A great lake, beautiful and dangerous, lay quietly within the vast Vermillion Bird Mountain.
Seen from above, it looked like flowing fire.
The dazzling depths of Magma Lake invited irresistible speculation: did some hidden devil lurk within, or was the lake a passage to another world?
There was no devil.
But there was a sacred bird!
Deep within the Earth Vein, inside a shimmering halo, a palm-sized fire sparrow slept with its eyes closed and its wings folded over its body.
It seemed nothing could wake the bird, even if heaven and earth were turned upside down outside.
Fine threads of red flame spread slowly outward from its tiny body.
Wherever they passed, hard rock melted into scalding liquid that surged upward and joined Magma Lake.
Yet the flames remained tightly contained, lingering within a thousand-zhang radius.
Beyond that radius, another terrifying heat took their place.
Within it, even thoughts seemed ready to melt.
This was an absolute forbidden zone.
Without the right opportunity, no one could hope to set foot here.
Drip!
Drip!
Strands of black liquid kept falling from a figure.
He was an ordinary-looking man, though a closer look revealed something in his bearing that resembled Han Zhan Zhenren, the Fallen Cloud Sect's supreme elder.
He seemed indifferent to his melting body. His eyes stayed fixed on a tiny lotus platform within the zone of searing heat.
The lotus platform stirred restlessly amid the heat.
It seemed even the lotus platform could not withstand that terrifying temperature.
Yet it dared not leave. Instinct told it someone outside was watching it like a hawk.
Go farther inward?
That stirred an even deeper instinctive fear!
Though it had cultivated within Vermillion Bird Mountain for years and absorbed the aura of the Vermillion Bird Sacred Fire, it had absorbed only