"On behalf of the Beasthaven sect, I, Luo Yi, welcome you all, fellow cultivators from the Crimson Snow Sect."
Almost a hundred meters above in the sky, right on top of the central region of the Crimson Snow Sect, hovered a formally dressed middle-aged woman, her expensive beizi style hanfu flapping in the high sea breeze.
That's right. High sea breeze, a heavy, salty, rough gale that was as pleasant as the scent of wet vegetation it carried.
Upon executing the final step of the Celestial Gateway technique, Han Xuhan's consciousness had finally returned back to its normal state inside his own body, his senses returning slowly. Then he had opened his eyes and received a shock bigger than his experience inside the integrated network of consciousnesses of the Celestial Gateway technique.
Before the execution of the technique, Kong Ye and he had been standing on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, surrounded by many other peaks, rivers, villages, woods, and plains as far as his eyes could see.
Now, they were still on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, still surrounded by the other mountains containing the rest of the sect members....except the woods, the plains, the rivers, the villages, the woods, all of those elements had vanished from the picturesque scene he was used to seeing.
The entire territory of the Crimson Snow Sect now was on top of a sea. Not only that, but it was also at least 500 meters above the seawater level, judging from his vantage point.
"Hah, yes. Your eyes are not fooling you! Your sect is now technically a floating island! Ta-da!"
The shout came from the representative of their hosts, whose unnaturally loud, sing-song voice was surprisingly pleasant, rousing the rest of the disciple body from their stunned reverie.
A commotion rose instantly amidst the floating mountains of Crimson Snow Sect. Even from where he was standing, Han Xuhan could hear the contents of the countless shouts from the nearby mountains.
"Holy heavens!"
"So this was the surprise! Even though the third layer of the technique pretty much spelled out what would happen, I never thought it would be this amazing!"
"What's even more amazing is how much you've been bragging about reaching the third layer, Xu Qing!"
"Oh no! Where did my secret cave go? My adult paintings!"
"My secret spirit stone stash! The boulder isn't there anymore!"
"Ahhhh! My home! It's gone!"
"Fuck surprises! I didn't even ready my equipment for the tournament! Why didn't they say we'd be traveling instantly?"
"Hey, who was the girl shouting about her adult paintings? Asking for a friend."
"But you have no friend, Long Yun ."
"My clothes are gone! I just left them to dry in the sun half an hour ago!"
Han Xuhan redirected his focus, the chaos all around becoming too loud and complicated for his improved auditory senses to analyze. He had gathered a bunch of valuable information from the shouts, however. Slowly getting up from the ground, he walked up toward his master Kong Ye while his mind connected the dots.
Point number one— the Celestial Gateway technique had somehow teleported their entire sect, including a significant portion of its outer region, to this designated place. Judging by the workings of the technique, the formations laid all over the mountain soil were the secret behind the teleportation. While the homes and general infrastructures like the buildings, arenas, and workshops were still intact, many elements hadn't been teleported along; such as the secret cave of that hentai artist, the spirit stone stash of the rich kid, and the clothes of the third victim.
The natural conclusion from these incidents was that anything not specifically covered by the area of effect of the formations might not have been teleported along.
His heart sank as he remembered how many precious treasures he had hoarded inside his bedroom over the last few weeks.
Point number two— It was intended to take place this way, sudden and silent. The fact that the disciples were not given any time or warning to prepare for the teleportation was not an accident, nor did it stem from the sect master's enthusiasm to surprise them. This was quite possibly a part of the tournament's hidden rules.
Point number three— he couldn't see any senior disciples in the nearby mountain peaks from where he stood, even though these senior disciples had participated in the Gateway technique's execution.
By the time he had reached those conclusions, he was standing beside Kong Ye, observing the scene as all the elders from the mountain peaks flew up in the air to greet Luo Yi. Kong Ye himself took off a moment later, leaving an intrigued Xuhan behind.
Truly, having the skills to fly as one wished was a goal he desperately wanted to reach. How exciting and cool would it be?
