After Yuan Qing left, Xiao Yan fixed his gaze on the shattered mountain.
His eyes burned with excitement, and hot blood surged through his chest. After making sure no one else was around, he flew toward a massive fissure in the mountainside.
Xiao Yan slipped inside and found a spacious cave, wide enough for dozens of people to stand side by side.
As soon as he entered, an invisible wave of heat rushed at his face. Xiao Yan paid it no mind. With delight on his face, he waved his hand, conjuring a curtain of flame around himself.
The surging heat slammed into the curtain with a bang, sending ripples spreading like waves across water before dissipating into the void.
Xiao Yan frowned. He had not expected the heat waves inside to possess the same ability as the restriction outside to rebound attacks, much less to strike back of their own accord.
Fortunately, the attacks were not very powerful. At least for now, they were not enough to break through Xiao Yan's Dou Qi barrier.
Xiao Yan proceeded through the cave, but he discovered that the farther he went, the more fiercely the heat waves howling out of its depths struck. They battered the Dou Qi shield he had set up, making it tremble incessantly.
Yet Xiao Yan paid none of it any heed and simply pressed onward.
But his tightly knitted brows showed that, deep down, he was not nearly as calm as he appeared.
Xiao Yan was filled with shock. Whenever a wave of fiery heat struck his flame curtain and the invisible air burst apart, he noticed a wisp of flame, so faint that even he could scarcely detect it, merging into the curtain he had set up.
At first, Xiao Yan had thought it was a trace of Heavenly Flame Origin, a truly great stroke of fortune. He had welcomed every wisp and taken them all into his own Heavenly Flame.
But after collecting a small tuft, Xiao Yan was shocked to discover that the Heavenly Flame Origin was not a stroke of fortune he had stumbled upon by chance.
The spirit of the Heavenly Flame had done it deliberately, intending to seize the Heavenly Flame inside Xiao Yan!
Xiao Yan tried to shut it out, but to his even greater surprise, he found that he could not expel the Heavenly Flame from his body at all. Instead, the Bone Spirit Cold Flame inside him was being steadily devoured.
In mere moments, more than half of it had been consumed. By now, turning back was impossible too, because the cave passage behind Xiao Yan was filled with raging flames.
To return, he would have to force his way through those layers upon layers of flame. But even with his strength, Xiao Yan had no confidence whatsoever that he could get out. Now, he could only keep going forward.
Xiao Yan's expression was grave. At last, he reached the end of the fiery heat waves, but he found no useful information there, not even a trace of the Heavenly Flame.
Xiao Yan stood at the end of the passage, facing an endless, bottomless abyss.
The abyss gave Xiao Yan the feeling that a single glance at it filled his vision with death. It was clearly a flight-restricted area; even Xiao Yan could not possibly remain suspended above that void for a single moment.
Only the stone platforms suspended in the void, winding upward one after another, offered any sense of finding life in a hopeless situation.
Xiao Yan looked all the way to the top. At the highest point of the stone platforms was a landing, where a faint flicker of fire could just barely be seen.
The firelight was dim, yet it illuminated the entire cavern. Around the stone platforms stood six pillars of ice, connected to one another and giving off raging flames.
The flames prevented Xiao Yan from seeing what lay within, but he was certain that the six ice pillars were no ordinary objects.
Flame restrictions were engraved into the stone platforms, each roughly a zhang wide. Waves of scorching heat poured from them, making Xiao Yan's scalp tingle.
But when Xiao Yan saw the figure on the stone wall opposite him, his gaze froze for a moment.
It was an enormous stone sculpture, silvery white throughout and gleaming with a soft, precious light.
The sculpture depicted an old man whose face was no different from any other old man's, yet he stood there with lofty pride. Though his eyes were carved from stone, they still gave an intangible impression of looking down upon all beneath heaven.
His robes bore no decorative colors either. His stone-carved hands formed a peculiar seal, suffused with an unfathomably profound quality that made Xiao Yan frown slightly.
Only one part of the entire sculpture was colored.
It was his hair: a head of ice-blue hair, bright silver-white and beautiful, like ice crystals and jade. Though fashioned from rock, every silvery strand was visible.
Xiao Yan stood rooted to the spot, eyes wide as he stared at the sculpture in disbelief. Only after a long while did he utter four words in shock:
"Tou She Ancient God!"
At the same time, in an ice-blue hall, an old man dressed in long white robes, with a head of ice-blue hair, abruptly opened his tightly shut eyes.
The old man's appearance was identical to that of the stone sculpture.
He narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked toward the hall's domed ceiling, in the very direction where Xiao Yan was.
There was a trace of joy in his eyes, as well as a faint reluctance to part. The corners of his mouth curved into a smile of relief.
Then the old man's bold voice rang through the hall.
"Hehe, it's been more than ten years. Have you finally come? Haha, you old fellows, let's see which of you can match this old man this time! Haha!"
The old man looked a few more times in Xiao Yan's direction before closing his cloudy eyes again. He focused on cultivating, quietly awaiting Xiao Yan's arrival.
The hall fell silent the instant the old man quieted down. Only the sound of his measured breathing echoed through every corner.
Xiao Yan stared with knitted brows at the enormous sculpture opposite him, particularly at the sculpted old man's face and his full head of ice-blue, silvery hair.
Surprise appeared on Xiao Yan's delicate features. He had not expected Tou She Ancient God to have been here as well. Perhaps this was a place where he had left an inheritance.
