Arriving at the place that the scream had come from, Xuan Hao looked down as he saw a young boy around the age of thirteen being? surrounded by a pack of wolves around the early stages of the Qi Condensation Realm.
Currently, a bigger than average wolf around the middle stages of the Qi Condensation Realm had begun approaching the young boy as it looked like it was about to attack him at any moment.
"Doesn't look like an ambush is set up or anyone nearby coming to help him… Perhaps he just screamed due to fear…?" Scanning the surroundings with his divine sense, Xuan Hao did not manage to find anyone else hiding nearby.
Looking at the young boy, Xuan Hao quickly discovered that he did not have any cultivation at all.
Not having any cultivation at all could be considered quite common as one would at the very least need access to a cultivation mantra before one could even begin to cultivate in the first place, so Xuan Hao did not really find it weird that the young boy had no cultivation at all.
However, the thing that he found weird, was the fact that the young boy was present in the underground garden in the first.
"Maybe there is a village or city located nearby and the child accidently found his way down here by accident…?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao felt that it sounded reasonable and decided to help the young boy for now.
Hopefully he would know of a way out of the underground garden…
With this in mind, Xuan Hao used his pseudo sword domain to instantly kill off all of the wolves before descending down towards the young boy.
…
As the young boy was fearfully looking at the wolf in front of him about to bite down, a sound something moving with the wind could be heard as the surrounding wolves suddenly froze in place and stopped growling at him.
Even the larger wolf in front of the young boy had frozen in place with its mouth wide open about to devour him.
Bang~
"W-what is happening…?" Letting out a somewhat confused voice as he looked at the now unmoving wolves slowly collapse and fall onto the ground like they had just fallen asleep, the young boy cautiously began touching the big wolf in front of him as he felt even more confused with each passing second.
Why had the wolves suddenly begun sleeping all of a sudden?
That was all the young boy could think about as he observed the pack of wolves peacefully laying on the ground all around him.
Not discovering Xuan Hao who had already descend from the sky and appeared behind him at this point in time.
"Ahm!"
"Ah!"
Letting out a fake cough in an attempt to catch the young boy's attention as he was busy looking at the surrounding pack of wolves on the ground, Xuan Hao smiled a bit awkwardly when he saw the young boy jump in fear before turning around to look at him cautiously.
"Ah! You are that person!" Seemingly recognizing Xuan Hao, the young boy exclaimed loudly as his cautious face became eager and excited. Much to the confusion of Xuan Hao, who had never seen the young boy before.
"Do I know you from somewhere…?" With a confused look on his face, Xuan Hao asked in a curious tone.
Maybe the young boy had heard about him before or something along that line… But he was not really well known inside the Heavenly Sky Kingdom in the first place, so that should not be the case.
Xuan Hao felt more and more confused about the current situation the more he thought about it.
"Ah! Sorry, I-I forgot! You have never seen me before, but I saw you back in the underground garden! Remember the room that you went through? That was my room! Did you perhaps take the blueprints on the table out with you…? Please say you did! I really need them!" Beginning to talk at a speed that would be hard for ordinary people to keep up with, the young boy began narrating where he knew him from as he ended asking about the blueprints Xuan Hao had found inside the underground room.
"Wait a moment, so you are saying you were also inside of the secret realm? How come you ended up there in the first place…?" From what Xuan Hao had seen inside the underground room. The young boy had clearly lived there for a long time and had not ended up entering the secret realm a few days ago like Xuan Hao and the rest had.
"I entered… The secret realm? Through the gate that we both left the garden through…" Confused upon hearing the word secret realm, the young boy explained how he entered through the gate in the past.
Also explaining how he had ended up inside the secret realm in the first place and how he had ended up being stuck in there for close to half a year by now due to the pack of wolves.
"Did you not try to leave the room at all during the last half year or so…?" Finding it quite odd that the boy had not tried to leave the underground room and garden during half a year, Xuan Hao could not help himself from asking after seeing that the boy had stopped talking.
"I did… But every time I went too far along the passage; several roots would extend out from the sides and block my path forward… No matter what I did, be it burning or cutting them, I couldn't even leave a scratch on those weird roots…" Sighing to himself as he recalled all the things, he had tried to pass through the thick roots blocking his path, the young boy felt a bit helpless.
"I see… " Recalling the tree from the throne room, Xuan Hao knew that it had been the one to block the young boy and nodded understandingly when heard him mention the roots blocking his path forward.
"By the way… What is your name?" Realizing that he still had no clue what the boy in front of him was called, Xuan Hao asked kindly. Not as cautious after finding out that the one who screamed for help was just a child without any cultivation.
"Name…? I-I don't have one…" Fidgeting with an embarrassed look on his face, the young boy looked away for a moment.
"Hm?" Showing a surprised expression on his face after hearing that the young boy did not have a name yet, Xuan Hao suddenly felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked into the distance.
"You see… I was an orphan and teacher who took me in never gave me a name and normally just called me boy… But I don't really mind it at all as that-" Not seeing the sudden change in Xuan Hao's demeanour as he continued talking.
The young boy told him about his time with his late teacher as he became absorbed in the past he had spent together with his teacher. No longer paying attention to Xuan Hao as he was talking about it.
"Quiet down for a moment!" Putting his hand on top of the young boy's mouth, Xuan Hao promptly silenced him as he moved on top of his sword before quickly ascending into the air with the young boy in hand.
Bang!𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Just as Xuan Hao had ascended into the air, the ground where both of them had been standing moments ago suddenly collapsed as a dark abyss leading downwards covering at least a few thousand meters appeared.
"W-what is that?!" Looking down into the abyss that had suddenly appeared where he had been standing moments ago, the young boy saw something moving below as it felt like he was being watched.
He did not really care about Xuan Hao interrupting him and dragging him into the air and was instead more focused at the dark abyss that had suddenly appeared beneath them.
Even the blueprints of his late teacher were no longer on his mind as he remained staring down into the abyss below while Xuan Hao was holding onto him.
"Let's get out of here immediately! Do you know the path out of here!?" Compared to the young boy who could not see what was hidden below them, Xuan Hao on the other hand could clearly see what was lurking below them and wanted nothing more than to get out of the underground garden as fast as possible!
If it was not for him sensing something suddenly moving below them through his divine sense, Xuan Hao was sure that the creature below would have been able to launch a sneak attack and injure, if not kill him, when he suddenly found himself falling.
"Ah, y-yes! Go over there, the path I used should be over there!" Realizing that it was not the time to be shocked, the young boy quickly pointed in a direction where the path he had used to enter the underground garden was located.
Xuan Hao did not stay floating mid-air for even a second longer as he used his fastest speed to move in the direction that the young boy had given him.