Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Elenei didn't run into any troubles as she continued flying through the air using her Soul Sense to place the tracking markers, but even if this formation did want to do something to her like sending various enemies at her or even if this Natural Formation teleported her outside of it, Elenei still wouldn't face any troubles.

At least that's what Elenei thought…

The hours went by extremely quickly for the Phoenix and on the third hour of placing tracking markers, Elenei reached a point that she believed to be the edge of the Formation.

She couldn't explain it clearly, but when she looked ahead of her she felt like she was looking into a mirror. It felt like she was looking at an exact replica of what she just flew through except without the tracking markers.

Naturally, as Phoenix and as someone with a high cultivation in the Mortal World, Elenei's memory is exceptional. Although she can't say she was paying much attention to her surroundings, that doesn't mean she completely disregarded them and from what she can remember, the things she's seeing ahead of her are almost, if not exactly, the same compared to her current landscape.

To top it off, Elenei also had a feeling that this was the end of the Natural Formation. She refused to believe that it could span any further. By this point, she had already traveled hundreds of kilometers, which she already felt was extremely large even by Natural Formation standards.

While it's true that they are in a very unpopulated area on the Western Continent, if this Natural Formation spanned thousands of Kilometers, people would definitely know about it. Not only that, but the energy needed to sustain such a large formation would be massive even if it was created by the Heavens. Adding illusory and spatial elements only increases the energy consumption as well.

She didn't even want to imagine how much Qi or Spirit Stones this thing would need if it was any bigger than it already was. At that point, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that this Formation was sucking the entire continent dry!

Thankfully, it shouldn't be that long. Elenei seriously doubted that the direction opposite to her also went on for hundreds of kilometers. She guessed that there were probably another 50 kilometers or so in the other direction.

Now that she's reached the end, she did a bit of recon around the area to see if she could find anything, but after not being able to sense anything unique around the area, she decided to stop searching and head back to wait for the rest of the group to finish their jobs.

***

Surprisingly, Elenei's estimate wasn't too far off as Mira, who was walking in the opposite direction of Elenei, actually reached what looked like a mirror except without the tracking markers in its reflection. By this point, she had only walked around 75 kilometers or so, however, it took Mira much longer than 3 hours to get here.

In fact, at around the 3-hour mark, Mira was back where she started. She had finally walked her way out of that shit that made her feel like she was surrounded by Rhydian's blood in all directions and by the time she came out of it, she was already back at the start.

Luckily, it didn't take long for her to get back to where she was before she was sent to some random place.

From then on, Mira decided to take it a bit slower to take in her surroundings and she was also curious if she could sense if the Formation was about to do something to her if she focused hard enough.

The answer to this is that yes she can sense if something is about to happen to her, but she has no idea what it will be when it will come, and which direction it's coming from.

That being said, Mira was still getting swept up in traps that the Formation set for her and had basically no way of avoiding them. Luckily, this Formation didn't seem to be dead set on killing her and instead wanted to do its best at confusing her and preventing her from reaching the Core, but part of Mira also wanted this place to try and kill her. Then her battle-hardened instincts would be much more useful and she also wouldn't have to go through all this shit. She could just run in the direction where the traps get more and more deadly and should eventually find the core as long as she survives. She could be in and out of here in a few hours if that was the case!

Unfortunately, she's in this annoying place that keeps sending her in random directions and making her see things that she can't tell if they are real or just an illusion.

It took Mira the full 12 hours just to reach a point where she felt like she wasat the edge of this Formation. It was around 75 kilometers from where she began, but what made Mira a bit frustrated was that she definitely ran a lot more than 75 kilometers in the past 12 hours.

Once she made it to what she believed to be the edge, she walked up to what seemed to be the barrier and was about to keep walking to see if she would be able to just walk out of here without having to go through all this trouble, but as soon as she almost crossed the barrier, she stopped. Something told her that if she were to touch that mirror-looking barrier, she definitely wouldn't have a good time. She didn't feel any danger coming from it, but he felt like her life would be annoying as hell should she take another step.

So without hesitation, Mira turned around and started running towards the rendezvous point where she'll meet up with Maria, Celaine, and Elenei.

Mira knew that she might be giving up on an opportunity, but she didn't care. She's always trusted her instincts and right now they are telling her that it's better if she doesn't try and step through that barrier.

The only thing she can do at this point is hope that her companions do the same thing as her. Okay, she knew Elenei definitely wouldn't touch the barrier and Celaine most likely wouldn't as she's an extremely responsible girl who would do what she's told instead of trying to investigate things on her own without informing the group.

Maria, however… Mira was worried that she would f*ck everything up and jump straight at the barrier with no thoughts other than "I wonder what's on the other side!".

"Hopefully that idiot didn't fuck everything up or I'll definitely have to give her a good beating later!"

Mira muttered to herself as she made her way back to where they started.

***

In an underground cave somewhere in the Natural Formation, Maria was still mining Spirit Stones when she felt a chill run down her spine.

"Oh no! Mira must be thinking about me! Have 12 hours already passed? Is that why she's mad? Well, whatever. I'll finish up here before going back! I'm almost done and it'd be a shame to lose all of these Spirit Stones!"

Maria thought out loud before ignoring the ever-growing chill down her spine and going back to mining.

***

Celaine had a similar experience to Mira, but instead of being teleported around and confused by what was going on, her troubles stemmed from the near endless battles she had to go through over the last 12 hours.

Luckily, she reached what seemed to be the edge of the Natural Formation as not only did it look like a very realistic mirror, but beasts also stopped spawning or appearing right in front of her when she reached this point.

She was a bit curious about what's on the other side, but she felt like it would be a while until she was able to meet up with the rest of her friends if she kept moving forward. So, instead she took a short break before turning around and making her way back. She could also use this time to count how many tracking markers she set so she can know exactly how far she walked. It was a bit hard to keep track of this information since she was battling almost nonstop over the last 12 hours.