"Come to think of it, I'm half a disciple of Tou She Ancient God myself. Hehe, Tou She Ancient God, this junior won't stand on ceremony with your inheritance."
The thought that this might be a place holding Tou She Ancient God's inheritance made Xiao Yan excited. He rubbed his palms together incessantly, looking thoroughly improper, like a professional thief.
But in the next instant, Xiao Yan grew serious again. Since it was an inheritance left by Tou She Ancient God, whatever lay within could be no ordinary thing.
No wonder he had sensed an extremely terrifying presence of Heavenly Flame earlier. It seemed the inheritance here would not be easy to claim.
Xiao Yan glanced at the endless abyss, then at the stone platforms suspended one after another in the air.
After a moment's hesitation, he headed for the first platform.
Only when he drew close could Xiao Yan see the platform clearly.
Thin black iron chains were connected to the platform in all four directions-east, south, west, and north-and hung down into depths of the abyss beyond Xiao Yan's sight.
A length of pitch-black chain also connected each pair of stone platforms, continuing all the way to the landing at the top, where flickers of firelight shone.
Every chain was inscribed with mysterious, abstruse runes. From time to time, the runes emitted faint glimmers of energy, lending the entire space an air of mystery.
Xiao Yan's expression grew somewhat grave, and he murmured to himself:
I didn't expect there to be such a massive formation here. It looks like getting through this trial will be rather difficult. The first trial is already this hard; who knows how difficult the later ones will be? Tsk, tsk, Tou She Ancient God, you're plainly making things hard for people.
Xiao Yan shook his head and sighed as he thought.
He walked to the edge of the endless abyss, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly despite himself. His heart stirred as well.
Xiao Yan steadied himself a little and fixed his eyes on the first stone platform.
He bent his legs slightly, leaned forward, and stamped hard on the ground. His whole body shot toward the suspended stone platform, only three or four zhang away.
The perfect arc Xiao Yan had imagined did not materialize. Instead, his body began to fall when he was only halfway there.
Even as shock gripped him, Xiao Yan brought his falling foot down hard again, stamping on the pitch-black iron chain.
His descending body finally shot upward once more, and he landed precariously on the edge of the stone platform.
The instant Xiao Yan landed, his body involuntarily sank.
Xiao Yan did not pay it much mind, however. Feeling lucky, he looked back.
But when he did, he saw that the iron chain, originally pitch-black, was now giving off a faint glow.
At the same time, the chains extending in several directions from the platform he stood on were also glowing at the points where they touched it.
The light gradually spread into the distance at a speed visible to the naked eye. Before long, every chain filling the cavern would surely be shining brightly.
Xiao Yan's expression instantly turned grave. Once all the chains were glowing, it would mean that the mysterious formation in the cavern was about to activate. Things would truly become troublesome then.
Xiao Yan turned his head, frowning as he thought it over, then tried to get up.
But his expression changed slightly. In the next moment, however, a smile curved at the corner of his mouth.
His body jolted, and he rose to his feet. Ignoring the powerful pull from beneath his soles and the immense pressure on his body, he headed straight for the platform opposite, as though the pressure on this one meant nothing at all.
After all, Xiao Yan was a powerful cultivator who trained both his Dou Qi and his body. How could mere pressure like this suppress such formidable physical strength?
With the experience of his first attempt, Xiao Yan gradually grew accustomed to the conditions on the platforms. Although the pressure increased with each one, it was still not enough to stop him.
But Xiao Yan also discovered that whenever he stepped onto a platform, the chains around it would be activated and begin to glow, the light spreading farther into the distance. It made him a little anxious.
After jumping forward again and again, Xiao Yan was finally only one step away from the last stone platform. Once he took that step, he would be only one more away from the landing.
A relieved smile appeared on Xiao Yan's sweat-covered face, but when he looked at the surrounding chains, which had originally been pitch-black, his expression turned ugly again.
Xiao Yan trudged forward, step by heavy step.
It was clear that even Xiao Yan was beginning to find himself unequal to the task.
"Bang!"
Xiao Yan crouched on one knee, panting heavily. Beads of sweat rolled down his face and fell to the ground, like chrysanthemums blossoming one after another.
His expression grave, Xiao Yan stared with tightly knitted brows at the landing only nine zhang away, his teeth grinding audibly.
Xiao Yan raised his head and looked at the landing so close at hand, then at the great formation around him, which was about to take shape.
Steeling himself, he pushed hard against the ground with both hands, forcing his half-kneeling body upright. He looked resolutely at the landing opposite.
Because the landing was higher, Xiao Yan could not see exactly what was on it, but presumably, once he reached it, he would not be far from the Heavenly Flame.
At the thought, Xiao Yan's gaze grew even more resolute, and his eyes filled with hope as he looked toward the landing.
Xiao Yan walked step by step toward the far edge of the stone platform beneath his feet, while the light on the surrounding chains continued to spread.
Only now did Xiao Yan discover that the ends of those chains were all connected to the six ice pillars.
And now, the six ice pillars were emitting waves of crystalline light, answering the glow of the chains.
Xiao Yan's expression changed again. He quickened his pace and reached the edge of the stone platform.
Looking at the landing, which stood somewhat higher than the stone platform, he took a deep breath and leaned forward again. He spread his legs in a bowed stance, bent them slightly, and an instant later shot violently toward the landing.
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