Chapter 79: The Temple Beyond the Firmament
The wind blowing from the north carried the smell of burned metal.
It was dry, bitter, and strangely ancient, like the remnants of a sky that had burned to ashes long ago. The scent clung to the rocks and drifted through the valleys, growing stronger with every step Han Feng took.
He traveled alone.
His footsteps were measured, his breathing steady. The cultivation he had consolidated in the Central Region had strengthened his body, but he had no intention of mistaking improved endurance for invulnerability. He still needed rest. His spiritual sense could still be exhausted. And there were things in this world that could kill him before he even realized he was in danger.
The landscape, however, was becoming increasingly difficult to understand.
The trees stood motionless despite the wind.
No insects stirred beneath the stones. No birds crossed the sky. Even the spiritual beasts that usually inhabited the mountains seemed to have abandoned the region.
The silence was not natural.
It felt deliberate.
As though the world were holding its breath.
Han Feng stopped on a rocky ridge and looked toward the horizon.
There it was.
The Lake of Ashes.
It stretched across the land like an enormous wound, its dark waters extending beyond the limits of ordinary perception. The surface resembled a mixture of black mud and molten metal, reflecting the sky in distorted fragments.
Several stars appeared twice in its reflection.
Others drifted across the water even when their counterparts remained motionless overhead.
In the distance, bubbles rose from beneath the surface. Thin trails of smoke curled into the air and vanished before reaching the clouds.
Han Feng studied the lake for a long moment.
He had heard rumors about this place in Yinzhao City. Travelers spoke of cultivators who vanished near its shores, Gu insects that refused to obey their masters, and patches of land where spiritual energy behaved as though the natural laws governing the world had been temporarily suspended.
Most people dismissed those stories as exaggerations.
Han Feng did not.
He had already encountered enough anomalies to understand that rumors often became distorted versions of something far more dangerous.
And the Lake of Ashes was clearly more than a cursed body of water.
It was becoming a point of convergence.
He crouched and extended a thin strand of spiritual perception toward the shore.
The surrounding Qi fluctuated violently.
For several breaths, the energy seemed to disappear altogether. Then it returned in a sudden surge, sweeping through the area with enough force to disturb the dust around his feet.
Han Feng withdrew his perception.
His brow furrowed.
"This isn't ordinary instability."
He had encountered formations that absorbed spiritual energy, ancient ruins that distorted perception, and relics that reacted to the Celestial Diagram.
This felt different.
The fluctuations did not follow a discernible pattern. They seemed to originate from several incompatible sources, each attempting to occupy the same space.
For a moment, Han Feng considered turning back.
The information he possessed was incomplete. He did not know what lay beneath the lake, who had discovered it first, or whether the Celestial Corpse Sect had already sent people to investigate.
Entering blindly would be foolish.
But leaving without examining the anomaly would mean surrendering valuable information to whoever arrived next.
Han Feng exhaled slowly.
"One step at a time."
He descended toward the shore.
The ground near the water was covered in fine gray ash.
Each step disturbed a thin cloud of dust that shimmered faintly before settling again. Han Feng moved cautiously, watching the ground as much as the lake itself.
Then he noticed the bodies.
Three cultivators lay near the shoreline.
Their robes were torn, but there were no obvious wounds. No blood stained the ash around them. Their weapons remained at their waists, and their storage pouches had not been removed.
All three stared upward with pale, lifeless eyes.
Han Feng approached the nearest corpse and crouched beside it.
He did not touch the body immediately.
Instead, he examined the surrounding ground.
There were footprints leading toward the lake, but none returning. The impressions were shallow and irregular, as though the people who made them had struggled to remain upright.
A few steps farther away, the ash had hardened into a thin, glasslike crust.
Han Feng narrowed his eyes.
The transformation had occurred recently.
He finally extended a thread of Qi toward the corpse.
The response was immediate.
A faint chill traveled back along the strand, reaching his spiritual sense before he severed the connection.
Han Feng's expression hardened.
The body was cold, but not in the ordinary sense. The chill seemed to have settled somewhere deeper than flesh and meridians.
It had left behind an emptiness that his perception could barely distinguish.
