Sun Moon Camp Breaks the Lock, Xiao Tao's Evil Fire Teases Yuhao

After the second level of the altar went dark, the outskirts of Star Dou became unnaturally quiet.

Huo Yuhao did not immediately pursue the third level. It was not that he did not want to, but that he could not.

The entrance to the third level had already been locked by an external Sun Moon sampler. He had seen it clearly in that instant: if he continued probing downward, Wang Dong'er's light reaction, the fluctuations of his Spirit Eyes, and even the Auspicious Beast Golden Mark on Wang Qiu'er in the distance would all be collected bit by bit by the soul tools outside.

That would not be exploration. It would be delivering themselves to the enemy's experiment table.

He Caitou pulled out a short length of silver-blue Conduit Filament from between the stones and cursed under his breath. "They hid it well. The Conduit Filament was buried beneath the altar's old patterns. It would have been impossible to spot without triggering the third level."

Huo Yuhao pressed that length of Conduit Filament into a soul-tool fragment and used his Spirit Eyes to trace it backward. Icy-blue patterns drifted across the map before finally stopping three li southwest of the altar.

That spot happened to correspond to an inconspicuous ink dot in Orange's third letter. So Orange's code had not merely been telling him to change routes temporarily. She had also been telling him that if he wanted to continue exploring the altar, he first had to investigate the Sun Moon Camp.

Huo Yuhao unfolded the map again, his voice quiet. "I need to find the code Orange marked, and I need to find Sun Moon's soul-tool sampler. Orange got the letter into my hands, which means she already knew something in the camp was locking down the third-level altar."

Wang Dong'er lowered her eyes. She hated how useful Orange was.

"She helps you, but she schemes against you too."

Huo Yuhao nodded. "Mm."

"And you still trust her?"

Huo Yuhao fell silent for a moment.

"So far, every clue she gave me has been correct." Huo Yuhao paused for two seconds. "But I'll stay on guard against her. Complete trust is impossible. After all, she's from the Sun Moon Empire."

Wang Dong'er accepted that answer.

The Sun Moon Camp was hidden behind a stretch of low cliffs. Its outer camouflage was superb. The soul-tool aura had been suppressed beneath damp moss and the scent of Star Dou trees. Ordinary soul masters would have assumed it was an abandoned hunting site even if they stood right before it, but Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eyes saw the lines beneath the ground.

—Three layers of conduit patterns, two layers of auspicious-beast aura simulation troughs, and a faint orange glimmer hidden in the center of the camp.

Ma Xiaotao laughed softly. "Your lovely senior really knows how to leave things behind."

Ye Guyi looked at Huo Yuhao. "How do you want to get in?"

Huo Yuhao said, "Make them think they've already captured what they wanted and collected the feedback they needed."

As he spoke, he placed the soul-tool fragment they had seized earlier in his palm. He compressed the icy-blue patterns until they were as fine as a thread, like a trace of aura that should not have existed, and slowly seeped it into the camp's perimeter. The Sun Moon Sampling Array reacted at once. Thinking it had caught Huo Yuhao's spiritual fluctuations, it began automatically activating its three layers of conduit patterns.

Wang Dong'er frowned. "You're using yourself as bait again?"

Huo Yuhao glanced at Dong'er, his gaze softening. "Dong'er, this time I'm not baiting them. I'm just tricking it."

The next moment, his spiritual power suddenly split in two. One strand simulated the fluctuations of his Spirit Eyes, while the other simulated Wang Dong'er's light soul power. The two false samples entered the sampling array at the same time, and the soul tool at the center of the camp lit up with a roar.

Huo Yuhao's eyes turned cold. "Found it."

Ma Xiaotao raised her hand. Evil Fire unfurled like a slender red whip and precisely wrapped around the outer alert core. "Attack?"

"Don't hit people yet. Burn the signal first."

Ma Xiaotao smiled brilliantly. "Fine."

Three breaths later, the signal tower on the camp's outer layer was burned through by Evil Fire. Ye Guyi brought down a Holy Light Slash, cutting open the bloody inner patterns the Holy Spirit Cult had hidden within the camp. Wang Dong'er's wings of light sealed off the sky above, and Ma Xiaotao's phoenix fire smashed open the first soul-tool door. Huo Yuhao stepped into the center of the camp.

There were no Sun Moon soul engineers inside, only a sampler still in operation. Beneath it was a sheet of orange paper. Huo Yuhao picked it up. In Orange's handwriting, it read: "I knew you would come."

When Wang Dong'er saw those four words, it felt as though something lightly pierced her chest. Huo Yuhao did not explain. He turned the paper over. There was another line on the back.

"Be careful of the third-level altar. It doesn't merely want to simulate the aura of the Emperor Auspicious Beast. It wants to see whether the three of you, when approaching together, can open something deeper—or perhaps the Divine Seal."

Huo Yuhao's expression changed sharply, and Wang Dong'er saw it as well.

The enemy's true target was not Qiu'er alone, but the reaction produced when Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong'er, and that distant auspicious-beast pull were drawn close together. This meant that what they had thought was the tangled web of feelings and fate between the three of them had long been treated as experimental material by Sun Moon and the Holy Spirit Cult.

Huo Yuhao put away the paper and pressed the soul-tool fragment against the sampler.

"What they want to see is the true entrance the old altar reveals when the three of us are forced close together."

The sampler rumbled. Huo Yuhao did not destroy it. Instead, he dismantled its sealed layer in reverse and imprinted every sample number and transport route inside onto the soul-tool fragment. The next moment, the coordinates of the third-level altar surfaced at the center of the fragment.