Hurried footsteps came from behind, followed by the stormy reappearance of Mu Ran, Yuen Zhou, and Xiao Wu.
"What happened? What did I miss?" Mu Ran said, huffing from exertion.
"There. That lady is a representative of the Beasthaven Sect, here to welcome us to the tournament." Han Xuhan pointed at the spectacle above where the elders and sect master Xuan Zi were exchanging some unnecessarily lengthy greetings with Luo Yi, all of them floating up so high that the disciples couldn't catch much of their words.
"By the way, boss, are our houses intact? Apparently, some portions of the mountains have been left behind-"
Mu Ran instantly waved off Xuhan's worried inquiry.
"Oh, don't worry about that, underling. Nothing of importance has actually been left behind on our mountain. With Master, me, and sister Zhou here, would we let that happen?"
"...Oh! So this was the true use of the Gateway technique? To transport all of us here?"
"Yes, underling. Everything that was covered by the scope of the formations was teleported through the Gateway, powered by an unimaginable amount of resources to break the barrier of space and send us here. The first-level domains covered by the weakest formations suffered heavily from the spatial impact. The second-level domains are mostly intact, and the third-level domains are absolutely perfect down to the tiniest sand drops.
You'd have understood that if you studied the technique attentively."
Struck speechless, Xuhan silently digested the information while squinting all around him carefully, looking for evidence that supported Mu Ran's answer.
He found it very fast.
In every mountain peak, a significant portion looked dead. Like charred, ruined lands, these areas consisted of nothing but ashen soil, uprooted, crushed trees, and broken buildings that had been leveled to the ground. These regions could hardly be used in the near future. A lot of work would have to be done to return them to their original state.
These were parts of the first-level domains! Was this how the impact of the teleportation had affected these areas?
Thankfully, none of the disciples had to be stationed in the first-level domains. Otherwise, Han Xuhan couldn't imagine the casualty...
He walked down from the top of the peak, searching for similar regions in the Heavenly Haistorm mountain. As someone who had laid several first-level formations, he found a small area easily, barely fifty meters away from his hut.
The clues connected easily in his mind after he personally examined the substance that the soil had been transformed into under the impact of the mass-teleportation.
It was very malleable under a high amount of force, but didn’t show any response toward qi. It did not seem to have any impurities or mixtures of other elements regardless of its vast amount all over the mountains, unlike regular soil on mountains where small rocks, litter, and vegetation could be found everywhere.
He recalled reading in the manual of the Celestial Gateway technique that a first-level formation was supposed to treat everything within its range as pure mass.
The second-level formations should have been the ones behind the creation of the rest of the infrastructure that was identical to the original sect then. As for the third level...it was supposed to grant the practitioner the power to modify and control the area of effect as he wished.
Han Xuhan whipped around, curious to see what new changes might have been implemented by the elders and the geniuses who had reached the third layer of the Celestial Gateway Technique.
However, at that moment, a voice came from above, stopping him in his tracks.
"Uh-oh! Take cover, everybody!"
Before he could understand what was happening, a booming sound hit him square in the eardrums, which was followed by...
"It's a flood!"
Tsunami waves that seemed to have come from at least three different directions overhead crashed into the Heavenly Haistorm Mountain.
The first gigantic jet of water that hit Han Xuhan had come from above. The sensation was a hundred times more horrifying than being hit by splashes beneath a waterfall.
Before he could even breathe out a gasp, he had been swept off his feet and carried off downhill by the current.
"What the f-!"
He wasn't the only disciple to suffer this fate, and neither was the Heavenly Haistorm mountain the only one attacked by the sudden, source-less tsunami.
Surges of water washed over the mountains like a legendary flood from epics. It was as if an invisible dam had opened up on top of the Crimson Snow Sect, letting out millions of gallons of water backed up behind it.
None of the disciples was in the position to investigate what exactly was going on, least of all Han Xuhan, whose physical prowess was the worst of the lot.
"Glllrrg! Grrrr~"
Han Xuhan's world was spinning. He couldn't even find the opportunity to throw up properly, carried along the mighty waves down the slopes of the mountain.
