HSSB354: Yan Zhaoge’s super long distance stifling rod
As Yan Zhaoge had begun leaving the Extreme Northern Snowy Plains, re-entering the North Sea, far away in the lands of the Fire Domain, calmness had gradually disappeared from the area.
The southern part of the Fire Domain contained hundreds of thousands of great mountains that formed a ceaseless chain, its climate greatly hot.
And amongst the mountains, heading underground, it was an even more blazing hot world.
There, below the ground, existed a world formed completely of flames and lava.
The Southern Underground Palace was one of the Eight Extremities World’s great danger grounds alongside the Extreme Northern Lands and the Great Western Desert, its dangers also much more direct as well as brutal, truly being an underground world of a sea of flames.
Even for the Sacred Sun Clan, whilst being a sacred ground, it was also a forbidden land.
Only martial practitioners who had stepped into the Martial Grandmaster realm and attained the approval of the clan would be able to enter within.
Where the environment here was harsh to the extreme, it produced some rare, precious resources and treasures, producing many speciality products that could not be found elsewhere.
At the same time, this was also a good location for Sacred Sun Clan martial practitioners to cultivate and temper themselves.
However, in recent days, the Southern Underground Palace had begun growing more and more violent.
At the start, while martial practitioners of the Sacred Sun Clan with comparatively lower cultivation bases had been taken unawares and nearly perished within, the Sacred Sun Clan had not paid too much attention to this.
While it was not like the stable regularity of the tides of the sea, the strength of the flames of the Southern Underground Palace had also risen and fallen before.
What the Sacred Sun Clan rather took note of was just that this sudden eruption in strength had occurred with totally no prior warnings, with them not having been prepared for it at all.
If it was just like this, that would be fine.
However, what followed left the Sacred Sun Clan totally unable to remain calm.
The strength of the sea of flames within the Southern Underground Palace grew more and more violent, more and more rampant, that destructive force seemingly wanting to destroy all who dared to trespass into its territory.
As time passed, not only were Essence Spirit and Spirit Vessel Martial Grandmasters unable to bear it, it eventually became that even Essence Talisman Martial Grandmasters were also hard pressed to withstand it.
To facilitate the mining of some speciality resources, the Sacred Sun Clan had set up some equipment, formations as well as other things within, establishing up a few regions of safety. However, all of them were completely destroyed, nothing left behind of them in the least.
In the end, a Transcending Mortality Martial Grandmaster and Grand Elder of theirs who had long since stayed out of worldly matters, having been in secluded cultivation within the Southern Underground Palace for many years, was also alerted.
This peak Martial Grandmaster expert and longtime Elder of the Sacred Sun Clan who had already stepped into the Transcending Mortality and was preparing for a future breakthrough attempt into the Martial Saint realm gradually also felt that the flames within the underground palace had grown too intense, with it being rather hard for him to bear, eventually having no choice but to retreat sootily out of the underground palace.
To the Sacred Sun Clan, the Southern Underground Palace held extreme significance.
This matter directly came to the attention of the Sacred Sun Clan’s current number one expert, “The Sun Comes East’ Huang Guanglie.
The Martial Saint personally ventured within the Southern Underground Palace, investigating the matter.
However, the results of the investigation left the East Rising Martial Saint extremely despondent.
There were no signs of external enemies having entered, no signs of someone having stirred up something within, and also no signs of his Sacred Sun Clan disciples having accidentally made a mistake, causing the Southern Underground Palace to erupt.
All of this seemed utterly random and without cause, causing people to be unable to get their heads around it, as though the heavens themselves had suddenly whimsically made things difficult for their Sacred Sun Clan.
This caused the entire Sacred Sun Clan to feel stifled, full of nervousness and rage, yet not having anywhere to vent it out at all.
It was as though they were sitting peacefully within their home, yet trouble had suddenly descended upon them.
This super long distance stifling rod of Yan Zhaoge’s from the other end of the Eight Extremities World temporarily left the entire Sacred Sun Clan somewhat dazed.
As time passed, the Southern Underground Palace grew more and more violent, the infinite flames and lava residing underground gradually having signs of wanting to shoot out of the earth’s surface.
