The moment he passed through the barrier, the surrounding air gently rippled.
The opening silently closed behind him, the elliptical fissure re-merging into the air, blending with the surrounding rubble, withered grass, and mountain peak.
The mercenaries digging for stones remained bent over, none noticing what had transpired.
Ethan stood on the inner side of the barrier; the rubble beneath his feet was no different from the outside.
He glanced down at the ground, then looked up at the exposed face of the mountain ahead.
The air inside the barrier carried an extremely faint scent, like the burnt smell of something scorched by high heat, mixed with an indescribable hint of something fishy.
The scent was so faint it was almost masked by the mountain wind.
Ethan lifted his foot and continued forward.
The rubble beneath his shoes crunched softly with each step.
It was still the same scree slope around him: dusty rubble, withered grass stalks, and a few mercenaries in the distance still digging.
Nothing had changed.
He walked another dozen steps.
The invisible membrane reappeared.
This time, the membrane was more than twice as thick as the first.
The moment his palm pressed against it, a resilient pushing force came from the surface, like pressing on a taut piece of rawhide.
The surrounding mercenaries still passed through the barrier's location without noticing, their clothes brushing through the air as they continued walking.
Ethan hooked his fingers into the membrane and tore it open.
A rip formed in the membrane where his fingers had torn it.
The edges of the tear glowed with a faint silver-white pattern, like torn spider silk shimmering in the sunlight.
The scene beyond the opening was identical to the outside: rubble, withered grass, the exposed mountain face.
He stepped through.
The third barrier.
The rubble beneath his feet had turned into damp moss.
The air was thick with the smell of humus, and a dense tree canopy had appeared overhead at some point, letting sunlight filter through the leaves to cast dappled patterns on the ground.
The temperature was at least ten degrees warmer than outside, hot and humid.
Ethan glanced down at the moss beneath his feet and continued walking.
The fourth barrier revealed a landscape of cracked, saline-alkali land.
The ground was fractured into countless irregular geometric patterns, with bottomless fissures from which the wind blew, making a mournful sound.
The fifth layer was a field of waist-deep wild grass, its blades sharp as knives, hissing as they brushed against his sleeves.
The sixth layer was covered in fist-sized, spherical stone eggs, their surfaces riddled with honeycomb-like holes, crunching hollowly underfoot.
The seventh layer.
The eighth layer.
The ninth layer.
Behind each barrier was a completely new landscape, utterly unrelated to Horn Mountain.
Some places were as cold as an ice cellar, his breath condensing into white mist in the air.
Other places were as hot as a furnace, the stones on the ground scorching hot.
Some areas were overgrown with glowing mushrooms, their pale green luminescence making the surroundings appear submerged underwater.
Ethan tore through layer after layer.
When he reached the thirteenth layer, his fingers paused.
The barrier was still there, but its thickness was now the sum of the previous twelve layers combined.
When his palm pressed against it, the pushing force was no longer a resilient resistance, but a nearly tangible repulsion.
It was as if an invisible hand was pushing back from the other side.
He tore open the thirteenth barrier.
What poured out from beyond the opening was not air, but vapor.
Vapor so dense it was almost liquid surged from the hole, dampening his face.
The surrounding temperature plummeted, the mugginess and humidity vanished, replaced by a bone-chilling cold.
Ethan stepped through the opening.
His feet landed on a stone-slab floor.
This was an altar.
The high dome was constructed from solid blocks of bluish-gray stone, laid without mortar, fitting together perfectly.
The four walls were riddled with countless carved indentations, each embedding a fist-sized, emerald-blue crystal.
Within the crystals, wave-like patterns of light shimmered, making the entire space appear submerged beneath the sea.
The floor was paved with dark blue-green flagstones, each intricately carved.
These patterns converged from the altar's edges toward its center, layering upon layering, finally intertwining into a massive circular design at the very heart.
A stone pillar stood in the center of the design.
The pillar was entirely deep black, devoid of any markings, with only a thin film of water slowly flowing over its surface.
The water film climbed from the base to the top, then flowed back down, an endless cycle.
Suspended directly above the pillar was a fist-sized orb of water.
The water orb rotated slowly, emitting a faint blue halo that spread outwards with each rotation.
As the halo swept over the crystals embedded in the walls, their internal undulations of light would simultaneously flare, causing the entire altar to flicker in the watery glow.
An indescribable scent permeated the air.
It wasn't fishy, nor musty; it was the scent of water itself.
The pure, unadulterated scent of water.
“Hmm? Something’s not right.”
The moment Ethan's thought arose, the entire space abruptly lit up.
The crystals embedded in the four walls simultaneously erupted with dazzling emerald-blue light.
Light surged from all directions, intertwining into an impenetrable net of light in the center of the altar.
The net of light pressed down from above, surged up from below, and tightened from all sides.
Countless emerald-blue water chains shot out from the light net.
These water chains were only thumb-thick, completely transparent, with dense blue runes circulating within their bodies.
The water chains were incredibly fast, reaching Ethan the instant they shot from the light net.
Ethan took half a step back.
The water chains had already wrapped around him.
The first wrapped around his left wrist, tightening its body, and a bone-chilling sensation spread from his wrist up his entire arm.
The second wrapped around his right wrist, the third around his left ankle, and the fourth around his right ankle.
More water chains surged from all directions, coiling around his waist, chest, and neck.
In less than a breath, the water chains bound him securely.
The blue runes on the chains began to glow.
A heavy pressure emanated from each water chain, making his bones creak.
This pressure was not merely a physical restraint; it also carried a deeper, weighty sensation that directly targeted his mental sea.
Ethan’s eyelashes fluttered.
In the center of the altar, directly in front of the stone pillar, a water mirror silently solidified.
The water mirror was a perfect circle, over three meters in diameter, its surface smooth as glass.
Inside the mirror, there was no reflection of the altar, only an unfathomable expanse of blue.
The blue deepened continuously, from light blue to dark blue, from dark blue to indigo, finally becoming an abyssal blue that was almost black.
The water mirror aimed at Ethan.
A beam of light shot forth from the mirror's surface.
The light had no color, no temperature, no perceptible attributes whatsoever.
It shone upon Ethan, passing through his skin, flesh, and bones, directly into his mental sea.
Ethan felt his mental crystal tremble slightly.
Then, his consciousness began to sink.
This sinking wasn't fainting or sleep; it was a deeper sensation, as if his consciousness was being forcibly dragged into some state from its very depths.
The surrounding watery light stretched into countless blurry blue threads in his vision; the altar's dome was twisting, the stone pillar deforming, and the crystals' light was dimming.
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