"He should be fine."
Huo Tian answered Xuan Zi unhurriedly. In Huo Tian's eyes, Yan Shaozhe cherished his own life and would never casually provoke a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast.
"This Flame Island is strange. Teacher found it so easily, but when it was our turn to look for Flame Island, the difficulty..."
Huo Tian sighed speechlessly, propping his chin on one hand with his elbow braced against his thigh.
Huo Tian could not understand whom he had offended to deserve this. He had truly tasted every hardship along the way.
But Xuan Zi had suffered the most.
"Don't think too much. Go to sleep."
Xuan Zi fell asleep without a care in the world. Wine spilled from his flask onto the ground, and his snores thundered in their ears.
Huo Tian took out two earplugs and tucked them into Huo Yutong's ears, then began releasing his Soul Power to cultivate.
As though summoned, the surrounding fire-element plants burst with fire-element Soul Power, which began pouring into Huo Tian's body.
Huo Tian began examining his body's condition. The ultimate fire and ultimate darkness within him had fused together, forming an embryonic Soul Core.
Huo Tian could feel these two forces surging into each other at every moment, already far exceeding the power of ultimate fire and ultimate darkness as individual elements.
As Huo Tian's cultivation drew ever closer to Titled Douluo, the Nether Radiant Vermilion Bird bloodline within him began gradually awakening. Once it erupted at full strength, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Huo Tian had always thought the evil fire within him was caused by his Martial Soul, unaware that his bloodline was the culprit.
The Demonic Vermilion Bird and the Li Fire Vermilion Bird possessed energy attributes of extreme yin and extreme yang that should never have been able to coexist in one body, yet across all the heavens and myriad worlds, an anomaly like Huo Tian had appeared.
Evil fire burned all over Huo Tian. His eyes were scarlet, and he panted like an ox as he pressed his palms together, desperately suppressing the evil fire within him.
"Damn, I didn't even do anything, did I? Why is the evil fire in my body going out of control again?"
Blood trickled from the corner of Huo Tian's mouth. He kept harmonizing the two clashing energies within him, trying to stabilize them.
Huo Yutong was in his arms right now. Huo Tian did not want his evil fire to kill her, and she slept soundly in his embrace.
Because Huo Tian protected Huo Yutong with his Soul Power, she had never felt the evil fire's encroachment.
The sudden evil fire woke the soundly sleeping Xuan Zi with its heat. Xuan Zi sprang up, staring at the great blaze beside him in disbelief.
"Xiaotian... you..."
Xuan Zi was at a loss for words. He immediately poured his immense Soul Power into Huo Tian, and his Godly Taotie Bull Martial Soul emerged, the nine Soul Rings beneath his feet flashing continuously.
With Xuan Zi's help, the awakening of Huo Tian's bloodline slowed. Huo Tian's eyes were filled with evil fire, and he felt the blood within him boil.
As the early hours arrived, the Nether Radiant Vermilion Bird bloodline within Huo Tian was suppressed once again. Drenched in sweat, Huo Tian stared at the ground, panting for breath.
Having expended a massive amount of Soul Power, Xuan Zi collapsed onto the ground and fell asleep again. Exhausted, Huo Tian fell onto the grass, with Huo Yutong curled up in his arms.
As Huo Tian gradually drifted into dreams, a streak of golden light descended from the sky and slowly entered the space between his brows. Feeling an itch on his forehead, Huo Tian scratched it.
"Master... the sun's shining on your bottom!"
Huo Yutong sat astride Huo Tian, playfully pinching his cheeks. Her actions startled him awake, and he opened his bleary eyes.
Huo Yutong immediately got up. Huo Tian straightened his clothes and quickly stood, while snores still sounded beside him.
"Xuan Zi, wake up."
Huo Tian gently patted Xuan Zi's shoulder. Xuan Zi rolled over without waking, so Huo Tian released his evil fire to burn his beard.
"Ah, ah, ah, ah!"
Xuan Zi immediately cried out and sprang up, then plunged into the stream beside him. Huo Tian withdrew his evil fire as well.
"Let's go explore the island and look for Yan Shaozhe while we're at it."
Soul Power erupted around Xuan Zi, and he vanished from the spot in a streak of light. Huo Tian summoned his Martial Soul, picked up Huo Yutong, and soared into the sky.
Huo Tian followed close behind Xuan Zi as the three headed north. Only the northern and southern parts of the island remained unexplored.
Huo Tian and Xuan Zi released their Soul Power fluctuations. Combined, their fluctuations covered a vast area.
Huo Tian hoped Yan Shaozhe would detect them and send Soul Power fluctuations back. The three searched the northern part of the island for six hours, but no response from Yan Shaozhe came.
Then Huo Tian headed in the opposite direction, flying toward the southern part of the island. After another four hours of flight, the three finally arrived.
"Over there. I sense a trace of the Bright Phoenix's aura."
Xuan Zi stopped flying and hovered in midair, pointing toward the valley below. The three immediately darted inside.
Huo Tian landed first on a hillside, and Huo Yutong leaped down. Xuan Zi immediately quickened his pace and walked into the valley.
"Here!"
Huo Tian spotted several Bright Phoenix feathers embedded in a rocky slope in the distance. The three immediately approached it.
"Could something really have happened to that brat Yan Shaozhe?"
Worry written across his face, Xuan Zi crouched and picked up the Bright Phoenix feathers from the ground. He could clearly sense that the feathers had been here for at least two days.
Relying on his keen sense of smell, Huo Tian crouched down, ran his hand over the soil, then lifted some and sniffed it.
"This is blood. Perhaps things really do bode ill for him."
Huo Tian frowned, wondering whether Yan Shaozhe really had fallen. Otherwise, how could the blood and Bright Phoenix feathers here be explained?
Huo Yutong released her Martial Soul and began investigating their surroundings, then walked toward a patch of grass not far away.
Huo Yutong parted the grass. A bloodstained Shrek teacher's uniform hung among the bushes, and she covered her mouth with both hands.
"Master, Xuan Zi, over here!"
Huo Yutong called to the two behind her, and they immediately hurried over. Huo Tian promptly picked up the clothing from the bushes. He could sense an intense fire-attribute aura lingering on it.
"Yan Shaozhe... could that brat really have fallen?"
Xuan Zi's face had been calm, but for the first time, a look of despair appeared. His heart was filled with unease.
Huo Tian wondered whether Yan Shaozhe had provoked that three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-year-old fire-attribute flying Soul Beast.
The intense fire-attribute aura on the clothing exerted powerful pressure on Huo Tian. He had only ever felt such pressure from Mu En, but this was even stronger.
"Come on, let's check the central volcanic mountain range."
"If he's alive, we need to see him. If he's dead, we need to see his corpse."
Huo Tian put away the clothing, picked up Huo Yutong, and shot into the sky, heading toward the central volcanic mountain range.
Xuan Zi still stood frozen in place. He truly could not believe that Yan Shaozhe was actually dead.