Jia Nan Academy, a sanctuary in the Black Foot Domain, was renowned throughout the world for its profound foundations and the Heaven Burning Qi Refining Tower. The Inner Academy was even more heavily guarded, with experts everywhere.
Yet to Lin Hai, all of it was as good as nothing.
His figure seemed to blend into the breeze as he silently slipped through the Inner Academy's layers of barriers and guards. He didn't even rouse the slightest notice from Qianbai Laosheng, deep within the Heaven Burning Qi Refining Tower.
He appeared directly at the entrance to the Underground Magma World—a perilous place where searing energy surged forth and space itself warped faintly.
Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Hai stepped inside.
The scene before him changed abruptly. The academy's buildings were gone, replaced by an endless sea of churning, crimson magma!
The terrifying heat could vaporize refined iron in an instant. Scorching waves of air, reeking of sulfur, battered against him. Even an ordinary Spirit Emperor would struggle to last long here.
But to Lin Hai, this temperature was no different from a spring breeze.
He didn't even use Dou Qi to shield himself. The heat, powerful enough to burn mountains and boil seas, naturally subsided as it neared him.
His spiritual sense spread across the astonishingly vast subterranean world like the most precise radar.
"Hiss! Hiss!"
"Roar!"
The instant his spiritual sense swept over the magma sea, it boiled!
One after another, crimson figures shot out of the churning magma like ghosts. They had humanoid torsos covered in dark red scales, clawed hands and feet, and hideous heads. Flames poured from their mouths as pairs of savage eyes locked onto Lin Hai, the uninvited guest.
Fire Lizardmen!
And there were an awful lot of them—hundreds, even thousands, as far as the eye could see!
Most were at the Spirit King or Spirit Emperor level, and quite a few had reached the Spirit Sect Realm. Howling, they surged toward Lin Hai like a red tide, bringing a vast torrent of magma with them!
Lin Hai's gaze remained indifferent, utterly unruffled.
He didn't even use any flashy Dou Technique. He simply raised his right hand and pressed it gently downward toward the oncoming tide of Fire Lizardmen.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, no dazzling burst of energy.
Only a terrifying power that seemed to stem from the very source of the laws came crashing down like an invisible curtain of heaven!
Crack... Boom!
Space seemed to freeze, then shattered inch by inch like a mirror!
The Fire Lizardmen at the front—whether Spirit Emperors or Spirit Sect Realm—didn't even have time to scream before their bodies burst beneath that invisible, terrifying pressure!
They became clouds of blood mist and pure fire-attributed energy, instantly vaporized by the heat!
One after another, crimson, glossy beads about the size of a dragon's eye, each holding pure Fire Energy, dropped from their shattered bodies. Before they could fall into the magma, an invisible force gathered them up.
With a single press, dozens upon dozens of Fire Lizardmen were wiped from existence!
The horrific sight finally filled some of the more intelligent Fire Lizardmen in the rear with boundless terror. They shrieked sharply, trying to retreat.
But now that Lin Hai had struck, how could he show mercy?
Like a god of death walking across the magma, he took one step after another. Every Fire Lizardman within a thousand zhang of him, strong or weak, burst apart, leaving behind only Fire Beads that were precisely gathered up.
He didn't need to seek them out. His very existence was the greatest lure—and the greatest calamity.
More Fire Lizardmen were roused from the depths of the magma. They rushed toward him in a frenzy, only to turn into ash by the hundreds and thousands, giving up the Fire Beads within them.
Soon, even stronger beings were roused.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Seven exceptionally fierce auras suddenly erupted from deep within the magma. Seven Fire Lizardmen, much larger than the others, shot into the air. Their scales were dark gold, and their eyes glinted with fury and cruel intelligence!
Their auras had all reached the Spirit Venerable level! Two of them had even reached around five-star Spirit Venerable!
