The Jade Slip had not activated again since the teleportation.

Though Han Yu doubted Meng Jueyan could contact him here, and even if she did, he might not be able to respond.

The Qi around him was warped, turbulent, and filled with some faint spiritual static that interfered with the communication jade slip's resonance.

Night approached again, though it was difficult to tell where the north was.

The light dimmed to a sickly green as mist thickened between the trees. Han Yu decided to rest at the base of one of the larger trunks. He cleared away the moss and checked the roots before sitting down.

From within his robes, a faint movement startled him. Something small and warm wriggled against his chest, followed by a sharp squeak.

Han Yu blinked, then sighed in relief. "Chitterfang…"

He carefully reached inside his robe and pulled out the little rat. The tiny creature's fur was a bit ruffled, its eyes wide with fear. Han Yu petted it gently with one finger, feeling its small heart racing.

"It's fine," he said softly. "We'll be fine. We'll find our way back." He reassured the rat.

The little rat looked at him for a moment before squeaking again and burrowing back into his robe, munching on some nuts Han Yu had given to placate it. It did not want to be outside, not in this forest.

Han Yu could not blame it. Even he felt the invisible weight pressing on his senses. The deeper he went, the stronger it became, like walking through water that was thickening around him.

He leaned back against the tree and took a deep breath. His mind wandered briefly to the sect's camp.

Were they searching for him? Or did they even know he was missing?

It was possible that Elder Qing had noticed their disappearance but assumed they were dead. After all, the inner realm was filled with dangers, and being teleported to an unknown place was often a death sentence.

Still, Han Yu refused to give up. He had survived far worse before.

He reached into his pack and took out a piece of dried meat, chewing slowly while staring at the faintly glowing mushrooms nearby.

Their light shimmered softly, reflecting in his eyes. For a brief moment, the forest almost looked beautiful, a vast sea of luminous fungi and silver-veined leaves glowing like stars under the false sky.

But Han Yu knew better. Beauty like this always hid something beneath it.

He stared into the mist and whispered to himself, "There's something wrong with this forest."

Chitterfang stirred faintly, as if agreeing.

Han Yu nodded slowly, finishing his meal before packing away his things. Then he stood, eyes narrowing with quiet determination.

"If this place wants to trap me," he muttered, "it will have to try harder."

He set his foot forward again, stepping past the glowing mushrooms and into the silent forest, his figure slowly swallowed by the pale green mist.

.

.

.

A full week had now passed since Han Yu had been teleported into this place, though it felt far longer.

The endless march through the silent forest had worn away at his sense of time, making the days blur together into a long, waking dream. The forest remained unchanged, every tree and stone looking identical to the last.

No matter which direction he walked, the scenery never shifted. It was as if the world itself had frozen, trapping him within a portrait that repeated infinitely.

At first, Han Yu had thought it was simply bad luck or poor direction. But after the fifth day, even he could not deny the truth anymore. There was something fundamentally wrong with this place.

He crouched near a patch of glowing mushrooms, staring at them with narrowed eyes.

They pulsed faintly, the same soft green hue he had seen a dozen times before. Every cluster looked identical, growing from the same kind of twisted roots, surrounded by the same dense moss.

He pressed his hand against one of the tree trunks and felt the faint spiritual vibration hidden within it.

"This can't be a coincidence," he muttered.

Han Yu stood up, brushing dirt off his robes.

His gaze wandered through the fog that hung thick in the air, the mist swirling as though alive. His instincts told him he was not in an ordinary forest. After so many days of moving and marking, his carved symbols had not faded, yet no progress was made.

The forest seemed infinite.

It reminded him of something he had once read in an old formation manual: a mention of natural formation arrays.

They were rare, extremely so.

Most cultivators could go their entire lives without ever encountering one. Such arrays were not created by human hands, but by the natural world itself. A strange alignment of rocks, rivers, trees, and spiritual veins could sometimes form a self-sustaining array, capable of trapping even cultivators of the Dao Treading Realm.

In the text, these natural arrays were said to be unpredictable.

Some confused the senses, creating endless illusions or mirages. Others shifted the flow of Qi in the land, creating zones of silence or death. A few powerful ones could even distorted time itself, making hours stretch into days or days collapse into moments.

Han Yu had once laughed at such stories. To him, they had seemed like exaggerations, written to entertain or to frighten novice disciples. But now, standing in this place, he began to wonder if the author had written from experience.

He sighed, lowering himself to sit cross-legged on a rare patch of dry soil. "If this really is a natural formation array, then I'm in more trouble than I thought."

His understanding of formations was still shallow.

He had only studied the basics; how to recognize formation nodes, how to detect Qi flows, and how to dismantle simple arrays. Even making the formations was limited to some basic illumination talismans, Body Warming talismans and such, which most Qi refining realm disciples could learn with little effort.

As long as one could write, one could make one.