As the Incense Dao rose to prominence and more and more experts emerged, Zhang Chen became ever more cautious and careful.
Those tenth-tier gods were already no weaker than the Celestial Immortals from his previous world, let alone the eleventh tier, twelfth tier above them, and even beings on the level of fruits of attainment?
Each and every one of them was terrifying!
Even if they were all nerfed versions, they were still enormous terrors.
"Close!" Gu Mingyue saw Zhang Chen and Xie Lingyun falling toward the magma. The next moment, her hands slowly came together in a seal, and the torn-open earth above actually closed back up seamlessly.
"Brat, no matter how great your abilities are, once you're trapped in magma, the only ending is being refined to death." Gu Mingyue's voice was full of smugness. Then her figure flashed as she shot into the sky, heading straight for Xie Xuan and joining the battlefield besieging him.
Facing three ninth-tier Divine Spirits, Xie Xuan had already fallen into disadvantage, flustered on the left and right and hard-pressed to resist. Fortunately Hu Li the Immortal had already been frightened off by Zhang Chen; otherwise today would have been the moment Xie Xuan met his tribulation.
Xie Xuan was a Yang God Great Zhenren who had comprehended the profound mysteries of the Law of Heaven and Earth, absolutely incomparable to those trashy Divine Spirits whose strength was piled up by Incense Faith. Looking at the gods relentlessly attacking from all sides, a hint of intent to withdraw flashed in Xie Xuan's eyes: "This place is not suitable for a prolonged stay. I must leave early. Otherwise, if Hu Li the Immortal turns back for a surprise attack, I'll definitely have to explain myself here. Only by borrowing the fate gathered from my fifty-thousand-strong army will I have a chance to contend with these old fellows."
With that thought, Xie Xuan slapped his palm, and arcs of thunderfire burst from his body, forcing back the three Yellow Heaven Dao Great Daoists besieging him. Then his figure flickered and vanished from where he stood.
"Xie Xuan is really a tough one! We were originally here to assist Hu Li the Immortal in holding the line, but who knew Hu Li would inexplicably retreat? We couldn't keep Xie Xuan either—what a nuisance." Gu Mingyue watched Xie Xuan's departing silhouette without continuing the chase, because her speed simply could not compare to his.
The three of them were here to back up Hu Li the Immortal. Now that Hu Li had left, how could the three of them possibly kill Xie Xuan?
To encircle and kill a ninth-tier expert, unless you possessed the right time, place, and people, forcing the opponent into a desperate situation, otherwise if the other party wanted to retreat, no one could stop him.
Within the underground magma
An Ice Ship was shuttling through the magma. Zhang Chen held a Fire Extinguishing Pearl in his hand. The pearl radiated a gentle aura that formed a red light barrier, enveloping Zhang Chen and the Ice Ship. No matter how fiercely the flames outside burned, they couldn't affect anything within the barrier.
"What a treasure!" Xie Lingyun looked at the peanut-sized red pellet in Zhang Chen's palm and voiced her praise. She was not someone lacking discernment; with one glance she recognized how extraordinary the Fire Extinguishing Pearl was.
"It can only ward off fire, nothing more. Aside from that, it has no abilities at all—it's just chicken ribs." Zhang Chen, on the other hand, didn't care much; this Fire Extinguishing Pearl really wasn't of great use to him.
Hearing this, Xie Lingyun said irritably, "This is underground magma, which counts as the fire of the earth and is one type of the flames of Heaven and Earth. Yet your bead can easily block the Power of Earth and Fire, and you call that chicken ribs?"
Zhang Chen neither agreed nor refuted her. He looked up at the closed crack in the earth above. "Gu Mingyue wants to trap us here completely and have us refined alive by the earth fire."
"Without this Fire Extinguishing Pearl of yours, we'd be dead for sure, so Gu Mingyue's scheme can't really be considered a failure." Zhang Chen's eyes roamed around them; all he could see was a boundless sea of flames, with no road ahead in sight.
"How do we escape?" A trace of worry appeared in Xie Lingyun's eyes. The two of them might not be refined to death in this sea of fire, but if they couldn't get out, they would still be trapped here to die. As for hoping Xie Xuan would come to the rescue? Magma was also earth fire and a type of Heaven and Earth Strange Fire; the aura it emitted interfered with the Qi Mechanisms of Heaven and Earth. Even a Yang God True Man could not hope to locate a target in this vast sea of flames.
Furthermore, flame itself had a refining effect. The moment their auras left their bodies, they would be refined by the raging earth fire. Outsiders couldn't even track their aura if they wanted to.
"Don't worry!" Zhang Chen soothed Xie Lingyun. "I naturally have a way to lead you out of this alive."
After Zhang Chen had the Ice Ship travel tens of li through the magma, he came to a stop at one section of magma, then raised his head to gaze at the crust above. Next, he activated the Earth Control Technique, set the Authority of Earth in motion, and a passage slowly appeared before the two of them.
Zhang Chen abandoned the Ice Ship, took hold of Xie Lingyun's soft jade-like hand, and said, "Let's go!"
Then the two stepped into that passage. As they walked, the passage closed back up behind them, not giving the magma any chance to leak through.
"You even have a method like this. I really didn't see it before. Just how many tricks are you hiding, kid?" Xie Lingyun looked at Zhang Chen, her face full of curiosity.
Zhang Chen smiled lightly. "I've got plenty of means tucked away. You'll find out in time, sister."
With Zhang Chen continually opening up passages, in just the time it took to walk for one hour, when he opened another tunnel, the deep blue waters of a lakebed appeared before them.
