The Vermilion Bird Divine Beast's temperament was, relatively speaking, a bit more composed. After all, it had lived from the primordial era to the present and had undergone life-and-death nirvana — it was perfectly understandable that its mindset was somewhat steadier.
Moreover, when it came to fighting a Divine Path powerhouse, a being of the Demigod realm like the Vermilion Bird Divine Beast still didn't have a thorough enough understanding of the gap in their respective strengths.
So the Vermilion Bird Divine Beast didn't dare speak too definitively.
Patriarch Xiahou was desperate to return home, and he used the fastest possible method — one that bordered on self-harm — to rush back toward the Divine Capital at breakneck speed.
Mid-journey, Patriarch Xiahou's brow suddenly furrowed. His divine sense stirred, his Dharma Eye snapped open, and what he saw deep in the void made him freeze. Countless thread-like ribbons of color spread through the surrounding space like spider silk, forming a dense web that blanketed every nearby region.
The network of filaments appeared unremarkable at first glance, but the moment Patriarch Xiahou probed it with his senses, he detected an inexplicable sense of danger.
It wasn't a lethal threat, but it was enough to pose a genuine risk to a Divine Path powerhouse like himself.
"Trouble — could someone be setting an ambush here?"
With that thought, Patriarch Xiahou swept his gaze across the surroundings. The terrain looked peculiar, but it didn't particularly seem like a place suited for an ambush.
And yet the atmosphere at the scene radiated an eerie, unsettling sense of peril.
As a Divine Path ancestor, Patriarch Xiahou's instincts were razor-sharp.
Under normal circumstances, he would have investigated thoroughly and rooted out the source of the problem. But right now, he was in a hurry and didn't want to create unnecessary complications.
With a cold snort, he altered his trajectory, intending to bypass this area entirely.
Though he hadn't immediately figured out the full nature of these thread-like objects, it was obvious they had been placed here specifically to ambush him.
The moment the word "ambush" crossed his mind, Patriarch Xiahou grew extremely cautious.
"Apart from the Sacred Ancestor, the three great Sacred Lords of the Eternal Sacred Land are only at the peak of the Celestial realm at best — Demigod level. Even if you gave them a hundred times their courage, they wouldn't dare ambush me here."
A Divine Path powerhouse had that kind of confidence. Even against Demigod-level opponents, one at the Divine Path could handle three or five of them with ease.
And Patriarch Xiahou, as a Divine Path expert, could easily take on five or six Demigods at once without breaking a sweat.
The Divine Path was the Divine Path. It meant one had condensed a Divine Throne and earned the true acknowledgment of the supreme Heavenly Dao. The ability to channel the great forces of heaven and earth was something simply inconceivable to anyone below the Divine Path.
However, in order to return to the Xiahou family as quickly as possible, Patriarch Xiahou decided not to create unnecessary complications and chose to detour instead.
But no matter how the Patriarch changed his route, those thread-like filaments seemed impossible to avoid — they were everywhere.
Before long, Patriarch Xiahou's brow was deeply furrowed.
He let out another cold snort. He simply didn't want to waste time and didn't want to stir up trouble — but that didn't mean he lacked the ability to destroy these thread-like objects.
From Patriarch Xiahou's experienced eye, these multicolored filaments appeared to be woven from poison.
It was the involvement of poison that made Patriarch Xiahou even more cautious.
"Petty tricks — let me break them!" Patriarch Xiahou erupted in fury, suddenly clapping his palm forward. Bolts of Palm Thunder crackled and exploded in the void in rapid succession.
The Palm Thunder erupted with terrifying power. The space ahead seemed to shatter, and countless currents of air scattered wildly in every direction, sending surges of void turbulence rippling outward from all sides.
Under the force of that turbulence, the multicolored thread-like filaments burst apart one by one, swept into the raging void currents.
Patriarch Xiahou truly lived up to his reputation as a master of Divine Abilities. His hands clenched, and the spatial turbulence immediately began contracting the space around them, continuously shrinking.
Before long, the multicolored threads had been drawn together by Patriarch Xiahou into a single mass, condensed into a compact region above his head.
"Hmph — mere poison dares to show off in front of an expert?"
Patriarch Xiahou's anger only grew. With a sweep of his sleeve, he prepared to continue on his way.
But the scene before his eyes suddenly shifted once more.
In a daze, it seemed as though he had stepped into a wondrous otherworldly plane. This world looked like some kind of paradise of bliss.
Every corner visible to the naked eye was planted with the same thing — fiery red lotus flowers.
Each bloom burned like a raging flame.
This time, Patriarch Xiahou did not dare let his guard down. His instincts told him clearly that he had stepped into an array.
An array capable of forcibly separating him from the original world was no trivial matter. Even he, a Divine Path powerhouse, had stumbled into it without realizing.
However, Patriarch Xiahou was well-traveled and well-versed. He did not panic simply because he had become trapped in an array.
In his view, no array could be completely flawless. This type of entrapment array was no exception. As long as one could find the right clues, one could walk out with ease.
Patriarch Xiahou looked around, and gradually he began to discern some of the array's hidden workings. The array was like countless void worlds woven together.
Beyond one layer lay another.
Beside one layer sat yet another.
Layer upon layer of offset planes formed an extraordinarily twisted and complex space. Without a thread of direction, one would be like a headless fly in a labyrinth, hopelessly and forever losing all sense of orientation.