The Sealed Regions can be considered unimaginably vast. Before the Grand Unification of Starfields initiated by the former Imperial Clan, the Sealed Regions had numerous active and thriving starfields with all sorts of unique locations, natural-born Solar Stars, and countless planets filled with all sorts of life. After the Grand Unification of Starfields, the former Imperial Clan took the lead to consolidate their imperial power and territory into a concentrated area, extracting value and rich resources from other starfields into a single starfield—the Aeternal Sky Starfield.
They conducted a massive exodus of experts, all for the sake of completing their plan of expanding their territory and creating the Supermassive Solar Star with an equally Supermassive Mystic Radiance Belt that shadowed over the Sealed Regions. This success generated an unexpected event where the true experts of the Sealed Regions congregated towards this Supermassive Solar Star. Just being at the periphery of its mystic essence-exuding reach was more beneficial than anything the Sealed Regions had ever seen.
Moreover, the joint efforts of experts at the Ascended level saw countless natural-born Solar Stars being pulled away, sacrificed to the Supermassive Mystic Radiance Belt's construction efforts. In the history of the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, their efforts, while brutal, paved the way for the entire Stellar Region to have access to a path to utter greatness.
The Mystic Ascendant Realm!
Not only would the lucky, blessed at birth, and monstrously talented be able to have access to this potential realm of absurdly high power, but as long as one lived within the vicinity, they could soak in its solar rays and have the tiniest of chances.
And many, many did over the tens of thousands of years.
The existence of the Supermassive Solar Star, the Aeternal Solar Star, rewrote the entire layout of the Sealed Regions. The once numerous Starfields were forcefully merged by the elite powerhouses, shrinking the territorial lines of what was once tens of thousands into a twenty-three.
Since the world-fueled annexation of the Ravenous Edge Starfield, only twenty-two.
Due to this congregation where territories moved closer to the Aeternal Star, the Sealed Regions had lost its multi-layered name, with it being widely regarded solely as the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region. A single region with the Aeternal Sky Starfield was its central-most territory, and each Starfield amongst the twenty-two left was larger than the former largest independent Stellar Regions before that made up the Sealed Regions.
They could be classified as Supermassive Starfields.
However, this concentration inevitably led to a lot of Void-Blank Space, where deceased planets, lunar satellites, and crumbled debris of flat continental earths all floated lifelessly in areas bereft of any Solar Star. The Void-Blank Space soon became incomparably dangerous with strange phenomena and unseen creatures, but also areas where Void Hunters sought to profit from the ancient and forgotten despite the risk.
The Rogue Planet that carried so much Terra-Mystic Ore that full-blown war would've been initiated to acquire just a tenth of it belonged to this boundless dead space, still unexplored despite the eighty-thousand years since the Sealed Regions' creation.
The Sealed Regions are unimaginably vast!
The Grand Cyclic Stellar Region only occupied 17% of the Sealed Regions, and the rest was endless Void-Blank Space caused by the Grand Unification of Starfields and the procession of elite powerhouses gathering around fervently near the sole Supermassive Mystic Radiance Belt of their entire world.
However, some starfields survived; the Grand Unification of Starfields and the exodus of elites only affected those with natural-born starfields. They still thrived in desolate areas far away, containing still thriving populations of people, cultivators, and strange beasts.
The Everlore Starfield had survived due to this. It was housed by a dwarf-sized Solar Star, overlooking only a dozen or so planets, and housing countless beasts that were obstinate in their willingness to stay in their homes. The Dragons of the Desolate Dragnet Stellar Region were just like this.
Amidst the wars, unification efforts, and territorial declaration, the Desolate Dragnet Region was widely considered extremely desolate for cultivators, unable to naturally nurture anything beyond the fourth stage of the Astral Core Realm, and only Dragons, with their long lifespans, and indiscriminate hunger, and unique bestial refinement abilities could properly survive. Due to the will of certain forces, they were largely left alone to their devices like many other tribes and forgotten starfields containing artificial stars of the lowest quality.
It was only after the King of Everlore emerged that the Everlore Starfield gained notoriety and then protection by the reverential Grand Cyclic Stellar Region. Over the years, besides the Everlore Starfield, the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, and those starfields that were extremely, extremely lucky, the Tiangou laid waste to many, leaving them as true dead spaces with countless corpses and scattered ash littering the Dark Void.
Still, these Void-Blank Spaces forgotten by the cultivators of the world, seen as desolate locations rife with death and trash, were a part of the Sealed Regions. And the Endless Void Mirror's three nodes were all located throughout the Sealed Regions!
One of these locations was none other than the Everlore Starfield, and despite the tremendous efforts of the Void Voyage Sect to avoid the piercing eyes of the hungry Tiangou, a Star-Devourer that not even the World Between the Fold's powerful forces could handle, she inevitably located it and destroyed the Node's Core unintentionally.
This led to several flaws in the Endless Void Mirror's Sealed Regions' Sealing Array, causing various terrifying forces to begin to make moves in the shadows.
The most crucial flaw that displayed itself related to the Mobile Spatial Pathways leading to the Node Cores, interconnected with various locations throughout the Sealed Region and World Between the Fold to galvanize Mana, Essence, and Energy to maintain the rotation of the Sealing Array. Countless mobile pathways were like veins and arteries of a body, providing and filtering out these three sources of power, and they were as elusive and ever-changing as snakes in a grassy field, while they led to the true Node Cores, the actual location was extremely difficult to pinpoint. Furthermore, the sheer vastness of the Sealed Regions made it absurdly difficult to locate anyone besides those who wielded the powers of the Endless Void Mirror.
