Next Stop

"Go there."

Ling Xiao sucked in a sharp breath—the magma there was a deeper color, nearly black-red. It was clearly the core region, where the temperature was even higher.

"Are you crazy? The guards said—"

"You stay here."

Gu Sheng cut him off.

"I have to go down."

Ling Xiao stared at Gu Sheng for a moment, then suddenly laughed.

"What are you talking about? Do I look like someone who'd back down at the last minute?"

Without waiting for Gu Sheng's response, he took the lead and dived downward.

Gu Sheng shook his head with a smile and followed close behind.

As they descended, the pressure rose sharply.

The magma changed from viscous to fluid like water, while the heat grew so intense that even their protective aura began to warp.

Ling Xiao's skin began to crack. The blood that seeped out evaporated at once, but he clenched his teeth and continued downward.

"We're here."

Gu Sheng suddenly stopped.

The two hovered amid black-red magma. The yang energy here was so dense it had nearly become tangible, forming countless tiny golden-red motes that drifted through the magma.

"This place..."

Ling Xiao's voice was hoarse.

"It's practically lethal."

Deep within the Golden Crow volcano, scarlet magma churned endlessly like boiling blood.

At its deepest point, it seemed to nurture a miniature sun that radiated suffocating supreme yang energy. It transformed into nine golden pillars of light that shot into the sky, dyeing the clouds within a hundred-mile radius a burnished gold.

"Hiss—"

Gu Sheng sat cross-legged on a rock platform at the bottom of the second barrier, gray-black yin fiend energy constantly steaming from around him.

The instant that yin energy came into contact with the Golden Crow yang energy permeating the air, it erupted with a piercing hiss like