Angered, hundreds of tentacles whipped down toward them. Waves battered the bubble but to no avail. Tentacles struck the sphere but slid off harmlessly. Then, when they were only a hundred feet away from the portal, the Kraken changed tactics. It surrounded their bubble in a net of tentacles that squeezed shut.
The pressure mounted around them, but Cha Ming felt strangely confident. He simply smiled and spoke from his heart. “You cannot stop me. This domain is mine, and I will move forward.”
The tentacles, which had previously been tightly wound around the bubble, suddenly seemed to move. No, that wasn’t right. The space around them was distorted. But it wasn’t enough to escape, so all six of them pushed like they’d never done before. Four peak-core-formation demon beasts, one of them a Godbeast, and all with their cultivation boosted, pushed apart the tentacles with their paws. Gong Shuren and Cha Ming, the former with her trident and the latter with his staff, pried apart the tentacles with all their might as their potential burned away.
They struggled for endless moments as the tentacles, their domain, and their strength clashed against each other. Then, little by little, the bubble began making its way forward. Slowly at first, but then at a steady pace. Finally, the bubble forced its way through the tiny gap formed in the net of appendages. As it did, it accelerated through the gap like a bullet through a rifle barrel and shot toward the golden gates.
Then all went black.
Chapter 25: Sea God’s Puzzle
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The first thing Cha Ming noticed was the ever-present ticking of a giant clock. As he opened his eyes, he noticed they were no longer surrounded by endless oceans but by walls. The room was massive, several miles long by several miles wide. A large clock stood affixed to the wall, and beneath it was a door. According to the Sea God royal family, the door could only be opened by solving a puzzle.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Cha Ming stood up as he took in his surroundings. “How long was I out?” he asked.
Gong Shuren was seated in front of a small object at the center of the room, observing it intently. Here and there, he saw small notations written on the floor.
“The Sea God’s Puzzle,” Cha Ming said, scanning the object in the center with his transcendent force. “Supposedly very difficult to solve in a short amount of time.”
“Completing it quickly usually takes one month,” Gon Shuren said. “But now that the difficulty has increased, it’s hard to say.”
Cha Ming nodded. He flew up above the object and saw that it was composed of interlocking pieces. They were each covered in runes and lines that restricted movement when joined. Some could be moved on their own, but others could only be moved simultaneously. It was a formation puzzle, much like those commonly used by junior formation masters to train their formation skills.
“It doesn’t look that difficult,” Cha Ming said as he came back down. “It’s a water-oriented puzzle. Nothing unexpected.” The words were meant to reassure, but Gong Shuren turned solemn as he confirmed it.
“That’s what worries me,” Gon Shuren said. “Why would the puzzle be easy when the Trial of Adventure was so difficult?”
Cha Ming shrugged. “Maybe because my soul-bound weapons won’t be too big an advantage in this trial?”
Gong Shuren seemed unconvinced. “We’ll see. Let’s solve this puzzle first and see what happens.”
The clock on the wall continued ticking as they walked to separate ends of the puzzle. Cha Ming took the lead and issued instructions to Gong Shuren.
“Pour your qi into the ‘mai’ rune and twist the ‘kou’ rune,” he said, pouring his qi into twelve other positions. He twisted the runic blocks until the puzzle locked into position.
“Channel power down to every odd diagonal formation line and work with me to rotate the qi flow counterclockwise,” he then said. They used their qi and soul force in unison, and the puzzle moved again.
This process continued for three days. Fortunately, Cha Ming had been teaching Gong Shuren for years now, so they’d developed a good working relationship. She might not be capable of as much as he was, but she could at least follow instructions to lessen his burden and speed up the process. On the third day, they heard a click, and to their surprise, the puzzle sank into the floor.
“That can’t be it,” Cha Ming said, frowning.
“This was what I was afraid of,” Gong Shuren said.
A sliding sound filled the air as a massive object began to rise out of the stone floor. Cha Ming soon realized it was a giant gear. It was fully cast in bronze and covered in complex runic patterns. Once it completed its vertical journey, the floor glowed and vanished beneath their feet. Thousands of tiny gears rose up and set themselves in midair. Some were connected by thick rods that forced them to turn in tandem, while others formed a strange connection with each other with runic lines.
At the center of the room, where the original runic puzzle had once been, a large pillar rose up. Its grooved surface wasn’t covered in any runes. It continued rising until it reached the level of the first gear, bringing up an entirely new floor with it. Everything froze in place for an infinitesimal moment, then started moving again.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The ticking again. The newly formed puzzle of gears, rods, and runes began ticking to the same rhythm as the clock on the wall. And the sound was deafening. Try as they might, even with their powerful bodies and strong souls, they could do nothing to block
