After stepping into the spatial vortex, Xiao Yan arrived in a gray, misty space. Immediately, he felt a surging aura rush toward him. Its immense pressure left even him, whose strength had reached the Dou Zun level, feeling stifled. With a thought, the nine nether illusion heart flame swiftly erupted from his body, shutting out all the pressure around him.
Before him lay endless stretches of magic beast skeletons. Even the weakest among them had belonged to a Fifth-Rank Magic Beast, to say nothing of the others. What puzzled Xiao Yan, however, was that regardless of their rank, none of these remains contained their magic cores or blood essence. It was as though something had forcibly extracted them.
Xiao Yan flew several thousand meters farther, and an enormous, abyssal pool appeared before his eyes. Its waters were crimson, and he could faintly smell the pungent stench of blood. Through the bloody waters, he could just make out beast bones submerged within, making for a deeply eerie sight.
What most drew Xiao Yan's attention, however, were the four skeletons positioned at the four cardinal points around the Blood Pool. Unlike the other remains, these were dozens of times larger, with crystals of different colors embedded in their chests, presumably their magic cores or something similar. Countless thick drops of blood also trickled down from the skeletons, as though all the blood in the Blood Pool had gathered from them.
To the east lay the skeleton of an enormous, pitch-black dragon, while to the west sat a dark golden tiger skeleton. The one to the south appeared to belong to a bird, with a pair of jade-like skeletal wings on its back. Faint dark red light rippled across those wings.
The moment he saw that bird skeleton, the nine nether flame within