Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

Heavenly Fire Alliance.

He wanted to unite the remaining cultivators of the Heavenly Fire Dynasty, bring them together again, and perhaps in the future, rebuild the Heavenly Fire Dynasty.

When the news reached the Zixuan Dynasty and the Nanli Dynasty, no one said anything publicly, but in private, they each had their own little schemes.

The True Man Chongguang of the Zixuan Dynasty remained silent for a long time before finally saying, "I understand."

The commotion on the Nanli Dynasty's side was even greater. It was said that the Core Formation experts of the Nanli Dynasty personally visited several Core Formation cultivators from Xuanchen Valley and talked all night long.

No one wants to see the Heavenly Fire Dynasty rise from the ashes. A Heavenly Fire Dynasty without a Core Formation cultivator is a piece of fat meat that anyone can take a bite of. A Heavenly Fire Dynasty with a Core Formation cultivator in charge is a rival. Once a three-way balance of power is formed, it will be difficult to swallow it up again.

But no one was in a hurry to act. Because there were more important things to do in the Heavenly Fire Realm.

In the past year or so, at least ten Core Formation cultivators have come to the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm.

Some made a public appearance to check the situation and then left, while others quietly ventured into the core area of ​​the volcano, the place beneath hundreds of craters.

Then it never came out. Silently, as if swallowed by something; no one knew what happened inside, and no one dared to ask.

But this eerie calm was shattered by Zhu Yan's sudden Core Formation. Perhaps it was because someone else who had already formed a Core had attacked Zhu Yan, or perhaps it was because some kind of tacit understanding had been broken.

Those Core Formation cultivators who had been watching coldly from the sidelines no longer cared about what was happening in the core area. Although the Heavenly Fire Dynasty was destroyed, most of its cultivation resources remained.

Fire-attribute spiritual objects accumulated over thousands of years were brought to the surface from underground along with the volcanic eruption.

There are at least a dozen or so third-tier spiritual objects. It's even rumored that some of them have already taken human form and become third-tier demonic beasts.

Core Formation cultivators began to enter in large numbers. Deep within the secret realm, the third-tier Fiery Sun Bird appeared, its entire body engulfed in flames, its wings spreading to blot out the sky.

Three Core Formation cultivators joined forces and chased it for three days and three nights before finally killing it at the crater in the eastern part of the secret realm. The bird's dying cry pierced through hundreds of miles, and all the cultivators on Dingfeng Plain heard it.

Zhu Yan also tried hunting a third-tier demon beast once. He led the remaining few Foundation Establishment peak members of the Heavenly Fire Alliance, hoping to take advantage of the chaos to get a share of the spoils. However, he suffered a great defeat, with several Foundation Establishment peak members seriously injured, and he himself was also injured.

After returning, he locked himself in his tent and didn't come out all night.

In the end, Zhu Yan came to a conclusion: among Core Formation cultivators, he was just an ordinary Core Formation cultivator. No matter how legendary he was or how far his reputation spread, he was just an ordinary low-grade Core Formation cultivator.

The reason he was able to escape from a Core Formation cultivator during his Foundation Establishment stage wasn't because he was particularly strong, but because truly powerful individuals didn't take him seriously at all. The Core Formation cultivator he killed was just an ordinary person—and he even managed to destroy that person's most prized defensive magic weapon through a scheme.

He won, but not because he was strong; it was because his opponent was too weak and he seized the opportunity to succeed in one fell swoop.

The dozen or so Core Formation cultivators who made their move in the secret realm were only of medium to low level among Core Formation cultivators, but even so, he couldn't defeat any one of them.

As for the beings in the core area of ​​the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm—they are definitely at the peak of the Core Formation stage.

Standing at the Dingfengyuan camp, Zhu Yan gazed at the thick, impenetrable fire fog deep within the distant secret realm and suddenly understood why those Core Formation cultivators hadn't made much of a move before.

It's not that they don't want to, it's that they dare not. There are also differences in strength among Core Formation cultivators; the gap between an ordinary Core Formation cultivator and a peak Core Formation cultivator is too great.

These Core Formation cultivators are waiting, waiting for the peak Core Formation cultivators in the core area to make a statement.

Zhu Yan's Core Formation seemed to have disrupted some kind of balance, causing the Core Formation cultivators outside to stop waiting, or rather, the being deep within allowed the Core Formation cultivators outside to come in and harvest those third-tier spiritual items.

He was merely a supporting character in this grand drama.

Over the next few months, the depths of the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm were turned upside down, and the entire area, spanning thousands of miles, was littered with the battlefield traces left by Core Formation cultivators going all out.

The fire mist was torn apart, the earth was blasted into deep craters, the mountains were flattened, and a spiritual storm swept out from the depths of the secret realm, with even the ground on Dingfeng Plains trembling slightly.

Although the Core Formation Realm cultivators are powerful and have astonishing destructive power, they cannot change the nature of the secret realm. The scattered fire mist will regroup in a few days, and the blasted lava will flow again in a few days.

This land has been transformed into a world of flames, and there is no going back. The former Heavenly Fire Dynasty is gone forever, leaving only the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm.

Perhaps only those Nascent Soul True Monarchs who can summon wind and rain and move mountains and seas can restore the environment here.

but……

-----

One day, Zhu Yan was searching for spiritual items in the ruins of the central part of the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm when he suddenly felt a strange sense of disorientation, as if something was calling out to him from the depths of his heart, or as if he had fallen into a lucid dream.

The surrounding fire and mist became hazy and indistinct, and the scorched earth beneath his feet also became illusory. He uncontrollably followed that sensation and flew away. When his vision cleared again, he was no longer in the same place.

He stood up, looked back, and froze on the spot.

He knew this place; it was the most core and forbidden area of ​​the Heavenly Fire Secret Realm—a subterranean world beneath hundreds of volcanoes and a bottomless abyss, a place where those who had entered the Core Formation stage had never returned alive.

His back was instantly soaked with cold sweat. How did he get here? He had no memory of it at all. One moment he was searching for treasure in the ruins, and the next he was in a deadly situation. There was a blank in between.

He took a deep breath. There was no pungent sulfur smell, no burnt smell, no smell at all. The fire-attribute spiritual energy was so concentrated that it seemed to have returned to nothingness, making it eerily quiet.

He took a step forward, and a faint, crisp cracking sound came from the glass-like ground beneath his feet, like ice breaking.

The scene before him unfolded completely. He stood on a solitary rock, surrounded by an endless sea of ​​lava and fire. In the very center of the sea of ​​fire floated a small mountain, neither stone nor soil, but purely formed from flames and boundless spiritual energy.

On the mountain, a Dharma body sits serenely.

The moment Zhu Yan's gaze fell upon it, his mind exploded.

The deity was over a hundred feet tall, sitting cross-legged in meditation, his hands forming ancient hand seals, like a deity who had been sleeping since ancient times.

Its entire body was forged from crimson-gold spiritual energy, its face was blurred and its features were indistinct, and the space around its body was slightly distorted and rippled.

It was like breathing; with each exhale and inhale, the entire sea of ​​fire rose and fell, surging and billowing.

Endless fire-attribute spiritual power surged wildly from all directions, was swallowed up and absorbed into its body, circulated, and refined, eventually settling into its torso.

It is forging itself, using the entire underground sea of ​​fire as its furnace, hundreds of volcanoes as its fuel, and the spiritual energy accumulated over thousands of years as its raw material. The spiritual energy is transformed into a hammer, making it more and more solid and smaller, constantly approaching a higher realm.