Recently, Trueborn had been abnormally active after several pathways had been transfixed due to the devastation of a Node Core. This led to them launching endless assaults in these pathways that only Destined can defend against, causing a bloody war.
The Destined of the Void Voyage Sect defended these pathways with ardent fighting will, preventing anyone and everyone from traversing into the depths and reaching the Node Core with their lives as the cost. However, the goal wasn't reaching the Node Core, as Trueborn in its many years has reached the end of the pathways many times.
The issue was finding the 'true' location of the Node Core in the Sealed Regions, not some mobile isolated spatial dimension. Why exactly?
Because the 'true' location is the most indefensible weak point. There were no formations and arrays pre-established, no elite experts stationed there, and the Endless Void Mirror's powers were severely limited, all for the sake of ensuring that it went unnoticed. The Everlore Starfield was a prime example of the weakness and fragility these Node Cores possess outside of the Endless Void Mirror's mobile pathways and protected dimensions.
The goal was simply to mark the Node Core in the hopes of finding their actual locations in the Sealed Regions!
Just like the Everlore Starfield…
And to destroy them!
-----
Since Wei Wuyin left the Saint Cyclic Renewal Summit, exactly twenty months had come and gone.
Above the Time Vortex, two figures floated with unfathomable auras that contained an innately worldly charm. Their eyes were grave, reflecting a deep gloom that contained the darkest light imaginable.
They were Su Nianzu and Xu You, the Lords of the City of Guardians and City of Voyage respectively. For nearly a year, they were religiously keeping tabs on the developments of the Time Vortex.
After Wei Wuyin had fallen in, instigating a strange and abhorrent regression event after it began to flow in complete reverse, the Time Vortex's churning force gradually grew docile and its energy levels waned. It was as if something was not just actively controlling it but absorbing the raw time energies within.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the Time Vortex that was originally a gargantuan chasm of erratic time energies, like a tempest sealed in an ocean, had become a calm sea of time liquid. In fact, that was the best way to describe it!
Boosh!
A figure shot out of the docile Time Vortex as if it was a subsonic missile exiting a still sea, flying upwards until they reached the two City Lords. The figure was slender with delectable curves and a mature charm.
Zhangjie Wushu!
She no longer wore her round lens glasses nor had her brunette hair in a sleek ponytail. It was styled curly with robust volume and a faint golden hue to it, reaching her shoulder. It eliminated her librarian look, granting her a more exciting image.
However, her current expression was dignified and solemn to the utmost. The foreboding of that look left the two City Lords with deep frowns.
"Still nothing?" Xu You said with vexation in his tone. For the last few months, they've committed to risking themselves time and time again to perform deep-diving expeditions into the Time Vortex in hopes of either finding Wei Wuyin or the cause of this change. Alas, they found bupkis.
What they did suffer was a massive loss of mystic power to resist the power of time within the vortex. As cultivators at their level, every iota of mystic power was extremely refined and absurdly difficult to replenish without the appropriate Mystic-Earth products or essence stones, mostly Mystic World Stones, a resource that was so difficult to find yet heavily wanted that it was beyond priceless.
"Nothing," Zhangjie Wushu announced as she fixed her hair.
"The Time Vortex is linked to the Endless Void Mirror, it's already causing changes in the environment of the Endless Voyage Realm. If we don't solve this issue, the foundation of the Sealing Array could be disturbed." Xu You anxiously said.
"Do you think I don't know this?" Zhangjie Wuhsu sent a glare his way, her expression only growing more irritated. It's been over a year since Wei Wuyin jumped into the Time Vortex and its changes. They interrogated Liu Yinlan regarding his origins and they discovered that he was extremely mysterious, yet they still had strong suspicions about her, so they kept her on house arrest.
Out of all of them, Liu Yinlan had the greatest motive to cause chaos in the Sealing Array. Besides organizing the Destined in the ongoing fight against Trueborn and others, she was limited in movement and authority until further notice. A decision unanimously made by all the Endless Voyage Realm's leaders.
Su Nianzu frowned and said, "I've penta-checked the foundation of the Endless Void Mirror, all the arrays are still functioning, but…the blip of inconsistency in its energy readings shortly after the changes of the Time Vortex is still something we should be concerned about."
"How many times will you bring that up? Didn't you say it was the briefest of changes and only because the Time Vortex had experienced its regression event? Wasn't it fixed, in your words, in a nano-second of time? We need to focus our time and efforts on fixing the cause of the issue, not an already corrected error." Xu You said irritatingly as he stared sharply into the Time Vortex.
"I'll go in next, searching area forty-three." Xu You said as he shot into the Time Vortex shrouded by his Mystic Ward. The Time Vortex was huge and perilous, so they divided it into seventy-nine areas that they could search effectively for the cause.
In their opinion, Wei Wuyin had regressed into nothing shortly after entering, and even if he hadn't, spending over a year in this time energy was lethal to any mortal being.
Zhangjie Wushu frowned as an ominous feeling entered her heart. "How's the recent activity of Trueborn and the pathways?"
"Hmm?" Su Nianzu was briefly taken aback before answering: "They're continuously assaulting the recently transfixed pathways like rabid animals, seeing their chance, but only suffering death. The Grand Architects have already deployed the solution to trapping them and regaining its elusive movement capabilities; it'll take a few days and they'll be trapped like rats with no escape or reinforcements." There was a hint of brutality in his voice, finally matching his heavily armored appearance.
"..." Zhangjie Wushu couldn't help but feel uneasy.