The forest wind carried the dampness of recent rain. As it swept across Xiao Yan's cheek, he crouched beside the gnarled roots of a thousand-year-old tree, holding half a bloodstained scrap of clothing between his fingertips. It had fluttered down when a blade's energy from the Wolf Head Mercenary Group tore through Pu Ang's clothes amid the earlier chaos. Now Xiao Yan turned it over and over with feigned bewilderment, as though some earth-shattering secret lay hidden in the coarse hemp cloth.
In truth, his awareness had long since sunk into his body.
The instant Pu Ang died, a scorching current had abruptly slammed into Xiao Yan's chest. Had he not instinctively summoned his heavenly flame to protect himself, that savage energy might have ruptured his meridians. And as Pu Ang's corpse fell, a tattered roll of beast hide had tumbled from inside his clothes. The moment it touched the lingering warmth of the heavenly flame on Xiao Yan's fingertips, it had begun to hum faintly.
"This is..." Xiao Yan frowned slightly and took the palm-sized beast-hide Fragment Map from inside his clothes. Its edges had long since worn black, and intricate patterns covered its surface in dark red pigment. At first glance, they looked like random scribbles, but when his fingertip inadvertently brushed a twisted arc, the Fragment Map trembled faintly, pulsing like a living creature.
"Strange," he murmured, deliberately wearing his confusion on his face. He scratched his head and brought the Fragment Map closer for a careful look. Sunlight filtered through the leaves onto the beast hide, and those dark red patterns began to gleam with a faint golden light, as though flames flowed deep within them. What "astonished" him even more was that whenever the Fragment Map trembled, the Green Lotus Earth Core Flame inside him grew inexplicably restless, as though resonating across time and space with some distant presence.
That reaction was not an act. Xiao Yan's spiritual power had already wound itself silently around the Fragment Map like a fine spiderweb. As someone who had once refined many heavenly flames, he possessed an almost instinctive sensitivity to their auras. The faint, elusive heat permeating the Fragment Map was nowhere near as overbearing as the heavenly flame within him, yet it carried a far more ancient, far purer majesty, like the primordial essence of a flame that had existed since chaos first parted.
"Could it be some special fire-attribute scroll?" Xiao Yan pretended to arrive at a sudden realization and lightly patted the Fragment Map, trying to calm it. Yet that touch only made the golden light blaze brighter. Tiny sparks even scattered from the patterns onto the back of his hand. They caused no burning pain; instead, they slipped into his meridians like wisps of warm air and collided with the Green Lotus Earth Core Flame.
"Hiss—"
The heavenly flame within him surged violently. Xiao Yan let out a "cry of pain," flung the Fragment Map to the ground, and staggered backward with a hand pressed to his chest. All color drained from his face, as though he were enduring tremendous agony. He stumbled against the ancient tree's trunk and gasped for breath, yet from the corner of his eye, he remained firmly fixed on the Fragment Map lying on the ground.
While he appeared to be in this "sorry state," the patterns on the Fragment Map lit up completely. Like a burning golden web, they drew in all the surrounding light. The fire-attribute energy in the air abruptly thickened, and even the forest wind grew scorching. Several uneasy roars from magical beasts sounded in the distance—clearly, this aura had stirred an instinctive terror in them.
Deep within Xiao Yan's soul, his emperor realm soul was deciphering the information in the Fragment Map with something approaching greed. Those seemingly chaotic patterns were actually an extremely ancient form of flame runes. Every arc corresponded to a particular form of fire, and every bend concealed a path along which energy flowed. As these runes rearranged themselves within his soul, a hazy image gradually emerged:
It was a boundless ocean of magma. Overhead hung leaden clouds heated red, while the earth shuddered amid boiling flames. At the center of the magma sea, an enormous lotus bloomed silently. Flames of the purest gold burned along the edges of its petals. There was not a trace of savagery in those flames, yet they seemed capable of burning away everything in existence. Even space twisted faintly beneath their heat.
"Purifying lotus demon flame..." Xiao Yan's spiritual power trembled slightly. The name exploded through his sea of consciousness like a thunderclap. Though he had never seen it with his own eyes, the descriptions he had read in fragments of ancient texts matched the aura revealed by the Fragment Map perfectly. It was the ancient heavenly flame ranked third on the Heavenly Flame Ranking, said to have formed from the pure essence of flame between heaven and earth. It possessed the divine power to purify all things and could even burn souls to nothing—a supreme treasure countless alchemists dreamed of obtaining.
So Pu Ang, this Otherworlder, had relied not on any exceptional talent, but on this Fragment Map recording traces of the purifying lotus demon flame. Xiao Yan sneered inwardly, while his face grew ever more "frightened." Watching the Fragment Map on the ground gradually dim, he shifted his feet cautiously, as though terrified of touching something forbidden again. At his fingertips, however, he quietly gathered a faint thread of Dou Qi and lightly sealed off the space around the Fragment Map. He could not allow its disturbance to draw other powerful experts here.
The Fragment Map's radiance finally faded, leaving it an unremarkable roll of battered beast hide once more. But Xiao Yan knew it had already "remembered" his aura—or rather, the aura of the heavenly flame within him. Such resonance could not arise from nothing. Perhaps only someone who possessed a heavenly flame could truly awaken the secrets within the Fragment Map.
"What the hell is this thing..." Xiao Yan picked up the Fragment Map and dusted it off, pretending to remain shaken. He carefully tucked it inside his clothes, snug against his chest. Even through the fabric, he could still feel its faint pulsations answering the Green Lotus Earth Core Flame within him, as though the two were holding a conversation across countless ages.
He took a deep breath, suppressed the turmoil in his heart, and resumed his slightly wooden expression as he surveyed his surroundings. Once he confirmed there was no other movement, he bent down to retrieve the herb basket from the ground. Inside were several low-grade medicinal herbs he had just gathered—props to conceal his true purpose. He shouldered the basket and headed deeper into the forest.
Sunlight pierced the branches and leaves, casting a long shadow behind him. No one knew that this seemingly ordinary youth carried a secret capable of unleashing a storm of blood across the entire Dou Qi Continent. The Fragment Map's stirring made Xiao Yan all the more certain that Pu Ang's appearance had been no coincidence. This Otherworlder might merely have been the tip of the iceberg in some greater conspiracy, and the trail of the purifying lotus demon flame could well be the key to unraveling it all.
"It seems this trip to the Magical Beast Mountain Range has yielded far more than I expected." An almost imperceptible smile curved Xiao Yan's lips, while his steps grew increasingly steady. He could feel his spiritual power slowly deciphering the information within the Fragment Map. Though he could not yet piece together a complete map, the ancient aura of the purifying lotus demon flame had already left an indelible imprint on his senses.
The road ahead might still conceal deadly dangers, but an even fiercer flame now burned in Xiao Yan's heart. Whether it was the Mo Family's schemes, the Otherworlder's remaining accomplices, or that slumbering ancient heavenly flame, all would become stepping stones on his path to the summit.
The forest wind blew once more, carrying a barely perceptible lotus fragrance. It mingled with the aura of the heavenly flame on the youth's body and vanished into the depths of the dense forest.
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