Chapter 3398: Chapter 3398: The No-break Maze

Behind the door, two straight lines extended upward, forming another long and narrow path.

Walden of the Violet Cloud race no longer seemed to be in the mood to make trouble for Zen. He passed through the door and rushed to the forefront of the group.

The other Other Shore creatures all trailed behind Walden, following close behind him.

On this occasion, the Three Eyes race had sent three members into the Eternal Scroll Painting. One of the three had died, which they considered quite a good result.

The creatures from the Other Shore entered the door one after another. Once most of them had passed through, Zen moved forward in a strange sideways manner, waving his hands and feet.

Egan and Kirk were the last to enter the door. They had intentionally waited for Zen to advance before them. However, when the two members of the Three Eyes race saw the way Zen moved, they immediately burst into laughter.

Egan said, grinning, “Zen, we have a better way of moving in this current form.”

He had found that Zen had been moving strangely since he entered the round platform.

“What do you mean?” Zen asked.

The members of the Three Eyes race were very similar in form and build to human beings. Zen thought that if Egan and his clansman knew a better style of movement, he would be able to imitate it.

Egan stretched out his hands and raised his arms. In a single motion, he slashed his arms downwards, and the motion propelled his body into the air.

“It looks almost like you're swimming,”

Zen observed, his brows furrowed.

“Yes, this way is like swimming, and it should be the fastest way,” said Egan. “Your way, on the other hand...”

Zen stood with his arms outstretched, imitating Egan's earlier pose. He slashed his hands downward, and his entire body was propelled a good distance forward. He smiled.

Egan was right. It was much faster and easier to move forward using these motions.

“Primeval Lord of Heaven,” Zen muttered.

Zen was slightly put out that the Primeval Lord of Heaven hadn't told him about this way. He believed that the Primeval Lord of Heaven had to have known about it. ṚἈ₦ÓΒЁ𐌔

“Well, I thought you were enjoying walking like a crab, so I didn't mention it,” replied the Primeval Lord of Heaven with a chuckle.

Zen rolled his eyes.

He continued to slash with his arms, moving his body forward along the path formed by the two thin lines.

After he had covered a lengthy distance along the path, Zen stopped to take a look around him. The round platform at the bottom was no longer visible. He gazed at the top, but nothing could be seen.

A question suddenly arose in his mind. 'The path is enclosed by the two lines. I wonder what will happen if anyone steps outside the boundary of the lines?' he thought.

He decided to ask Egan. In fact, Egan had been waiting for Zen to ask such a question since they stepped through the door, for it was the first time Zen had entered the Eternal Scroll Painting.

“The path is not as simple as it looks,” Egan explained. “Without this path, this area would be a dark, bottomless abyss. If you want to see for yourself, there's a place in the middle of the path where you can observe the abyss.”

“Observe the bottomless abyss?” Zen asked with interest. Of course, he was fascinated by what lay outside the lines of the path, and he wanted to see the abyss Egan had mentioned.

Egan nodded. “Wait, and I'll tell you when we reach the right spot.”

They continued to move forward for some time. Finally, Egan came to a stop, and Zen could see why. The path had suddenly become wider.

But they had not yet reached the end. They were at the midpoint of the path.

Several small rings had been drawn in the middle of the path. Inside each ring was the outline of a hexagram array.

Zen opened his mouth to ask another question, but Egan was already telling him the answer. “If you stand on the hexagram array, you can see the environment that surrounds this path.”

There were six hexagram arrays in the open space. Most of the Other Shore creatures passed by without slowing down, seemingly disinterested in the arrays. Perhaps it was because they had already seen the abyss many times.

However, as a newcomer, Zen was extremely curious about the characteristics of the Eternal Scroll Painting. As soon as Egan finished speaking, he hurriedly went to stand on a hexagram array.

Indeed, it was actually more accurate to say that Zen was crouching, not standing. After all, there was no concept of “height” in the limited dimension of the Eternal Scroll Painting. In actuality, Zen was crawling slowly across the ground.

