His escaping light streaked onward.
The Fire Domain lay far from Yan State. Even with Li Yu racing at Super Speed the whole way, it still took him a full day and night to reach it.
"As expected of the Fire Domain. These flames are terrifying!"
Seeing the sea of surging flames ahead, Li Yu could not help clicking his tongue in amazement.
Within a radius of a hundred li, blazing flames churned endlessly, reddening half the sky. Even from afar, waves of scorching heat crashed against him.
Even where Li Yu stood, the ground was scorched black and split apart. The searing temperature had already made his forehead sweat.
"Good heavens, how many years have these flames been burning? They never went out?"
Once he activated the Resource Recycling function, the heat waves rushing toward him were collected by the system as soon as they neared him.
After finding that there was no discomfort, Li Yu finally stepped toward the Fire Domain.
The Fire Domain was divided into nine stages. The first thing Li Yu faced was the crimson flames of the First Stage.
"Magma Earth Fire? Are you kidding me? Where is the magma? There's clearly nothing here but fire!"
Hearing the system prompt, Li Yu could not help complaining.
Fortunately, his complaints did not affect the system's collection of the flames. Invisible ripples swept out, and the surging flames all around were drawn into a massive vortex, continuously absorbed by the system.
"A Fire Domain spanning a hundred li will take quite some time to collect."
Although the system rapidly collected the flames before him, the loss was practically imperceptible across the hundred-li Fire Domain.
"Anyway, there's no rush. I'll just keep collecting."
He strolled leisurely amid the flames, circling through the red-flame region of the First Stage around the Fire Domain. He rose on escaping light and looped around it once, twice, three times...
By the time he made his ninth circuit, all the red flames on the outskirts had vanished.
"Not bad, not bad."
Looking at the Earth Fire stored in the System Resource Library, Li Yu nodded. "The red Earth Fire has all been collected. Next come the blue flames."
He walked up to the blue flames and stopped. "System, there won't be any danger in collecting the blue flames, right?"
"There is no danger."
"Then I'm relieved."
The same process followed. After some effort, Li Yu had completely stripped away the deep-blue Nanming Li Fire.
The Third Stage contained white flames.
The immaculate milky-white flames gave off an aura of holiness.
"This is Moonlight Holy Fire?"
Li Yu was briefly stunned by the name, then continued his great plundering endeavor.
The Fourth Stage held ink-black Nine Netherworld Fire. The Fifth Stage held golden Solar True Fire. The sixth stage held purple Mystic Heaven Purple Fire. The Seventh Stage held Five Elements True Fire, where five colors intertwined. The Eighth Stage held brilliant seven-colored Seven Emotions Heart Fire. The Ninth Stage held translucent, five-colored Formless Immortal Fire.
From the Fourth Stage onward, Li Yu became increasingly cautious.
The heart-chilling flames of the Nine Netherworld Fire felt strange and deeply unsettling, as though even his senses had become confused.
Fortunately, Li Yu did not need to confront the Nine Netherworld Fire directly. He only had to approach it to collect it, which reassured him considerably.
The Solar True Fire was fierce and blazing, making his heart tremble with fear the moment he approached it.
The Mystic Heaven Purple Fire of the sixth stage was truly Purple Qi Comes from the East, vast and mighty for ten thousand li, inspiring an instinctive urge to submit.
The Five Elements True Fire of the Seventh Stage burned all things within the Five Elements. If Li Yu had not reacted quickly, even his hair would have nearly burned away. Even so, he lost a pair of boots.
After changing into another pair of boots and continuing onward, the Seven Emotions Heart Fire of the Eighth Stage nearly reduced Li Yu to ********.
The fire of the seven emotions burned the desires within one's heart. Had the system not protected his mind, Li Yu's consciousness would have been burned to ashes the instant he approached this region of the Fire Domain.
Even so, Li Yu thoroughly revisited those miserable days of his past in his heart.
His innocent first love, his painful heartbreak, the loss of loved ones, the frustrations of life—all of it made Li Yu weep bitterly.
As for the Formless Immortal Fire of the Ninth Stage... well, Li Yu inched his way over, step by step.
Because the flames were invisible! If he charged straight in, then no matter how powerful the system was, could it still bring him back to life?
He moved forward bit by bit. Only with the system constantly directing him did Li Yu finally manage to approach the region containing these strongest flames.
It was not as though the system had failed to display the area of the Formless Immortal Fire in Li Yu's mind, but the thing changed constantly and had no fixed shape at all.
It truly lived up to its name of formless. It had absolutely no fixed form and could neither be seen nor touched.
Fortunately, no matter how powerful it was, it was still merely an inanimate thing. In the end, it could not escape being plundered.
"Whew! Finally finished."
Li Yu let out a heavy breath, feeling utterly exhausted.
"As the mastermind behind the scenes, I'm really not suited for this kind of hard labor. I should leave this sort of thing to Zhou Yi in the future!"
Looking at the Fire Domain before him, now devoid of even a trace of fiery energy, Li Yu smiled in satisfaction.
"It won't be long before this forbidden land recovers and transforms into fertile soil."
Li Yu stood with his hands behind his back, wearing an expression of compassion for all living things.
"These blazing flames have plagued this region. Today, this poor priest has taken them away, bringing fortune to the people and earning boundless merit! If this world has some Heavenly Dao or something, shouldn't it bestow boundless merit upon me?"
He turned and swept his gaze around, discovering a stretch of ground ahead that had been fused into something like glass.
"People leave behind their names, geese leave behind their cries. We can't abandon our people's traditions! I have to leave a few words behind."
Walking to the glassy ground, Li Yu flicked out a thread of sword qi from his fingertip and swiftly carved a line of words into the earth.
"Back then, this poor priest refined pills here. Unexpectedly, I left behind a tiny spark, which caused such calamity. This was this poor priest's fault. I have specially taken back this fire to make amends for my past wrongs."
"Time to go! Time to go! There's no one here to watch even if I keep showing off!"
After writing those words, Li Yu smiled, rose on escaping light, and shot into the sky, vanishing into the distant horizon.
Several hours later, a streak of black light swept through the air and landed upon the remains of the Fire Domain.
"This... isn't this the Fire Domain?"
He was a man in Taoist robes in his fifties, dressed in a feathered robe covered in gleaming black plumes.
"Isn't this the Fire Domain? Where's the fire? Where's the fire? Caw! Caw! Caw!"
The man in Taoist robes angrily paced several circles around the ruins of the Fire Domain, shouting furiously. By the end, he was even making crow-like cawing sounds.
"Damn it! Where did the fire go?"
"Without the supreme divine fire of the Fire Domain, how am I supposed to refine my divine bell? Damn it, why has the Fire Domain disappeared?"
"Ah..."
Crow Taoist screeched as he darted wildly through the Fire Domain's ruins. Then he suddenly spotted the line Li Yu had left behind, and his whole body shuddered.
"A single spark left behind while refining pills turned into a Fire Domain spanning a hundred li? What kind of heaven-reaching, earth-piercing cultivation did this person possess?!"
A day later, the world was shaken.
A vast Fire Domain spanning a hundred li, a blazing forbidden land that had burned for countless years, had actually... simply disappeared.
Even more terrifyingly, this Fire Domain had been created from a tiny spark left behind by someone while refining pills. And that person had now taken the Fire Domain back.
"Could there still be a Great Emperor alive?"
The entire world suddenly fell silent, so frightened by the news that no one even dared breathe.
Li Yu, however, had no idea that the casual line he carved before leaving had allowed him to put on a world-shaking show of bravado.