Lin Mu and Little Shrubby moved to where the node was supposed to be at.
"It's underwater huh…" Lin Mu muttered and looked at little Shrubby.
He knew that Little Shrubby had a dislike of water and wouldn't be as goods of a help to him there. Lin Mu only needed to get rid of the reborn there anyway and get a trace of the plane's node.
Once he had the trace, Lin Mu would be able to open a portal to the plane anywhere.
"Wait for me here, Little Shrubby." Lin Mu spoke.
"Okay~" Little Shrubby replied and watched Lin Mu rapidly descend.
~SPLASH~
Lin Mu's body hit the water and the armor of the Mortal Strengthening scripture prevented him from getting drenched. He continued to sink in the water before spreading his spirit sense and going in the direction where he sensed the aura of the reborn from.
The depth of the water in this area wasn't as deep as where the general of the Echo Conch kingdom had fought the fish beast. This area was a lot closer to the main island of the Echo conch kingdom and thus the land mass was greater.
In less than a minute, Lin Mu ended up reaching the bottom of the ocean. There were coral everywhere and vibrant marine life spread all over the ocean floor. It was colorful and looked rather beautiful.
"This is nice." Lin Mu muttered as he moved towards a particular area.
The area was a trench hidden between two ridges. There were corals hiding the opening of the trench and thus, most people might just miss it. And even if they did notice it, it wasn't like they would know that a reborn was hiding there either.
Lin Mu quickly entered it and directly sank to the bottom. With his great weight, there was no problems of floating around randomly or being pushed by the water currents. He was like a heavy anchor, immovable.
Once Lin Mu was at the bottom of the trench, he could see the water had turned a darker shade.
"This doesn't seem good…" Lin Mu furrowed his brows.
He said this because he could sense the tainted water attribute spirit Qi here. While Lin Mu couldn't absorb it, he could still sense it due to his experience with the Glacial Shell Snail queen flesh before.
In addition to the water attribute spirit Qi, which was always present in the ocean, he also sensed something else.
'The aura of the invader is tainting the water and in turn, affecting the aquatic beasts that live here. Guess this is another effect we didn't know before.' Lin Mu thought to himself.
The Reborn he had encountered before were all on land, and thus there was no way for their aura to affect the others easily. Unless and until they directly touched or came in contact with others, they wouldn't infect them.
But in the ocean, where almost everything was in contact with water, the aura was being directly infused into it and spreading to others. The only plus point was that it was diluted and wouldn't affect other beasts easily.
Lin Mu followed his spirit sense and saw that there was a tunnel leading to some place from this trench. Continuing through this tunnel, Lin Mu eventually reached a wide open area.
"There's actually air here?" Lin Mu was surprised.
~shua~
Lin Mu ascended upward and left the water. He could see that he was in a wide cave, much like the ones he had seen the reborn in before. There were runes carved on all the wall and a sealing formation array was also established.
But that was not all, as Lin Mu could see a platform that was partially covered with water and partially dry.
It was on this platform that the being he had been looking for was sleeping. The beast was strange and certainly mutated, hanging a long body like that of a shark, but also the claws of a land beast.
Then there was its mouth that was filled with thousands of sharp teeth and tentacles that were attached to the sides of its mouth.
Its skin was black and tarry, just like that of the other reborn and a repulsive aura was rising from it.
"Ugh… this is the worst of them all." Lin Mu muttered.
From the aura that he was sensing from the reborn, he could at least tell that this reborn was the strongest he had ever seen.
'It should be at least equivalent to that of a peak Dao Treading realm expert…' Lin Mu estimated.
Such a being would be terrifying if it were released out in the open ocean. Lin Mu could only imagine the level of devastation it would spread.
"And that's not all… this cave… is also located right below the main island of the Echo Conch kingdom." Lin Mu realized after using his spirit sense to get a better measurement of the area.
Lin Mu's gazed lingered over the reborn as he assessed it for a bit.
"Let's get rid of it then…" Lin Mu said before blinking and appearing closer to the beast.
He raised his hand and pointed it at the beast.
"MELD!" Activating the ring's skill, Lin Mu manipulated the space.
~SHUA~
With Lin Mu's improved control over the space and increase comprehension, he could sense the fine changes and easily split the being apart several times.
"STORE!" once Lin Mu was sure that the being was finely chopped and would have a hard time regenerating, he stored it away in the ring.
~huu~
Lin Mu took a breath of relief after getting rid of the beast.
'The spirit Qi expenditure surely does increase for beings with greater cultivation base.' Lin Mu thought as he measured his spirit Qi.
The ring had used higher than normal spirit Qi for meld as he had killed a peak Dao Treading realm equivalent being. Lin Mu was sure he could have directly beaten it up too, but didn't want to risk the beast escaping or damaging the area.
After all, they were underneath the ocean and under an island. It was fine if a reborn caused havoc on the land, but here, if anything happened, there was a great chance the entire echo conch kingdom might just sink.
Lin Mu was well experienced in collateral area damage, having done a lot of it himself. With the experience of breaking literal mountains with his fists, Lin Mu knew the Reborn would have no problems sinking the entire kingdom.
With the beast gone, Lin Mu saw the runes appearing in the air.
"So they are linked with the beast… but with it gone, they having nothing to target." Lin Mu muttered.
"You can take this chance to tap into them. See if you can find a direct link to the plane where Gu Yao is hiding." Xukong suggested.
"I will senior." Lin Mu nodded and quickly used his spirit sense to link up with the exposed nodes of the formation array.
With the main dependant subject of the formation array gone, it was like an armor without a person inside. Lin Mu soon traced the layers and accessed the formation nodes.
"I got it." Lin Mu said after a few minutes, having discovered something.
"What is it?" Xukong asked.
"Just like we thought. Gu Yao wasn't going to let a reborn go without his control here. He kept the formation array that sealed the reborn linked with another smaller formation. This one had traces of spatial disturbance around it." Lin Mu replied.
"Good! Now you can simply use that to get the right coordinates." Xukong stated.
"Indeed." Lin Mu nodded his head and walked up to a certain part of the cave.
There were a few obscure runes written here and were arranged into a formation. This was none other than the part linking the sealing formation array to the hidden plane.
Lin Mu placed his hand over the formation and let the ring do the rest.
~humm~
The ring hummed, and spatial disturbances appeared in the air. Lin Mu could literally see the air flicker and tear.
"That should be enough." Lin Mu took his hand off the formation after the ring hummed again.
"Let's return to Little Shrubby now." Lin Mu said before directly flying up and phasing through the solid ground.
A minute later, he had left the ocean and appeared next to Little Shrubby.
"You're back. Did you find it?" Little Shrubby said.
"I did. We were correct." Lin Mu replied.
"Time to kill then?" Little Shrubby asked.
"Time to kill indeed…" Lin Mu said as a cold light flashed in his eyes.
He closed them for a moment before opening them again. His spatial perception activated and allowed him to see the weaker points in the space.
Lin Mu wanted to keep his point of entry a little farther from the Echo Conch kingdom, as there was a chance that he might end up damaging it when he would destabilize the plane.
After a few seconds of looking around, Lin Mu found a spot half a kilometer away from the main island that had a weakness in the spatial fabric.
"There, that should be good enough." Lin Mu pointed before Little Shrubby carried him there.
Lin Mu pointed with his hand and activated the ring.
~SHUA~
~RIP~
Spatial energy spread from the ring and showed its effect. The air in front of Lin Mu trembled before a long black tear appeared in it.
Lin Mu expanded his hands and the black tear turning into a black crack, which eventually turned into a portal!
