When it came to dominance, what could rival the power of destruction!

Xu Jingyao took the fan from his waist and opened it to half cover his face. He walked a few steps forward and stopped at the forest's edge.

He crouched and reached out to probe the layer of fallen leaves on the ground. The humus beneath his fingertips was mixed with tiny mineral grains, dark in color, with a sheen born of years upon years of saturation.

He pinched up a grain and held it beneath his nose for a sniff, his brows lifting slightly.

"The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well." He stood and brushed the dirt from his hands, gazing at the fog deep in the forest, so dense it seemed almost solid. "It really is extraordinary."

Shadow Douluo walked to his side and swept his gaze over the fog. His expression barely changed, but his hand had already settled on the short blade at his waist.

"Pavilion Master, there's something wrong with that fog."

Xu Jingyao nodded and pointed his fan forward. "Go ahead and try it."

Without another word, Shadow Douluo stepped into the fog.

The moment his foot touched its edge, the gray-white fog churned like a living creature and instantly coiled around his ankle.

Shadow Douluo grunted, his expression changing sharply as he jerked backward. But the fog had already climbed his calf. Wherever it passed, the fabric corroded and blackened at a visible rate, and a dense rash rose on his skin, its edges tinged an unnatural bluish purple.

"Poison miasma." Shadow Douluo retreated to Xu Jingyao's side and glanced down at his leg. His voice remained steady, but a thin film of sweat had formed on his forehead. "Extremely corrosive, with nerve-numbing effects. Pavilion Master, I suggest we go around, or wait for the wind to change before entering."

Xu Jingyao said nothing. He simply stepped in front of him, raised his right hand with his palm facing down, and slowly released a pale purple halo.

The moment the halo appeared, the surrounding air changed. As though sensing something, the drifting fog abruptly retreated to either side, revealing a narrow passage.

The poisonous fog on either side of the passage churned and struggled, yet could never come within three paces of Xu Jingyao.

"No need to go around." Xu Jingyao withdrew his hand and glanced sideways at Shadow Douluo. "I'll lead. Follow me. This poison miasma is a dead end for others, but to me, it's nothing."

Of all the powers under heaven, when it came to dominance, what could rival the power of destruction!

He stepped forward, and the purple halo spread along the ground like a thin layer of frost, coating the fallen leaves and soil beneath his feet in a dark purple sheen.

When the poisonous fog touched that purple light, it melted away without a sound, like snow meeting boiling water.

Shadow Douluo followed behind him, walking inward over the ground purified by the purple light.

His leg still ached faintly, but it was far better than that piercing numbness from before.

One behind the other, the two passed through the dense barrier of poisonous fog. After walking inward for nearly half the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the fog finally began to thin, revealing a narrow entrance to a valley.

Towering rock walls rose on either side of the valley, covered in unfamiliar vines and moss. Tiny white flowers bloomed among the vines, their petals beaded with dew that gleamed softly in the morning light.

The cloying sweetness in the air had faded, replaced by a crisp chill carrying a mineral scent that welled up from the depths of the valley.

Xu Jingyao stopped at the valley entrance and glanced down at the soil at the foot of the rock wall.

The soil was far darker than outside, a blackish brown, its surface covered in a thin layer of frost flowers. Beneath the frost, dark red patterns of light faintly showed through, as though something were slowly pulsing deep underground.

He crouched and pressed his palm against the frost flowers.

The Life Divine Core trembled gently inside him, and a thread of emerald-green light seeped from his palm, following the patterns of frost into the earth.

The response underground was almost immediate. A warm power brimming with vitality surged up from the depths, flowing back along that green thread into Xu Jingyao's palm.

The instant that power entered his body, Xu Jingyao felt a gentle tremor deep in his Sea of Consciousness. The strand of origin power split off by the Golden Tree brightened slightly, and the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's spiritual form drew back from that direction, as though avoiding something.

A barely perceptible ripple rose from Electrolux's remnant soul within the green ocean, as though he had turned over in his sleep.

"Just as I thought." Xu Jingyao withdrew his hand and stood. The thread of green light in his palm had already dispersed, but a trace of warmth lingered in his fingertips.

He turned to glance at Shadow Douluo. "Those things inside are different from the plant Soul Beasts native to the Douluo Continent. They were nurtured by the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Spring. They count as... demigod-level spiritual beings."

Shadow Douluo froze for a moment. "Demigod-level?"

"Not true gods, but a little higher in rank than Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts." Xu Jingyao took a few steps forward. The valley gradually widened, and the rock walls on either side receded, revealing a mist-shrouded valley floor.

The mist was warm, carrying a faint smell of sulfur and a cool breath rising from deeper within. Heat and cold alternated, condensing into fine droplets in the air that clung to their clothing and quickly dried.

"They carry the aura of gods," Xu Jingyao said. "But their divinity is very faint. They've merely been steeped in the influence of the Dragon King Remnant Souls in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Spring for too long and picked up a trace of it."

Shadow Douluo asked no more.

He followed Xu Jingyao deeper into the valley. The stone path beneath their feet grew narrower and narrower, and the mist on either side thickened until they could barely see their own outstretched hands.

Yet Xu Jingyao's steps never faltered, as though something were guiding him.

After roughly another seven or eight minutes of walking, a gap suddenly opened in the middle of the mist. A shaft of daylight spilled through a crevice overhead, illuminating a clearing on the valley floor.

The clearing was small, only a few dozen zhang across, enclosed tightly by towering rock walls. The crevice overhead was so narrow that only a sliver of sky was visible.

In the center of the clearing, two pools of spring water faced each other in silence.

One was as clear blue as a frigid pool, its surface covered by a thin shell of ice. Deep blue currents were faintly visible beneath the ice, churning with tiny ice crystals and radiating a bone-piercing chill.

The rock walls and ground around the Cold Spring were coated in white frost, and even the air was so cold that icy mist had condensed.

The other was as scarlet as lava, its surface roiling with fine bubbles. As the bubbles burst, wisps of dark red heat rose from them. Heat waves distorted the air above and baked the surrounding rock walls red.

The rock walls and ground around the Hot Spring were parched, cracked, and scorched black, and even the air carried a searing heat.

Between the two pools lay a stone ridge less than three zhang wide.

The ridge's surface was mottled, half covered in frost and half scorched black. The dividing line in the middle was indistinct. The hot and cold air currents met here, condensing into a mass of gray-white mist that slowly revolved in midair like a silent eye.

The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Xu Jingyao stood at the edge of the clearing, looking at the two pools. He drew the fan from his waist and tapped it gently against his palm.