Not waiting for a second longer, Xuan Hao directly entered the ravine below where the terrifying spiritual flame from earlier had come from. The time that he had to explore the place beneath was only 30 minutes, so he dared not waste too much time and wait for the flames to disappear again.
The farther down he travelled, the more space appeared to have been twisted as it began to look more and more distorted the deeper into the ravine he went.
At the bottom of the ravine, a giant dark red whirlpool was slowly spinning as it seemed to bend the space around itself causing several cracks in space itself to appear nearby.
The dark red whirlpool was surrounded in a terrifying flame that was way stronger compared to the spiritual flame from earlier that had appeared at the edge of the cliff leading down into the ravine.
Rumble~
A faint rumbling sound could be heard from the dark red whirlpool as it slowly grew stronger and stronger.
Observing closer, Xuan Hao also saw that the flames around the dark red whirlpool were slowly shrinking a bit with every passing moment. After the 30-minute mark was up, they would most likely erupt to some extend and cause the spiritual flame from earlier to appear once again.
In the end, the spiritual flame was most likely just a byproduct of whatever was happening inside of the whirlpool…
But for now, Xuan Hao knew that he was nowhere near strong enough to get any closer to the dark red whirlpool, let alone enter and see what was hiding inside of it… Maybe even someone at the Domain Lord Realm would be too weak, as space itself was shattered inside of the whirlpool…
The power behind the dark red whirlpool was simply unimaginable and as the rumbling sound coming from the dark red whirlpool slowly grew louder and louder, Xuan Hao gazed one last time at the mysterious yet dangerous dark red whirlpool before turning around and making his way back out of the ravine.
…
"Finally found one!" having reached another marked spot on the map he had gotten from the Explorer Union, Xuan Hao let out a sigh of relief as he saw the Nascent Soul Realm demon beast lazily laying in the sun relaxing.
After he had made it back out of the ravine, Xuan Hao went back to check if the little white rabbit demon beast returned to its lair, but it had long left when he arrived there, so Xuan Hao decided to check some of the other places on the map with Nascent Soul Realm demon beast that had been marked out by the Explorer Union.
Sadly, his luck seemed to have completely disappeared as he went from one location to the next without finding a single Nascent Soul Realm demon beast!
It was only at the ninth location that he managed to finally find a demon beast at the Nascent Soul Realm…
The demon beast in question was a flaming mountain ape, it was well known for having the ability to manipulate fire and used several flame-based attacks when in combat.
There was even a rumor that the Raging Flame Sect had taken a lot of inspiration from the flaming mountain ape in their own qi techniques and fist-based combat arts.
"Well… Time to see how strong I have gotten!" Muttering a bit to himself, Xuan Hao stood straight on top of his flying sword as he withdrew a sword from a scabbard on his left side and preformed a simple slash down towards the flaming mountain ape.
Swish~
The sword slash was filled with his sword intent and even though it was just a simple slash, it carried with it enough strength to shatter the earth and split clouds.
The flaming mountain ape discovered the attack immediately, as Xuan Hao did not make any attempt to hide his attack and the fact that preforming a sneak attack on someone in the Nascent Soul Realm was close to impossible due to the constant presence of the other party's divine sense.
"ROAR!"
Letting out a roar in response to the sudden attack, the flaming mountain ape lifted both its hands in a defensive posture as a large flame suddenly engulfed it completely.
Cling~
A metallic sound soon sounded as the sword slash from Xuan Hao reached the flaming mountain ape and landed directly at it without doing any damage at all, only a white mark could be seen at the place where the sword slash had landed after the flaming mountain ape dispelled the raging flame that had earlier engulfed it.
"Hm… It should have reached the sixth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm like me, but its body is comparable to someone at the seventh stage or maybe even above it… Truly, what a great practice target I found myself!" Smiling widely upon seeing how easily the flaming mountain ape had dealt with his attack, Xuan Hao quickly descended and landed a few hundred meters away from it.
"I have never tired using any of the sword moves that were recorded in the Untold Swords Mantra yet due to my cultivation being too weak before, but I can finally try the first move!" Saying this Xuan Hao raised his sword and preformed the first move recorded in the Untold Swords Mantra.
"Sword Shadow!"
Before the flaming mountain ape could even comprehend why the human that had attacked it suddenly decided to land a few hundred meters away from it and start talking, a faint shadow of a sword suddenly appeared directly in front of it.
"Roar?"
The confused roar of the flaming mountain ape could be heard for a split moment before it managed to react and quickly set up a quick defense to try and block the attack that had arrived directly in front of it!
The attack from the human was way too fast! It had only barely seen the attack when it was already about to land!
Swish~
The sound of something cutting through the air could barely be heard as the attack from Xuan Hao finally landed on the flaming mountain ape.