Lin Mu continued flying towards the direction Little Shrubby had pointed out at full speed. He used blink in addition to flying and covered large tracts of the area at once. Little Shrubby was also heading towards him so that he could meet him mid way.
This way, they would be able to reach the wandering sinkhole quicker. In about twenty minutes, Lin Mu saw Little Shrubby appearing from the distance. He was running at his maximum speed and started to break when he saw Lin Mu.
~crack~crack~crack~
~thud~thud~thud~
Unfortunately, his breaking was still not enough and several trees had to sacrifice themselves in order to reduce his momentum. Little Shrubby having gotten used to it already, quickly turned around and the harness appeared on his back.
"Let's go!" Little Shrubby said with excitement.
He had not seen Lin Mu for a while now and was feeling pleased seeing his master again and spend time with him.
"Mmhmm, run at full speed!" Lin Mu said as he strapped into the harness.
~shua~
Little Shrubby's paws dug into the ground and he shot forward like a cannonball.
~whoosh~
The nearby trees were forcibly bent and broken due to the wind generated by Little Shrubby running, and a path was carved out. They kept on running for about five minutes, after which they reached the location of the wandering sinkhole.
Seeing the sinkhole, Lin Mu couldn't help but take in a breath of air.
"Damn… it's far bigger than I expected." Lin Mu muttered.
The sinkhole was over ten kilometers wide and had an uneven edge. The strange thing was that around its edges, some trees had disappeared half way. It was like they were sliced clean in different ratios, but even then, they seemed to be still alive.
"Use your spatial perception, I think you may have just come across one of the rarer phenomena." Xukong's voice was heard.
"Oh?" Lin Mu responded before using spatial perception.
The moment he did this, the scene in front of him changed vastly. Instead of the forest and the open sinkhole, Lin Mu saw two different layers of spatial fabric overlapping. It was as if someone had cut out a hole in one sheet and then placed it over the other one.
Lin Mu also saw that the hole was not stationary and was actually moving around very subtly. Its boundaries also seemed to stutter every so often, making him think that the current situation was not very stable.
"Hmm… just as I thought, this is an example of plane overlapping," Xukong spoke.
"Plane overlapping? What's that senior? Is it like the mountains I saw when I was in the ripple mist sect?" Lin Mu questioned.
"No, that was different. Back then, you were seeing a tethered fragment of a minor plane. This time… this is a complete minor plane and is actively linked to this world. The only difference is the kind of 'anchor' it has.
The fragment of the minor plane in the ripple mist sect could be described as floating in a 'sea' and in that sea this world was also floating. But in the case of this sinkhole, the 'sea' is the Xiaofan world and the wandering sinkhole is a floating boat on it.
The anchor is affixed to this forest and it can move about in the area just as how an anchored boat can move around due to the waves." Xukong explained.
Lin Mu pondered over the explanation and understood it rather quickly.
"I get it now, senior. So what are the differences that I need to watch out for?" Lin Mu questioned.
While he had already gotten enough information from the former adviser Chu, what Lin Mu wanted information on was the spatial characteristics of this world.
"Well, I would say that you are in good luck. With your skills, leaving this minor plane will be easy, so you don't need to worry about that aspect. Though reentry would not be possible unless you find the location of this place again." Xukong answered.
Seeing this, Lin Mu's eyes lit up, and he felt excited. He looked into the sinkhole and saw that it was pitch black.
"Just as Adviser Chu described. It looks dark, but once you go deep enough, the appearance would change." Lin Mu muttered.
~HONG~
Just as he was observing, a faint spatial fluctuation spread around the area.
"No time to wait, let's head inside." Lin Mu said.
"Okay!" Little Shrubby responded, and they jumped into the wandering sinkhole.
To any normal human or even many cultivators, jumping into such a hole would be really terrifying. They couldn't see inside, and neither did they know just how deep it was. They couldn't even tell if they would survivor or not.
But for Lin Mu, it was not a problem since both he and Little Shrubby could just fly. The two of them descended at a relatively stable pace while observing the changes around them.
They kept this up for about two minutes, during which everything was the same. Lin Mu could see the normally blue sky above him that kept on getting small. It was as if the boundaries of the sinkhole were closing upon him.
But at a certain point, Lin Mu felt a change in gravity and they started to fall in uncontrollably.
"Huh? WHAT THE HELL!?" Lin Mu and Little Shrubby both were surprised by this phenomenon.
"Senior, what is happening?" Lin Mu questioned.
"It's normal. You are transitioning between two planes and this is just the vacuum effect. You've seen this before." Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu was reminded of the many black cracks he had opened up before and nodded his head.
The two of them kept on falling at a great speed and soon the sky above them had turned completely dark.
It was like the shutter of a camera closing in a circular manner. It reached the point of complete darkness and then opened back up as a new blue sky appeared above him.
