Chapter – 108 - The Rotating Silver Sphere

Beibei passed one of the bottles to each of the boys who stared at the bottles for a while before resolutely taking out a green pill soaked in a slimy liquid from within, then gulped it down with their eyes closed. The faces soon turned a deep shade of red, then turned white, and sweat beads covered their entire forehead.

Even Beibei was trying to push back the extreme nausea which seemed to be churning all around within her stomach, trying to rise up and out of her mouth. Currently they could see, feel and hear nothing except the awful feeling chocking their breath and senses. Blacky and Pinky had woken up at some point, and had already rushed off to the end of the little floating chunk of earth, wishing they could fly. Because they knew, once these humans were done, it would be their turn next!

The toddler seemed to be the only one who was left out of the equation. He floated around their heads in dizzying circles, looking extremely excited and interested by the variety of expressions and faces these humans were putting up before him.

Back in the temple, almost everyone had been reverent in their behavior before him. Even Monmona was never disrespectful. thus their expressions were rather consistent and unchanging at all times. Looking at the varying and ever changing expressions on the three kids, he felt like he had missed out on a lot of things in life. He felt pitiful!

After a short while of torture, which felt unending and eternal to all three, the severe nausea and bitter after-taste of the pill slowly reduced and disappeared. All three fell down on the ground, panting from the exertion of simply trying not to puke. The two beasts found that their fear was not unfounded. Once the three calmed down sufficiently, the two boys immediately grabbed onto one beast each, whilst Beibei forcefully pushed in one pill down each of their throat.

After a long while, all five of them were finally ready. A translucent, slimy membranous covering gradually grew all around their body like a second skin. This membrane could keep all types of miasma and poison outside. Instead, it would absorb all the miasma trying to penetrate through the membrane, keeping it trapped within layer of slimy mucous. When the membrane reached the end of its capacity, it would disconnect from the body, and fall down on the ground like a discarded skin, with the miasma or poison still trapped within.

This was the best defense they currently had in this situation.

Shielded by the slimy membrane layer, the five and a floating spirit once more embarked on their journey through the cracks and crevices of the dry grounds. The more they walked, the more miasma floated over the ground, till they could hardly even see the ground. The surroundings too started turning darker, as if night was falling all around. In this space it was hard differentiating between day and night. Though it was not as dark as the Visionless Path, as even in the darkness they could make out the path till a few dozen meters ahead of themselves. Still, the trio and two beasts and one spirit kept near each other.

Beibei was amazed that the dark miasma seemed to have little to no effect on the toddler spirit. A light layer of spiritual energy circulated around the spirit, keeping the dark miasma at bay.

"What the heck was that?"

Kunwa stopped in haste, a feeling of disgust distorting his otherwise good features. Beibei and Nanate too halted their steps. They couldn't see the ground at all through the miasma floating above it. But they had all distinctly felt the ground growing more and more damp, till it turned into slush. And something seemed to be moving within this invisible slush.

Whatever it was, it did not seem to want to pursue them, and merely moved away wherever they stepped.

"Be alert, but don't attack anything randomly. Stay close, in case anyone of us get caught and need help. Let's move as quickly as we can."

Nanate had once more taken up the role of leader since danger seemed to be lurking beneath them. With every step, they could now feel the slithering motions below, like some large snakes were quickly getting out of their path.

The miasma in the air too was growing denser, though as yet there was no sense of threat from it. Merely, their membranes were becoming heavy and cloudy as it kept absorbing more and more miasma. They kept the next lot of pills ready at hand. As soon as the membranous covering reached its limit and started breaking from the top, they would pop in the next pill. The membranous layer formed fast, thus not giving a loophole for the miasma to enter and seep into their body.

The more they walked, the surroundings grew more dim. They could still see each other. Still the trio came closer to keep the formation intact. Beibei didn't want to release the absorbing balls. They still hadn't figured out the strength of the miasma, nor how it would react to a sudden threat.

"There is something ahead of us, a little to the left. I think I can see something silver glinting through the miasma there."

Kunwa had sharper eyes which could see through a lot of things. Beibei too focused her sight, and managed to catch a glimpse of some form of energy pulsating in the said direction. Unsure if it was an enemy, or they had reached their goal, they slowed down in their steps. Beibei sent out her sensory perceptions, and the group moved forward very cautiously.

Though it had seemed to be very close, in actuality, the glimmer they had noticed was quite far off. Inside this darkness they had lost all senses of time. But they had to walk for a very long time before the silver glimmer became clearer.

