Maiden Of The Splitting Moon

Ming Yue checked the map to see if those ruins or even those plateaus were marked or drawn but they weren\'t. And so, she began making notes of it on the map. 

"With all these new marks I\'m making, I might have to get a new map, or make my own", she thought. 

But she was no expert in map-making and her artistic skills were less than perfect. Even if she did try to make her own, chances were that no one but her could read it. In any case, she took a few minutes to mark it all down, sketching over the map with ink and brush from her ring. 

After that, she put the map away and dropped down from the trees. 

"Xiao Yin, stay close with me okay?" 

The owl cooed and flew down, resting on her shoulders. 

"Come into my arms."

Ming Yue opened her arms allowing Xiao Yin to nestle in, making herself comfortable within the woman\'s grasp. Safe and secure, the Changing Clouds Armor transformed into its second form, increasing her defense and strengthening her in exchange for more of her energy. 

With her preparation complete, she looked down at the owl who had been facing up, watching Ming Yue. 

"Alright, stay close to me." 

Her voice was gentle towards the owl, who purred at the sound of her voice.*

Ming Yue then looked forward, staring towards the direction of the ruins. She leaned forward and bent her knees a tad before jumping up and out of the trees, flying towards them. With the power of her armor combined with her own speed, she reached the ruins in no time. A trip that would\'ve taken a full day on foot took just a few minutes for her to reach. 

As she came close, she dropped down in front of the ruins, deactivating her armor and letting Xiao Yin loose. 

Looking in front of her, the young cultivator could only stare in wonder as to what this place once was. 

"This is definitely not an ordinary place", she muttered, "Far too strange to be normal."

Indeed these ruins were just as she described. 

They were spires, a collection of tall black spires that barely touched the clouds. If they were any taller, some would think that they were pillars that held the sky up. There were over a dozen of them, sixteen to be exact and each one was identical to the last. 

"What is this place? Human? Demon? Beast?" she wondered. 

Ming Yue began to roam this place, studying the spires and looking for an entrance. The spires themselves were black but glimmered under the dim sunlight like obsidian. They were featureless, with no windows or even a ledge, just sixteen spires scattered over the plateau. The more time she spent, the more confused she was. 

"There\'s no entrance, not even some clue or mechanism. Is it a secret path? Or are these spires something else?"

She pondered this while looking around but she found nothing else, only the spires. Ming Yue couldn\'t even tell if they were human, demonic, or even beast, not even the faintest idea of its origin. 

But then she looked at each of the spires closely, specifically where they were placed. 

"What if..."

Furrowing her brows, she flew up climbing higher and higher up the spires before looking down at the ground. 

And there, she confirmed her suspicions. 

"Of course! it\'s a formation!" 

Indeed, these sixteen spires formed a strange formation, two octagons on top of each other and pointing in sixteen different directions. But certainly, there was more than just that. 

Ming Yue flew down to the center, picking at it with her hand. Wiping away the dust and debris, she saw faint markings under it all, they were very faint but they were there. 

"If it\'s like this, I\'ll have to clean it off all at once."

While thinking that, the wind slowly began to pick up as she gathered her power. And with the flick of her wrist, a powerful gust of wind passed through, blowing off the dust and pebbles. In a matter of seconds, what seemed like dirt and stone became a grand formation, incredibly ornate and strangely ominous looking. 

In fact, the moment she cleaned it all off, Ming Yue furrowed her brows in an instant. 

"What is this feeling?" she noticed. 

It was a very strange feeling, the faintest of power coming from within the formation. It didn\'t feel evil or ominous in any way. It was just there as if a feather on her shoulder. 

Kneeling down, she placed her hand at the center trying to sense where exactly this energy came from and where it was going. But her face revealed a perplexed expression as she stood up, taking her hand away. 

"The spires are gathering power at the center and storing it in the ground but where is it going? It just vanishes once it reaches this point."

Her gaze went across the entire formation and then she flew up to get a better look at it. Xiao Yin joined her in the air as Ming Yue looked down. 

"Sixteen spires in total and all of them are connected to the middle of the formation. But there\'s something else... not a beast or some patter but gates... eight gates in total. And each one is connected to two spires. Then this formation, It\'s sealing something!"

She quickly realized this as she looked from above but that led to another question. 

"What is it sealing?" 

This question caused her to feel somewhat apprehensive. 

What would such a great formation like this be sealing?

Immediately her mind went towards the Idol of Chaos but she quickly shook that thought off. 

"It can\'t be that. I couldn\'t sense any sort of life within it", she muttered. 

But then Ming Yue looked up at the sky. Her mind went back to her very first thought when she was looking around the land. 

"Then what if I wasn\'t wrong? What if it was passed the clouds?" 

She had been looking for something else in the beginning, something that she didn\'t see but perhaps she did not look in the correct place. When she thought this, it felt as if she was right. However, there was only one way to check. 

"I have to go past the clouds."

Ming Yue began to ascend to the clouds with Xiao Yin following her but she stopped the owl. 

"Stay down here, it might be too dangerous for you."

The Star Owl looked at her for a few seconds before flying back down. And the cultivator continued her journey upwards, flying closer and closer to the clouds. As she came closer, she felt a very familiar feeling and continued up, flying past the clouds. 

The feeling grew stronger and stronger, her suspicions were already confirmed but Ming Yue had to see it for herself. 

The clouds continued to thicken until she could barely see in front of her and then they slowly thinned out. Ming Yue finally emerged from the clouds and saw for herself what was there. And it was exactly what she thought it was. 

"If it was in there in the Human and Demon Continent, there is no way it wouldn\'t be here."

There, right in the middle of the tips of the sixteen spires was a chaotic power in which swathes of clouds swirled about menacingly. Indeed it was that very thing, the same thing above the Merciless Storm Peak and the very thing that the Hundun Clan practically worshipped. 

"The remnant energy of the Calamity", she muttered. 

But unlike the past two times, this one was different, rather smaller, vastly smaller, and weaker. And everything began to make sense. 

"Of course.... this formation is absorbing the remnant power and sealing it!"