Xuanwei transformed into a streak of lightning, pushing his newly comprehended lightning escape technique to its limit. Like a purple lightning serpent tearing across the sky, he sped toward Three Immortal Island in the East Sea.
The wind howled past his ears, but his heart raced even faster.
Bi Xiao had gone missing!
That lively, spirited young woman with clear eyes, who would call him "Senior Brother Xuanwei" with a crafty smile, had vanished inside a secret realm of her own sect's grounds! And it was connected to that dangerous fragment of the Nine Nether Demon Domain!
Unbidden, Xuanwei recalled the perilous scene in the Nine Nether lands, when he had faced Golden Immortal-level demonic qi. That foul, fallen force that corroded all life still filled him with lingering fear whenever he thought of it. Bi Xiao was an elite of the Interception Sect and no weak cultivator herself, but if she had rashly become involved with that Demon Domain fragment, the consequences would be unimaginable!
"Senior Sister Yun Xiao has always been steady. If even she used words like 'missing' and 'there may have been an accident,' then the situation must already be extremely dire!" Xuanwei frowned tightly as the immortal power within him poured forth without reserve, driving his lightning faster still and leaving a lingering trail of thunder in the sky.
As he traveled, he forced himself to calm down and sort through the information Yun Xiao had sent.
"The lightning pool has become unstable, the earth veins are churning... The aura of the Nine Nether Demon Domain fragment has resonated with something deep within the lightning pool..."
Xuanwei had long heard of the lightning pool on Three Immortal Island. It was said that San Xiao had constructed it around an innate lightning eye. It was both a sacred ground for cultivation and the hub of the Island Protection Array. The fragment of the Nine Nether Demon Domain, meanwhile, had been personally sealed beneath the island by Sect Master Tongtian after the previous tainted qi leak. One was supremely yang and unyielding, while the other was supremely yin and evil. They should have restrained each other. How could they possibly resonate?
"Something deep within the lightning pool...?" Xuanwei caught that crucial point. Since Yun Xiao had specifically mentioned it, it had to be no trivial object, and it seemed it had never been known to outsiders before. "Could there be another secret hidden beneath the lightning pool of Three Immortal Island, apart from the innate lightning eye? Was it this object that had stirred the sealed Demon Domain fragment?"
Countless questions swirled through his mind, but only by reaching Three Immortal Island in person could he uncover the answers.
Flying at full speed, he swiftly left the vast East Sea behind. The three immortal islands, arranged in a triangular formation and wreathed in immortal radiance and misty clouds, were already in sight.
Before he even approached, Xuanwei sharply sensed that something was wrong.
The once peaceful Three Immortal Island was now shrouded in an invisible air of tension. The spiritual qi above the islands flowed chaotically and urgently, while the faint sound of wind and thunder came from deep within. The visible barrier of the Island Protection Array flickered unsteadily, as though enduring some internal impact.
Just as Xuanwei reached the island's outskirts, a familiar, cool figure flew out from within. It was Yun Xiao. She still wore white robes and possessed peerless grace, but a trace of anxiety and exhaustion could not be hidden in her tranquil, water-like eyes.
"Junior Brother Xuanwei, you're here!" At the sight of Xuanwei, Yun Xiao visibly relaxed, though her voice carried a hint of urgency.
"Senior Sister Yun Xiao, how is the situation? Is there any news of Senior Sister Bi Xiao?" Xuanwei immediately asked, his gaze sweeping toward the depths of the island, where the energy fluctuations made his heart sink.
Yun Xiao shook her head, her delicate brows drawn together. "None yet. I tried contacting her with secret arts and even used the Primal Chaos Golden Dipper to sense her, but it was like a stone sinking into the sea. Her final aura vanished in the core region of the lightning pool's secret realm."
As she led Xuanwei swiftly toward the island's interior, she explained at a rapid pace, "The disturbance began two hours ago. The earth veins at the island's center suddenly churned violently, causing the protective array to shake. Then, the aura of the Demon Domain fragment that Master sealed deep beneath the island became abnormally active and produced some strange resonant fluctuations with the depths of the lightning pool."
"Qiong Xiao and I planned to stabilize the array first before investigating the source. But Bi Xiao has an impatient nature. She sensed an eruption of unusual spiritual power at the lightning pool's core and feared the seal had loosened. Ignoring our attempts to stop her, she entered to investigate alone... Who could have expected that she would vanish without a trace?"
