Chapter 371. Abyssal Rift, Bizarre, Mysterious Restraints
Lu Yuan gazed ahead, looking calm.
When Jiang Haokong walked up beside him and followed his line of sight, all he saw was the same stretch of forest as before. There wasn't anything special to it at all.
"I thought they found it? How come I can't see anything?" Confusion flickered in his eyes. Everyone's divine perception was restricted here, so how could Lu Yuan see more than he could?
"Some things aren't meant to be seen. They're meant to be felt," Jiang Ningxian shook her head beside him, saying, "Lu Yuan has his own ways of finding things. Stop hovering and pestering him."
Since Lu Yuan had chosen to lead the way, Jiang Ningxian knew that there wouldn't be any major problems. Lu Yuan smiled when he heard the exchange between the two siblings. Without saying anything, he moved forward.
The reason the Nine-tailed Fox King and the other beast kings could locate the Nine Cauldrons was that he had shared a portion of his Providence with them. If it came down to it, he was more sensitive to the cauldrons' presence than them.
The three of them quietly pressed on. Before long, powerful auras swept toward them from up ahead. The auras definitely belonged to Sages.
"They actually found it?" Jiang Haokong's eyes widened with surprise when he felt those auras. Shennongjia was a special and bizarre place, but there couldn't be any Sages here at the moment. In other words, those auras had to be from the Nine-tailed Fox King and the other beast kings. There was no other explanation.
Lu Yuan didn't speak and simply kept walking. There was nothing else to do. This place was simply too bizarre. Divine perception couldn't be manifested, and certain abilities couldn't be used. Anyone weaker than a Sage would likely be stripped of most of their power, becoming barely stronger than an ordinary person.
Lu Yuan decided to inform everyone in the Celestial Court upon his return that they ought to avoid entering Shennongjia unless necessary. As far as he could remember, certain areas of Shennongjia could directly restrain anyone, even mutated beasts.
In other words, Shennongjia was a forbidden zone in the truest sense of the word.
A delighted voice echoed from up ahead. "King Lu?"
Lu Yuan snapped out of his thoughts and looked up to find a young woman who looked to be around eighteen years old. She was dressed in a long, flowing gown with charming features as well as eyes capable of seemingly captivating anyone without much effort.
The Spirit Monkey stood beside her, gripping a black iron cudgel. Its figure was covered in golden fur. Upon seeing Lu Yuan, its eyes glimmered with excitement as it said, "King Lu, you're finally here."
"If you had come any later, we would have been forced to leave," remarked the young woman. She was the Nine-tailed Fox King in human form. She inched closer to Lu Yuan as she spoke, acting coy.
Almost immediately afterward, she felt a piercing gaze on her back. It was sharp enough to send a chill through her spine, and she shrank away at once. The gaze had come from Jiang Ningxian.
Lu Yuan paid that little scene no mind and asked, "What happened?"
He wanted to know what the two beast kings had been doing in the meantime.
The Spirit Monkey explained that they had no plans of entering Shennongjia, but they detected the aura of one of the Nine Cauldrons and couldn't just ignore it. The moment they entered Shennongjia, however, they lost their bearings. Fortunately, the cauldron's aura guided them to this location.
The problem was that they couldn't send any messages out.
However, they had sent news before entering Shennongjia, so they knew Lu Yuan would come to fetch them, so they stayed put and waited for him. They just hadn't expected the wait to stretch to over half a month.
Thankfully, the Nine-tailed Fox King had enough patience. If the Spirit Monkey had been on its own, it would have left a long time ago.
"I appreciate both of your hard work." Lu Yuan smiled after hearing the full account. Upon their return, he would bestow additional Providence on the two hardworking beast kings.
"It wasn't that bad. It's just that this place is too bizarre. If you'd taken any longer, something would have gone wrong," the Spirit Monkey said, expressing the real source of its anxiety.
Lu Yuan nodded, understanding what the Spirit Monkey meant. Then he asked, "Have you pinpointed the exact location of the cauldron?"
"It's up ahead. There's a big rift over there. No idea when it appeared," the Nine-tailed Fox King said, pointing into the distance with her face slightly pale. It seemed she could sense something terrifying from whatever was up there.
Lu Yuan nodded and stepped forward, but the Spirit Monkey also stepped forward to stop him. "You have to be careful. We approached and discovered that the closer you get, the less power you can draw on from yourself. By the end, we could barely use our power. Something's really weird about that rift."
It can restrain someone? Lu Yuan's curiosity deepened at those words. Even Jiang Ningxian and her brother couldn't help but look in that direction.
On the surface, they saw only a huge stretch of forest. Upon closer inspection, a rift was amidst all the greenery. A strange, unknown aura was seeping out from within the rift. They tried to probe it, but their divine perception wouldn't manifest.
"It's fine. Let me go take a look first," Lu Yuan said. He found it peculiar, but he could already feel that one of the Nine Cauldrons was in there. No matter what, he had to go see for himself.
Without another word, he turned and headed for the massive abyssal rift. Jiang Ningxian, her brother, and the two beast kings all remained outside. Everyone knew that rushing in would accomplish nothing. It was better to wait and see what Lu Yuan would inevitably discover.
When Lu Yuan was close enough to the rift, he felt an unknown power sweeping toward him, restraining him. He discovered that he couldn't muster his power as smoothly as before. The closer he got, the more intense the sensation became.
By the time he reached the edge of the rift, the power he could actually use was less than thirty percent of his peak. However, he didn't let it bother him. He simply looked down at the abyssal rift before him.
He saw darkness, a seemingly infinite darkness.
His divine perception couldn't be manifested. Even his Martial Dao Heavenly Eyes were useless here. At this point, aside from his physical body, he was approaching the level of an ordinary person in almost every aspect.
"There has to be something hidden down there." Lu Yuan stared into the abyss. Under normal circumstances, Shennongjia wasn't supposed to produce anything like this, at least for now. There had to be something inside that rift, or it would be impossible to explain this bizarre phenomenon.
After a brief moment of deliberation, he turned and called out to the two siblings and the two beast kings in the distance. "The cauldron is definitely down there! I'm going in to take a look!"
He didn't wait for a response and simply dropped straight into the abyss.
