The Plane Passage

Darkness.

Boundless darkness.

The instant Xiao Yan pulled Xun'er and Cai Lin into the pitch-black passage, the overwhelming chorus of farewells outside stopped abruptly, as though severed by a single slash. In its place came a deathly silence that made their skin crawl.

Within that silence, faint, low rumblings came from the depths of the darkness in every direction. They were not loud, but they seemed to reverberate directly within the depths of the soul, making their hearts tremble each time they sounded.

"So this is the plane passage..."

Xiao Yan frowned slightly. The power of his Emperor Realm Soul quietly flowed from between his brows and spread outward in invisible ripples. Yet this soul perception, which could cover tens of thousands of miles on the Dou Qi Continent, reached only about a thousand zhang here before vanishing like a stone dropped into the sea, swallowed whole by the impenetrably thick darkness.

Xiao Yan's heart tightened slightly.

On the Dou Qi Continent, he had stood at the true pinnacle. Across all the world, nothing could make him feel threatened anymore. Yet now, in this passage connecting two planes, he once again felt small, a feeling he had not experienced in a long time.

"Brother Xiao Yan?"

Noticing the hand beside her tighten slightly, Xun'er turned her head. A questioning look appeared on her lovely face, beautiful enough to make all things pale in comparison.

"It's nothing." Xiao Yan smiled at her, then swept his gaze around them and said softly, "It's just that this passage is even stranger than I imagined."

On his other side, Cai Lin's enchanting figure was wrapped in seven-colored light. Her phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at the darkness that seemed to flow around them. Parting her red lips, she said, "Didn't you notice when you drew Origin Qi out through this passage before?"

"Back then, I only borrowed a little Origin Qi from the other side of the passage. How could that compare to now, when I've plunged right inside?" Xiao Yan said with a shrug.

"Hey, Brother Xiao Yan, you'd better keep us headed in the right direction. If you accidentally take us to some godforsaken place where birds don't even shit, I'll settle the score with you."

A rough laugh came from behind them. Two streaks of light followed close behind the three of them: Zhu Kun and Gu Yuan. A faint layer of purple-black draconic Qi swirled around Zhu Kun's massive body. As he spoke, he rubbed his pair of fan-sized hands together out of habit, his eyes shining with eagerness. Clearly, he was looking forward to this journey.

"Brother Xiao Yan opened this passage himself, so naturally the direction can't be wrong." Beside him, Gu Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, his expression refined. He appeared much more composed, though a trace of gravity also lurked deep in his eyes.

As a peak expert who had once stood alongside Hun Tiandi on the Dou Qi Continent, Gu Yuan could also sense the danger hidden within this passage.

"Don't worry. The direction can't be wrong."

Xiao Yan nodded and raised his head, his gaze piercing through layers of darkness toward the distant end of the passage. There, he could faintly sense an incomparably vast fluctuation. It lay there quietly, like an ocean without a visible shore, yet even sensing it from such a great distance made the Dou Qi within him stir slightly of its own accord.

That was the source of Origin Qi.

It was also their destination.

"Let's go. Stay close to me."

Xiao Yan took a deep breath. Dou Qi suddenly surged around him, and a faint barrier of flame rose from his body, enveloping both him and the two women, Xun'er and Cai Lin. Then he moved, becoming a streak of fire that shot toward the end of the passage.

Zhu Kun and Gu Yuan exchanged a glance. Neither dared be careless; each summoned his Dou Qi and hurried after them.

The five streaks of light were like five meteors crossing the night sky in the boundless darkness, tiny yet especially dazzling.

There was no day or night in the plane passage, nor any sense of time passing.

Xiao Yan could only judge the time roughly by how much Dou Qi he had consumed. By his reckoning, they had already spent seven or eight days traveling through the passage.

As they continued deeper, their surroundings gradually began to change.

Wisps of gray-white mist began to appear in what had been pure darkness. The mist looked gentle, but Xiao Yan knew how terrifying it was. Two days earlier, Zhu Kun had let down his guard for a moment, and a wisp of gray mist had brushed his arm. His dragon scales, renowned for their hardness, had instantly melted away, leaving a wound deep enough to expose the bone. Had Gu Yuan not acted in time, he might have lost the arm altogether.

After that, Zhu Kun, who had previously been somewhat carefree, became thoroughly cautious and no longer dared relax in the slightest.

