The Dawn of the New World

Each marking was of course one of the prime letters that was changed ever so slightly by Baracus before being inscribed right into Hao Xuan's bones with the help of the nanites.

Once Hao Xuan broke into the Seventh Stage of the Spirit Realm, he realized that he was able to once again control the majority of his spiritual powers with a lot more efficiency.

And during one of the hundreds of Celestial Gateway experiments, one thing became clear. He didn't actually have to physically enter the celestial gateway anymore.

By placing the rune sequence within his body, he could send his consciousness into the gateway and in turn, move about with a lot more freedom than before since he wasn't restricted by his physical form anymore.

He was able to navigate the gateway using his own body and soul as a conduit, exponentially decreasing the time it would take to find the way back.

But this method could only be used to scout ahead. Once he found the correct world, he could pinpoint its location and then Baracus could use it to create a rune sequence that would open a gateway leading directly to it.

The only problem was that due to the extreme density of his bones and a much superior healing factor, it would not be permanent. Baracus needed to burn the runes onto Hao Xuan's bones every few days which was more than a little 'painful' to say the least.

Hao Xuan closed his eyes and directed some Qi towards the runes in the sequence of their placements. Since he wasn't going to physically enter the webway, the sequence actually didn't matter. All he needed to do was to access the Celestial Webway, it did not matter where from.

The runes brightened one by one as the Qi brushed over them and when they were all lit, Hao Xuan brought his palms together in front of him in a praying manner to complete the sequence.

*Zzzz*

A dim white light surrounded Hao Xuan's body before a weak hum followed by a vibration emanated from the chest as his consciousness was forcefully pulled into the Webway.

He had done this a few times before but every time it felt like someone was tugging at his heartstrings. One wrong move and his soul could implode since he was gazing directly into the webway with just its help.

His consciousness solidified after emerging in the Celestial Webway. He was hovering above what looked like an ant's nest. An incalculable number of bright yellow and orange passageways, corridors, and tunnels going in every possible direction, layered upon one another in a never-ending system of arteries that surpassed all logical and objective thought processes.

Hao Xuan had lost count of just how many times he had seen this same exact scene but even now it left him humbled and in awe.

After taking a short moment to take in the sights, Hao Xuan focused his thoughts and with them, the scene quickly started to change. His soul acted like an antenna, fine-tuning and then filtering out all foreign places.

Hao Xuan was using his own memories and emotions as a compass to navigate the webway but this was only possible because it hadn't been (relatively) that long since he had first left that world.

There were a lot more factors involved but with trial and error, he had managed to narrow it down to a small region of space. The only issue was, this 'small' region was home to a cluster of gates that numbered more than 170 in total, each leading to an entirely different world.

He could feel a sort of familiarity from them but it was still far too hazy to know which one it was.

His consciousness hovered above them, slowly drifting through the stretch of space that connected them all together. One by one he passed over each gateway, stopping for a few seconds.

He could pick up some strange and random things just by standing near each one. Sometimes it was a noise, a whisper, a sensation of what the world was on the other side, or even a glimpse of the immediate surroundings.

These were the things that were closest to the gateway and could "leak" into the webway for whatever reason.

Hao Xuan moved from one gateway to another for more than ten minutes until he suddenly stopped over one of them.

There was a sound coming from this one. It was a melody that someone was playing nearby. It sounded familiar, far too familiar for it to be a coincidence. Hao Xuan had definitely heard it before.

He closed his eyes before placing a hand over the gateway.

"HmM~MmmMhm~" a soft voice carried over to his ears.

Someone was...humming it? No...it felt different...it wasn't a physical sensation but something more spiritual.

Hao Xuan focused and soon after was able to feel it much more clearly.

'Are they...thinking about it? I can hear somebody's thoughts!'

**

Outside, the barbarians had finished their dinners and were getting ready for the night.. Tasgall and Jarek were on guard duty by Burak's orders while the rest took turns finishing the preparations.