Chapter 1720: The Planar Passage Formed by the Ancient God's Arm

This was a space riddled with cracks.

The entire heaven and earth resembled a mirror shattered countless times and then pieced back together, as though a single gust of wind could shatter it completely.

"This place… is far too fragile…"

Jiang Ding instinctively held his breath.

Although he was now a split soul operating a temporary spatial body, whose disturbance to space might not even equal that of a single bee, he still could not be certain whether a disturbance of this magnitude might trigger a spatial collapse — like an avalanche set off by a soft whisper.

"This place is completely unusable!"

"Teleporting even a single Qi Refining cultivator through might not even be feasible."

Jiang Ding murmured.

After a brief calculation with his divine soul, he arrived at a rather heavy result.

This spatial passage was not something naturally formed by nature at all, but rather a temporary passage created by coincidence when an external force brutally pierced through space.

It was possible that, after another several hundred thousand years, this spatial "barrier lake" would collapse and vanish completely into the endless starry sky.

With deep worry, Jiang Ding exerted himself to restrain his own existence, finally becoming smaller than a speck of dust, and continued walking toward the depths of the heaven and earth that resembled a shattered mirror.

Moving here was extremely difficult; pitch-black spatial cracks were everywhere, capable of easily killing a Nascent Soul cultivator.

For the current Jiang Ding, this was even more so the case.

His current strength was far too feeble; he had completely minimized every trace of his own existence to the extreme, not daring to bring more power into this place.

The moment he touched any spatial crack, this temporary spatial body would explode and perish in an instant.

"Take it slow…"

Jiang Ding carefully walked forward.

It was like traversing an extremely complex maze, where dead ends were encountered from time to time, forcing him to retreat and seek another branch.

This was undoubtedly an exceedingly tedious and patience-demanding affair.

As an ancient being, Jiang Ding was not lacking in patience; he walked step by step, constructing a maze terrain map in his divine soul, testing each path one by one, and calculating possible maze passages based on the direction of spatial rules.

One year, two years, ten years…

Jiang Ding remained busy, repeating this single simple and tedious task, without bringing any external influence to this fragile patch of space.

Finally, in the thirty-second year, after countless paths were proven wrong, Jiang Ding followed a route with ever-increasing success probability toward the deepest part of the spatial crack maze, arriving at the center of the "spatial cavity."

This "spatial cavity" was a concept proposed by the Immortal Sect in recent centuries.

That is, viewing the Ancient God's arm as a bullet, after hundreds of millions of years of travel through the starry sky, its kinetic energy and speed gradually weakened.

But

Precisely because of this, the Ancient God's arm during this period would actually cause greater destruction to the surrounding heaven and earth!

This was like a bullet: if it passed through flesh at high speed, it would not cause much damage — just a single hole — but if its kinetic energy and speed were insufficient, the bullet would tumble through space, and the damage it inflicted on flesh would be far more terrifying.

The phenomenon of space shattering caused by the Ancient God's arm tumbling through this stretch of heaven and earth was termed "spatial cavity" by a Nascent Soul-tier scientist of the Immortal Sect.

This term was quickly accepted by many Immortal Sect cultivators and gradually became an official academic designation, used to name a specific spatial phenomenon.

This stretch of heaven and earth, shattered for several hundred thousand years without healing, was the spatial cavity formed by the Ancient God's arm.

The Ancient God Patriarch of that year possessed tremendous luck, somehow surviving a world-ending catastrophe of this magnitude; every living being in the entire world perished, yet he, a single Nascent Soul cultivator, remained unharmed and even obtained a great opportunity — this was truly inconceivable.

This made one suspect whether the birth of great figures came with a fated destiny, such that they would not die no matter what until that destiny was fulfilled.

This was naturally wrong.

It was not that great figures became great figures because they possessed fortune, but rather that those who ultimately survived and succeeded became great figures, leading the world to believe such figures possessed innate fortune.

For tens of millions of years, or even longer, this world cluster had been ruled by races such as the Weaving Heaven Spiders, with the human race enslaved generation after generation; figures like the Ancient God Patriarch might have numbered many, yet in the end only this single one succeeded — it was purely a matter of one dying after another, with the last one remaining.

Jiang Ding passed through layer upon layer of the maze and arrived at the deepest bottom of the spatial cavity — the place where the Ancient God's arm had pierced through the endless void to arrive.

The sight before him stirred faint ripples in his heart.

It was a chaotic vortex, a very small vortex, only the size of a fingertip; compared to the surrounding interwoven spatial cracks, it was utterly insignificant, as though a single spatial ripple could swallow and obliterate it, causing it to vanish completely.

But!

This was a planar passage!

This tiny chaotic vortex bore the characteristics of a planar passage!

How could Jiang Ding possibly mistake it?

Tens of thousands of years ago, in the era when the Jiudaxian Sect of the Nine Spirit Domain stood as nine great Immortal Sects, when the Nine Spirit Domain reached a consensus to campaign against Jiao Jiao Mingyu, the Great Sun Sword Lord — still a Nascent Soul cultivator at the time — had traveled to Jiao Jiao Mingyu through just such a planar passage; over the years, he had shuttled between the Immortal Sect and the Ancient God world cluster countless times.

Within the Immortal Sect, research on planar passages was voluminous, and several of the top papers on the subject had even been authored by him — how could he possibly mistake it?

This tiny chaotic vortex was indeed a planar passage!

The only problem was that it was too small, only the size of a fingertip, less than one ten-thousandth the size of the Jiao Jiao Mingyu planar passage.

This passage,

Even teleporting a single Qi Refining being would be difficult.

Whoosh!

At this moment, a certain spatial crack zone suddenly underwent a change, collapsing and forming even finer spatial cracks; several of these cracks passed through the tiny chaotic vortex, immediately causing it to become chaotic, flickering in and out of existence.

"Not good!"

Jiang Ding's expression changed.

This tiny chaotic vortex was far too fragile; even a naturally occurring spatial phenomenon could potentially shatter it completely, causing it to cease to exist.

Over these several hundred thousand years, who knew how many such incidents had occurred, reducing the planar passage to its current diminutive size.

Without a second thought, Jiang Ding transformed into a streak of light and plunged into the chaotic vortex, voluntarily burning his temporary spatial body, converting it into streams of pure spatial energy that spread in all directions to stabilize the planar passage on the verge of shattering.

Streak after streak of spatial runes and rules bloomed, mingling with streak after streak of formation patterns, becoming like threads that wandered unsteadily over the planar passage, striving to repair it; the Immortal Sect's most pinnacle spatial achievements were unleashed here without reservation, fought for with everything he had.

This place became a spatial battlefield; the spatial spirit formed from the Great Sun Sword Lord's split soul merged as one with the planar passage, striving with all its might to maintain the fragile passage entrance.

Finally, after nearly a hundred years, the flickering planar passage vortex was barely stabilized.

"Barely managing it..."

Jiang Ding let out a bitter laugh.

He had originally come to investigate, yet never expected to be trapped here, unable to move a single step.

Fortunately, if his true body is wise enough, it should send a new reconnaissance clone in; thus, he is not without recourse. He need only wait.