Besides the gray mist, strange torrents also roared past them from time to time. Those torrents were a riot of colors, seemingly filled with countless fragments of light and shadow: sometimes a burning expanse of land, sometimes an upside-down mountain peak, and sometimes a boundless sea of stars...

"Those should be residual images leaking out from other planes."

As a torrent roared past nearby, Gu Yuan's eyes flickered and he said slowly, "It seems this passage doesn't just connect the Dou Qi Continent to that world. There may be many, many planes floating in this void that we know nothing about."

Xiao Yan nodded slightly, moved by the thought. Back on the Dou Qi Continent, he had already faintly suspected as much, but only now that he had seen it with his own eyes did he realize that the continent they lived on was no more than an insignificant speck of dust in this vast void.

"Then the place we're going to... wouldn't it be..." Xun'er's beautiful eyes shifted slightly as she spoke softly.

"Mm." Xiao Yan looked ahead. The vast fluctuation had grown increasingly clear. It felt like an enormous furnace, and all the surrounding torrents and residual images of planes were converging in that direction of their own accord.

"That place... might be the center of all planes."

He did not speak loudly, but his words made the hearts of the other four skip a beat.

The center of all planes?

What a vast world that would be!

As thoughts churned in their minds, pink flames suddenly flickered on Xiao Yan's shoulder. A moment later, a little figure with an upright ponytail appeared: Xiao Yi.

But Xiao Yi showed none of her usual liveliness. Her little face was full of unease, and as soon as she appeared, she clutched Xiao Yan's collar tightly. Her tiny body was even trembling slightly.

Xiao Yan was startled, and then his brows slowly drew together.

Xiao Yi was a Fire Spirit born from the fusion of six kinds of Heavenly Flames, and she had also devoured many flame origins left behind by Tou She Ancient God. Ordinary things could not make her spare them a second glance, much less frighten her. Yet now she was showing such fear.

"What's wrong?" Xiao Yan reached out a finger and gently touched Xiao Yi's head as he asked in a low voice.

Xiao Yi said nothing. She simply raised her tiny finger and pointed toward the side and rear of the passage.

Xiao Yan followed her gesture, but there was nothing there apart from roiling darkness and gray mist.

Just as he was about to look away, however, the depths of his soul suddenly caught an exceedingly faint fluctuation.

It was an indescribable chill.

It was not the cold of ice, but a sinister chill that seemed to come from the most instinctive fears of living beings. It was filled with a nauseating evil and decay, as though an eye were silently watching them from the depths of the boundless darkness.

Xiao Yan's pupils contracted slightly.

"Can you... feel it?"

His voice was barely above a whisper.

Beside him, Gu Yuan's expression also grew grave. He nodded slowly, and a trace of wariness passed through his usually smiling eyes for the first time. "It's very faint. If you hadn't alerted me, I might not even have noticed it."

"What is that thing?" Zhu Kun bared his teeth, a fierce light flickering in his eyes as his hand clenched into a fist. "How about I drag it out for a look?"

"Don't act rashly."

Xiao Yan stopped him with one hand, his gaze fixed on the darkness. The Dou Qi within him had already begun circulating at its utmost. After a moment, he said slowly, "This isn't the Dou Qi Continent. We know nothing about this place. If we can avoid stirring up trouble, we should."

He paused, then added, "Besides, I have a feeling that thing... is waiting for us to make a mistake."

At his words, everyone's heart tightened.

A cold light flickered in Cai Lin's phoenix eyes. She said nothing, merely edging her slender figure a little closer to Xiao Yan.

Xun'er's fair hand, clasped in Xiao Yan's, also tightened involuntarily.

Under that eerie gaze, all five of them quickened their pace as if by unspoken agreement. After they had gone, the faint, chilling presence quietly vanished into the darkness, as though it had never appeared.

Yet a stone remained lodged in Xiao Yan's heart.

He had a faint premonition that their journey to that mysterious plane might not go as smoothly as they had imagined.

An unknown amount of time passed.

Just as Xiao Yan had consumed nearly thirty percent of his Dou Qi, the endless gray mist ahead finally began to thin, and a gentle light shone through from its depths.

Everyone's spirits lifted.

At that very moment, however, Xiao Yan suddenly halted.

He raised his head and looked through the thinning plane mist in a certain direction. There, within the mist, a glimmer of light was faintly visible, slowly passing through.

Within that light, three figures could be seen, flickering in and out of view.