Breath of the Abyss

Luo Feng crouched beside the Abyss Scale Flood Dragon's massive corpse, staring at the dark red palm print for a long while before slowly rising to his feet. His voice was low. "Blood Fiend Palm. The wound is only a day or two old. It was inflicted after we entered the abyss." Xiao Yan nodded as well.

"How did they get in?" Luo Feng's brows knotted together. "The entrance to the Luo River Abyss can only be opened with the Luo Shen Token in the clan leader's possession. Even when it's open, it only recognizes the bloodline of the Luo God Clan. Outsiders who try to force their way in will be shredded into mincemeat by the Spirit Array at the entrance."

"It only recognizes bloodlines?" Xiao Yan asked.

"Yes."

Xiao Yan fell silent for a moment. "What is the Blood God Clan best at?"

Luo Feng was taken aback. Then the color drained from his face, inch by inch. Blood sacrifice! The Blood God Clan followed the path of blood, and its blood sacrifice arts were renowned throughout the Western Heaven Continent. If they had the blood of Luo God clansmen and used a blood sacrifice art to shroud themselves, they could have mingled with the crowd and forced their way in the instant the entrance opened...

"Luo Ping," Xiao Yan said mildly. "Three years." Luo Ping had spent three years as a Blood God Clan spy in the Luo Shen Residence. No one could say how much Luo God clansmen's blood he could have obtained in that time. Luo Feng slowly clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking.

"They didn't kill this flood dragon for the spiritual fruit." Xiao Yan looked at the palm print. "The force of the palm strike wasn't great. It wounded but didn't kill. They deliberately woke it and deliberately left it alive so it would guard this place and wait for us."

Luo Feng said nothing, but the veins stood out one by one on the hand gripping his sword hilt. If Xiao Yan hadn't been there tonight, if he hadn't jumped into the icy pool, this enraged Sovereign-level spiritual beast could have killed or wounded more than half of the twenty-odd young Luo God clansmen in the Cold Abyss. The Blood God Clan wouldn't have needed to lift a finger themselves.

"Don't spread word of this yet," Xiao Yan said. "Once panic takes hold, people will be harder to deal with than that flood dragon."

Luo Feng drew a deep breath and nodded. A moment later, he looked at Xiao Yan again, his gaze complicated. "You knew all along?"

"I caught a faint scent of blood at the Jade Abyss last night," Xiao Yan said frankly. "I wasn't sure, so I didn't say anything."

Luo Feng stared at him for a long while. At last, he gave a bitter laugh and shook his head. "Granduncle was right," he said quietly. "Before we entered the abyss, he came to see me. He said that once we were in the Luo River Abyss, if I ran into anything I couldn't make up my mind about, I should ask that Xiao fellow."

Xiao Yan was taken aback, then laughed. "Heh, senior has saddled me with a thankless job."

That night, Xiao Yan did two things. The first was to have Luo Lan eat the Ice Soul Spiritual Fruit.

At first, Luo Lan flatly refused, stubbornly insisting that Big Brother Xiao had risked his life to obtain the fruit and that he couldn't accept it. Xiao Yan didn't waste words on him. He pried his mouth open, stuffed the fruit inside, then slapped a palm against his back. "Circulate your Spiritual Energy. Follow my flame."

The Ice Soul Spiritual Fruit melted as soon as it reached his stomach. A current of incomparably pure Ice Spiritual Energy surged through Luo Lan's meridians like a flood bursting through a dam. His face turned deathly pale in an instant, and his teeth chattered, but just as the Ice Spiritual Energy was about to burst through his meridians, a wisp of gentle, pale golden flame entered through his back. Unhurriedly, it led the way before the surging torrent.

Left, down, around the dantian, then up again... Like the most patient of guides, the wisp of flame led the raging Ice Spiritual Energy through one complete cycle of Luo Lan's meridians, then a second, a third... Luo Zhi crouched nearby, cupping her face in both hands as she watched nervously, not daring even to blink.

An hour later, a low hum suddenly sounded within Luo Lan's body. A faint ripple of Spiritual Energy spread from him, and within it, a faint, illusory soul shadow flickered into view and vanished.

The Divine Soul Realm!

Luo Lan slowly opened his eyes and stared blankly down at his hands. A moment later, he sprang to his feet, his voice rising to a squeak. "I... I've reached the Divine Soul Realm! Big Brother Xiao! I've reached the Divine Soul Realm!"

"Mm." Xiao Yan withdrew his hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Sit down and stabilize your realm. Stop yelling."

"Oh, right!" Luo Lan hurriedly sat back down, but he couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. He stole a glance at Luo Zhi, who smiled at him with pursed lips. His face instantly turned crimson, and he hurriedly closed his eyes, putting on a show of stabilizing his realm. The tips of his ears, however, were so red they looked ready to drip blood. Xiao Yan watched and shook his head with a smile.

The second thing was to find Luo Feng and ask about the seventh layer.

