There was a group of seven beings standing in front of a hallway that led off to the inner citadel. Two of them were lizards, one yellow and the other purple, unlike the jade green that Hissk was. They were staring at me intently as Shen approached the group with a smile. He was going to be completely shameless once again. You could take the fish out of water, but it was still a fish. Shen’s shamelessness was a part of him. Enough to make me consider killing him, but not enough to do it when compared against his usefulness.

“Greetings fellow beings. You must be from the other groups? I am Shen by the way, this is Yuan Zhou,” he introduced us. The other group hesitated for a moment before an older man with a staff stepped forward.

“I am Supreme Celestial Wizard Eternus Calamitus Dorus.” Talk about having too much for a name and a title. “These other beings have also converged at this point with me. We have been evaluating this passage to the inner citadel.” You mean standing around like table people. But we weren’t much better.

“Ah, we came here for the same reason. So, you have found the protections, the pulse energy through the inner wall of this place and the vaporization?” Shen asked. The lizards were looking at me, so I stared right back at them. If they wanted to fight, I was no pushover. Fighting here meant we would all die togeather when whatever defenses activated.

“Unfortunately. The other doorways just lead to traps that flood the nearby passages with ethereal fire. Cutting through the outer metal sees flying combat golems converge at that point. Their weapons and repair abilities are potent. We haven’t messed with the energy pipes, formation rooms, and control rooms,” Eternus said.

“Similar to us then. We did find out that anything crossing the void is attacked by something. Vaporization or something more esoteric,” Shen shared. I noted he didn’t mention the halfway point as being the likely place of attack which was good.

“Then this very obvious passage is clearly a trap after everything we have seen of this place. There is no way that such an easy method of crossing exists. That is what we are debating, since no one wants to be the first,” Eternus said. Shen nodded at this while I was engaged in a stare off with the two lizards.

“What about sneaking in through the energy pipes?” Shen suggested. Why was he stuck at sneaking through energy pipes that would only lead to his death. He must have a thing for sneaking through pipes or something similar.

“Impossible. The energy level is way too high, we don’t know how they operate, and how to get out safely. That means flying across or crossing this enclosed passage,” Eternus gestured at the passage. I took a look down it, and it seemed like any other passage in the citadel, but I knew that was a lie. It was probably another trap for idiots. The demonic cultivator had no need to make an actual passage.

“I am just surprised why there are not more defenses in this outer layer,” Shen said. That was a good question. One of the lizard’s tongues darted out. Just leave me alone, this was a grudge I didn’t want to carry.

“Cost and energy. I have no doubt that the inner citadel will be death made manifest every step. But out here, it is just a sponge to absorb damage and lure us into a false sense of safety. When the time comes, I have no doubt that these hallways will flood with ethereal fire, killing us all,” Eternus replied.

He was wrong. The inner citadel would probably only have a single defense, the demonic cultivator. If we made it there, we would be like rats sneaking in. The best option was to remain as still and small as possible while everything played out.

Shen pulled out a piece of metal. He was picking up on my tricks, truly shameless. “Any objections to me throwing this down the passage?” he asked, and no one spoke up. He threw the chunk of metal down the passage. Since there was no gravity it flew straight.

Nothing stopped it and it hit the far doorway at the end and bounced off. Everyone was tense, waiting for some kind of reaction or defense from this place, but there was nothing. “Well that was surprising,” Shen said. It showed that we weren’t a big enough threat to take seriously.

The demonic cultivator made sure to stop the really powerful beings before they made it to the citadel. The large dragon, Chaos creature, and the war machine were all stopped right away. Everyone else was just considered a lesser threat the automated systems handled. We just had to keep staying below the notice of the demonic cultivator no matter what.

“It looks safe, but it is long and that doorway doesn’t look simple. We start banging on it, then the demonic cultivator could be on the other side,” Eternus said. He wouldn’t be there, but some kind of super golem or another trap.

“Doubtful, but there will definitely be another trap,” Shen said with a heavy sigh, saying exactly what I was thinking. All nine of us were silent while we thought about what to do next. We had to sneak in, past automated defenses we weren’t sure about all while not alerting the demonic cultivator. Also, there was probably some kind of time limit as this place was entirely destroyed in order to make the Gu.

“Krosk says that one first. Let him test,” the purple lizard pointed at me. Really lizard? What did I do to you? Hissk attacked me because I was with the Sword God Feng. These lizards really needed to learn to chill out and assess the situation.