When Zen had positioned himself at the proper spot on the hexagram array, he caught his breath, for everything around him had changed.

Previously, his perception of the environment had been constrained. He could only see one plane of his own and the scene around it. But at that moment, Zen seemed to have returned to his original form.

It was as though he stood on a long, narrow black bridge, surrounded by the darkness of an infinite, fathomless abyss.

“Now do you understand?” asked the Primeval Lord of Heaven, who sounded like he was smiling.

“If I leave the path drawn by the lines, I will fall off the bridge and into the abyss,” Zen murmured, nodding to himself.

While he stood on the hexagram array, Zen had regained a temporary freedom of movement, so he seized the opportunity to move his limbs as he wished.

“To be more precise, you will find yourself lost in the passage between the chaos and the Abstruse Energy World,” said the Primeval Lord of Heaven, to clarify Zen's answer.

There were several notorious instances of people who had crossed the lines of the bridge, unable to resist their curiosity.

None who left the path had ever returned. Once someone fell into the abyss, he would be lost forever.

As Zen reveled in the freedom to move his hands and feet, he glanced down at the bridge. The lines on the Eternal Scroll Painting looked exquisite. Egan and Kirk stood patiently on the bridge, waiting for him.

From Zen's vantage point, these two members of the Three Eyes race were no longer comprised of lines. Instead, their own original appearances were imprinted on the bridge.

Zen observed them, intending to withdraw from the hexagram array after a few more moments.

But an unexpected chill suddenly lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. He quickly turned. To his shock, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a crying face floating in the darkness, staring at him across a great distance.

“What's that?” he asked quickly.

He was startled, and tried to catch sight of the face again, but there was nothing but blackness.

The crying face had vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

The Primeval Lord of Heaven tried to see what Zen was talking about, but the crying face was gone, leaving only empty darkness behind.

“What did you see?” asked the Primeval Lord of Heaven.

“A face!” Zen exclaimed. He had only seen it for an instant, but he was absolutely certain of what he saw.

There was no doubt in his mind that it had been a face. After all, he had seen it as clearly as he saw the bright lines of the path floating in the dark abyss.

“Perhaps you saw something else,” the Primeval Lord of Heaven muttered.

He had an idea that there must be some creature in charge of the Eternal Scroll Painting. But if there was, then such a creature had not been seen in living memory. It had stayed hidden through countless chaotic eras.

Why would that creature choose to appear just when Zen entered the Eternal Scroll Painting?

“I don't think so,” Zen said.

But he was beginning to have second thoughts. He realized that he had been in the Eternal Scroll Painting for some time now, and it was not unlikely that some illusion had manifested in his vision when he first regained his original form.

He glanced around, peering into the depths of the abyss, but this time he saw nothing but darkness. He sighed. With a shrug, he stepped out of the hexagram array.

As soon as he left the array, he found himself prone on the ground again.

The transformation between the two forms was not a painful process, but it was slightly uncomfortable. He felt awkward in this form.

“So, did you see the abyss and the bridge?” Egan asked with a smile.

“Yes, and it definitely seems like a bad idea to stray from the path,” Zen replied.

He decided not to mention the crying face to Egan and Kirk.

The three of them lifted their arms and slashed downwards, resuming their forward motion. The hexagram arrays had been the midpoint of the journey, and they had made it through half of the remainder of the path when they came to a halt. To Zen's astonishment, the two distinct lines of the road had branched out to form an enormous, complex pattern.

It was the famous No-Break Maze of the Grand Plain Stage.

Zen said nothing as he stared at the maze. He absorbed its vastness and complexity.

In general, there was a real risk of getting lost in a maze, as anyone wandering through high-walled paths could easily lose their sense of direction and position.

But that was not the case in this situation. The vantage point of Zen and the others was such that they looked down at the maze from the top of the Eternal Scroll Painting, so although they could only see a portion of the maze, they could clearly see all the paths and passages within. From their point of view, the maze was only a series of lines. What was the purpose of setting up such a maze here?