There was another person who caught Meng Hao’s attention; this person appeared to be at the early Foundation Establishment stage, and milled about innocuously in the midst of the crowd. Meng Hao’s eyes passed over him at first; it was a hard to describe Qi that caught his attention. It was like the stench which might roll off of a rotting corpse.
No one else seemed to notice, but after a while, Meng Hao thought about the information from the Demon Sealing Jade. He also thought back to the prickly Qi he had sensed in the Black Sieve Sect.
The Feng Shui compass began to vibrate beneath their feet and then shot forward. Together with the other Black Sieve Sect Feng Shui compasses, they transformed into colorful beams of light as they sped through the air.
The direction they were heading turned out to be the Hundred Mountains of the Black Sieve Sect.
Meng Hao stood there quietly, unmoving. Anyone who looked at him saw a Cultivation base at the early Foundation Establishment stage. He stood in the middle of all the Cultivators. Other than Lu Tao, no one seemed to notice him. Elder Sister Xu didn’t notice him either. Her face was covered with a bitter expression, as if she was pondering her own future.
As the Feng Shui compasses neared the middle of the Hundred Mountains, the tendrils of smoke rising up from the massive incense burner began to twist in the air above the Sect. Layer upon layer, they twisted together to form an enormous ring of smoke.
As the smoke ring formed, the space in the middle began to ripple. Meng Hao watched as the lead Feng Shui compass entered into the smoke ring and then disappeared. His eyes flickered as the violet Feng Shui compass he stood on entered the ring.
Soon all of the Feng Shui compasses and Cultivators had entered, whereupon the smoke ring disappeared and the Black Sieve Sect returned to its normal state. Outside of the Hundred Mountains, a shield appeared. Shields also sprung up around the Thousand Mountains and the Hundred Thousand Mountains. The entire Sect was now sealed up tight; no one could leave or enter.
About the same time that the Black Sieve Sect sealed itself, Divine Sense from multiple locations began to sweep about the State of Clear Skies. This was Divine Sense from various Sects and Clans within the Southern Domain, come to investigate what was happening within the Black Sieve Sect.
Because of different agreements that they had with the Black Sieve Sect, they couldn’t interfere.
Back on the Feng Shui compass, Xie Jie’s voice rang out: “Fellow Daoists, there’s no reason to be alarmed. This is one of the Black Sieve Sect’s most valuable treasures, the Heaven Forged Furnace. In ancient times, it was inscribed with void-penetrating runes that turn it into a teleportation portal.
“As to where the teleportation portal leads to, I’m afraid none of you are familiar with it. Even I myself don’t really know….” The teleportation just now had caused a buzz of conversation to arise, but after hearing Xie Jie’s words, everyone quieted back down.
Meng Hao looked around coldly. They seemed to be surrounded by blackness interspersed with points of light that looked like stars. Everything around them was empty, without the least bit of light. Only the glow emitted by the Feng Shui compasses illuminated the people on them.
Ahead, one Feng Shui compass after another flew along. Most of the Black Sieve Sect disciples were sitting cross-legged meditating. Only the group of Chosen on the violet Feng Shui compass was staring out into the blackness.
Further away, the three Core Formation eccentrics seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves with Divine thought. And then, there was the most powerful person of all, Patriarch Violet Sieve, who sat motionless meditating, his eyes closed.
Elder Sister Xu was sitting silently in the midst of the several hundred Black Sieve Sect disciples. The statue in their midst seemed as if it were about to melt into the blackness of this dark world. Ghost images resonated out from it, adding to its bizarreness.
On Xie Jie’s Feng Shui compass, one of the three late Foundation Establishment Cultivators, an old man in a gray robe, frowned and said, “Fellow Daoist Xie, you said you’ve been to this place a few times before. Yet, you don’t know how to describe where we’re going….?”
Xie Jie seemed to hesitate in thought for a moment and then looked around for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I do know a bit about the path we’re traveling. As Fellow Daoist Tu surmised, this is a path that Cultivators in ancient times would use to travel to the stars to collect foreign Spirit lineages. It is a path between Mountains!” The surrounding Cultivators stared in astonishment at him and, then looked around them, seemingly intent on fixing everything around them into the memories.
“It’s not a true path between Mountains,” said Xie Jie, looking around contentedly at the shocked looks on the faces of the rogue Foundation Establishment Cultivators.