“And I say you lizards should go check it out,” I replied and brought up my sword. The tension shot way up. The lizards tensed up at that term. It was probably racist against them, but I didn’t care. They started this and I wouldn’t back down. If they wanted to suggest I go off to my death as a guinea pig, then I would throw some smack talk right back at them. “There are two of you and you are biological weapons anyways. No big loss.”

“Krosk is willing to kill you here and now. Slowly,” he said. I rolled my eyes at this. The lizards were clearly not right in the head. Super killing machines, yes. Strategic thinking, not so much. They shouldn’t have made their hostility apparent and then looked for an opportunity to take me out. But whatever created them clearly didn’t want them to have subterfuge or scheming. There would be too much of a risk that their creator would be targeted instead. Better to be obviously hostile so problems could be detected early on.

“I already put down one lizard that attacked me. But you clearly don’t understand where we are. If you want to fight, I will fight you at that doorway down there. After you,” I said with a gestured of my sword down the passage.

“Enough nonsense. You can fight all you want after we escape. We need to come up with a plan to cross to the inner citadel,” Eternus said. The discussion continued in circles with other beings occasionally chiming in to the discussion.

Thee were some interesting bits as various beings brought up esoteric knowledge that might be useful. Unfortunately for everyone here, we weren’t some kind of brain trust. The environments of the Gu Container had selected for capable combatants, not erudite scholars. While none of us were stupid, we were all completely out of our depth here.

I just listened, but I had nothing to contribute. This group was a death sentence. They might have some skills, but no one wanted to take a risk. I turned around and left without saying anything after coming up with a plan. I got a couple of glances, but no one said anything as I departed. These people were desperate, but with the lizards there, the chance of a betrayal was too great.

While no one could trust each other, the lizards were looking to avenge their comrade and would make an effort to take me out. Leaving was the best option. I had no doubt the lizards would track me down. The trick would be to using their pursuit to create an opening into the inner citadel.

I also had a plan that was mostly independent of these other beings. The lizards would only make the plan better. If the demonic cultivator was using automation for his defenses and they were so good as to target a chunk of metal, then there was a very good counter.

As I made my way back, I stopped in several of the formation rooms, leaving behind a simple formation plate I quickly carved out. I would then left the plate on top of the other formations, drawing energy. The timing would be tricky, but I had this much experience to know how to make a big mess.

It was a long trek back to where Shen and I had cut into the wall. I removed the cut metal blocks and kept them in my spatial storage as I returned to the hole that had been created next to the energy pipe through inner wall where there were energy pulses traveling through. I turned to the side and began quickly cutting out more metal, being sure to avoid the pipe and the inner wall that had energy pulses running through it.

I packed up spatial storage with as much metal as possible of various sizes. The timing was going to be really tricky here. I double checked my shield devices and made sure I had two equipped. Those would be my life saving items for what was to come.

Time to hope my guesses was right. I maneuvered through the hole, which was big enough for a person, careful not to touch the sides. As I stuck my head out, I saw swarms of flying golems that were staying near this inner wall of the outer citadel. They weren’t drones, since they didn’t use technology but formations for their movement and weapons.

The inner citadel hung in front of me, connected by hundreds of pipes to the outer citadel and one passage off in the distance. I didn’t touch the wall with the energy pulse moving through it as I exited the hole that Shen had made previously. I used a tiny amount of force to begin maneuvering along the inner wall, making sure to keep my distance from the golems that were moving about, ready to pounce on anyone disrupting the energy pulse moving through the metal.

I began circling around, staying close to the wall but keeping some space. I made sure not head towards the connecting passage. I also kept glancing back behind me to see if the lizards would chase me out of the hole Shen had made. I was hoping they would. I left the safety of the wall and made my way outwards, between the inner and outer citadel.

My butt cheeks were tightly clenched, since any attack by the flying golems, and I would be dead. Well not instantly dead since I had shield devices, but with the thousands I could see, I wouldn’t be able to hold off all their attacks. There was no sense of danger, but that was probably being suppressed by some formation or other energy shenanigans. The fact I barely felt any danger just showed how dangerous this place actually was. I could imagine the demonic cultivator sitting in the inner citadel, plotting and scheming while the Gu was slowly formed. I could only hope that he wouldn’t be alerted to what I was about to do. He didn’t react to the earlier piece of metal. So, I had some hope.

I kept a tight grip on my sword, while I kept careful track of my position and the hole in the wall. I had a good measure of exactly where the piece of metal had disappeared when I had thrown it. Now I just needed to lure the lizards into this defense and hopefully that would create an opening.

The trick involved geometry. While I was dealing with spherical spaces, this would apply to circles as well. With three spheres of different sizes and the same center point, I exited at a point on the outer sphere. That was the center point. The middle sphere was an invisible boundary where the chunk of metal was vaporized around the halfway point. The smallest sphere was the inner citadel. Calling it small was incorrect, but it made sense when working out the angles and the movement I needed in my head.

