Chapter 1897: The Courtyard That Cannot Be Reached
The leader grabbed his hair, which was just long enough to tie into a small ponytail. "Absolutely no mistake, but I think the house might be hidden by some item, which is why the aircraft couldn't detect it. Let's keep going forward. Even if it can turn invisible, it can't just vanish into thin air."
The others thought this made sense, so they continued walking. Before long, a massive wall of flowers appeared before them. After exchanging excited glances, one of them took out a bottle of potion and dripped it onto the flower wall. The plants began to wither and rot from the point of contact with the liquid. As the debris fell in a rustling shower, a large hole quickly appeared in the middle. They repeated the process until they had opened a passage through the flower wall.
Not long after they entered, the plants outside the wall grew back rapidly, once again covering the hole.
Xu Huo, who was perched in a tree in the distance, guessed these were mutant plants deliberately planted there. He looked up, rose to a certain height, and flew over from above.
But the moment he crossed over, he realized something was wrong. On the other side of the wall, as he passed through some kind of barrier, a thick fog enveloped him, almost completely obscuring his vision. Not only that, but when he turned around to go back, he found that the path behind him was sealed off by the barrier again.
After a moment's hesitation, he continued forward while lowering his altitude. However, he and those five noble scions had entered one after another, yet when he landed, he found that they had all disappeared without a trace.
He sensed his surroundings and, after confirming there was no special temporal or spatial power, he slightly increased his speed. But this forest was like a chaotic maze. Even though he was sure he was walking in a straight line, he would soon encounter plants or ground markings he had already noted. This meant he had been going in circles.
Was his own sensory judgment flawed?
Xu Huo didn't feel that was the case, so he explored underground to see if the arrangement of these plants was the problem, or if the special plants here had the ability to replicate themselves.
After several attempts, he confirmed it was a plant issue. So he dug up some roots and stems on the spot to extend their recovery time, then sped up.
Soon, he encountered another flower wall. This one, however, was soaked in the fog, making it look particularly dangerous. Moreover, the flowers on this wall were man-eating flowers. Huge flower buds hung like inverted spheres all over the wall, not even sparing the small birds flying nearby. Several streams of toxic mucus would spray out the moment the buds opened. Even if the birds fell, it didn't matter—the flowers on the entire wall would open their mouths simultaneously, and whoever caught them got to eat.
He had a feeling that passing through the flower wall and passing over it might lead to two different places. So this time, Xu Huo directly opened a hole in the flower wall. As he stepped through, the fog that had been lingering around him disappeared. Behind the wall was a very wide lawn, with a rest pavilion in the distance. It looked like he had entered a living space.
Below the lawn was a stretch of connected houses. From the outside, they seemed continuous, but between the houses were small squares, pools, and other scenic features that segmented them. It looked like a very large compound courtyard.
Xu Huo circled around outside and found that the entire building had no external door. And inside, no matter which direction the houses faced, their doors all opened toward the small squares or pools. This layout further cut the building into many square shapes, with each scenic area forming a small, self-contained unit.
A place like this, deep in the mountains, was far too eerie. After hesitating, he decided not to enter for now. But just as he was about to turn back, a door suddenly opened. A noble scion walked out. The person seemed surprised by the scene outside, but what shocked him even more was that when he instinctively turned to look for his companions, he found that the doors opposite and to the left and right had also opened. The ones opening them were his traveling companions.
The other three were also astonished. "We entered the same door!"
"It seems that when we passed through the door, we entered different spaces," the long-haired leader said, not panicked since they could still see each other. He asked the remaining companion, "Where's the other person?"
"He might have been sent somewhere else," one person said as he tried to step out, but his foot was blocked by an invisible barrier. "What's going on?" He reached out and felt in front of him, then his face turned ugly. "This place is sealed off. I'll go back and check."
Before the other three could stop him, the man passed through the door inside the room, intending to go back. However, the long-haired man also opened another door behind him and saw no one appear.
"Marc!" the long-haired man shouted loudly, but no one answered him.
The disappearance of Marc made the remaining three realize that even if they turned back, they would most likely not return to the room they had just been in. Instead, they might be teleported to different places.
"This place is so big, and everything is separated. If we get lost, where do we find anyone?" The long-haired man grew a bit irritated. He took out an item and tried to forcefully break the barrier in front of him. He succeeded, but the moment he stepped out, he vanished directly from the sight of the other two.
"Rhodes!" The other two called out the long-haired man's name, but again, there was no response.
Now they stared at each other in bewilderment. Turning back meant the five of them might each be scattered. Staying here would only leave them staring blankly.
But since they hadn't encountered any major danger, and the worst that could happen was being teleported to different rooms, their psychological pressure wasn't too great. After discussing it, they decided to each go look for the others. If they could find them, good; if not, leaving was fine.
After the two parted ways and turned back, the small courtyard fell silent.
Xu Huo's spatial perception and mental power could cover over a kilometer of space. But when these people appeared, they weren't within his perception range, and after they left, they also exited that range. In terms of spatial perception, he didn't feel there was anything wrong with those doors. There wasn't even any special spatial power concentrated on them. However, when he probed with his mental power, he found that what appeared to be a door on the surface actually had a large gap. From the outside, he could directly see what was happening in the courtyard. But if he tried to pass through the door, what appeared before him was darkness, as if he had entered a space hidden in a crevice.
A space in a crevice—the only thing he could think of was the place where chaotic rays intersected in the "Cube Space."
After obtaining the "Cube Space," he had speculated that the swallowing spatial gaps that appeared in Xiaohe City were caused by this instrument. Because it had assimilated a large number of spatial rays, the intersection points of the rays had become chaotic, and the rays within could not be easily interfered with. However, Xu Huo had never encountered any swallowing incidents while using it. And E Shu had said it was a relatively stable spatial instrument, similar to a normal partitioned space. So he had speculated whether the spatial rays inside might have synchronized with the partitioned space, thus causing the swallowing incidents.
As for why he hadn't encountered any swallowing incidents while using it, one possibility was that the location was different, and another was that it might take a certain amount of time. After all, partitioned spaces and temporal-spatial items were different.
This courtyard now seemed somewhat similar. (End of Chapter)