There was also a Sun Moon military codename.

Orange.

Huo Yuhao stared at that word for a long time before speaking. "So Orange has been in the game all along."

"And she personally opened the door for me."

Deep within Star Dou, the third toll of a bell rang out. This time, it was not only the distant Auspicious Beast Golden Mark that trembled.

Wang Dong'er heard it too. On the soul-tool fragment in Huo Yuhao's palm, that incomplete first stroke flashed once. After the external sampling lock of the Sun Moon Camp was dismantled in reverse, the true entrance to the third-level altar finally appeared.

But the entrance did not open. It was sealed by another Sun Moon soul-tool array. The array gate stood three zhang high, half embedded in the mountainside. Its outer layer was silver-white soul-tool alloy, but its inner layer bore the blood-red brand of the Holy Spirit Cult.

Ye Guyi took one look and said coldly, "Holy light can cut through the blood brand, but it can't cut through soul-tool alloy."

Wang Dong'er raised her wings of light. "I'll cut it from above."

Huo Yuhao shook his head. "No. The array gate absorbs light soul power. The harder you cut, the faster it activates."

Wang Dong'er withdrew her wings. She did not force the issue. She merely stared at the gate, her gaze colder than before. Ma Xiaotao stepped forward. Her red robes fluttered in the mountain wind as the dark-red glow of the Evil Fire Phoenix gradually brightened.

"Let me."

Ye Guyi frowned. "The Evil Fire could be absorbed back into it."

But Ma Xiaotao did not listen. She stepped forward, and Evil Phoenix Flame spread from her palm—not in uncontrolled violence, but compressed by her into a sharp line. Huo Yuhao's eyes shifted slightly. This time, Ma Xiaotao had not lost control. She truly could control her own fire now.

The alloy outer layer of the array gate glowed red under the Evil Fire. The blood brand inside tried to counterattack, but Ye Guyi cut it apart with a Holy Light Slash. Fire and holy light briefly advanced side by side.

Ma Xiaotao glanced at Ye Guyi. "Not bad teamwork."

Ma Xiaotao raised her hand, and the Evil Fire abruptly condensed into a flame edge shaped like a phoenix's beak. Huo Yuhao immediately added Spiritual Sharing.

"Xiao Tao, three inches from the upper left. That's the thermal dead zone."

Ma Xiaotao arched a brow.

"The array gate."

Huo Yuhao forcibly steadied the Spiritual Sharing. Ma Xiaotao smiled, and the flame edge pierced precisely three inches from the upper left.

Boom!

The array gate was burned through from within. A scorching wave of fire rolled outward, and Huo Yuhao immediately used Ultimate Ice to suppress the leaking evil aura. But hidden within the flames was a backlash spike that shot straight toward Ma Xiaotao's shoulder. Huo Yuhao flashed forward, caught her wrist, and pulled her behind him. He used Ultimate Ice to block the backlash for her.

Ma Xiaotao crashed into his arms. It lasted only an instant before Huo Yuhao immediately released her. Yet Ma Xiaotao did not step away at once. She looked up at him, her gaze as bright as the fire that had just burned through the array gate.

"Junior brother."

Huo Yuhao's throat tightened. "Mm?"

"This time, I didn't need you to save me."

She lowered her voice, smiling.

"You were the one who came to me."

Huo Yuhao's ears heated. Behind him, Wang Dong'er's wings of light trembled faintly. Her gaze swept over Ma Xiaotao before returning to Huo Yuhao.

Only then did Ma Xiaotao slowly step back half a pace. "Tch, I thought you two weren't together anymore. But now I can't even tease him a little?"

Wang Dong'er said coolly, "It'll affect his ability to break the array."

Ma Xiaotao smiled. She stepped half a pace closer to Huo Yuhao. Her fingertips did not touch him; they merely stopped in front of his chest.

"Did it affect him?"

Huo Yuhao did not answer. Ma Xiaotao's gaze drifted lightly downward before returning to his face. She withdrew her hand and turned toward the array gate that had been burned through. She did not demand an answer from him. She simply left behind heat, left behind the stirring in his heart that he could not deny, then coolly raised her hand as if nothing had happened and burned the remaining half of the array gate to ash.

Ye Guyi watched her, a slight crease between her brows. "You can clearly restrain the Evil Fire. Why do you still provoke him?"

Ma Xiaotao did not turn around. "Because he's deliberately holding himself back~"

She smiled. "Hold it in too long, and people start having problems."

Ye Guyi said coldly, "Desire isn't an excuse."

"Of course not," Ma Xiaotao said. "But desire isn't a wrongdoing either."

That left Ye Guyi silent.

Huo Yuhao stood before the array gate, the soul-tool fragment in his palm glowing. Beyond the gate was a stone corridor leading to the third-level altar. At the end of the corridor came a faint sound like the cry of an infant. It did not sound like a living creature, but rather like a strand of consciousness sealed within ancient stone layers, breathing in its sleep.

Huo Yuhao's gaze darkened.

The people of the Sun Moon Empire could not understand that aura. They had treated it as Divine Seal power that could be sampled, simulated, and used. Yet Huo Yuhao vaguely sensed that it was no ordinary Divine Seal, but a trace of divine essence that had fallen from an incomparably lofty place.

Wang Dong'er's face turned pale. "Yuhao... I think I've heard this sound before."

Huo Yuhao tightened his grip on the soul-tool fragment.

"Let's go."