Now I was placing myself in a position near the boundary of the middle sphere, where if you drew a line from me to the hole in the outer citadel, that line would cross over the boundary of the middle sphere. Where I had made a curved path to reach this point, I was hoping to lure the lizards into a straight path, right for me, running into the defenses.

Then they would cross that boundary right before they reached me and would be vaporized, which I was hoping would create an opening in the defenses I could exploit. It wasn’t the only thing I was counting on, but one of many. I kept moving in a very large circle pattern, staying at the same angle and distance from the hole I had come through while taking into account the middle sphere. If I just stayed in place, the lizards might suspect something, but by moving about, I was enticing them to attack me.

The movement also served another purpose as I zipped past the pipes carrying energy. It allowed me to build up a lot of speed for when things got crazy. My movement was a very big circle, but that was fine. I could adjust my trajectory with a bit of force and keep adding onto my speed. The atmosphere here was incredibly thin. Not quite a vacuum, but it would be very unpleasant for anyone weak. It was thick enough to still carry sounds, but the air resistance was lower than some place with a proper breathable atmosphere. I slowly added more and more speed. There was also no gravity, just very heavy spatial suppression.

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But I wasn’t trying to cut my way through space using energy. I was using physics, albeit slowly. Another weakness of the demonic cultivator. Cultivators often thought in arrays, formations, and energy rather than natural physics phenomenon. Physics broke apart at large scales in the Firmament and other layers due to physics being impacted by energy, but small scale physics still worked just fine for the most part. If it didn’t then one wouldn’t be able to build anything. I had already worked it out so I didn’t run into any of the energy pipes and I was too far from the flying golems.

The lizards burst through the hole. They were a bit big, but used some kind of spatial manipulation to get through without touching the edge and interfering with the pulses of energy. They began flying directly at me. It was time. The arrays I had set up in the formation rooms, should be reaching critical levels just about now as well.

I also noticed that Shen was sneaking through the hole behind him. Shameless, the man was utterly shameless, taking advantage of me and my plans. But there was nothing I could do about it. I also couldn’t pay attention to him right now. I readied my sword like I was getting ready to fight the lizards as I zipped around on my predetermined path at high speeds, carefully adjusting my trajectory to move in a circle in relation to the entry hole that had been made.

The lizards moved to intercept me, but I had enough of a safety margin, they were going to cross into the forbidden zone. There were two bright flashes and the lizards were still there, but it looked like they had just gone through a blender. They let out roars of anger and frustration. The effect was clearly some kind of teleportation that would transport a person to their death. The lizards were able to resist. I also noted that it took a moment for the energy to focus in on them. While quick, it was an attack that could be dodged, albeit barely.

That was why I wanted the lizards. They were good with spatial effects and as test subjects. The golems swarmed towards them and defensive platforms on the inner citadel turned to target the lizards. They were as good as dead. They survived the basic response, but they weren’t about to survive the full automated response. I released the first batch of debris, flying back towards the hole and all around this area. Time to create lots of confusion and strain the automated formations.

“One Swing To Accomplish Anything!” I swung my blade and created a spatial tear, it wasn’t much, but it would reangle me very quickly. Instead of traveling around in the circle, my trajectory quickly shifted I shot past the midpoint heading right for the inner citadel. I swung my blade, causing my movement to be jerky as the teleportation formation failed to lock onto me at these speeds.

Momentum was retained by spatial devices for the most part. It was more complicated than that, but I didn’t need complicated right now. I threw out hundreds of pieces metal, big and small. They went flying in every direction. The golems, teleportation formation, and beam defenses were thrown into chaos. That was the issue with targeting everything. You had to defend against everything. The formations weren’t clever enough to realize there were countless decoys either, it was all automated to take anything trying to reach the inner citadel out.

Beams of light and energy shot through the space and I kept putting more force into making me go faster. I was too fast and my movement too erratic for the teleportation automated defense. But I was heading directly for the beam attacks. Many of the beam attacks hit the decoys I had released vaporizing the chunks of metal.

One beam attack struck me and I lost two of the shield devices I had turned on. I quickly turned on the next two as I kept hurtling forwards towards the inner citadel, using my energy to push me faster and released a final round of metal chunks. The entire area around me had lit up like a light show. I didn’t have time to look back at the lizards, but I hoped they survived as long as possible for teamwork reasons. That way they would contribute even more to me getting past all the defenses.

