Setting Out in Search of the Nine Nether Wind Flame

Preparations for the Xiao Clan's relocation would take a long time. Naturally, Xiao Yan could not keep waiting at home. His training journey had to continue.

Next, they planned to search the great desert for the green lotus core flame... like hell they did.

Hun Tiandi had no interest in taking Xiao Yan to search for those low-ranking heavenly flames. They would have little effect on the Flame Mantra, which had already reached high-grade Earth Tier. Even another two heavenly flames ranked outside the top ten on the Heavenly Flame Ranking would hardly advance it to Heaven Rank Low Grade.

To evolve the Flame Mantra again, they needed, at the absolute minimum, the nine nether wind flame, ranked tenth on the Heavenly Flame Ranking.

The nine nether wind flame was born in the Endless Abyss, a place of extreme yin where chilling winds blew all year round. This heavenly flame formed where the cutting gales were fiercest. It could emit a strange howling wind, and anyone who heard it would feel an uncanny irritation that stirred their emotions.

At present, the Yao Clan possessed the only publicly known nine nether wind flame on the Dou Qi Continent. Its owner was the clan's prodigy, Yao Xingji.

Hun Tiandi had no intention of seizing it by force. In fact, most heavenly flames on the Dou Qi Continent were not unique, especially those born from extraordinary natural phenomena. Over the continent's long history, more than one of each had often come into being.

Thus, this time, Xiao Yan and Hun Tiandi would embark on a journey to find the nine nether wind flame.

"Where is the Endless Abyss?" Standing on the Spatial Ship's deck, Xiao Yan asked Xiao Yi Xian beside him.

This enormous Spatial Ship was thirty-three zhang long and thirteen zhang tall. Its exterior resembled a towering decked ship, with lavish, elegant decorations, while its interior was even more extravagant. A small world ten kilometers across had been carved out inside it, capable of storing vast quantities of supplies. It even housed numerous servants who tended medicinal fields.

"I've only heard of it myself." Xiao Yi Xian leaned against the railing, gently waving a small round fan in her hand.

"The legendary Endless Abyss isn't actually on the Dou Qi Continent. It's somewhere in the void, and reaching it is extremely difficult. Without coordinates, even a Dou Zun expert can easily lose their way out there unless they have a powerful treasure at hand. Normally, only a Dou Sheng Expert can roam the void."

"The void?" Xiao Yan could not help recalling the ruins left by Hun Tiandi and Gu Yuan's battle on the mountain behind the Xiao Clan estate. Spatial rifts had split the entire area into shattered fragments, and beyond those rifts lay the void.

He had often heard Yao Lao speak of the void's dangers before. Even with Yao Lao's strength, he had never dared venture deep into it, only skirting the edges of the plane that was the Dou Qi Continent. Otherwise, a single encounter with spatial turbulence could easily have destroyed both his life and his cultivation.

The Spatial Ship slowly rose into the air, and an enormous spatial passage appeared before them. Its pitch-black entrance resembled the gaping, blood-red maw of a monster in the void, poised to devour its chosen prey.

Xiao Yan leaned out over the deck and looked down at the ground. The figures below, already reduced to tiny black dots, were Xiao Zhan, the Great Elder, the Second Elder, the Third Elder, and Xiao Ning and his father.

Only Xiao Xun'er was absent.

Xiao Xun'er had indeed left, taking the Xiao Clan's Tou She Ancient God Jade with her. It would have been impossible for Xiao Yan to feel nothing about it, but more than anything, he remained silent.

After all, the next time they met, they might well face each other with blades drawn.

Regardless of whether Xiao Zhan and the others could see him, he waved down at them, bidding his father farewell.

The entire Xiao Clan's relocation to the Soul Realm might have been a good thing for Xiao Yan. At this moment, he and Hun Tiandi were bound together completely, with no possibility of betrayal. Only as long as the Hun Clan remained safe could the Xiao Clan prosper alongside it.

Lowering his hand, Xiao Yan settled back into his place on the deck. As the Spatial Ship slowly entered the spatial passage, the mysterious, terrifying void finally revealed its true face before him.

Blackness. Emptiness.

Despite what he already knew, Xiao Yan was still shaken by the sight before him. There was no matter in the void, and thus no light. Everything around them was pitch-black. Had their Spatial Ship not possessed its own lighting, that alone would have been enough to drive someone mad.

Xiao Yan turned to look behind him, toward the Dou Qi Continent, but saw nothing at all.

"Keh keh keh, stop looking, Little Yanzi. We have a long journey ahead. Why not come learn the Hall of Souls' secret arts from me?" Yao Lao's voice came from beside Xiao Yan, yet no matter how he listened, it sounded strangely sinister.

Xiao Yan turned and saw Yao Lao's soul body clad in a black robe embroidered with the Hall of Souls' distinctive emblem. He looked every inch the archvillain.

"Master, so you really did join the Hall of Souls..." Xiao Yan pressed a hand to his forehead, smiling wryly and at a loss for words.

"Keh keh keh, I am now a guest Heavenly Venerable of the Hall of Souls. Little Yanzi, from now on, we master and disciple can swagger across the Dou Qi Continent without a care." Yao Lao looked as though Hun Miesheng had thoroughly assimilated him. The Hall of Souls' signature laugh rolled straight off his tongue.

"But Master, wasn't it the Hall of Souls that plotted against you and killed you? Doesn't joining them feel strange?" Xiao Yan did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"Little Yanzi, today, your master will teach you an important lesson in life." Yao Chen's expression suddenly turned solemn.

Xiao Yan immediately put aside his joking manner and fell silent, eagerly awaiting his master's instruction.

"A wise man knows which way the wind blows."

"Keh keh keh."

"Keh keh keh."

Time aboard the Spatial Ship dragged on, but fortunately, they were not without things to do. Hun Tiandi specifically cleared a space in the small world to serve as a teaching ground, where he taught Xiao Yan some of the Hun Clan's secret techniques.

"This Soul Lock is the Hall of Souls' most fundamental secret technique. Practically everyone knows it. It consists mainly of three kinds of runes, so to learn this secret art, you must first understand what runes are." Hun Tiandi conjured a pitch-black chain. Had Yao Chen been present, the sight would surely have dredged up all manner of unbearable memories.

As the Hall of Souls' most iconic Dou Technique, and also its most basic, it required Xiao Yan to begin learning from the very foundations.

"Our Hun Clan developed runes through the slow study of formations over countless years. You could say that each rune is the simplest possible structure for a formation's function. The more complex a rune, the greater its power. These runes can be used not only to construct formations, but also in artifact refining. That is why an outstanding artifact refiner is often an outstanding formation master as well..."

As Hun Tiandi explained at an unhurried pace, an entirely new cultivation system slowly unfolded before Xiao Yan's eyes.

The four great realms of runes, the conjectured eight ultimate runes-this was a cultivation system unique to the Hun Clan, yet still incomplete.