"Aaaah, fuck! I can't- grrrr....swim !" Someone yelled miserably from his back. Han Xuhan was in no state to tell who it was. He himself was barely holding up.
BANG!
THUMP!
THWACK!
Several crashes that should have killed a mortal followed soon once he rolled into the more bushy parts of the mountain. All of the trees here had been teleported with an unnecessary amount of care, it seemed. Their thick, sturdy trunks, gnarly branches, and the wiry creepers seemed to be actively punishing the 'passersby'.
By the time his world had stopped consisting of whirly, lukewarm seawater, Han Xuhan was sprawled alongside his martial siblings at the foot of the mountain, where the ground was covered by knee-deep water everywhere.
Groaning audibly, the four of them got back on their feet after much struggle, some of their bones and joints creaking in cacophony with them. Han Xuhan counted five different parts of his body that were now missing generous chunks of skin and meat. Had his expensive clothes not been magically reinforced, albeit pretty weakly, he would probably be missing a limb or two by now.
"Where the fuck did all that water come from? And where the fuck did it go?" Mu Ran yelled furiously at the sky.
"I think we will have to figure those answers out ourselves...." Yuen Zhou muttered, her eyes focusing on the sky.
"Wait a minute, why aren't your clothes wet?" Mu Ran asked in alarm after taking one glance at her. Han Xuhan and Xiao Wu instantly turned to look at her and found that Mu Ran's observation was true.
"Why do you want my clothes to be wet?" She asked in a monotone.
"...Never mind."
While the two of them glared at each other, Han Xuhan tried his best to calculate whether it was possible for a tsunami wave in the middle of the sea to be so large that it could drown somebody 500 meters high in the air. But the answer kept coming out negative unless he counted in magical factors....which implied that the disaster, as short-lived as it might have been, was purely man-made, magical outcome of a technique.
Was it a goddamn prank? He had some pretty vicious plans bubbling inside his mind for the prankster.
The harsh, salty taste in his mouth was nowhere near as harsh as the words that he was about to fire at whoever was in charge of the event management. But before he even gathered up the energy, Xuan Zi's booming voice rang across the mountains.
"Disciples! Now that all of you have familiarized yourselves with your new surroundings so practically, gather at the center of our sect, at the foot of my mountain."
Exchanging gloomy looks among themselves, the four disciples of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak limped along the serpentine path amidst the mountains, trodding the water-soaked slippery soil.
The water was receding at a visible speed, they realized soon. Of course it would. The entire sect was now practically an island hovering magically in the sky. There was no way for so much water to accumulate here. It would all fall down back to the sea.
But if the sea was below...why did the tsunami waves originate from above?
Han Xuhan chalked it up to magic.
On their way, countless disciples who had suffered the same fate as them created a large crowd. Some of them had been seriously injured during the flood and had to be carried toward the infirmary, although they weren't sure if it had been teleported along with the rest of the sect. Han Xuhan quickly slipped into some close-knitted groups to gather information.
"Ei, brother Hui ! Damn, that's a deep cut. Gonna leave a scar for sure! I'd advise against healing it completely, though. Grade A jade beauty magnet right there! So what's up with....."
"Huh, sister Feng! Here, take my outer robe and cover your back. I saw some perverts staring at you. What's that? Oh, you want their names....? Er, one of them was Mu Ran, I think. By the way...."
By the time they had reached the foot of the sect master's mountain, Xuhan had gathered up a significant amount of information. A rough picture of the entire sect in its current state had taken shape inside his mind.
The most notable revelation was that not a single disciple of the senior generations had been teleported here alongside them. This suggested that the tournament would be limited to the youngest generation of disciples of every sect, confirming Han Xuhan's suspicion.
While Xuhan mentally noted down a few other details that he would need to rely on later for some of his preliminary objectives, the elders, the sect master, and the host representative lady Luo Yi floated down in front of the entire disciple body, looking completely dry and unharmed by the visit of the seawater just a few minutes ago.
The air reeked of discontent, pregnant with a rebellious buzz amidst the disciples.
