but he would have never forced the Well of Slumber to reach this state." Lin Mo thought to himself.
The devilish man was in a much less impressive form than before for he had no body right now. All that was present of him was a vague mass of black and purple, with a few red streaks floating within it.
"At least I can now have a proper place for myself." Lin Mo muttered before willing himself to move.
This mass existed somewhere deep in Lin Mu's body suddenly moved and appeared smack dab in the middle of Lin Mu's Dantian!
It floated above the sea of Qi for a bit before quickly diving down and settling in a crack at the very bottom. No trace of it could be seen and even if someone scanned the Dantian they would only see Dao Embryos, Nascent Soul, a sea of Qi and lots of damage.
'This should do for now…' Lin Mo thought before growing silent.
It was unknown whether the devilish man was still awake or not, or whether he had ended up in the same state of Coma as Lin Mu.
Time may as well be non existent to the man, as he knew nothing of all that happened.
All he knew was that everything went empty, then became painful, before a senseless peace was reached.
Lin Mu didn't know how long he was in that state before he suddenly became able to 'sense' again.
'AHHHHHHH! WHAT IS THIS HEAT!?' His consciousness which had been in a deep coma 'woke' up partially as a burning pain assaulted it again.
'How do I stop this!?' Lin Mu didn't know what was happening or what he should do.
He had no control of his body, he felt no Qi and neither could he sense anything other than pain. His memories were highly lacking and his sense of time was broken.
He didn't know how long he endured the pain before the senseless state of peace arrived again. "UGHHHHH!" after a while he was awoken by pain once more before passing out again.
This repeated over and over again, with small changes taking after every attempt.
At first he would only return to the senseless state of peace where he didn't even know he existed, then later, he managed to 'dream'.
The dreams were very vague and he only knew they were there when he was going through them, otherwise he had no memories of them.
But as more time passed he managed to keep track of them and his memories were working as needed.
The dreams got more detailed too, until eventually Lin Mu could recognize what actually happened within them.
In one of the dreams, he fought an endless number of beasts, and in another he fought himself.
He saw great worlds that made him marvel, as well as hellish landscapes that terrified him.
Eventually though he adapted to them, and reached a new state of Ethereal existence.