"Human! You'll die!" The dark-gold Fire Lizardman at their head let out a garbled mental roar. Bearing flames powerful enough to destroy the world, seven terrifying blasts of fire—each capable of easily incinerating a city—merged together like seven roaring fire dragons and charged at Lin Hai!
Faced with an assault that would have put even a high-tier Spirit Venerable on guard, Lin Hai merely glanced at them.
He didn't even change his stance. He simply opened his mouth and gently inhaled toward the seven fire dragons and the seven Spirit Venerable Fire Lizardmen behind them.
Like a giant kun swallowing water, a black hole devouring the heavens!
The seven fire dragons, each formed from a full-force strike by a Spirit Venerable Fire Lizardman, along with the vast sea of magma and fire energy around them, were forcibly sucked into his mouth!
In the blink of an eye, the attack—powerful enough to destroy a mountain range—vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.
The fury in the seven Spirit Venerable Fire Lizardmen's eyes instantly gave way to boundless shock and terror!
What kind of monster was this?!
But they had no chance to think it over.
After swallowing the flames, Lin Hai acted as if he'd done nothing more than some trivial task. Then he flicked his finger.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...
Seven fine spatial blades, almost too faint to see, flashed past.
The seven mighty Spirit Venerable Fire Lizardmen froze in place. Their hard, dark-gold scales and powerful Spirit Venerable defenses were as flimsy as paper before those spatial blades.
The next moment, their heads all flew into the air, the light in their eyes quickly fading.
Seven Fire Beads, each about the size of a baby's fist, dark gold throughout and radiating a terrifying energy fluctuation, flew from their headless bodies and landed in Lin Hai's hand.
Their bodies plunged into the magma, sending up enormous waves.
The slaughter continued.
Lin Hai pressed onward toward the deepest part of the Magma World. In his wake, the Fire Lizardmen race was all but wiped out.
Along the way, he also roused two ancient Fire Lizardmen with even more terrifying auras, nearly at the Half-Saint level. They had hidden deep beneath the magma, hoping to launch a sneak attack.
The outcome was no different.
Lin Hai simply struck twice from afar.
His palm strikes ignored the distance between them and landed directly on their enormous heads.
Boom! Boom!
With two muffled thuds, the heads of the two ancient Half-Saint beings, along with the Magic Cores (Fire Beads) inside them, were shattered into the purest particles of energy and vanished, leaving only two enormous headless corpses to sink slowly into the depths of the magma. (The Fire Beads of Half-Saint Fire Lizardmen were too violent in energy to use easily. Lin Hai couldn't be bothered with the trouble, so he simply shattered them.)
When Lin Hai decided he had collected enough "pocket change," he finally stopped.
By then, a small mountain of Fire Beads had appeared in his Storage Ring.
Eight Spirit Venerable Fire Beads (including the original seven and one more he found later), gleaming like little suns.
He hadn't collected the Half-Saint Fire Beads, but he had casually condensed some of their scattered core energy into two crimson crystals, each with the energy strength of an eighth-tier Magic Core.
Seventy-two Spirit Sect Realm Fire Beads, each as large as a pigeon's egg and brimming with energy.
Two hundred and forty-five Spirit Emperor Fire Beads, round and crimson, each the size of a dragon's eye.
There were countless more lower-grade Fire Beads. Lin Hai couldn't be bothered to count them carefully.
As for the exact number of Fire Lizardmen he had killed, it was long past counting. This once vibrant—or rather, perilous—subterranean magma world had fallen utterly silent. Only the bubbling magma remained, while the dense stench of blood and fire energy filled every inch of space. It was nothing short of a race-wide extinction event.
Lin Hai's expression didn't change, as if he'd merely cleared away a patch of weeds.
He checked what he had gathered in his Storage Ring and nodded slightly.
"These should fetch me some decent eighth-tier Magic Cores."
With that, his figure flickered, and he vanished from the silent Magma World as if he had never been there.
All that remained was a ravaged landscape and a Fire Lizardman race all but wiped out, bearing witness to the terrifying efficiency of a Peak Spirit Saint's "free shopping."
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