I didn’t know how I was going to handle my landing, but that was for later, I just had to close the distance and not die. Another beam attack struck me and the shield devices burnt out. I activated another two. A third beam attack struck me and I was saved once again. I only had one shield device left, but I had gotten incredibly close to the inner citadel.

Focusing, I swung my blade. The shield device broke as I was hit again and I barely managed to deflect the weakened beam attack to either side of me. I spun myself about to aim for the inner citadel feet first. That was when I heard the sound of massive explosions. The timing wasn’t great, but I wouldn’t complain.

The array plates I had made were meant to gather more and more energy. I had placed them in the formation rooms, near where the energy pipes were. Once there was too much energy, the energy pipes ruptured. They were clearly designed to funnel energy from the inside, not the outside. The demonic cultivator’s energy broke things down. While he had used good materials, it was like putting a nail on the outside of a tire. While it was meant to contain energy, they weren’t robust enough to handle a spike of energy from the outside.

There were failsafes through, since only the outer citadel was blown apart, but the energy pipes didn’t explode all the way to the inner citadel. The energy was being collected by formations in the outer citadel, and those collection points had exploded, but the pipes had remained intact. Probably a good thing, since if they were damaged and the Gu formation disrupted the demonic cultivator might have noticed. He still might notice, but I couldn’t do anything about that.

Looking above me, huge parts of the inner citadel had exploded outwards, sending huge chunks of metal and debris into the space between the inner and outer citadel. The golems were working rapidly and thousands more were teleported in and began arriving from other areas. The speed of repair and cleaning up the mess was shocking.

It made me wonder why the outer portions weren’t repaired then when the war mech attacked. Probably because they weren’t useful or would take too many resources. But the formations drawing in energy were useful, since they were helping the formation of the Gu. A shame I didn’t sabotage more, but that would have definitely caused the demonic cultivator to intervene. I was pushing the automated formations to their utmost right now.

The entire place had become a light show. While all of this looked impressive, it was all automated defenses activating. If one of the energy pipes was damaged, the demonic cultivator might intervene personally, which would be an absolute disaster. I had been right in my guess there were more failsafes to prevent a cascade reaction. There wouldn’t be such an obvious weakness in the most critical process.

My speed was fast. Too fast. My body was going to pancake hard on the surface of the inner citadel. I need to cut through. While it might trigger something, standing on the surface would see the golems flying about targeting me once they dealt with all the debris.

“One Swing To Accomplish Anything!” I stabbed forward. A hole was punctured through the inner citadel. I flew into the hole and slammed my sword to the side along with my legs to try and slow myself down.

There was the screech of metal as my blade dug through the metal I had stabbed it into. I exited the hole into another space and slammed into a metal plate. My body was not doing good as I forced it to reorient itself and look around. The hole I had made was already sealing itself up as the metal self-repaired.

“That was close.” I heard a familiar voice and turned to the side and saw Shen. “Great plan though. Ten out of ten. You were zoom, and I went zip. Too bad for the lizards, but they are worm food now.” Shameless! He used me to clear the path for him. It took a moment to suppress my rage at his actions.

The grip on my blade tightened. “Hey, hey. No need to start a commotion. We just need to scout out this place and lay low,” Shen said. I gave him a glare and looked around.

There were billions, maybe trillions of metal array plates floating about inside the inner citadel. They were moving about in hundreds of layers. Each metal plate was the size of a car with inscriptions smaller than I could make out even with my enhanced eyesight. I could have had ten, no a thousand lifetimes as an immortal and this would be insanely difficult to decipher and work out.

Everything else I had seen and gone through was nothing compared to this. The complexity was enormous, since the plates were moving. This formation, since it probably was one massive, singular formation, was insane. The energy inside this space was also thick, incredibly thick. Even higher than the Astral Plane.

I looked towards the center, but there were too many moving plates that I couldn’t see past all of them. “After you,” I told Shen who was also looking around. I was going to stay right here and hope the demonic cultivator didn’t notice me. Then once this place either made the Gu or he got taken out by something, I would run away through the Firmament. That was the best plan I could come with.

This was one big space. That meant past all these floating array plates was the demonic cultivator. Looking back behind me, the hole through the metal of the inner sphere had already been completely closed.

“Let’s go to where the passage would have connected,” Shen suggested. I just wanted to stay in place, not doing or thinking about anything. It was like we had snuck past everything, only to arrive in a cave with a massive bear. One wrong move and it would realize we were here and eat us. The eating part wasn’t even a metaphor since it was a demonic cultivator who clearly used consumption to empower himself.

I shook my head. “We should just be here and stay quiet. This place clearly isn’t going to be destroyed, even if the Gu is made. We ride it out and then escape,” I said. Shen gave me a look like I was crazy.

