The bronze outer-coffin, netherwood coffin, and hanging coffin were the three most undesirable kinds of coffins to tomb raiders. They signified more than just misfortune; they always contained incredible peril.
The coffin in front of Ge Long was a hanging coffin of the purest kind. It was suspended in midair by a mysterious force and a gentle light came from it, lighting up about thirty meters of space.
Aside from the scarlet hanging coffin, there was nothing else here. The light of the Yin Formation Orb in Ge Long’s hands couldn’t break through the darkness, either. Lu Yun couldn't clearly see the layout at all through the mirage.
“Set up a formation according to my instructions...” He began directing Ge Long through a thick pall of darkness.
Under Lu Yun’s authority, Ge Long was able to move freely in and out of hell. Through it, Lu Yun ferried a number of formation disks into his servant’s possession.
The old servant was untrained in formations or feng shui, but he could follow instructions quite closely, at the very least. Under Lu Yun’s guidance, every disk was correctly placed to form a radiant circle that banished the darkness step by step.
Thirty meters of light were doubled to sixty. When the new illumination finally laid bare what’d lurked beneath the darkness, Lu Yun’s face grew even darker.
“Formation, rise!” He flung forth the Yang Formation Orb as he cried out and it remained in place over his head. At the same time, Ge Long’s Yin Formation Orb took to the air as well.
Hum…
A quiet sound accompanied the activation of the formations Ge Long set down. Rays of formation light wove in the air and became something greater.
A Mirage layout!
The Yin and Yang Formation Orbs sank into the twin layouts, reinforcing them so that the two Mirage layouts in different locations could fuse together across the boundaries of space.
The scenery before Lu Yun, Mo Yi, and the human demon began changing, and a scarlet coffin hanging in midair appeared before them. Indeed, their surroundings looked exactly like where the coffin was located in the darkness.
“Is this… a formation to bend time and space? Have we been transported to where the owner of the tomb is?” Incredulity shot out of Mo Yi’s stunning eyes. This was the stuff of legends! To her knowledge, at least, no one in the world was capable of such a feat.
“No.” Lu Yun shook his head. “Unless I reach the same level as the primordial monster spirit ancestor and fully comprehend the Yin and Yang Formation Orbs, I won’t be able to set up such a potent formation.”
“How did we get over there, then?” The human demon was perplexed as well.
“We haven’t, actually.” Lu Yun shook his head. “What you perceive with your senses and consciousness are false. I’ve only used two Mirages to project what’s over there to here. We’re still where we were before.”
Mo Yi and the human demon widened their eyes in shared disbelief. They were completely fooled by the veracity of what they sensed and saw.
“Still… a sufficiently advanced projection is indistinguishable from the real thing.” A smile curled at the corner of Lu Yun’s mouth. “When I change the projection here, the real world on the other side will be changed in the same way.”
A layout like this would’ve been impossible even for the tomb raider forefather. It was a Lu Yun original, researched after years of carefully studying the Yin Yang Formation Orbs in hell.
“The Formation of Heaven and Earth,” Mo Yi piped up suddenly. “That’s what you put into this.”
“Yes.” Lu Yun nodded. “Only heaven and earth can connect truth and illusion. Whatever happens to one affects the other.”
“One… affects the other?” Mo Yi picked up on the key in his words.
“They affect each other.” Lu Yun took a deep breath. “There’s an ‘us’ on the other side, too. If someone kills the ‘us’ over there, our real bodies here will die. Thankfully, anyone who shows up on the other side will show up here, too.”
“Then what’s the difference between the other side and reality?” The human demon was trying his best to make sense of things; it was all a little difficult to understand.
“That’s part of feng shui’s charm.” Lu Yun walked up to the hanging coffin and scrutinized it in great detail. “I still can’t see through it.” He furrowed his brow slightly. His Spectral Eye couldn't pierce through the coffin; an unknown power over it protected it from his gaze.
The coffin was entirely scarlet, but runes of dark gold were etched across it. They resembled formation runes, but were something else entirely. These dark golden runes came together to form a very peculiar pattern that enveloped the entire coffin in a hazy glow.
“How? Why?” the perennially quiet Qi Hai uttered a rare interjection. He sounded confused, but for different reasons. “Isn’t this the tomb of an immortal? Why would this be buried here?”
“You recognize this hanging coffin, senior?” Lu Yun asked quickly.
Ever since entering the tomb, he’d kept a small gap open in hell for Qi Hai to watch the outside world. Unfortunately, Qi Hai hadn’t taken an interest in anything… until now. Whether it’d been talk of the ancestor planet beforehand or feng shui heritage, or later on when Lu Yun had laid out the twin layouts, none of it had prompted a reaction like this.
“The dark gold runes on this coffin are the Exalted Divines’ Sacred Origin Runes. In the era of human dao, they were the kings of their race, above the four cardinal divine tribes,” Qi Hai spoke very slowly. “Considering the runes… the one buried inside must be an Exalted Divine, and one of the imperial bloodline at that.”
Before the human emperor’s fall, the exalted divines had had a real emperor of their own. The Sacred Origin Runes were his creation, representing the truth he’d gleaned from the dao. Hence, the runes inscribed on the hanging coffin indicated that the one buried within was of that lineage.
“The Exalted divine tribe!” Lu Yun scrunched his face together. “Why would a descendant of the Exalted Divine Emperor be buried inside an immortal tomb… can it be for the same reason as Mount Myriad Formation? Perhaps the original owner was robbed of his rest.”
Suddenly, he thought of a possibility: the Exalted Immortal Sect! Back in the North Sea, he’d seen the corpse coffins of two female Exalted Divines. That was why he’d made the connection between the two.
Shoom!
A sword appeared out of nowhere to pierce through his forehead.