Zhang Yuan, in a meditative state, sat peacefully cross-legged beside the barrier, with wisps of spiritual energy flowing into his body.
A few minutes later, Zhang Yuan's soul received some more images.
In the chaotic mist, a giant black spirit tortoise floated high in the sky, facing a chessboard, deep in thought, its spiritual power pushing the huge chess pieces, as if it were deducing something.
As the chess piece moved, a special scene appeared behind the spirit turtle: a vibrant grassland suddenly appeared in the void!
The tortoise continued to move the chess pieces, and the chessboard emitted a dazzling light, while the scenery behind it changed again.
The grassland disappeared, and a small grove of trees suddenly appeared.
Then it transformed into a forest, where terrifying beasts lurked, including hyenas, black panthers, giant gray spiders, and giant rats, each lifelike, moving about in the forest and devouring each other.
The spirit turtle looked at the scene that appeared around it, seemingly lost in thought, and stretched out its front claws to carve something on one of its shells.
Then, as the pieces continued to move, the scene in the sky changed again.
The forest suddenly transformed into a scene of purgatory, with thunder rumbling in the sky, fire raging from the ground, and the world filled with raging purple lightning and a sea of fire! Beneath the lightning and fire, all living beings were annihilated.
Time passed quickly, and the spirit tortoise spent an unknown amount of time divination in the void. Each time it gained some insight, it would carve it onto its shell.
Zhang Yuan finally emerged from his meditation.
The phantom of the spirit turtle that my soul just saw was exactly the same as the spirit turtle I saw when I entered the forest barrier and meditated.
Holding the Enlightenment Stone, Zhang Yuan continued to process the images and information his soul had seen during meditation.
Holding the Enlightenment Stone, his mind became exceptionally clear, and he pieced together the clues one by one.
...
Therefore, the Spirit Turtle Immortal must be a demon immortal who is very skilled in formations. It is deducing some kind of mysterious and extraordinary formation in the sky and recording its insights on a tortoise shell.
This spirit turtle cave is a huge formation, and they are currently trapped inside it and cannot get out.
Zhang Yuan thought about it more and more and felt that this was a possibility.
If that's the case, then could it be true that he saw the eagle demon being chased and the two rogue cultivators being destroyed by heavenly lightning during his meditation, only that they were in different formations than him?
And these different magic arrays are rotating in some kind of pattern?
At this moment, the crimson number on the sky above where Zhang Yuan was located had turned into 1!
Zhang Yuan's mood grew increasingly heavy!
If his guess is correct, then what will be the next barrier after this one disappears?
Zhang Yuan gripped the Enlightenment Stone and pondered rapidly.
He discovered that as long as he carried the Enlightenment Stone, his mind worked better, his thoughts were clearer than usual, and he could even trigger more inspiration.
Zhang Yuan took a deep breath and recalled the order in which the barriers he had seen appear during his meditation.
grasslands, woodlands, forests...
Could the next one be a world-destroying barrier of heavenly thunder and earthly fire?
Inside the Spirit Turtle Cave, the order of the three barrier scenes that appeared before him was the same as the order of the scenes that his divine soul saw when he entered meditation!
If this speculation is true, then the next barrier he will enter is that world-destroying barrier of heavenly thunder and earthly fire...
If that's really the case, wouldn't we be doomed right away?
Zhang Yuan looked up again, and the crimson number 1 in the sky began to disappear. A faint white light descended from the sky, and the surrounding scenery slowly blurred!
We can't wait any longer. If that's really the case, we're doomed.
Give it a shot.
Before this world faded away, Zhang Yuan rushed quickly towards a patch of red sand that bulged out of the ground a little over a meter to the east!
He dug through the sand and found a red crystal inside.
Following the image he saw in his meditation, he imitated the way the spirit tortoise manipulated the chess pieces, turned the red crystal stone in a different direction, and then flashed to a flat area about ten meters to the west of the red crystal stone, where he began to dig again.
Sure enough, there was another red crystal stone down there!
Zhang Yuan turned the red crystal stone ninety degrees so that it faced due south, then quickly moved to the south, found the red crystal stone underground, and turned it to face the south again!
A white light enveloped this barrier world. When Zhang Yuan reached the fourth and final location, the world had become severely blurred and was about to disappear.
Zhang Yuan's body was becoming increasingly ethereal, but he still used his last bit of strength to run to the last identified location to search for the red crystal buried in the sand.
Why isn't there any red crystal?
Several centimeters of sand had been dug away, but the red crystal was still nowhere to be seen. Zhang Yuan was in a panic, and the half of his leg that had been shrouded in white light had disappeared.
There must be! There must be!
Zhang Yuan channeled his inner energy into his arm and continued digging downwards. After digging for more than ten centimeters, he finally saw a red crystal.
Zhang Yuan gripped the red crystal with both hands, trying hard to recall the orientation of the last red crystal. However, whether it was due to his panic or the memory loss caused by the white light, he found that he couldn't remember the rotation position of the last red crystal.
East or west?
!!
At this moment, white light enveloped Zhang Yuan's entire body from behind, leaving only half of his arm, which was outstretched to grasp the red crystal, uncovered.
But given the speed at which the white light spreads, this half-arm will soon be enveloped, and then the entire person and this world will disappear together, entering the next barrier!
Zhang Yuan was kneeling on the ground, but now everything in front of him was white and he couldn't see anything. He could only feel the last bit of touch from his arm.
East or west?
It's too late!!
With his last bit of intuition, Zhang Yuan used his last bit of strength to turn the red crystal stone to the east!
A white light enveloped the entire barrier world, and the sensation in his arm completely disappeared. In the end, Zhang Yuan didn't even know if he had managed to bend it!
Rumble!
The deafening roar made my eardrums tingle.
The barrier space slowly tore apart and shattered like an eggshell, and in the vast white expanse, Zhang Yuan could vaguely see a glimpse of scenery again.
The scenery became clearer and clearer, and it looked like a grassland!
When the white light completely disappeared.
Zhang Yuan found himself standing on a grassland.
It was the same grassland where they had first entered the ruins; the traces of the battle were still there. In addition, he, the eagle demon, and the cultivators who had disappeared with him had also returned, but several rogue cultivators were missing from when they first entered.
Zhang Yuan remembered that there were 10 people when they entered the ruins. Now, only the eagle demon, the young man in sunglasses, two men in gray robes with crescent moons on their foreheads, and the rogue cultivator with a large gourd on his back remain, plus Zhang Yuan, making a total of 6 people!
Four cultivators have gone missing; they are likely dead inside the formation!
The cultivators emerged from their respective protective barriers, still bewildered by what had happened, and looked at each other in confusion.
No terrifying lightning struck from the sky, nor did any raging fire burn in the ground. Zhang Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. He had succeeded in prying the red crystal stone one last time, so he broke the barrier and returned here.
However, what Zhang Yuan didn't know was that he not only broke the barrier, but also the formation that the Spirit Turtle Immortal had set up in the cave!
On the grassland, a crack suddenly appeared in the dome!
Just as an eggshell cracks open and a new life is about to emerge, several smaller cracks appear along the extended crack.
As the dome over the grassland cracked open, outside air and sunlight gradually seeped in, accelerating the breakdown of the formation.
Immediately afterwards, spiritual energy surged into the sky from the grassland, and the earth trembled continuously!
The eggshell dome began to crack at an accelerated rate, and the entire grassland shook violently! It looked like it was about to collapse as well!
Just then, a treasure suddenly shot up from the ground of the grassland, soared into the sky, and then quickly fell back down. The black treasure emitted a mysterious dark light as it fell straight down, eventually enveloping Zhang Yuan.
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