Of the entire Sacred Sun Clan, there was only Huang Guanglie who could still remain active within the underground palace.
With his forceful power, he at least managed to prevent the crisis from expanding a step further.
However, he could only barely suppress the rocketing momentum of the flames within the Southern Underground Palace. If he wanted to calm the rampant power within, he could only rely on slowly grinding it down with time.
When Yan Zhaoge arrived at Stone Rock City, a group of the Sacred Sun Clan’s peak experts was gathered on the outskirts of the Southern Underground Palace.
From the current Chief Huang Xu to Huang Guanglie’s grandson Huang Jie, all of them were present.
Everyone’s expressions were grave as they gazed at the entrance of the underground palace. Within, the light of fire could clearly be seen, flames frequently spurting out from the entrance, shooting into the skies.
After a long time, resembling the great sun rising from the east, a white-clothed old man emerged from the sea of flames. It was precisely Huang Guanglie.
Huang Xu, Huang Jie and everyone else all went up together, bowing towards Huang Guanglie.
Huang Guanglie’s face was expressionless, “The source that caused this was a sudden change with the Fire Pith Vein. Wanting to restore it, it can only be grinded slowly down with time. At least ten over years or even tens of years will be needed.”
Hearing his words, the faces of these Sacred Sun Clan experts were all black as they tasted bitterness within their mouths.
Huang Guanglie scanned over the entire area, “Unless, we can find the cause of this matter and treat it by its root.”
“This incident-this old man does not believe that it was a natural disaster descended from the heavens; there must be a reason for it.”
“With there not being any problem with us, it must be a conspiracy of external forces.”
Huang Guanglie looked at Huang Xu, “Have there been any incidents of note in the outside world lately?”
Huang Xu said, “There is one thing that is perhaps worthy of note, just that it is truly a little too inconceivable.”
“Earlier, there was news of Broad Creed Mountain’s Yan Zhaoge having stirred up a great storm on the Extreme Northern Snowy Plains, coming into a conflict with the Heavenly Thunder Hall and killing a few of their people, snatching away their high-grade spirit artifact bow Heaven Shocker, and at the same time also entering and obtaining something from the legacy site of the past Glacial Dragon Martial Saint that we cannot be certain of.”
“I already learnt of this piece of news long ago, just that some specific details were missed out. This time, I specifically found people of the Heavenly Thunder Hall to verify and ask about it, only then learning than in killing so many of their people, the trap and mechanism that Yan Zhaoge used was setting off an Ice Pith Vein branch of the Extreme Northern Lands.”
Huang Xu knit his brows slightly, “Both are earth veins; while one lies to the south and one to the north, one being ice and one being fire, it feels like there might exist a mysterious relation between them somehow.”
The surrounding Sacred Sun Clan higher echelon experts all fell into deep thought, “While that is so, isn’t the distance much too far? Could it really be related?”
Having always been silent, as though he was Huang Xu’s shadow, Huang Jie now said softly, “There is a matter that has been passed down from before the time of the Great Calamity, now resembling a legend.”
“The martial powerhouse Snowy Immortal Palace once had a Heavenly Ice Spring that suddenly dried up without any prior warning, without any understandable reason, all those of that time not being able to comprehend it, with it turning into an unsolved mystery.”
Huang Jie said, “While one is strengthening and one is deterioration, isn’t the situation of that Heavenly Ice Spring somewhat similar to that with the Southern Underground Palace today?”
Huang Guanglie raised his head and gazed into the sky, saying after a while, “Fire and ice coexist, born together as polar opposites, diametrically opposed…this possibility does exist.”
Looking down at the Southern Underground Palace beneath them which was incomparably massive, an old man said rather doubtfully, “It would be understandable it Yuan Zhengfeng did it, but just having entered the Martial Grandmaster realm, that Yan Zhaoge could have led to a change in the earth vein? Moreover, it was through the opposition of fire and ice, influencing the Southern Wilderness from the Extreme Northern Lands?”
The other Sacred Sun Clan martial practitioners all nodded slightly at his words.
Huang Guanglie, Huang Xu and Huang Jie, their family of three generations, all looked solemn as well as they felt that it was ridiculous to the point of utter incomprehensibility.