In a corner of the ice cavern, Luo Feng sat on a block of mysterious ice, gazing at the pitch-black surface of the pool. After hearing why Xiao Yan had come, he fell silent for a moment before slowly speaking. "Not many in the clan know about the Mystic Yin Abyss, and the records say little. They only say that in the deepest part of the Luo River Abyss, there's a Heavenly Flame called the Mysterious Yin Ice Flame. Its fire is cold, so cold it can freeze even a soul. Three thousand years ago, one of our ancestors was hailed as a genius the Luo God Clan saw only once in a thousand years. He became a Sovereign at twenty and an Earthly Sovereign at forty. He refused to believe the danger and went down to the seventh layer alone."

"What happened then?"

"Later, the clan found a jade slip he'd left at the entrance to the sixth layer. There was only one sentence in it." Luo Feng paused, then spoke word by word. "'The fire is waiting for someone.'" Xiao Yan's brow twitched slightly.

"After that, no one ever saw him again," Luo Feng said. "Some say he was frozen into an ice sculpture and still stands in the deepest part of the Mystic Yin Abyss, guarding that flame. Three thousand years, and he's been guarding it all that time."

A chill wind swept through the ice cavern, drawing a low wail from the mysterious ice on its walls. Xiao Yan said nothing. He simply gazed at the pitch-black surface of the pool, his eyes calm-so calm that Luo Feng felt his heart tighten for no apparent reason.

"You're still going," Luo Feng said. It wasn't a question.

"I'm going." Xiao Yan nodded.

"Clan rules forbid anyone from going below the fourth layer."

"Those rules were made for the Luo God Clan's descendants." Xiao Yan grinned. "My surname isn't Luo."

Luo Feng opened his mouth, but couldn't find a single word to refute him. After a long moment, he sighed and took a jade talisman from his robes. Unlike the ones distributed to the others, this one shimmered all over with a faint silver light. "This is my life-bound jade talisman. It's linked to my mind. Crush it, and I'll know, wherever I am."

Xiao Yan took the jade talisman and looked at Luo Feng. A moment later, he solemnly put it away. "Don't leave the Cold Abyss for the next few days. The Blood God Clan is still lurking in the shadows. Their target is most likely me, but it could also be you."

"I understand." Luo Feng nodded. "You... be careful."

"Don't worry." Xiao Yan got to his feet and brushed the ice chips from his clothes. "I'm hard to kill."

Xiao Yan left the camp before dawn. He disturbed no one, merely stopping beside Luo Lan for a while before he left. The boy had just stabilized his realm and was sleeping soundly with his arms folded, muttering in his dreams. Leaning closer, Xiao Yan could just make out words like "I've reached the Divine Soul Realm" and "Zhi..." Xiao Yan smiled, then turned and walked toward the pool.

A figure stood by the pool, leaning against the ice wall with a long spear in his arms. It was Luo Xiao. Their eyes met in the dim, cold light. Luo Xiao's lips moved, and he turned his head away. After quite a while, he finally spoke in a muffled voice. "That flood dragon... did the Blood God Clan deliberately wake it?"

Xiao Yan's steps faltered slightly. "You heard."

"I..." Luo Xiao tightened his grip on his spear and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "I didn't collude with outsiders."

"I know," Xiao Yan said.

Luo Xiao whipped his head around and stared at him in surprise. Xiao Yan merely said, "You're just stupid."

Luo Xiao's face instantly flushed purple. He opened his mouth, but couldn't force out a single word for a long time. Xiao Yan paid him no further attention, merely leaving him with a sentence as he walked past. "Watch over them while I'm gone these next few days."

Luo Xiao stood rooted to the spot, watching his retreating figure walk toward the pool. Without realizing it, he loosened his grip on his spear a little. Xiao Yan didn't look back. He leaped into the air and plunged into the pitch-black icy pool.

At the bottom of the pool, where the Abyss Scale Flood Dragon had made its lair, lay a long, narrow fissure. The chill pouring from it was several times more piercing than the water of the icy pool. It was the entrance to the fourth layer. Without pausing, Xiao Yan wrapped himself in a layer of pale golden flame and plunged into the fissure, heading straight down. The fourth layer, the fifth, the sixth... The farther down he went, the heavier the chill became. Everything around him gradually turned a deathly, silent ice blue. The pale golden flame was compressed until it grew thinner and dimmer. Eventually, every time Xiao Yan descended another ten feet, he had to grit his teeth and frantically pour the Spiritual Energy within him into the flame.

His eyes, however, grew brighter and brighter, because the faint ripple coming from the deepest depths was growing clearer as well. It rose and fell, slow and cold, like a heart sleeping at the very bottom of the abyss, beating quietly. Deep within Xiao Yan's heart meridian, the slumbering wisp of pink flame rose and fell with it, as though responding to something.

At the end of the sixth layer was a flight of ice steps leading down into a dark blue expanse with no bottom in sight. Xiao Yan stood at the top and looked down into the blue. On the first step lay a jade pendant, long since frozen crystal clear. An ancient-looking character, "Luo," was carved into it.

Xiao Yan didn't pick it up. He merely breathed out a soft puff of white vapor toward the dark blue depths, then stepped down.

The seventh layer, the Mystic Yin Abyss.