"On behalf of the Beasthaven sect, I, Luo Yi, welcome you all, fellow cultivators from the Crimson Snow Sect."
Almost a hundred meters above in the sky, right on top of the central region of the Crimson Snow Sect, hovered a formally dressed middle-aged woman, her expensive beizi style hanfu flapping in the high sea breeze.
That's right. High sea breeze, a heavy, salty, rough gale that was as pleasant as the scent of wet vegetation it carried.
Upon executing the final step of the Celestial Gateway technique, Han Xuhan's consciousness had finally returned back to its normal state inside his own body, his senses returning slowly. Then he had opened his eyes and received a shock bigger than his experience inside the integrated network of consciousnesses of the Celestial Gateway technique.
Before the execution of the technique, Kong Ye and he had been standing on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, surrounded by many other peaks, rivers, villages, woods, and plains as far as his eyes could see.
Now, they were still on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, still surrounded by the other mountains containing the rest of the sect members....except the woods, the plains, the rivers, the villages, the woods, all of those elements had vanished from the picturesque scene he was used to seeing.
The entire territory of the Crimson Snow Sect now was on top of a sea. Not only that, but it was also at least 500 meters above the seawater level, judging from his vantage point.
"Hah, yes. Your eyes are not fooling you! Your sect is now technically a floating island! Ta-da!"
The shout came from the representative of their hosts, whose unnaturally loud, sing-song voice was surprisingly pleasant, rousing the rest of the disciple body from their stunned reverie.
A commotion rose instantly amidst the floating mountains of Crimson Snow Sect. Even from where he was standing, Han Xuhan could hear the contents of the countless shouts from the nearby mountains.
"Holy heavens!"
"So this was the surprise! Even though the third layer of the technique pretty much spelled out what would happen, I never thought it would be this amazing!"
"What's even more amazing is how much you've been bragging about reaching the third layer, Xu Qing!"
"Oh no! Where did my secret cave go? My adult paintings!"
"My secret spirit stone stash! The boulder isn't there anymore!"
"Ahhhh! My home! It's gone!"
"Fuck surprises! I didn't even ready my equipment for the tournament! Why didn't they say we'd be traveling instantly?"
"Hey, who was the girl shouting about her adult paintings? Asking for a friend."
"But you have no friend, Long Yun ."
"My clothes are gone! I just left them to dry in the sun half an hour ago!"
Han Xuhan redirected his focus, the chaos all around becoming too loud and complicated for his improved auditory senses to analyze. He had gathered a bunch of valuable information from the shouts, however. Slowly getting up from the ground, he walked up toward his master Kong Ye while his mind connected the dots.
Point number one— the Celestial Gateway technique had somehow teleported their entire sect, including a significant portion of its outer region, to this designated place. Judging by the workings of the technique, the formations laid all over the mountain soil were the secret behind the teleportation. While the homes and general infrastructures like the buildings, arenas, and workshops were still intact, many elements hadn't been teleported along; such as the secret cave of that hentai artist, the spirit stone stash of the rich kid, and the clothes of the third victim.
The natural conclusion from these incidents was that anything not specifically covered by the area of effect of the formations might not have been teleported along.
His heart sank as he remembered how many precious treasures he had hoarded inside his bedroom over the last few weeks.
Point number two— It was intended to take place this way, sudden and silent. The fact that the disciples were not given any time or warning to prepare for the teleportation was not an accident, nor did it stem from the sect master's enthusiasm to surprise them. This was quite possibly a part of the tournament's hidden rules.
Point number three— he couldn't see any senior disciples in the nearby mountain peaks from where he stood, even though these senior disciples had participated in the Gateway technique's execution.
By the time he had reached those conclusions, he was standing beside Kong Ye, observing the scene as all the elders from the mountain peaks flew up in the air to greet Luo Yi. Kong Ye himself took off a moment later, leaving an intrigued Xuhan behind.
Truly, having the skills to fly as one wished was a goal he desperately wanted to reach. How exciting and cool would it be?