He had seen techniques that damaged the soul. He had heard of Gu that devoured memories and spiritual awareness.
But this was different.
There was no recognizable trace of Gu essence.
No obvious formation residue.
Only a faint distortion that seemed to resist being examined.
Han Feng rose slowly.
"Whatever did this," he murmured, "didn't leave behind an ordinary wound."
He looked toward the lake.
The corpses had not been robbed. Their belongings remained untouched.
That suggested the deaths were not the result of an ordinary ambush.
Perhaps the cultivators had encountered something they did not understand.
Or perhaps they had understood too late.
Han Feng took several steps backward and memorized the location of the bodies. He would not waste time examining them further until he understood the danger.
Then something caught his attention.
A dark shape stood in the middle of the lake.
At first, he mistook it for a cluster of rocks.
But as the mist shifted, its outline became clear.
A temple.
The structure was partially submerged, its lower levels hidden beneath the dark water.
Unlike the ancient ruins Han Feng had encountered throughout his travels, this temple showed almost no signs of deterioration. Its walls were smooth and intact. Its columns were carved from a material that resembled black stone but reflected light like polished metal.
No moss covered the surface.
No roots had penetrated the foundations.
Even the water surrounding it seemed reluctant to touch its walls.
Han Feng stared at the structure.
It did not resemble any architectural style he had encountered in the Gu World.
More importantly, he could not sense a familiar spiritual signature from it.
The Celestial Diagram stirred faintly within his consciousness.
Han Feng's expression changed.
He had felt that reaction before.
The purple-black crystal.
He reached into his storage ring and confirmed that the object remained sealed within its container. Even so, a faint vibration passed through the ring, barely perceptible beneath his spiritual sense.
The temple was reacting to the same phenomenon.
Or perhaps the crystal was reacting to the temple.
He could not yet distinguish between the two possibilities.
Han Feng examined the water.
Crossing the lake would expose him to whatever had killed the three cultivators. Flying above it might make him an obvious target, while using a Gu to probe the surface could trigger an unknown response.
There was no safe route.
Only routes with different risks.
He selected the one that offered the greatest control.
After carefully suppressing his aura, he stepped onto the water.
The surface yielded slightly beneath his foot, then hardened into a dark, glasslike layer. Dense spiritual energy supported his weight, but the effect was unstable. Each step sent faint ripples outward, and the ripples occasionally vanished before reaching the surrounding water.
Han Feng moved slowly.
He kept his spiritual sense close to his body and avoided releasing more Qi than necessary.
The temple grew larger with every step.
So did the pressure.
By the time he reached the first submerged staircase, the air had begun to vibrate against his skin.
Then the sky cracked.
A thin silver line appeared above the lake.
Han Feng stopped immediately.
The line widened with a sound too faint for ordinary ears, resembling glass bending under unbearable pressure.
Light spilled through the opening.
Beyond it lay a red sky, floating mountains, and rivers of energy that wound through the darkness like luminous serpents.
The landscape was familiar.
Not because Han Feng had visited it, but because he had seen fragments of it before—in visions associated with the strange materials and ancient phenomena that had begun appearing throughout the Central Region.
This time, however, the vision was clearer.
And something was standing beneath that distant sky.
A human figure.
Its long hair drifted in a wind that did not belong to Han Feng's world. Its face was pale and expressionless, and its eyes seemed to hold no curiosity at all.
The figure was looking directly at him.
Han Feng felt the pressure a moment later.
His spiritual sense recoiled.
His meridians tightened, and the Qi circulating through his body faltered. For an instant, he felt as though an invisible mountain had been placed upon his soul.
He immediately activated the Art of the Celestial Veil.
It did not remove the pressure, but it helped him prevent his unstable aura from spilling into the surrounding space.
His thoughts remained clear.
That alone was an achievement.
The figure beyond the crack was not simply powerful. Its presence seemed to operate according to principles Han Feng did not understand.
He could not measure its cultivation.
He could not identify its energy.
He could not even determine whether it was truly a cultivator.
The figure raised one hand.
A single finger pointed toward the lake.
Han Feng's heart tightened.
The gesture was simple, yet the water beneath his feet trembled. The temple's black columns emitted a faint resonance, and the crystal inside his storage ring pulsed once.