“We made it all the way here, we need to find some benefits for the trouble,” he replied. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have tried to cut off his head right there. He was completely and utterly shameless. That was probably the focus of his cultivation, shamelessness. You want to go pull the tail of the demonic cultivator who created all of this?

What was wrong with him? Was he dropped on his head as a child? Was it some weird sort of brain defect? Even reaching here had been a nightmare. Death had come close to taking my life several times. Shen should never be allowed to gamble. He was the kind of person who put everything on one number in roulette and had won.

Instead of taking those winnings and being happy, he looked at the gamble and decided to go again. Despite all odds he won. Either from outside forces or just pure odds of the Firmament working in his favor. Now he had somehow made it all the way here. He was capable since he followed me, but now it didn’t even feel like a gamble. He wanted to punch the casino employee, grab all the chips, and run off with the money.

This wasn’t like the Infinite Ring Complex where they had built something impressive, but individually the Soaring Star Society was much less impressive. If anything the demonic cultivator was more impressive for taking out all those other powerful beings, including sealing Chaos.

I didn’t want to explain all of this, since I might start shouting and that would be a bad thing to remaining hidden. The noise from my sword had been quite loud when I had used it to slow me down, but there was a difference between a noise like that and shouting.

“You go have fun. Good luck grabbing benefits. I will wait right here, quietly, thinking about nothing, and hiding,” I replied. Shen gave me a look like I had killed his nine generations of ancestors and wanted to scold me. My rage only increased.

He had been using me as a shield to get past all these obstacles and now he wanted me to keep doing that. The sheer rage was only held in check by my fear of the demonic cultivator. If I got out of this place I was going to kill Shen with his shamelessness. It might take an age or two, but I didn’t care.

In fact, the rage I had for him was more than the rage I had towards the demonic cultivator. You aren’t mad at the shark who bites you, but at the friend who pushed you off the boat. The shark was a shark. Expecting it to be nice and not bite was foolish. But Shen and I were on the same boat and he kept trying to push me off into the shark infested waters. If I tried to kill him, the entire boat would capsize and sharks would eat us both.

Shen didn’t leave but kept giving me a pleading look. Did he think he was a child or something? I wasn’t about to be his test subject. He finally let out a sigh and turned away, but didn’t start moving. You really wanted to drag this out? Well, it wasn’t going to work.

We weren’t friends and I didn’t want to team up with him. His version of teamwork was like mine and the lizards, except I was going to be the lizard in this relationship.

There was a slight vibration and hum that went through the area, but that was it. I was staying right here. Since nothing had shown up when I had entered, then I was fine. Shen was slowly moving away, good. Begone and never darken my sight again.

I focused on containing my energy and not even moving. I am not here. Just floating, not thinking. Not here. Just quietly waiting and doing absolutely nothing that could attract attention. Shen probably thought he could sneak up behind the demonic cultivator and snatch the Gu somehow.

When he died horribly, I wanted to be far away from such an event and not get caught in the crossfire. At a certain point it was important to know when to cut your losses and not keep trying to get more, the sunk cost fallacy. Prior investment did not guarantee a future outcome, even though people might think they are related.

Surviving up to this point did not mean anything going forward. It just meant that I had survived up until this point. Shen thought that his luck was somehow compounding over time. That since he made it through everything previously, he would make it through whatever nonsense he had planned.

If he succeeded, good on him. Take that Gu and run away. Everyone and their ancestors would be chasing after you instead of the demonic cultivator. The demonic cultivator would also swear eternal vengeance. That was one thing I learned from my time as a young cultivator, don’t pick fights or create a lasting relationship with people who dislike you and are more powerful than you. It just creates lots of complications and headaches that would be better avoided.

Shen clearly didn’t learn some important cultivator lessons on his path to reach this point. He also clearly didn’t want to listen to common sense and just wait quietly. If he came back with the Gu or any kind of benefit, I might, no not might, I would puke blood at the unfairness of everything. The mental blow would be so strong it would impact me physically.

As time passed, I didn’t relax, but I felt more hopeful I would make it out of the Gu Container. Traveling through the Firmament would be slow, but I was an immortal. There would be a big challenge finding and boarding a vessel, but I had enough devices left with me that I could figure something out. I might have to bend my head towards the Xyon Front, but I could accept that.

They didn’t seem to be too strict and I did owe them to some degree. Better to resolve things amicably if possible. I could also return to the Heavenly Alliance and the Forever City. With my strength, it would be easy to get some place nice to live. There were a lot of possibilities. I began to feel a bit of hope that everything would work out.