Island in the Lake

The Snake-People Tribe's temple was enormous, nearly the size of a city. It was a pearl in the desert and the sacred ground of the Snake-People Tribe. Medusa Queen's palace stood at the very center of the city, where a magnificent cluster of buildings sprawled.

With Yao Lao helping conceal his aura, Xiao Yan proceeded cautiously, avoiding countless checkpoints as he slipped into the royal palace without anyone noticing.

"This place is way too big. Where exactly is the Heavenly Flame?" After circling the palace three times without finding any trace of it, Xiao Yan was beginning to grow impatient.

"Don't rush. Let me sense it." Yao Lao soothed Xiao Yan's restless mind, then extended his soul power to envelop the entire palace.

"Found it."

Under Yao Lao's perception, he detected the location of the Azure Lotus Core Flame.

"This Medusa really is cunning. She split the Heavenly Flame's aura into four portions, one in each of the east, south, west, and north. Their auras are almost identical. If we choose the wrong direction, we'll waste a great deal of time for nothing," Yao Lao said admiringly.

Then his tone shifted. "But unfortunately, all that effort was useless. The real Heavenly Flame is in the east."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Yan immediately shot eastward.

About ten minutes later, he arrived before a clear lake. Activating his Purple Cloud Wings with Dou Qi, he prepared to fly across it.

"Hm?"

But just as he passed above the lake, he suddenly felt the Dou Qi in his body become unstable. The Purple Cloud Wings swiftly retracted into his body, and he began falling from the sky.

Seeing the mirror-still surface of the lake, Xiao Yan felt a surge of unease. He fiercely struck the water with his palm, using the recoil to soar back into the air. After flipping several times in midair, he barely managed to land on solid ground.

Xiao Yan took out a jade ruler from his Storage Ring and tossed it into the lake without hesitation. The ruler looked as if it had been thrown into sulfuric acid, rapidly melting away as a wisp of green smoke drifted into the air.

Hiss!

Xiao Yan broke out in a cold sweat, secretly thankful for his decisiveness just now. Had he fallen into the lake, even his bones would likely have turned to sludge by now.

"Be careful. A flight-restriction array has been placed over this lake, and the water clearly contains potent poison. Anything flying above the lake will be forcibly suppressed by the array. Once it falls into the water, even a Dou Wang would be lucky to survive without losing several layers of skin," Yao Lao hurriedly warned.

"What do we do now?" Xiao Yan revealed a bitter smile.

Medusa Queen was a Dou Huang Expert, yet she had made this place like a rat's burrow. Not only had she covered the air with flight-restriction arrays, she had also poisoned the lake, turning her nest into a turtle shell with no way in.

"There's no other way. I'll use my Heavenly Flame to wrap your body. Swim across quickly. If we delay too long, I'm afraid there won't even be a body left for me to collect," Yao Lao said after pondering for a moment.

Yao Lao's Heavenly Flame was the Bone Spirit Cold Flame, a flame that grew upon corpses. Unlike ordinary flames, it possessed no blazing heat. Instead, it was exceptionally icy, many times colder than thousand-year mystic ice, cold enough to nearly freeze one's soul stiff.

Under normal circumstances, anyone who touched this Heavenly Flame would have no fate other than freezing to death.

But under its master's control, things were different. Not only would it not harm others, it could even shield them from external dangers.

That was why Yao Lao had come up with the idea of covering Xiao Yan's entire body in Heavenly Flame, temporarily isolating him from the poisonous liquid in the lake. This soul-corroding poison would then be unable to threaten him for the time being.

However, without a physical body, Yao Lao's power was like duckweed without roots. Every bit he expended made him weaker.

Thus, if Xiao Yan was not fast enough to swim across the poison lake before Yao Lao's strength ran out, what awaited him would be death without even a burial place.

A struggle flashed across Xiao Yan's face. Then he gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "Fine. Wealth is found amid danger. How can anything in this world be absolutely safe? If I die, I die."

"Then I'll begin." Yao Lao gave a warning, and deep-white Bone Spirit Cold Flame emerged, swiftly enveloping Xiao Yan's entire body.

Splash!

With time running short, Xiao Yan did not dare delay in the slightest. He leaped into the lake, his hands rapidly cutting through the water and leaving a trail of white spray behind him.

The lake was crystal clear, with layers of aquatic grass beneath its surface. If not for the jade ruler he had thrown in earlier, it would have been difficult to believe that this water contained deadly poison.

Under the strange temperature of the Bone Spirit Cold Flame, the lake water seemed to boil. Purple threads emerged one after another in the water, only to be swiftly frozen into icy fragments before sinking back to the bottom.

"Hurry up. The poison in this lake is extremely powerful. I can't hold on for long," Yao Lao urged repeatedly.

Xiao Yan nodded. No longer paying attention to the strange sight in the water, he frantically paddled with all four limbs, streaking through the lake like an arrow.

Although the lake was not small, Xiao Yan's monstrous speed allowed him to cross it swiftly. Within a few minutes, he had neared the small island at its center.

Smack!

Just as Xiao Yan was about to leap ashore, he suddenly heard the sound of something cutting through the air above him. Looking up, he saw a pale green snake tail descending from the sky, its scales emerald green and gleaming like jade.

"Damn it, this lake is way too dangerous." A chill ran through Xiao Yan's heart as he circulated Dou Qi into his palms and fiercely struck the water. His body immediately shot upward, and when he came down again, his feet had already landed on the ground.

Only after his feet touched the earth did Xiao Yan have time to turn and look at what had attacked him.

It was a venomous snake, entirely emerald green, six or seven zhang long, nearly one and a half meters thick around the waist, with a triangular head.

The venomous snake flicked its scarlet tongue, murderous intent boiling in its eyes as a savage aura radiated from its body.

This snake's cultivation was quite formidable. Judging by the energy fluctuations around it, it was likely in the Dou Ling Realm—not something Xiao Yan could defeat at present.

Fortunately, the snake seemed extremely wary of the small island. Once Xiao Yan moved ten meters into the island, it no longer dared pursue him. Instead, it circled on the lake outside the island, not daring to cross the line even by a step.

Clearly, something on the island terrified the snake. Most likely, Medusa had lived here year-round, filling the island with her aura.

Animals were far more sensitive to auras than humans. Those of higher rank held absolute power of life and death over those beneath them. The lower-ranked could neither resist nor dare to resist, much less enter the territory of a superior.

That explained why this powerful snake only dared linger outside the island and did not dare set foot upon it.

Xiao Yan shot the venomous snake a fierce glare, then ignored it. It no longer posed any threat to him, so there was no need to fight it to the death. The urgent matter was to find the Azure Lotus Core Flame as soon as possible, lest complications arise.