On the surface, outside Stone Desert City.
Xiao Yan burst out of a sand dune like a bolt of lightning, the barrier of bone spirit cold flame around him slowly dissipating.
"At last... I got it!"
He looked down at the azure lotus quietly blooming inside his Storage Ring, his eyes brimming with excitement and wild joy.
The green lotus core flame!
Nineteenth on the Heavenly Flame Ranking!
For this heavenly flame, he had endured a thousand hardships. From the Magical Beast Mountain Range to the Jia Ma imperial capital, from the Tagor Desert to the Magma Lake...
Now, at last, his wish had come true!
"Teacher, where should we go to..."
Before Xiao Yan could finish, suddenly-
"BOOM!!!"
An earth-shaking blast erupted from the very center of the desert!
Xiao Yan snapped his head up, his pupils contracting sharply-
At the center of the desert, a pillar of violet-red light shot into the sky, piercing straight through the clouds!
Within that pillar, the faint silhouette of an enormous flaming bird could be seen, raising its head in a long cry!
Stranger still, amid the flames' raging destructive energy, faint threads of hidden vitality could actually be sensed!
"That direction... isn't that where Big Brother said the Snake-People Tribe's Divine Temple was?!"
High in the skies above the Tagor Desert.
Several streaks of light sliced across the heavens, racing like meteors over the boundless sea of sand.
They were Gu He, Yun Yun, and their companions.
Behind the two, the Dou Wang experts Yan Shi and Feng Li followed closely, with five Dou Ling experts from the empire farther back.
"Elder Gu He, this desert stretches without end. Where exactly could the heavenly flame be?"
Yun Yun's plain dress fluttered, her dark hair pinned up with the Phoenix Hairpin,