Searching

The vast desert was ravaged by yellow sands.

Here, a single night of blowing sand was enough to bury anything.

Looking at the flat stretch of desert before him, Mo Yun found it impossible to tell one area from another. Every bit of terrain was utterly ordinary, and landscapes like this were practically countless in the desert.

At the very least, without the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils tracking the traces left behind by that powerful aura, Mo Yun would never have found this place.

After some thought, that powerful aura was most likely the nightmare of the desert—the Medusa Queen.

If Mo Yun's guess was correct, then Medusa's presence in the desert was, judging by the original plot, most likely for the Heavenly Flame!

And the Heavenly Flame in the Tagor Desert was the nineteenth-ranked Heavenly Flame on the Heavenly Flame Ranking—the Azure Lotus Core Flame.

Although Mo Yun was not particularly interested in Heavenly Flames, the Azure Lotus Core Flame came with far too many treasures!

Those lotus seeds, that lotus platform...

They were all excellent treasures for rapidly increasing one's cultivation!

In his memories, Medusa had only taken the Azure Lotus Core Flame rather than clearing the place out entirely. So, after repeatedly confirming over several days that the powerful aura had not appeared again, Mo Yun came here to pick up the leftovers.

He finally stopped at a location in the southeastern part of the Tagor Desert.

The lingering aura here was especially dense.

Logically speaking, there should have been an underground passage here, but several nights of blowing sand had most likely buried it long ago.

Feeling out the passage was far harder than finding this place. The latter only required following the lingering aura, but the former required finding the one correct point in an environment saturated with that expert's aura. It was an extremely delicate task.

However, the process of searching was also the process of Mo Yun familiarizing himself with the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils.

Through it, Mo Yun could continuously train his perception.

In fact, searching at night was easier than during the day.

After several days and nights of probing and searching, Mo Yun finally discovered something unusual one night.

Dou Qi wrapped around his hands as Mo Yun struck repeatedly, streams of air exploding across the desert.

Before long, a massive sand pit appeared, and the sand within it showed faint signs of sinking inward.

After a round of digging, Mo Yun uncovered an opening roughly half a meter wide within the pit.

He glanced into the opening. It was pitch-black inside, with faint heat drifting out.

The temperature difference between day and night in the desert was enormous. In the dead of night, even underground, it would be difficult for such heat to radiate out. Therefore, the heat spilling from this opening was abnormal!

Mo Yun took out a Moonlight Stone he had prepared beforehand and tossed it into the hole.

The Moonlight Stone gave off a faint glow. After rolling several times through the dark, deep passage, it gradually vanished completely.

Seeing the Moonlight Stone disappear so quickly, Mo Yun frowned slightly. Clearly, this passage was not only extremely deep, but also not straight. There were roughly more than a dozen passageways below, most of them winding and twisting, as though a giant python had crawled through them.

Though he knew some of the situation beforehand, Mo Yun still instinctively hesitated before the opening.

Only after repeatedly psyching himself up did he prepare to enter the passage.

Bracing both hands against the sandy walls around the passage, Mo Yun's body slid swiftly downward. As he descended, the temperature around him gradually rose as well.

Amid the hissing sound of his body sliding along the passage, Mo Yun had already twisted and turned through it for roughly ten minutes.

As he slid deeper and deeper, Mo Yun discovered with some surprise that the passage was incredibly smooth. There were practically no hard objects such as rocks jutting from the walls. The tunnel looked as though it had been brutally punched through by an immensely powerful column of energy.

Gradually, Mo Yun could see the bottom of the passage. He bent his feet slightly, and a moment later, with a soft muffled thud, he curled his body slightly and landed steadily on the ground.

After landing, Mo Yun quickly surveyed his surroundings and discovered that there were more than a dozen pitch-black passage entrances ahead.

There should only be one correct entrance. As Mo Yun carefully sensed them, the three tiny green dots around his emerald pupils grew increasingly distinct within his faintly blinking eyes.

Especially in this dark underground cavern, Mo Yun's emerald eyes appeared exceptionally eerie.

His emerald gaze swept across the passages one by one. Although each of them retained some of that expert's aura, one passage contained an aura that was far denser than the rest.

Based on his knowledge of the original story, Mo Yun knew what dangers lay within. They might still pose a threat to others, but to Mo Yun, who now possessed the Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils, they were not much of a problem.

Thus, holding the Moonlight Stone, Mo Yun walked toward the passage where the lingering aura was strongest.

Once he entered the dark passage, Mo Yun felt a thin current of heat constantly flowing out. As he ventured farther in, it turned into waves of heat, and before long, Mo Yun was drenched in sweat.

Using the Moonlight Stone for illumination, Mo Yun slowly walked through the dark passage. Along the way, aside from the faint rustling of his footsteps, there was almost no other sound.

In this dark and profound passage, time seemed to lose all meaning. Resisting wave after wave of heat, Mo Yun did not know how long he had walked. After turning another corner, a bright red glow finally appeared at the end of the passage ahead.

"Finally... I'm almost there..." Seeing this, Mo Yun wiped the sweat from his face. He shook himself all over, becoming much more alert, though his voice was somewhat hoarse.

Quickly crossing the last stretch of the path, Mo Yun arrived at the end of the passage...

Standing at its end, Mo Yun gazed at the fiery-red world before him. Even with advance knowledge of the plot, his face was still filled with uncontrollable shock!

Within the enormous underground cavern, crimson magma flowed slowly. Bubbles of magma burst from time to time, spraying heat into the air like clusters of fiery red fireworks.

It was a magnificent sight Mo Yun had never seen before.

Moreover, the scorching temperature of the magma made his heart tremble from the depths of his being.

More importantly, how was he supposed to cross the magma?

Mo Yun did not have Xiao Yan's Purple Cloud Wings...

Swimming across the lava lake was even more absurd!

The only way was to rely on something else...

Standing at the edge of the magma, feeling the rolling heat waves crashing against him, Mo Yun stared fixedly at the constantly churning lava. Flecks of dim light reflected in his emerald eyes. Through the obstruction of the magma, he could always sense a faint, hidden aura. It was also very powerful, but nowhere near as powerful as it had been that night.

"Looks like... I'll have to find a way to lure it out..."