Chapter 972: Unknown World
"Young friend! Please lend us a hand and save us this one time!"
The person who was trapped inside the whirlpool kept sending out his thread-like soul thoughts.
Inside the whirlpool, a couple of figures were losing life energy every second.
"The Ji Family…"
Qin Lie narrowed his eyes and considered what he knew to determine the relationship between the Ji Family and Qin Family.
The Ji Family, Qin Family, Ao Family, and Lu Family were the four great families in the Central World of Spirit Realm.
The Ji Family was the most ancient family of the human race. For the longest time, the Ji Family was the head of all the great families.
They were slowly surpassed only after the Qin Family had emerged from nothing.
While the Qin Family was attacked by most of top eight Gold rank forces of the Central World, the Ji Family and Sky Mender Palace… were the only forces who kept quiet and stayed neutral.
They didn't beat them when they were down like Ninth Heaven.
It was because the Ji Family and Qin Family were geologically very far apart from each other in the Central World. That was why the Qin Family and Ji Family didn't interfere with each other's business.
They shared neither grudges nor friendships with each other. The Ji Family hadn't beaten them when they were down, but they didn't extend a helping hand either.
The two families almost never interacted with each other in the past.
"Friend! Please save us!"
The Ji Family member trapped inside the whirlpool still hadn't given up on sending out the cry for help with his soul thoughts.
Qin Lie frowned on top of the Demon Sealing Tombstone and mulled over his options for a moment. Finally, he replied, "How am I supposed to save you?"
He condensed a soul thought and sent it into the whirlpool.
The second the soul thought entered the whirlpool range, he felt like his soul was stung by a poisonous bee as it vanished instantly.
He wasn't even sure if the members of the Ji Family trapped inside the whirlpool had caught his message.
"The Spirits of Void and Chaos! I can sense their presence next to you. They can save us from our predicament!" the man replied hastily.
Qin Lie was startled for a second before he looked at the five Spirits of Void and Chaos and communicated telepathically with them.
The five Spirits of Void and Chaos nodded while making baby noises.
"Please help us, friend!" The man continued to beg.
After pondering carefully for a moment, Qin Lie told the Spirits of Void and Chaos to interfere.
He also ignored the Demon Sealing Tombstone's will and forcefully put it back into his spatial ring.
The five Spirits of Void and Chaos suddenly flew towards the whirlpool after obtaining his permission.
In his eyes, the five Spirits of Void and Chaos looked like five colorful meteors when they flew towards the whirlpool. The moment they entered its range, the rapidly spinning whirlpool magically began to slow down.
The chaotic and distorted space energies inside the whirlpool looked like they were straightened out by some invisible hands.
The various deadly energies inside the whirlpool also subsided gradually.
"The chaotic streams of space, the Spirits of Void and Chaos… is this place truly their natural environment?" Outside the whirlpool, Qin Lie was surprised and impressed by the Spirits of Void and Chaos' work.
As the whirlpool subsided, he was able to see the people who were previously trapped inside the whirlpool clearly. Then, his expression changed a little.
There were five tall, handsome middle-aged men dressed in blue traditional attire inside the whirlpool.
All five men were sitting on top of a Soul Altar.
One of them was actually a five-level Soul Altar expert, while the remaining four were all three-level Soul Altar experts.
Their Soul Altars looked like they were forged from some kind of jade. The gentle glow of the Soul Altars gave off a feeling of peace and tranquility.
The Ji Family clansmen saw him too.
Ji Yao cautiously moved away from the whirlpool bit by bit on his five-level Soul Altar as he looked at Qin Lie in astonishment. "Young friend, you're… just a Fragmentation Realm martial practitioner?"
Chaotic energies were swirling inside the whirlpool before the Spirits of Void and Chaos calmed them down. The most he could do was to send out his soul thought.
Even then, he only managed to send out a wisp of his soul thought. He wasn't able to see through Qin Lie's cultivation immediately despite noting the young man's youthful appearance.
When the whirlpool slowly subsided and he looked at Qin Lie once more, he was suddenly stunned to find that he was only at the early stage of the Fragmentation Realm.
The four Ji Family members behind him also looked as astonished as if they had seen a ghost.
They were in the chaotic streams of space, the outer layer of Spirit Realm, and one of the most dangerous places in the entire world. Even they, Soul Altar experts, were nearly killed because of an unfortunate accident.
Therefore, they could hardly believe their eyes to find an early stage Fragmentation Realm martial practitioner roaming this place alone.
Qin Lie was equally shocked as he subconsciously backed off from the five Soul Altar experts.
He didn't think that the five Ji Family members inside the whirlpool would all possess Soul Altars. Moreover, the leader of the group Ji Yao was a five-level Soul Altar expert and an exceptional middle stage Void Realm martial practitioner just like Luz.
He grew nervous too from this unexpected encounter.
By now, the five Ji Family members had slowly gotten themselves out of the whirlpool and freed themselves from its influence.
"Return!" He immediately summoned the Spirits of Void and Chaos back to his side.
The moment the Spirits of Void and Chaos left, the whirlpool grew rampant once more as the strange, natural formation inside it began to function once more.
