True Solution of the Sword Dao

"We can’t go back!!" Another cry of alarm came.

The crowd turned their heads and saw Vinnie and another man with distressed expressions looking behind them.

There used to be a passageway well there... but now, only the dry, cracked dark red ground remained.

"What happened!!? It was just here!!" Annie hurried over and stomped forcefully at the location of the original passageway well, but the ground only emitted a dull thudding sound, clearly showing the ground below was solid.

"We have completely lost connection with the outside world!!" The person responsible for transporting the signal interference device shouted urgently.

"Connect to the satellite and pinpoint our location immediately!!" Annie’s face had also turned somewhat pale.

"Unable to connect!!"

"My God!! Where the hell are we??!!"

"Damn it! I don’t want to die in this godforsaken place!"

"Vista!! Can you hear me? Vista!!"

The entire team suddenly plunged into chaos.

Or rather, those external military personnel brought by Griffin became chaotic. Some wore faces of despair, others were loudly calling out with devices, and many more were looking at Annie and Ban with hopeful faces, expecting them to devise a plan.

Lin Fei stood with the golden bat Rabbi and ten silver bats behind him, these people remained completely unmoved. They stood neatly behind Lin Fei, as quiet as when they had started.

Lin Fei also felt a hint of ominousness from the beginning.

"Aren’t you afraid?"

"Our task is to obey all your commands. Nothing else matters." Rabbi, still with the hissing sound akin to a snake, spoke respectfully. His voice, originally extremely unpleasant and even irritating, now seemed strangely soothing when mixed with his calm tone.

"If not Earth Dragon Den, then where is this?! Confirm immediately!" Annie was still urging on the side.

"Sir, what should we do now...?" Ban cautiously approached Lin Fei.

"What we’ve reached is indeed not the Earth Dragon Den," Lin Fei said indifferently.

He lightly flicked his right hand upward.

Whisk!

An invisible air current burst into the sky instantly.

Whoosh! The strong air current kicked up swirling winds, lifting sand and stones, causing everyone’s clothes and hair to flutter wildly.

The invisible air current launched by Lin Fei condensed into a beam. It suddenly shot into the smoke layer above.

All looked up at the sky.

The invisible air current, like a pillar, fiercely pierced the dark red layer of smoke above. The smoke layer instantly dispersed, forming a circular hole, and then revealed the nearly infinite profound darkness behind it.

Within that vast darkness, faint stars could even be seen.

"This place... is somewhere else!!" Annie murmured as she looked at the sky.

Lin Fei mentally added, "To be precise, another planet..." He lowered his head, gazing into the distance at the endless fiery red land.

As the dense smoke and dust were dispersed by the air current, the surroundings gradually became visible, no longer obscured by the mist-like red smoke in the air as at the start.

Boom!!

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by thunder rolling in.

The distant land was a dark red vast plain. The edge was out of sight.

They appeared to be standing in a high place, looking out over a vast plain where a group of strange red creatures were thunderously running. These creatures resembled oxen but had scorpion tails. They occasionally emitted cries like those of galloping horses. The heavy sound of their running, even from a distance, could make one feel the heaviness of their strides, as these running beasts, like a group of steel war elephants, fiercely pushed forward with a momentum that seemed to crush everything.

Annie walked over to Lin Fei, her face pale.

"Sir, I can confirm that we are now standing on the crater of an active volcano. This volcano could erupt at any moment."

"Move immediately!" Lin Fei decisively said. The power of a volcanic eruption was not something humans could withstand. At least not him, not now.

Lin Fei looked around, only then realizing they were actually standing on a piece of open ground at the edge of the volcanic crater.

There was a small path winding down the mountain at the edge of the clearing.

Annie and Ban reorganized the team members’ emotions, and the group quickly began moving in that direction.

The path was filled with dense footprints, among which were some strange markings that appeared to be horse hooves.

"Sir, this path is frequently traveled by creatures," Ban whispered.

Lin Fei nodded. He could now confirm that the passage they had used was likely a Teleportation Formation, similar to the Sword Canon Space he had been transported to. Clearly, the pseudo True Force had similarly powerful means.

The group proceeded down the mountain path. No one spoke, an inexplicable oppression permeating the team.

Lin Fei frowned slightly but remained silent.

From the very beginning when he encountered the anomaly in counterfeit True Force, he knew there could likely be unexpected occurrences during this journey. What reassured him, however, was that the Teleportation of the Sword Canon Space was still effective. He could still connect with the Sword Canon Space. With that alone, he could teleport his physical body and the subordinate strength of the Sword Canon over at any time.

He walked along the path for a while. From a distance, he could vaguely see a stone standing upright by the side of the road below.

As everyone got closer, they discovered inscriptions on the large rock. The characters were of an unrecognized script, somewhat resembling small seal script but simultaneously entirely different.

The whole stone was pale green, standing out starkly against the dark red earth around it.

"This must be something like a road marker or a place name," Annie deduced.

Lin Fei stood in front of the rock, gently tracing the outline of the inscriptions. For some reason, he recognized these characters!

The inscription on the rock translated to: The Pool of Giraline, the Life Pool of the Great Green Mother.

