The possibility that he might have slept for years unknowingly was terrifying to Lin Mu. Especially since he did not know what had happened to his friends and allies.
"This can't be…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
It was now that he remembered who he had with him.
"SENIOR! SENIOR XUKONG!!!" Lin Mu shouted within his mind.
Within the space of the ring, the ethereal altar dimly glowed as the streaks of spatial energy flitted across the skies. An egg gently laid on a pillow kept close to the altar, unmoving as ever.
A few hundred meters from the altar floated the figure of Xukong's avatar. He had all his eyes closed as if deep in sleep, but the spatial energy swirling around him showed that he was still cultivating.
His size seemed to have increased again, and he was now a few inches bigger than before, reaching a width of almost twelve inches. If any normal person saw a spider as big as this, they would certainly be shocked and afraid.
A frantic voice called out to Xukong, making him awaken. His eight eyes opened up as he looked at the emptiness of the space.
"Lin Mu?" Xukong called out, feeling a bit confused.
But the confusion was momentary as he realized the current situation.
"I can sense the outside again…" Xukong muttered.
"Senior!" Lin Mu called again.
"I can hear you now, I just woke up too." Xukong replied.
"Senior, we might be in great trouble… I reached three treasured organs and my Dao Shell is nearly sixty percent complete as well!" Lin Mu quickly said.
"Seems like we are indeed in trouble…" Xukong said, understanding the implications of it all.
"Senior, do you know how long it has been?" Lin Mu asked.
"No… shortly after you entered your state of trance, I realized I couldn't talk to you nor could I feel the outside world. Your mind had sort of 'closed' which locked me out as well. Thinking that this might be temporary since we had been through this before, I too focused on cultivating." Xukong said before taking a quick look at himself.
'And it seems like I'm in the same position…' he thought to himself, noting his increased size.
"So we have no idea…" Lin Mu said in a lost tone.
He stayed in the same state for a couple of seconds, before he took out the jade slip and tried to contact others. He had already tried to contact Little Shrubby, but did not receive any reply, making Lin Mu think that he might be too far from him.
Lin Mu could still feel his presence though and knew that little Shrubby was alive at the very least. But he couldn't say the same about the others. He had already started to regret doing what he had done.
His unease was apparent on his face until finally he received a response.
"Senior Lin Mu? SENIOR LIN MU!" A voice said from the jade slip.
"Hua Wu!" Lin Mu said out loud.
He had tried contacting Jing Luo, Jingming Shang and a few others, but seemingly no one had been reachable. Going through his list of people, finally it was Hua Wu that ended up responding.
"You're finally awake, senior! We came to check up on you many times, but you were in that strange gold ball. Things started to go wrong since the last year, so we got busy and only Little Shrubby checked up on you from time to time." Hua Wu said in a concerned tone.
"Wait! wait! How long has it exactly been since you guys last heard from me?" Lin Mu questioned.
"You don't know? It has been two years!" Hua Wu answered.
"Two years…" Lin Mu repeated. "The well of slumber truly activated…"
Lin Mu didn't know how it could have happened, but considering the state he was in, he realized even if the bloodline skill truly did activate, he would have had no way to know that.
'Why am I not feeling hungry, then?' Lin Mu wondered.
"It's the vitality in your body after reaching the Three Treasured organs. It is still enough to make you feel normal for now." Xukong replied.
Lin Mu took note of that, before asking a string of questions to Hua Wu. He had hundreds of them and Hua Wu explained everything to him. But the more Lin Mu learned, the more his face fell.
Until finally he heard something that turned his face cold. A serious expression appeared on his face as a hint of anger flickered in his eyes.
"I'm coming." Lin Mu said plainly before putting away the jade slip.
~shua~
A new set of robes appeared on his body automatically as he stepped firmly on the ground.
~BOOM~
A crater was created from that single step as Lin Mu shot forward like a cannonball. He flew through the sky at great speed; faster than ever before. The trees below him bent from the winds generated by his flight and the beasts that were nearby ran away, feeling terrified.
Lin Mu flew nonstop, his destination the plane nexus of the Kong plane where all the teleportation gates were located. He looked at the over thirty teleportation gates and quickly found the one he wanted.
~shua~
Injecting a stream of spirit Qi into the formation arrays, Lin Mu activated the teleportation gate and walked through it, disappearing in the portal.
***
In the Xiaofan world, at a certain forest, a battle was currently raging.
Dead bodies and body parts could be seen strewn about as the sounds of weapons clashing could be heard.
~clang~ clang~ clang~
~DENG~
~Boom~
Various Qi skills were used, and fires and wind raged.
The participants of the battle seemed to be many. Some wore the robes of sects, while some just seemed to be dressed in random robes not belonging to any organization. Then on the other side were people dressed in black robes that hid their faces.
Some of them wore masks while some simply covered them with cloth. But the one thing that was common in all was the character 'Gu' written on their backs.