Hurried footsteps came from behind, followed by the stormy reappearance of Mu Ran, Yuen Zhou, and Xiao Wu.
"What happened? What did I miss?" Mu Ran said, huffing from exertion.
"There. That lady is a representative of the Beasthaven Sect, here to welcome us to the tournament." Han Xuhan pointed at the spectacle above where the elders and sect master Xuan Zi were exchanging some unnecessarily lengthy greetings with Luo Yi, all of them floating up so high that the disciples couldn't catch much of their words.
"By the way, boss, are our houses intact? Apparently, some portions of the mountains have been left behind-"
Mu Ran instantly waved off Xuhan's worried inquiry.
"Oh, don't worry about that, underling. Nothing of importance has actually been left behind on our mountain. With Master, me, and sister Zhou here, would we let that happen?"
"...Oh! So this was the true use of the Gateway technique? To transport all of us here?"
"Yes, underling. Everything that was covered by the scope of the formations was teleported through the Gateway, powered by an unimaginable amount of resources to break the barrier of space and send us here. The first-level domains covered by the weakest formations suffered heavily from the spatial impact. The second-level domains are mostly intact, and the third-level domains are absolutely perfect down to the tiniest sand drops.
You'd have understood that if you studied the technique attentively."
Struck speechless, Xuhan silently digested the information while squinting all around him carefully, looking for evidence that supported Mu Ran's answer.
He found it very fast.
In every mountain peak, a significant portion looked dead. Like charred, ruined lands, these areas consisted of nothing but ashen soil, uprooted, crushed trees, and broken buildings that had been leveled to the ground. These regions could hardly be used in the near future. A lot of work would have to be done to return them to their original state.
These were parts of the first-level domains! Was this how the impact of the teleportation had affected these areas?
Thankfully, none of the disciples had to be stationed in the first-level domains. Otherwise, Han Xuhan couldn't imagine the casualty...
He walked down from the top of the peak, searching for similar regions in the Heavenly Haistorm mountain. As someone who had laid several first-level formations, he found a small area easily, barely fifty meters away from his hut.
The clues connected easily in his mind after he personally examined the substance that the soil had been transformed into under the impact of the mass-teleportation.
It was very malleable under a high amount of force, but didn’t show any response toward qi. It did not seem to have any impurities or mixtures of other elements regardless of its vast amount all over the mountains, unlike regular soil on mountains where small rocks, litter, and vegetation could be found everywhere.
He recalled reading in the manual of the Celestial Gateway technique that a first-level formation was supposed to treat everything within its range as pure mass.
The second-level formations should have been the ones behind the creation of the rest of the infrastructure that was identical to the original sect then. As for the third level...it was supposed to grant the practitioner the power to modify and control the area of effect as he wished.
Han Xuhan whipped around, curious to see what new changes might have been implemented by the elders and the geniuses who had reached the third layer of the Celestial Gateway Technique.
However, at that moment, a voice came from above, stopping him in his tracks.
"Uh-oh! Take cover, everybody!"
Before he could understand what was happening, a booming sound hit him square in the eardrums, which was followed by...
"It's a flood!"
Tsunami waves that seemed to have come from at least three different directions overhead crashed into the Heavenly Haistorm Mountain.
The first gigantic jet of water that hit Han Xuhan had come from above. The sensation was a hundred times more horrifying than being hit by splashes beneath a waterfall.
Before he could even breathe out a gasp, he had been swept off his feet and carried off downhill by the current.
"What the f-!"
He wasn't the only disciple to suffer this fate, and neither was the Heavenly Haistorm mountain the only one attacked by the sudden, source-less tsunami.
Surges of water washed over the mountains like a legendary flood from epics. It was as if an invisible dam had opened up on top of the Crimson Snow Sect, letting out millions of gallons of water backed up behind it.
None of the disciples was in the position to investigate what exactly was going on, least of all Han Xuhan, whose physical prowess was the worst of the lot.
"Glllrrg! Grrrr~"
Han Xuhan's world was spinning. He couldn't even find the opportunity to throw up properly, carried along the mighty waves down the slopes of the mountain.
