Shi Feiyang went straight to the underground palace where Blood God Son Deng Yin was cultivating in seclusion and stopped before its twin golden doors, embossed with eerie designs.
He said nothing. There was no need to announce himself; Deng Yin had already sensed his arrival.
The doors parted to either side. Deng Yin, Chishi Divine Monarch, and Nine-Li Divine Lord were all inside, and the three came to welcome him together. "Brother, what brings you here at this hour?"
Shi Feiyang entered the underground palace. At its center stood a three-tiered ritual platform cast entirely from metals such as gold, silver, copper, and iron, covered in embossed designs and inlaid with gemstones of all manner of strange colors.
Clearly, the three had been practicing their arts just now. They had abruptly stopped and temporarily sealed their furnace to meet him.
He sat in a large chair of ancient wood and briefly recounted what had just happened, including how Hundred Flowers Fairy Ni Fangxian had entrusted him with sending Holy Maiden Jiayin westward into her next life, and his battle with Red Lotus Old Demon.
When they heard that Red Lotus Old Demon had torn in half the grotto-heaven world on which his survival depended, all three were deeply shaken.
Creating one's own grotto-heaven world was no easy feat. Besides sufficiently powerful spells, it required vast resources and years of painstaking effort.
"Now that old demon is hiding in the remaining half of his grotto-heaven. He's severed its passage to this world, and there's no telling when he'll reconnect the two and open its gates again," Shi Feiyang said with considerable regret.
The Red Lotus Grotto-Heaven was not a cave or a palace, nor was it located anywhere in this world. It was another world, existing independently beyond this one.