As they spoke, the two passed through layers of restrictions and arrived at the entrance to the lightning pool secret realm, the core forbidden ground of Three Immortal Island.
It was the entrance to a deep cavern surrounded by countless thick chains of lightning. Violent lightning power surged from within, forming a raging curtain of thunder at the entrance. At this moment, the lightning curtain was extremely unstable. It was no longer pure violet-white, but mixed with unsettling streams of dark red and black qi, which hissed with corrosive crackles.
Qiong Xiao was guarding the entrance, pouring all her magical power into stabilizing the restless lightning curtain. When she saw Xuanwei arrive, her eyes reddened as she cried anxiously, "Senior Brother Xuanwei! Think of something quickly! The moment Elder Sister and I send our divine senses into the core region, they're shredded by a chaotic force. Something terrible must have happened inside!"
Xuanwei concentrated on the chaotic energy at the entrance, which mixed pure lightning, violent earth-vein qi, and strange demonic aura. His expression turned grave. "Senior Sisters, the most urgent matter is to enter the core and find Senior Sister Bi Xiao as quickly as possible. This energy is utterly chaotic. Something unexpected may happen."
"I understand." Yun Xiao nodded. With a turn of her jade-like hand, the Primal Chaos Golden Dipper, radiating innate spiritual light, floated above her palm. "Qiong Xiao and I will stabilize the array entrance outside, prevent the demonic qi from leaking out, and receive you when you return. Junior Brother Xuanwei, you possess the power of chaos and that strange kindling flame. You have an extremely high resistance to foreign energies, so you may be able to withstand the corrosion in the core region... I'll leave finding Bi Xiao to you!"
As she spoke, she handed Xuanwei a jade talisman flashing with three-colored radiance. "This is a passage seal for the core restrictions of Three Immortal Island. It will help you avoid some of the restrictions within the lightning pool secret realm. Be careful. If things cannot be done, preserving yourself must come first!"
Xuanwei accepted the still-warm jade talisman and could feel the weighty trust and responsibility within it. He nodded firmly. "Rest assured, Senior Sister. I will bring Senior Sister Bi Xiao back safely!"
Without another word, Xuanwei took a deep breath. Immortal light surged around him as the Chaos Heaven-Opening Art circulated. A layer of Chaos Color radiance enveloped him, while a thread of dark-yellow kindling flame danced at his fingertips, driving away the approaching demonic qi. He took one step forward and plunged directly into the violent, unstable curtain of lightning!
Boom!
The instant he entered the lightning pool secret realm, it was as though he had stepped into another world.
Unlike the chaotic sensations outside, the situation within the secret realm was even worse. The space, which should have been orderly and filled with forceful yang lightning, had become a complete mess. Massive bolts of lightning lashed wildly through the air and against the mountain walls like crazed serpents, leaving scorched black marks. The ground trembled constantly as cracks spread everywhere. Scorching earth-vein magma mixed with erupting Netherworld Taint Qi poured out from the fissures and collided with lightning, triggering an endless chain of explosions.
The air was filled with the pungent stench of sulfur, the smell of burning, and that familiar, nauseating demonic qi. Everywhere he looked was a scene of apocalypse.
Xuanwei raised his chaos immortal light and spread the power of kindling flame over his body. Carefully avoiding the most violent energy currents, he raced toward the core region of the secret realm in the direction Yun Xiao had indicated.
The farther inward he went, the harsher the environment became. The dark-red demonic qi and black Netherworld Taint Qi grew denser and denser. They even began actively corroding and polluting the rampaging lightning, turning the formerly violet-white flashes into dark violet. Their power rose sharply, but they also gained a far more sinister and bizarre corrosive nature.
Xuanwei had to repeatedly activate the kindling flame to burn away and purify the demonic qi that tried to cling to him. His expression grew increasingly grave. The activity and corrosiveness of the demonic qi here far surpassed what he had encountered at the edge of the Nine Nether lands last time.
"It seems that the Demon Domain fragment truly has been heavily stimulated... But what exactly lies at the other end of this resonance?"