The five Ji Family members hurriedly moved away from the whirlpool.
Qin Lie didn't spend any breath on Ji Yao. He suddenly flew towards the direction the Demon Sealing Tombstone was flying to while accompanied by the five Spirits of Void and Chaos.
A Void Realm martial practitioner and four late stage Imperishable Realm martial practitioners were too much for him. He didn't wish to chat with them for even a second.
"Why is he running?"
The youngest martial practitioner out of the five Soul Altar experts, Ji Xi, scratched his head while looking clueless.
"Are you stupid? If you're a Fragmentation Realm martial practitioner with five Spirits of Void and Chaos, and you ran into five Soul Altar experts inside the chaotic streams of space, don't you think you'd be just as scared as him?" Ji Yao scolded.
"But he saved our lives!" Ji Xi said.
"There are too many ruthless, profiteering and ungrateful people inside the chaotic streams of space." Ji Yao sighed. "To think that that young man would randomly help a group of trapped people without knowing their realm and when he is just in the Fragmentation Realm… What a bold fellow."
"This is probably the first time he entered the chaotic streams of space," another Ji Family member called Ji Rui said.
Ji Rui's answer enlightened Ji Xi to his confusion as the latter nodded in agreement. "You're right. Only an ignorant fledgling would preserve a hint of kindness in the chaotic streams of space, and looking at his realm he's a fledgling among fledglings. To think he would enter this place at his current strength; it's true that the ignorant truly fear nothing."
The Ji Family members didn't chase after Qin Lie. Instead, they stayed where they were and talked about him.
"There's no need to catch up to him. If we really tried to stop him for a chat, he would only grow nervous and suspect that we have an ulterior motive." Ji Yao smiled. "If we are fated to meet each other once more, and if we can lend him a hand, we'll repay the kindness he showed us then."
"Still, we may never run into the same stranger a second time once we pass each other in the chaotic streams of space," Ji Rui said.
"That's true." Ji Yao inhaled deeply with the kind of emotion that only a person who just survived a life threatening crisis would experience. "Well, let's forget about him and reestablish our flight direction."
While saying this, he took out a spirit artifact that looked like a compass and toyed with it in full concentration.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Ji Family group chatted with one another and expressed their feelings at having survived being trapped inside the whirlpool.
A while later, Ji Yao withdrew the compass and said while wearing an odd expression on his face, "Our destination… is in that direction too."
He pointed.
As it turned out, they were going the exact same way as Qin Lie was.
"He's only at the Fragmentation Realm. If we travel at normal speed, it's only a matter of time before we catch up to him." Ji Rui laughed drily. "I sure hope he won't misunderstand us."
"Misunderstand what?" Ji Xi asked again.
"Misunderstand that we are ungrateful bastards who are chasing after him to rob him off his Spirits of Void and Chaos," Ji Rui said meaningfully.
"That kind of thing is beneath the Ji Family!" Ji Xi snorted.
"He still might misunderstand our intentions all the same." Ji Rui sighed.
"It doesn't matter. At best, we'll explain our circumstances to him when we pass him by later. We cannot slow down just for him." Ji Yao frowned and took a bit of time to calm himself down. Then, he ordered, "Let's go!"
And so the five Ji Family members flew down the path Qin Lie took.
……
When Qin Lie saw that the five Ji Family members who escaped from the whirlpool were all Soul Altar experts, he had run away without ever looking back.
He was tricked by the Heaven Ghoul Race and eastern barbarians and thrown into the chaotic streams of space without any preparation or thought at all.
He didn't know how to return to Spirit Realm. He could only rely on the Demon Sealing Tombstone and follow its lead.
At first, he was hoping to learn the way to return to Spirit Realm from the Ji Family members he saved.
He never expected them to be five Soul Altar experts.
He instantly discarded his initial plans and ran as quickly as he could because he was afraid for his life.
"What terrible luck this is," he swore in his mind.
He took out the Demon Sealing Tombstone once more and sat on top of it. He continued to roam the chaotic streams of space.
The Demon Sealing Tombstone was fetching him into the unknown like a light boat surfing across the deep sea...
Time passed quickly, and he awoke from his cultivation in a sudden once more.
He could sense anxiety from the five Spirits of Void and Chaos...
The seven godly lights stretching out from beneath Demon Sealing Tombstone were also glowing brilliantly while swinging around non-stop.
When he looked towards the front, a sense of trepidation rose from the depths of his soul. He instinctively sensed danger right ahead of him.
He could see many giant whirlpools—the kind that devoured the Ji Family group earlier—wriggling at the front like giant lanterns.
There were also many bright web-like spatial rifts that felt sharp enough to cut all living beings into pieces.
Black passages that looked like the gaping maws of monsters also lurked around the area like predators waiting for an opportunity to pounce on fresh meat.
"Spatial passageways!" Qin Lie's expression changed.
He knew very well that those black, murky passages were all spatial passageways.
However, he didn't know where they led to or what was inside.
He could sense danger from them though.
The Demon Sealing Tombstone that had been flying at top speed for a time finally slowed down. However, it was still obviously taking him deeper into these death traps.
It made every pore on his body tense up in anxiety.