Si Chen and his companions chatted and laughed along the way. Their cultivation realms were all high, and they felt no fatigue despite traveling for a long time without rest.
Only when the terrain below grew unusual did they slow down.
The scenery around them gradually grew desolate. The once lush mountain forests gave way to vast stretches of exposed, dark red rock, lending the landscape a barren air.
"Huh? What's that up ahead?" Black Mountain suddenly asked in puzzlement, pointing into the distance.
At the end of the horizon lay a body of water that stretched beyond sight, its color so deep it was almost black.
Red Wind narrowed his eyes and studied it for a moment before saying, "This should be the legendary Demon-Subduing Sea."
"Legend has it that in ancient times, a mighty cultivator fought a decisive battle here against an Otherworldly Demon. Their battle shattered the heavens and split the earth... leaving this enormous crater."
"...Over countless years, water accumulated into a lake. Because its waters were pitch-black, it was called the 'Demon-Subduing Sea.'"
"Of course, there's no knowing whether that's true," Red Wind explained.
There was a hint of helplessness in his voice.
What could he do? This group had an idiot, someone with no sense of direction, and a bird that did nothing but sleep all day. As the brains of the team, how could he not take on a little extra worry?
Si Chen stood suspended in the air, his blue robes stirring gently in the breeze.
He sensed the ancient aura lingering in the air, then surveyed this uninhabited, forbidding land and nodded in satisfaction.
"Here will do. It's well suited for Tribulation Transcendence."
He needed somewhere spacious enough that no innocents would be caught up in it.
This so-called Demon-Subduing Sea