"Aaaah, fuck! I can't- grrrr....swim !" Someone yelled miserably from his back. Han Xuhan was in no state to tell who it was. He himself was barely holding up.
BANG!
THUMP!
THWACK!
Several crashes that should have killed a mortal followed soon once he rolled into the more bushy parts of the mountain. All of the trees here had been teleported with an unnecessary amount of care, it seemed. Their thick, sturdy trunks, gnarly branches, and the wiry creepers seemed to be actively punishing the 'passersby'.
By the time his world had stopped consisting of whirly, lukewarm seawater, Han Xuhan was sprawled alongside his martial siblings at the foot of the mountain, where the ground was covered by knee-deep water everywhere.
Groaning audibly, the four of them got back on their feet after much struggle, some of their bones and joints creaking in cacophony with them. Han Xuhan counted five different parts of his body that were now missing generous chunks of skin and meat. Had his expensive clothes not been magically reinforced, albeit pretty weakly, he would probably be missing a limb or two by now.
"Where the fuck did all that water come from? And where the fuck did it go?" Mu Ran yelled furiously at the sky.
"I think we will have to figure those answers out ourselves...." Yuen Zhou muttered, her eyes focusing on the sky.
"Wait a minute, why aren't your clothes wet?" Mu Ran asked in alarm after taking one glance at her. Han Xuhan and Xiao Wu instantly turned to look at her and found that Mu Ran's observation was true.
"Why do you want my clothes to be wet?" She asked in a monotone.
"...Never mind."
While the two of them glared at each other, Han Xuhan tried his best to calculate whether it was possible for a tsunami wave in the middle of the sea to be so large that it could drown somebody 500 meters high in the air. But the answer kept coming out negative unless he counted in magical factors....which implied that the disaster, as short-lived as it might have been, was purely man-made, magical outcome of a technique.
Was it a goddamn prank? He had some pretty vicious plans bubbling inside his mind for the prankster.
The harsh, salty taste in his mouth was nowhere near as harsh as the words that he was about to fire at whoever was in charge of the event management. But before he even gathered up the energy, Xuan Zi's booming voice rang across the mountains.
"Disciples! Now that all of you have familiarized yourselves with your new surroundings so practically, gather at the center of our sect, at the foot of my mountain."
Exchanging gloomy looks among themselves, the four disciples of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak limped along the serpentine path amidst the mountains, trodding the water-soaked slippery soil.
The water was receding at a visible speed, they realized soon. Of course it would. The entire sect was now practically an island hovering magically in the sky. There was no way for so much water to accumulate here. It would all fall down back to the sea.
But if the sea was below...why did the tsunami waves originate from above?
Han Xuhan chalked it up to magic.
On their way, countless disciples who had suffered the same fate as them created a large crowd. Some of them had been seriously injured during the flood and had to be carried toward the infirmary, although they weren't sure if it had been teleported along with the rest of the sect. Han Xuhan quickly slipped into some close-knitted groups to gather information.
"Ei, brother Hui ! Damn, that's a deep cut. Gonna leave a scar for sure! I'd advise against healing it completely, though. Grade A jade beauty magnet right there! So what's up with....."
"Huh, sister Feng! Here, take my outer robe and cover your back. I saw some perverts staring at you. What's that? Oh, you want their names....? Er, one of them was Mu Ran, I think. By the way...."
By the time they had reached the foot of the sect master's mountain, Xuhan had gathered up a significant amount of information. A rough picture of the entire sect in its current state had taken shape inside his mind.
The most notable revelation was that not a single disciple of the senior generations had been teleported here alongside them. This suggested that the tournament would be limited to the youngest generation of disciples of every sect, confirming Han Xuhan's suspicion.
While Xuhan mentally noted down a few other details that he would need to rely on later for some of his preliminary objectives, the elders, the sect master, and the host representative lady Luo Yi floated down in front of the entire disciple body, looking completely dry and unharmed by the visit of the seawater just a few minutes ago.
The air reeked of discontent, pregnant with a rebellious buzz amidst the disciples.