However, with Zhang Chen's Water Control Technique manipulating things at the bottom, the water didn't pour into the passage.
"We're out!" Xie Lingyun looked at the clear flow of water overhead and let out a long, turbid breath; the oppressive feeling in her heart vanished completely.
"Where to next?" Zhang Chen asked Xie Lingyun.
"Without me dragging him down, even if my father can't beat the three Great Zhenren of Yellow Heaven Dao, he can still escape just fine. We'll go to the Dragon Palace under Chunting Lake, explore the Creation hidden in the Dragon Palace, then withdraw from the Northern Land." Xie Lingyun's voice was very calm.
Zhang Chen followed Xie Lingyun's suggestion without arguing. After condensing the Ice Ship again, he surfaced on the water. Looking off into the distance, he saw that the entire Northern Land was submerged in floodwater, and the turbulent aura between Heaven and Earth was gradually stabilizing. Clearly, the clashes between all those top experts had already come to an end.
Zhang Chen drove the Ice Ship at full speed along the way, rushing toward the Yellow River. Before long he arrived where the Yellow River should have been, only to see that the Yellow River had already been filled in, merging completely with the floodwaters, surging endlessly in a mighty torrent so that the shape of the riverbed could no longer be made out.
But since Zhang Chen had mastered the Water Control Technique, it wasn't hard for him to locate that underground entrance.
The underground entrance had already been flooded. Zhang Chen stopped the Ice Ship on the surface above it, and beside him Xie Lingyun said, "There used to be experts from the Inspection and Supervision Department garrisoned here, but now that the flood's hit, I imagine those experts have all run for their lives."
Without the burden of an army, those experts always had a better chance of survival than ordinary people. They could run faster, climb trees faster, cling to trunks tighter, and were less likely to be swept away by the flood.
All of these things were the capital that experts relied on to survive.
At a thought from Zhang Chen, the water parted and formed a passage, which turned into a staircase. Stepping onto the watery steps, Zhang Chen and Xie Lingyun walked down into the underground karst cave.
"Say, brat, your Water Control Technique and Earth Control Technique really are something else—almost invincible above and below ground." Xie Lingyun stepped onto the water staircase, feeling its weight and solidity as if she were treading an earthen stairway, and couldn't help praising him out loud.
"Just a trivial trick. How could something like this ever catch your eye, sister?" Zhang Chen said with a squinting smile.
"This is no trivial trick. If you command the right time and place, even a Ninth Tier expert might not be able to do anything to you. How is that 'trivial'? If tricks like this were sold by the stack, I'd take a whole armful." Xie Lingyun said irritably.
Zhang Chen smiled and followed Xie Lingyun back into the Underground Dragon Palace. Xie Lingyun began introducing the information about it to him: "Didn't we previously have that big battle with Zhang Shicheng's first body in the Dragon Palace under Chunting Lake, and ruin his plan to turn into a Celestial Dragon? Later, when the Inspection and Supervision Department was cleaning up the battlefield, the Dragon Qi of the Northern Land's Earth Vein was stirred, and they discovered that beneath Chunting Lake there was actually another secret realm hidden away, a separate world of its own. But that place contained something truly terrifying. No matter how many experts went in, they all died inside. Even my father personally came to explore it, but he was forced back in fright before he could even step into that secret realm."
Hearing this, Zhang Chen paused mid-step and turned to look at Xie Lingyun. "You're sending me to deal with something even your father couldn't handle?"
"My father couldn't handle Zhang Shicheng, but you took care of him twice. Just because my father can't deal with something doesn't mean you can't." Xie Lingyun blinked her big eyes. "I believe in your strength! Besides, under the Dragon Palace at Chunting Lake there is definitely an enormous Creation. It absolutely won't leave you disappointed."
Zhang Chen neither agreed nor disagreed. He already had enough treasures on him—why would he need more? There were fewer and fewer treasures in this world that could stir his heart.
And treasures weren't about having as many as possible; what mattered was a well-rounded mastery of them.
The two of them traveled all the way to the Dragon Palace beneath Chunting Lake, only to see that it had already become a ruin, destroyed by Zhang Shicheng's rage that day.
"The entire palace complex was cast from crystal, which can be used to forge all sorts of crystal artifacts. That alone earned our Inspection and Supervision Department a hefty profit. It was while we were hauling away the crystals from Chunting Lake that we discovered that mysterious entrance amidst the ruins." Xie Lingyun said.
As they spoke, the pair arrived at a corner of the Dragon Palace ruins. The broken crystal in that corner had already been cleared away, revealing a circular opening about three meters across. The shaft dropped straight down, pitch-black and bottomless, like the gaping maw of some ferocious beast that could devour all matter at a glance.
"This is it." Xie Lingyun said.
Standing at the entrance beneath Chunting Lake, Zhang Chen inspected it, looking it over up and down. True God Golden Light flowed in his eyes, and only after quite a while did he speak. "What danger is inside?"
He hadn't sensed any dangerous aura from this black hole.
"It steals people's lifespan." Xie Lingyun said.
At her words, Zhang Chen's heart gave a jolt, and he had the urge to turn around and leave on the spot. His lifespan was already running short; if he carelessly lost another year or two in there, he might as well just slit his own throat afterward—why bother going through all this trouble?
"Don't be afraid. The thing that steals lifespan might well be the very thing that extends it. My father once sensed an extremely dense Vitality deep in the cave. There may be a power inside that makes one Immortal." Xie Lingyun's voice was very serious.