Chapter 703 Sight within the fragment
The anti-climatic display would mislead one into thinking the defense of the mirage bubble was weak, but Yang Qing knew it could defend against any measure that a middle-stage domain expert could think of.
The ward surrounding the pillars was part of the array that surrounded the entire floor which was the Kirin Guardian Veil Ward. It was a protection ward that not only protected the entire floor from being breached but it isolated the room from most searching means either by domain sense, karmic deduction, or artifacts with similar use.
Without the token, Yang Qing would not be able to even know of the existence of the floor.
Yang Qing eagerly stretched out his shaking hands toward the chime bell fragment and removed it from the wood pillar. The moment he did, the mirage-looking ward spread out from the pillar and surrounded the entire room like a veil. The veil prevented others from spying or getting into the room but it also prevented Yang Qing from leaving the area with any of the objects covered by the ward.
For the veil to be dispelled, he would have to return the fragment to its original position for the protective ward to kick in and the veil to be absorbed back into the mirage ward.
"It feels more like silk than metal.." Yang Qing said as he rubbed his fingers against the fragment. It was soft to the touch and had the same sensation as the silk produced by silkworms.
Yang Qing traced his figures across the fragment while admiring every inch of it. Everything from the material to the design, to the engravings felt very novel to him. It was almost as if he could feel and smell the history contained within it.
Out of habit, he talked with it as if it were a living object. It was his process. It was something he developed from his years of scavenging, he would talk with his finds, purely in a superstitial sense in the hopes his communication would unlock something from them or it would make them more amiable to him making it easy for him to harvest something extra.
He wasn't sure if his ritual usually worked but he nonetheless faithfully maintained the tradition for years and he wasn't about to stop, especially with the advantages he got from verbalizing his thoughts during the communication. Hearing his thoughts helped him add more considerations to his thought process.
After he was done with his ritual came the main event. He split a sliver of his spiritual essence which he fused with the fragment. If it was an artifact he had gotten from an unproven source, interacting with it via his spiritual sense was something ill-advised due to the potential risks involved. Inserting your spiritual sense into an unknown artifact left one vulnerable to attacks by opening the gateway via their spiritual essence, especially curse-based attacks.
One needed to thoroughly scan the artifact several times over for any visible or latent threats and booby traps and remove them carefully without damaging the artifact. It was a particularly laborious process, one that Yang Qing didn't enjoy but did nonetheless as he had heard countless tales of cultivators who tried to recklessly refine unknown treasures before scanning them for dangers. Some had their bodies possessed, others had their cultivation bases destroyed from such recklessness and Yang Qing wasn't about to be another cautionary tale.
With his spiritual sense serving as the unlock key for the fragment, Yang Qing felt his vision change. He was transported to a different realm. Within that realm, it was night, with a clear sky with countless stars woven through it, filling it with splendor.
On the ground, one thing stood out amid the darkness, it was a river, a river that looked to have been made from the dew drops of starlight. It had a gold-silver white radiance with a blue tone as its foundation.
One look at the river and Yang Qing could feel its grandeur and ethereal majesty. Yang Qing felt a sense of eternity within it. The past, the present, and the future are all recorded within the flow of that river that seemed to have no end or beginning.
Slightly above it, Yang Qing saw a golden string that wriggled with the ebbing and flowing of an ocean tide. More golden strings appeared from the river, emulating the movement of the first string and it wasn't long before there were a thousand of them whose movements matched before rhythmically weaving together to form a silver gold cocoon that had the tapestry of the stars above as its outer cocoon.
Immediately when the cocoon was completed, it withered with Immediately when the cocoon was completed, it withered with a grand radiant light, and out of that light came a moth, a moth the size of Yang Qing's thumbs. The moth was unique in every which way. Its abdomen looked to have been carved out of the eternal radiant river, its wings adopted the cerulean color of the night sky above, and its head dotted with colorful stars.
With one look, Yang Qing could sense the vicissitudes of time within it, and with another, he could feel youthfulness.
As he was lost in wonder at what the moth was, he felt a voice transmitted from it. A clear, ethereal voice whose qualities were indistinctive.
The past, the present, and the future flow as one within me. I fly through its fabric as part of it and outside of it. With a flap of one of my wings, I see it all, the incoming dangers, the devastation,the tragedy that stretches its claws to the ends of the earth sparing nothing in sight, dragons capable of shattering the heavens with their roar weave reality with their claws, bodies immune to everything under the sun have fallen victim to it, phoenixes whose flames burn everything with one side and birth everything with the other, have fallen too, the child of the heavens kirin whose voice brings the majesty of the heavens have fallen to it, the kunpeng master of water and space, a world within itself has fallen victim to it..
But I, the unassuming speck, who lacks even the strength to break a blade of grass, have survived it. With the flap of my other wing, I see it, I see the thread, the thread that weaves through all the dangers of both the past, the present, and the future. Nothing is hidden from it, from the earth to the oceans, to the stars and the heavens above, it moves through like a guiding light amidst a swallowing darkness.
With the thread as my path, no dangers will catch me, even with the earth rupturing with everything within it or the heavens fall, I will see it all, and move through it all, even time, destiny, fate, will not deny my thread.. my thread will weave through it all.. the thread calamity finding cerulean moth of the ages will be a witness to it all.."
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