East Sea.
Above a barren island, red-black smoke billowed into the heavens, while flying ash rode the sea winds and scattered hundreds of thousands of miles away.
The black and red were scalding magma erupting from the volcanic crater. When it flowed into the sea, it evaporated vast clouds of water vapor.
The sea east of the barren island had been dyed pitch-black by ash and cooled magma, exceptionally murky.
Great swathes of dead fish floated belly-up across the surface, painfully conspicuous in the turbid waters.
On a desolate islet tens of thousands of miles away, Mysterious Underworld Heavenly Lord silently watched the images projected by the water mirror before him. The circular mirror, several hundred zhang wide, displayed the erupting volcano in its entirety.
White Moon Heavenly Lord opposite him raised her eyes at the Blazing Sun high in the sky and said softly, "We have already waited thirty years. Is there any need to keep waiting?"
White Moon Heavenly Lord possessed clear, delicate features. Clad in immaculate white, she carried herself with graceful gentleness. She looked like a woman in her twenties, at the golden pinnacle of life, radiating a warm, touching, timeless elegance from the inside out.
Mysterious Underworld Heavenly Lord did not even look at White Moon Heavenly Lord. He said coldly, "Fellow Daoist is merely here in an incarnation. Have thirty years of idling away already made you impatient?"
"Thirty years is not long. It is simply rather dull to be confined here."
White Moon Heavenly Lord remained as gentle and composed as ever. "Gao Xian is only a junior, after all. He is not worth treating with such gravity."
White Moon Heavenly Lord looked down on Gao Xian. On one hand, he had killed her direct disciple, Bai Qingwei. On the other, he cultivated