Only a few minutes earlier, Feng Chen and Shu Yao had made their way down the spiral staircase and arrived inside a long hallway that seemed to go on forever. Different from the underwater cave that Zu Fei had found herself inside of after she recovered from tumbling down the spiral staircase.
"Zu Fei is not here… Did we perhaps get trapped in some kind of illusion while moving down the staircase…?" Being the first of the two to speak, Shu Yao narrowed both of her eyes as she said this while examining the makeup of the hallway that they found themselves inside of.
The fact that Zu Fei was not on the bottom of the staircase was already weird enough, but the endless hallway had caused all of her senses to warn her not to enter the hallway and instead remain on the staircase.
"Indeed… Zu Fei should have been at the bottom of the staircase. Even if she decided to get up and move around, we should at least have been able to find some trace of her…" Similarly feeling suspicious about their current situation, Feng Chen also decided to stay on the spiral staircase as he joined Shu Yao in examining the strange hallway with his divine sense.
"Hm?"
However, the moment he began examining the hallway with his divine sense, he discovered that his divine sense was seemingly swallowed up by some kind of strange power. Preventing it from leaving the confines of the spiral staircase that he was still standing on… And looking over at Shu Yao standing beside him, he made eye contact with her and realized that she had encountered a similar situation as him.
Dangerous!
Considering that they had no idea if the reason behind their divine sense being swallowed up was some kind of defensive formation to protect against probing divine sense or an incredibly powerful demon beast whose aura alone had caused their divine sense to collapse before they had a chance to see anything.
No matter what had caused their divine sense to get swallowed up completely after trying to gauge the endless hallway, they both understood that it was something dangerous that neither of them had any plans of trying to confront. All they could do was silently hope that Zu Fei hadn't ended up falling into the endless hallway.
Unfortunately for them, they couldn't think of anywhere else that Zu Fei could have ended up as they had already reached the bottom of the spiral staircase with no sign of Zu Fei-
"Wait… What if this is not the bottom of the staircase…?"
Having suddenly realized something, Shu Yao carefully took a step forward into what should have been the floor of the endless hallway-
Thump~
However, instead of hitting the floor of the hallway, her foot passed straight through the floor and instead landed on a brand-new step of the spiral staircase leading even deeper under the surface of the lake.
"It does indeed go deeper! Let's go, Zu Fei should have fallen further down the staircase." Smiling happily upon discovering this, Shu Yao rushed down the spiral staircase without waiting for Feng Chen's response. Soon disappearing below the floor of the endless hallway.
"Ah! Wait for me!" Not wanting to be left alone inside the hallway that seemed to be hiding something dangerous, Feng Chen quickly rushed after her as both of them continued moving down the spiral staircase.
Taking a little over a minute to reach the true bottom of the spiral staircase that placed them inside the same underwater cave that Zu Fei had found herself inside of after regaining her senses from being violently thrown down the spiral staircase.
"This presence… Looks like Zu Fei was indeed here at some point in time!"
Taking no more than a second to pick up the remnant energy that Zu Fei had left behind from her fight with the strange slime creature, both Shu Yao and Feng Chen understood that they had found the place where Zu Fei had landed.
The only problem now was that Zu Fei had wandered deeper inside the cave instead of just staying around the spiral staircase. Not only that, but from the fact that she could still fight, she should have been more than capable of making her way back up the spiral staircase, but she instead chose not to do this…
"Hm… Maybe some powerful demon beast appeared and chased her away before she had a chance to escape up the spiral staircase. After all, there is no sign of any body, so whatever she fought should have been powerful enough to resist her and force her to run away…"
Coming to this conclusion after analyzing the cave in front of him, Feng Chen could not help getting worried. After all, if she had really encountered a demon beast powerful enough to force her to escape, her current situation would definitely not be good!
"Indeed… At least she left traces of her energy behind that we can follow…" Nodding her head as a worried expression also made its way onto her face, Shu Yao also began fearing what kind of horrible situation Zu Fei might be stuck in.
Thump~
As both of them understood how dangerous and deadly Zu Fei's current situation might be, they both took a step forward and entered the cave-
Whoosh~!
However, just as they did this, the spiral staircase behind them disappeared and seemingly turned into a part of the cave wall. Showing no signs of it ever having been there in the first place.
"Huh!?"
"This…"
Seeing this, both Shu Yao and Feng Chen began panicking as they began trying to leave the cave-
Whoosh~!
Luckily for them, it was only an illusion, and the spiral staircase was still there, causing both Feng Chen and Shu Yao to let out a sigh of relieve that they didn't suddenly end up accidentally trapping themselves inside the cave that Zu Fei had also ended up inside of.
"Hm? Elder Song is contacting me?"
It was just at this moment that Feng Chen felt Elder Song trying to contact him through his communication talisman.
"Elder Song? What is wrong?"
"Feng Chen! The spiral staircase has started to sink into the water, you and Shu Yao have at most two minutes before it sinks below the surface!"
"This… I understand. Continue keeping an eye on the spiral staircase and inform us if anything new happens!"
"Yes, just… Never mind, I hope I will see all three of you soon…"
"Of course!"
As the conversation finished, Feng Chen showed a visible frown on his face as he turned towards Shu Yao standing beside him. Although neither of them said anything to each other, they both understood that if they didn't find Zu Fei soon, they would be forced to leave her behind and escape from the underground structure before it sank beneath the water.
Swish~!
Knowing this, they didn't waste any time, as both of them used all of their strength to rush in the direction of Zu Fei's presence. Hoping that she hadn't wandered too deep inside the cave in the short period of time she had been inside of it.
…
"Hahaha! If I just get a few more, I should be able to break through to the Domain Lord Realm and establish a water domain. Not only that, but my connection with the Dao of Water has also grown a lot stronger. Even without any more of these strange slime creatures, my comprehension of the Dao of Water is already far above any other dao that I tried to comprehend in the past!"
A short time before Shu Yao and Feng Chen arrived in the cave below the surface of the lake, Zu Fei was happily laughing to herself filled with joy as she watched her pseudo water domain growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
At this point in time, she had already killed a little over a hundred of the strange slime creatures and absorbed the strange energy from them. Allowing her pseudo domain to grow at a speed far beyond anything she had ever seen or heard about before. Even reaching the point where she was now about to directly enter the Domain Lord Realm…
Not only that, but because she had ended up absorbing so much of the strange blue colored energy, it had permanently altered the color of qi. Transforming it into a blue color, creating what looked like a genuine ocean inside of her dantian.
However, given that it didn't really affect her cultivation, Zu Fei didn't really care too much about this and was instead far more focused on trying to find more of the strange slime creatures to reach the Domain Lord Realm and finally catch up with Feng Chen and Shu Yao, who had left her far behind after both of them reached the Domain Lord Realm.
No longer would she be the only person among them that was still stuck in the Nascent Soul Realm!
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