Everything around them was shifting, yet Chu Feng and the others could not move at all—their legs and feet were bound as if shackled, caught in a raging current with no choice but to go wherever the flow carried them.
But Chu Feng could perceive the changes taking place around them. At first there was a burst of golden light, which quickly gave way to darkness. Though it was dark, faint streaks of light kept flashing past, and he could sense that those streaks were numerous—practically countless.
Chu Feng had experienced this sight before, so he recognized it.
They had now completely departed the Hundred Refinements Mortal Realm and entered the trajectory leading into the Great Thousand Upper Realm.
Before long, they would arrive in the Great Thousand Upper Realm.
Hummmm— However, just as Chu Feng believed they were about to enter the Great Thousand Upper Realm, their upward momentum began to slow.
Once their speed had decelerated, their surroundings became clearer.
It was pitch-black in every direction, an endless void, yet in the distance specks of starlight dotted the expanse. Chu Feng and his companions now found themselves adrift in the vastness of the cosmos.
When Chu Feng looked upward, his pupils contracted sharply, and a flicker of unease surfaced in his eyes.
"What is that?" Chu Feng asked.
At his words, Zhao Hong, Wang Qiang, Ying Mingchao, and Zi Xunyi all raised their heads to look as well.
Upon seeing what lay ahead, their gazes tightened in unison, and shock quickly spread across their faces.
Ahead of them floated four luminous bodies, each swirling like a vortex. Against the backdrop of the dark starfield, they were strikingly eye-catching—beautiful, yet somehow unsettling.
"Is that thing what's slowing us down?" Zhao Hong asked. She clearly had no idea what these strange luminous bodies were doing inside the Ascension Stairway.
"Let's stay close together and try to steer ourselves away from those light vortices," Ying Mingchao said.
Earlier, when they had been hurtling forward at great speed, their bodies truly could not move at all.
But once their pace had slowed, they discovered they could move again.
Though they were still being carried upward by the power of the Ascension Stairway, they could now shift their bodies around.
After Ying Mingchao spoke, Chu Feng and the others gathered together in short order.
"Senior, do you know what those light vortices are?" Chu Feng asked.
"I can't say for certain, but when I was young, I once met a senior who hailed from the Upper Realm."
"That senior told me that if I ever used the Ascension Stairway to travel to the Great Thousand Upper Realm in the future, and I encountered a certain type of vortex, I had to be extremely careful."
"He said it meant the Ascension Stairway had malfunctioned. If you were drawn into the vortex, the best-case scenario was being swept into a different world. The worst case… you would be cast into the infinite void beyond the heavens."
"The infinite void beyond the heavens, the endless expanse of stars—that is not a particular world, but the true cosmos itself."
"Anyone who enters that place will lose all sense of direction, wandering in the darkness for the rest of their life until they grow old and perish."
"And those luminous vortices look extremely similar to what that senior described," Ying Mingchao said.
"What the hell… so this Ascension Stairway is actually that dangerous?" Wang Qiang's face twisted with displeasure.
"That senior said these vortices possess a certain amount of suction, but it isn't particularly strong. As long as you stay away from them, you should be able to avoid trouble, so there's no need to worry too much," Ying Mingchao explained.
"How do these things even form? The Ascension Stairway was working perfectly fine, so how could something go wrong? Could it be someone's doing?" Chu Feng asked.
"I asked that senior the very same question."
"He said the Ascension Stairway is fundamentally a formation array, and after enough time it's only natural for issues to arise. But this is definitely not the work of any person."
"After all, this Ascension Stairway has been passed down since the ancient era. How powerful would someone have to be to damage it?"
"So he firmly insisted it could not be human-caused—just an occasional glitch brought on by age and wear," Ying Mingchao said.
"Watch out—we're getting close to the first light vortex," Zhao Hong warned.
() Although their speed had slowed, it was still quite fast in truth. The light vortex had seemed far away at first, but now it was nearly upon them.
When it was distant it had seemed harmless enough, but now that they were drawing near, Chu Feng and the others realized the luminous vortex was anything but simple.
It was enormous. Compared to it, Chu Feng and his companions were as insignificant as specks of dust.
It blazed like a second sun, casting its radiance across a vast expanse.