As they finally came close enough, they stopped in surprise. It was definitely not what they were searching for. Instead, a strange layer of energy circled around something, protecting it from the black miasma which seemed to pool all around it.

As they halted, trying to decipher what it was, something suddenly dashed past them. The darkness all around made it many more times eerie, as they couldn't even catch a glimpse of what it was.

"There is something or someone hidden in these layers of black miasma!"

More and more rustling could be heard around them, but the abundance of black miasma in this place restricted their sight.

"There seem to be many creatures around here, and the way the sounds are growing.....does not seem too good! It looks like they are surrounding us!"

Beibei pursed her lips. The slithering underground had also stopped. But unlike the non-threatening slithering, the rustling creatures seemed more dangerous. She looked at the strange sphere of energy ahead of them. Whatever it was, it seemed to have a way of keeping the black miasma at bay.

"Let's make it to that rotating sphere. See if there is a way to enter the sphere."

"But....what if we get caught inside the sphere? We can't remain inside forever. We'll have to come out at some point."

"Hmmm. I have put a marker here and attached a string with myself. We still have plenty of membranous pills with us. If worse comes to worst, then we'll simply make a dash for the way from where we have come."

"But....there is no exit point from that way. And if we use the portal, then we'll have to leave this place. We might not be able to come back again. Won't that ruin our chances of finding out the hidden families?"

"We first need to think about our own lives. Even if we don't find the hidden families, we can still go to the End-Points and try to figure things out ourselves."

Nanate looked around, frowning deeply. The only thing shining in the entire darkness, was the silver rotating energy sphere. It seemed to be beckoning them to come and give themselves to it. Was it safe? It did seem to keep the black miasma off it. But what in the world was contained inside it?

The three looked at each other and nodded, then dashed simultaneously towards the shining sphere.

"Look! This sphere....doesn't it look similar to our membranous layer?"

Even as Kunwa was trying to analyze the outer covering of the silver sphere, the sphere itself seemed to have a consciousness of its own. And it stopped rotating, gently coming to halt. And then the outer layer of the sphere directly attached itself to the outer membranous layer of their defense, sucking it till a part of it merged with the membranous layer of the sphere.

Then a hole slowly opened into this merged part of the membranous layer, allowing the three to directly enter the sphere without coming into contact with the black miasma. The three once more glanced at each other, surprise written in each pair of eyes. Then Nanate took the first step, and entered into the sphere which was still halted in the same place.

The walls of the sphere was very thick, like a wall, and there were three or four more layers beyond the outer membranous layer. The three of them slowly walked through the thick wall. The inner layers had not opened up, but they found they could walk through them.

As they walked through these layers, they felt a stream of dense energy passing through every part of their body. They had heard of these analyzing barriers. These barriers were specially put up so it could analyze the entire body, physicality, energy core and other aspects of the body. This was to check that the person going through it did not contain any kind of diseases or alien objects.

They guessed the analyzing barriers here were probably checking if they were contaminated by the black miasma. This was a good sign. It meant that whatever or whoever was inside this sphere was not a part of the black miasma.

Once they walked through all the layers of the walls, the layers behind them slowly closed up again. Then the outer two layers started rotating once more. Looking outside made them feel dizzy, so they looked back inwards. Unlike the rotating sphere outside, the inside was actually shaped like normal rooms, with interconnecting doors between different rooms.

And the rooms were filled with small and big chests. Kunwa went forward cautiously, gently prying open the lid of one of the chests. It was filled with a wide assortment of jade and bone slips.

"Bone Hardening and Bone Growing Techniques.....Bone Distortion and Bone Re-growth Technique....Changing of Bone Shape....."

"Breeze technique of Teleportation...Evolving the Teleportation Domain....."

"Aura Diffusing Method....Aura Infiltration and Aura Take-over.....Aura Suppression and Aura Hiding....."

Beibei and Nanate too moved to the other chests and gently opened them. Each of these large chests were filled with innumerable jade and bone slips, and each of these slips contained techniques and methods of cultivation they had rarely heard of in the Sect. Many of these techniques were not even available in the Sects.

"Looks like my wait has finally borne fruit. I can finally hand over the heritage of my clan to the younger generation and let go of myself."

The three of them turned around in shock. A tall, middle aged man stood in a corner of the room. Relief and joy could be traced all over his face. But that was not what caught their attention. What was worthy of noticing was.....that this man was actually a spirit body!