The aura of counterfeit True Force continuously emitted from the inscriptions. To Lin Fei, however, it felt as if this counterfeit True Force had a very, very long history.

Even he didn’t understand why he recognized this script.

Besides the inscriptions, there was a small symbol at the bottom of the rock surface. The symbol looked like a circle missing a segment, with a flame pattern inside.

Lin Fei still gently pressed his hand onto it. A stream of information flowed into his mind, still accompanied by traces of counterfeit True Force. But this batch of counterfeit True Force seemed much weaker and carried a faintly burning aura.

The meaning of the symbol was: ’King of the Prime Fire, Yuan Wen has visited this place, to pay respects to the precedents.’

Lin Fei couldn’t help but smile wryly.

This Yuan Wen was clearly no different from those tourists who carve "XXX was here" at various scenic spots. The only difference was probably that this fellow was more powerful.

"Sir, do you see anything?" Annie noticed that Lin Fei’s expression had relaxed, obviously thinking he had discovered something.

"Nothing much," Lin Fei shook his head, "just thinking about something."

He was here to find treasures in the Earth Dragon Den, not to waste time in this unfamiliar place. If it weren’t for the fact that this place was so clearly related to counterfeit True Force, he would have already started looking for a way back.

"Let’s go." He shook his head slightly and turned to leave.

Just as his hand left the stone, a surge of counterfeit True Force suddenly entered his palm. Along with it came a fleeting piece of information.

"Go on... everyone go... Only I am left... Everything is changing... I can feel my transformation... Ultimately, we are not accepted by the universe... maybe it’s still not our time to appear..."

It was only a brief sentence, but it carried a profound sense of regret and indifference. Then a time was mentioned: before the night arrives... that would be the time to leave...

Lin Fei was slightly moved. He felt that this information very likely involved a huge secret of counterfeit True Force. An energy able to counter Sword Canon True Force certainly couldn’t be ordinary.

"Is it possible to determine the age of the inscriptions on this rock?" Lin Fei knew there were many methods to ascertain the age of certain things.

Annie nodded, "No problem."

An underling quickly handed over something resembling a magnifying glass, which Annie took and shone on the rock, instantly displaying rows of indicators and numbers on the lens of the magnifier.

"The inscription is from....my God!!" Annie’s face changed, her mouth agape in shock.

"Fifteen million years ago!!!"

Everyone around was stunned.

Lin Fei took a cold breath. He had anticipated it was ancient, but not to such an extent. Fifteen million years ago—what was that even like?

Some scientists had previously suggested that fifteen million years ago, there might have been a highly advanced civilization on Earth, but despite some evidence indicating this, it had never been confirmed. And now, this inscription, clearly before everyone’s eyes. There were likely literate people fifteen million years ago, indicating a not insignificant level of civilization.

In other words, counterfeit True Force likely stemmed from an extremely ancient civilization.

"Who cares how many years old it is! The problem now is how we get out of this damn place!!" a man from the external affairs military shouted loudly.

Lin Fei’s expression calmed down, and he gave him a faint look.

If he wasn’t wrong, that message’s last mention of a time - before the night arrives - was likely the opening time of the well passage. Normally, one should have entered the Earth Dragon Den through the passage and not this unknown world. The fact that he ended up here was very likely due to him possessing counterfeit True Force. Thus, when the next evening was about to arrive, it would be the time they could leave.

Otherwise, why would Limestone Island, which is clearly an extinct volcano, still have a scorching Volcanic Lake? Perhaps it could be said to be due to geothermal activity, but when they entered, the water temperature was also noticeably higher than before, clearly because of the connection here to an active volcano.

The likelihood of this was greatest.

"Previously, counterfeit True Force boosted my strength to Grade A for an instant, only to fall back immediately. Clearly, there was a sense of inadequacy. However, it appears certain unknown changes have occurred to my physical body," Lin Fei pondered.

He was unclear what the changes were, currently his Sword Intent was still slowly forming, and the progress in the Qi Cultivation Realm was also very slow. In fact, this was a stage that all swordsmanship in the Sword Canon had to go through—the accumulation stage. Without sufficient accumulation, advancing to the Qi Cultivation Realm was nearly impossible. The same went for the Sword Intent and the required True Force amount.

Previously, when the Sword Canon initiated a counterattack program to protect the Sword Master’s physical body, it had been resisted by the counterfeit True Force. Counterfeit True Force even attempted to invade the Sword Canon internally, though it abruptly withdrew later on, which was enough to prove that the Sword Canon and the counterfeit True Force were at least on par in terms of strength.

"Now, all we can do is wait," Lin Fei said quietly. "If I’m not wrong, the passage should open again. At the same time."

The surroundings became instantly quiet.

"Sir... what you said... is it true?" A bearded man stepped forward and asked.

"You can choose not to believe it," Lin Fei raised one hand. "Everyone rest on the spot. Wait for a day, the two forces behind us will just do the exploring for us," he smiled slightly.

"Indeed!" Annie and Ban also remembered the two forces of the Holy See and the heretics following behind them. If they could really return successfully the next day, that would turn out to be them exploring the path for them, effectively flipping the situation around. (To be continued. If you liked this work, you’re welcome to go to Qidian.com to vote and send Monthly Tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)