Then the crack snapped shut.
The pressure disappeared.
The sky returned to normal.
Han Feng remained motionless for several breaths before slowly releasing the Qi he had gathered around his meridians.
His back was damp with sweat.
"So someone on the other side can observe this place."
He did not say that the figure had seen him personally. The direction of its gaze had suggested as much, but he had no proof.
Perhaps it had been examining the temple.
Perhaps it had sensed the crystal.
Perhaps it had merely noticed the disturbance in the boundary.
The distinction mattered.
If the figure had identified him, then his concealment might already have failed against beings far beyond his current level.
If it had only detected the anomaly, he still had time to understand what was happening.
Han Feng looked toward the staircase.
He could retreat.
He probably should.
But the temple had reacted to the crystal, and the crystal had reacted to the temple. That connection was too important to ignore.
He tightened his grip on the strap of his storage pouch.
"I'll leave the questions about that thing for later."
First, he needed to understand what lay in front of him.
He resumed his approach.
The temple's entrance was guarded by a massive black stone gate.
Golden inscriptions covered its surface. The characters were unfamiliar, arranged in patterns that resembled neither ordinary writing nor the formation scripts used by Gu Masters.
Han Feng stopped several steps away.
The Celestial Diagram rotated slowly inside his consciousness.
Six points of light appeared around its familiar hexagonal structure.
Then, at the center, the seventh point flickered.
It did not illuminate fully.
It merely responded.
Han Feng raised his hand but did not touch the gate.
"Let's see what you recognize."
He released a tiny thread of Qi.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, this time allowing the Celestial Transmutation Gu to stabilize the energy before he sent it forward.
The golden inscriptions glimmered briefly.
Then faded.
Han Feng frowned.
The gate was not responding to ordinary Qi.
He could have attempted a stronger pulse, but the earlier distortion had already demonstrated how easily the surroundings could become unstable.
Instead, he took out the sealed container holding the purple-black crystal.
He did not remove the crystal itself.
The moment the container emerged from his storage ring, a low vibration traveled through the stone staircase.
The inscriptions lit up.
A voice echoed inside Han Feng's consciousness.
"The gate recognizes the bearer of the Seed of the Void."
Han Feng froze.
The Seed of the Void.
So the phrase he had heard during his previous encounter had not been a meaningless title.
The crystal was connected to it.
Whether the crystal was the Seed itself, a fragment of it, or merely a vessel remained uncertain.
Before he could examine the reaction further, the gate began to move.
Stone scraped against stone.
A narrow opening appeared, releasing a breath of air that smelled of dried blood and something metallic—like stardust suspended in the remains of an ancient battlefield.
Han Feng waited.
He listened for movement beyond the gate.
Nothing.
He checked the surrounding inscriptions for signs of an active formation.
The patterns were unfamiliar, but he could feel that the gate had not simply opened. Something inside had acknowledged the crystal and withdrawn a restriction.
That did not mean the temple was safe.
A lock could open for a key without protecting the person who carried it.
Han Feng stored the container again and stepped through the entrance.
The corridor beyond was illuminated by a muted red-and-gold glow.
Its walls were immaculate. Fine lines ran through the stone, forming patterns that resembled streams of energy frozen in place.
Han Feng kept one hand near his weapon as he advanced.
The energy inside the temple was unlike anything he had encountered in the Gu World.
Some of it resembled Qi, but it was denser and more aggressive. Another portion resisted his spiritual perception entirely. When the two currents overlapped, the air shivered as if the space between them could not decide which set of laws it should obey.
His meridians reacted to the fluctuations.
The Celestial Transmutation Gu stirred, attempting to establish a familiar rhythm.
Han Feng immediately suppressed it.
He had no intention of letting the Gu absorb an unknown energy merely because it appeared compatible.
A failed experiment here could damage more than his cultivation.
It could damage the very foundation that allowed him to survive.
He continued down the corridor, observing the patterns without touching them.
Several markings repeated at regular intervals. Others had been deliberately interrupted, leaving gaps that reminded him of the broken hexagonal symbols he had encountered in ancient chambers.
The resemblance was not exact.
But it was