Chapter 1790: "Present World"

After landing, the Heavenly Palace team rested and reorganized on the lakeshore, simultaneously checking supplies and gathering their personnel.

Several bird-demons flew into the sky to search for traces of the Illusion Sect, as scouts had just returned with reports that the team was not found nearby. No one was found moving about, and there were no footprints in the lakeside woods. Unlike Inverted Lake, Kidney Lake is not very large. The Illusion Sect team had likely used divine power to erase their tracks to avoid being traced by the Heavenly Palace.

Bai Ziqin looked at the ring on his finger. It was not glowing. This meant no divine power or illusions were detected nearby. To be safe, he still had to ask the Grey Parrot, "Lord, is there anything unusual about this place?"

Is this the real world? It looks exactly like the illusion realm. Was the illusion realm modeled after this place?

High above the campsite, a giant golden single eye suddenly appeared. Its eyeball slowly rotated, and beams of golden light scanned Silver Pearl Island below. It checked very slowly and meticulously, but Bai Ziqin was staring at the silver pearl fruit in his hand. The fruit's glow was growing increasingly faint. Once it completely extinguished, no one would be able to return to the illusion realm.

The golden single eye scanned the entire island several times, disappearing about half a *ke* (approximately 7.5 minutes) later.

"No divine power, no illusions. The Illusion Sect team wasn't found, but there's human activity and living creatures."

Humans? Bai Ziqin was startled. There are humans here too?

Indeed, since this was the real world, human activity was not surprising. Yet, Bai Ziqin couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"The Illusion Sect team is nowhere to be seen. Are they hidden by the terrain, or perhaps hiding in caves or tunnels?" There were too many living creatures on this island, which would surely interfere with the Eye of Truth's scan. However, since Miao Zhantian's Eye of Truth didn't even detect any divine power or illusions, this might indeed be the real world.

Bai Shi took out a sandbox display and unfolded it. All places scouted by the bird-demons, whether mountains, rivers, marshes, city gates, or civilian houses, would be rendered on the display. They had already used this automatic mapping divine power once in the illusion realm. Of course, this mapping could not be perfect; the display could only simulate what the bird-demons saw. With dense vegetation on the island, anything blocked or covered by trees would not be visible to the bird-demons and thus would not appear on the display. At this point, Miao Zhantian would use the Eye of Truth to supplement the omitted parts.

At that moment, the bird-demons were slowly flying over Inverted Lake at a low altitude, and the corresponding coastal scenery was being sketched onto the display. This large lake was very tranquil, with lush green trees lining its shores, but no glowing silver pearl fruits could be found deep within the tree shadows. Then, the rock tablet in the lake also appeared on the display. The inscription on it was still formed by barnacles twisted into eight large characters by an unknown force.

Could the two worlds, inside and out, be one-to-one replicas?

Under the bright moonlight, every character on the tablet was clearly visible:

Invert Heaven and Earth.

Go and no return.

"No, one character is different."

It was fortunate that this character was different, making it easier to distinguish between the two worlds.

Bai Ziqin looked towards the surface of Kidney Lake ahead once more. The Grey Parrot asked him, "Is there any problem?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head as he withdrew his gaze. "The sandbox mapping is too slow."

The newly generated sandbox display showed about ten villages and towns around Kidney Lake, and several cities to the north. The largest of these cities surpassed Silver Pearl City in both area and population.

Were there more residents in the real world than in the illusion realm?

Soon after, the bird-demons flew back. Bai Ziqin knew at a glance that something was wrong:

Of the twenty flying scouts sent out, only seven returned. Three of them were injured, and the most severely wounded had an arrow piercing its abdomen. No wonder the sandbox mapping was slow; there were fewer eyes providing data.

"We flew over human settlements and were attacked and driven away by arrows and divine power," one of the bird-demons reported. "There were very strong Immortals in the large city. They immediately shot down two of our brethren; only I managed to escape."

"Immortals?" Bai Ziqin suddenly recalled the testimony of the Illusion Sect captive. "The Immortals the Illusion Sect sent into Kidney Lake probably didn't die, but rather became stranded here!"

Wu Shidao had mentioned that in the past thirty years, four Great Immortals from the Illusion Sect had successively disappeared without reason, a matter kept a closely guarded secret within the sect. If those four Immortals were all in the Inverted Sea of the real world, the Illusion Sect's strength could still recover significantly. No wonder Xiao Wencheng wanted to bring his entire sect across the lake to the real world; it seemed he was also trying to gamble on a stroke of luck.

A thought stirred in his heart, and he suddenly asked, "Have Jinna God and Chizha God crossed the lake yet?" Earlier, while the Heavenly Palace team was busy crossing the lake, Miao Zhantian had dispatched these two deities and the great demon Dongying to pursue Illusion Sect Elder Xutuo.

Bai Wei immediately issued the order.

The Grey Parrot spoke, "They haven't appeared yet; I can't sense their auras!" The silver pearl fruit's glow was almost gone, yet the two deities hadn't arrived from the illusion realm. Had they encountered some problem? Even if the pursuit of Xutuo had gone awry, it shouldn't have been difficult for them to abandon the mission and rush to cross the lake.

Bai Ziqin knew that Jinna God was a subordinate deity on the same level as Fengho, holding a significant position beside Miao Zhantian. Jinna also had a place in the Star-Picking Tower temple, with a golden statue molded to receive the incense and worship of believers. Moreover, Chizha God was by its side. Even if the pursuit failed, these two deities surely possessed the power to protect themselves. In contrast, Xutuo was the latest to join the Illusion Sect, having sought refuge with the Thousand Illusions School hundreds of years after the cataclysm. In terms of cultivation, Xutuo was among the lower-to-middle tier of the Illusion Sect's dozen-plus Immortals, far inferior to Elder Xu, who was executed by Miao Zhantian, or Elder Du, who died from Fengho's assassination. That's why Miao Zhantian felt confident sending them out to capture Immortals.

Just then, a speck of golden light flew out from the lake. As soon as it emerged from the water, it shed the attached silver pearl fruit and then darted towards the Grey Parrot with extreme speed. Bai Ziqin only had time to glimpse that it was a golden cicada before the Grey Parrot swallowed it whole.

"This is the scout I just sent out," the Grey Parrot explained. "After all, we've crossed realms, and Miao Zhantian couldn't sense what was happening in the illusion realm, so it had to dispatch a scout. Its call received no response from Jinna or Chizha!"

As soon as the golden cicada returned to the illusion realm, it emitted an extremely loud chirp that almost spread throughout Silver Pearl Island. If the two deities had heard it, they surely would have responded, even if they hadn't rushed over immediately. However, there was no response. The golden cicada chirped for quite a while without receiving a reply. It then quickly crossed back into the realm to report to Miao Zhantian before the silver pearl fruit's glow completely faded.

This meant that something had indeed happened to the two deities, and Bai Ziqin's heart sank slightly. What other power within the illusion realm could possibly have consumed them? Could Qianhuan have awakened? Furthermore, considering this, their side's Immortal and demon power was significantly reduced. Did they still hold an overwhelming advantage against the Illusion Sect?

Miao Zhantian made a decisive decision, simply ordering, "Continue forward." They had already returned to the real world. No matter what happened in the illusion realm, there was no turning back.

Just then, there was some movement on the opposite shore of Kidney Lake: A man dressed as a villager emerged from the dense woods.