Along the way, he found no sign of Bi Xiao and no obvious traces of battle. This only made the unease in his heart grow stronger.
At last, after passing through a forest of lightning thorns that had been completely demonized, the view before him suddenly opened up—and made Xuanwei draw in a sharp breath.
Before him lay an incomparably vast abyss. Below it stretched a boiling lightning pool with no end in sight! Yet this lightning pool was utterly different from the Supreme Pure Lightning Pool he had just left. The lightning within was no longer liquefied essence, but violent, disorderly primal thunderstorms. Its colors were an eerie blend of dark red and black, filled with an aura of destruction and corruption.
At the center of the lightning pool, a massive cyan barrier formed from countless runes flickered in and out of sight. Beneath it, a distorted, filthy fragment of space could vaguely be seen struggling violently, emitting overwhelming demonic qi—it was the fragment of the Nine Nether Demon Domain sealed by Sect Master Tongtian!
At this moment, the sealing barrier was fluctuating violently. The runes upon it flickered erratically, clearly enduring tremendous pressure from both within and without.
The source of that pressure was not only the boiling, demonized lightning pool below, which battered it without cease, but also the far side of the abyss—the other end of the lightning pool!
There, a gigantic pillar of light formed entirely from dark-violet lightning shot up from the depths of the pool. Within it, an object could faintly be seen rising and falling. It was neither stone nor jade, and its entire surface was covered in natural lightning Dao patterns even older and more complex than those Sect Master Tongtian had displayed during his lectures! It emanated a vast, ancient, terrifying thunderous might, as though it had originated when chaos first opened!
It was this ancient thunderous might that had formed a strange resonance with the Nine Nether Demon Domain fragment below. Their auras intertwined and stimulated one another, causing the earth veins throughout Three Immortal Island to churn and the lightning pool to mutate!
"What... is that?" Xuanwei's pupils contracted. From that ancient lightning object, he sensed an aura no less ancient than the Chaos Bead! It was absolutely a relic from the age of chaos, perhaps even connected to one of the Chaos Demon Gods!
Yet he had no time to investigate the origins of that lightning object. His gaze locked onto a lone cliff at the boundary between the dark-violet lightning pillar and the demonized lightning pool—a relatively calm place surrounded by two terrifying forces!
A familiar, graceful figure in a goose-yellow dress lay unconscious there. It was Bi Xiao!
A faint layer of golden light, cast by the Primal Chaos Golden Dipper, protected her body. But beneath the erosion of the endless demonic qi and mutated lightning around her, that golden light was already on the verge of collapse, dimmed to the extreme. Her own aura was also terribly weak. Clearly, she had been struck unconscious by the chaotic forces the moment she entered this place.
"Senior Sister Bi Xiao!" Xuanwei's heart tightened.
He had to rescue her immediately!
However, just as he prepared to rush toward that lone cliff, another change occurred!
Bzzzz—!
The ancient lightning object rising and falling within the dark-violet lightning pillar suddenly trembled, as though it had sensed the intrusion of Xuanwei, an outsider—or perhaps the aura of the Chaos Bead and kindling flame within him!
In an instant, the entire demonized lightning pool erupted completely! Countless colossal waves of dark red and black lightning surged into the sky! At the same time, the sealed fragment of the Nine Nether Demon Domain below seemed to receive the ultimate provocation. Demonic qi burst forth wildly, battering the cyan sealing barrier until it was covered in cracks!
What made Xuanwei's scalp go numb was that amid the boiling lightning pool and soaring demonic qi, several twisted demonic creatures condensed from pure demonic qi and mutated lightning. They radiated True Immortal-level fluctuations, and their eyes, filled with the desire for destruction, locked in unison onto Bi Xiao on the lone cliff and Xuanwei, who had just entered!
Ahead, the ancient lightning treasure was stirring. Behind, the Demon Domain seal was about to break. Beneath his feet was a boiling demonized lightning pool, and all around him were lightning demons watching like tigers. Meanwhile, Bi Xiao lay unconscious at the heart of the storm...
The difficulty of rescuing her had increased severalfold in an instant!
Xuanwei's expression darkened to the extreme. He clenched his fists, feeling the faint stirring of the Chaos Bead within him and the unyielding pulse of the kindling flame as it faced the demonic qi.
He had no way back.
Before you continue