I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

"It's alright?" Yan Lingji suddenly stood up, flames leaping from her fists. "Qin Yuan, you're telling me it's alright? You said the same thing outside the Goddess Palace back then, and what happened? You almost died on that protective array!"

The moment those words were spoken, the atmosphere around them froze.

The Temple of the Goddess. Those three words were memories that no one present wanted to revisit.

Qin Yuan remained silent. He looked at Yan Lingji, her white hair billowing in the misty sea wind, obscuring half her face. After a long while, he finally spoke, his tone as calm as it had been for millennia: "So it won't happen this time."

Yan Lingji was stunned for a moment.

"Before, it was because you weren't around that I had to fight alone." Qin Yuan stood up, walked up to her, and patted her on the head. "Now that you're all here, I'd have to be crazy to fight alone."

Yan Lingji's flames went out with a "poof".

She stared wide-eyed at Qin Yuan, speechless for a long time. Not far away, Hongyue chuckled, and even the usually aloof Bingji's lips curved slightly.

"You..." Yan Lingji's face flushed red instantly, "Who taught you to say such things?"

Qin Yuan didn't answer, turning and walking towards the edge of the foggy sea. Su Yao chuckled softly behind him, then lowered her head to continue tidying the tea set—she always carried a tea set with her when she went to war; it was a habit.

"The demonic energy in the sea of ​​mist follows a pattern." Qin Yuan crouched down, pressed his palm against the ground, closed his eyes, and sensed it for a moment. "It's not spreading randomly; it flows according to some kind of formation. Someone is controlling it."

"People from the Heavenly Mystery Sect." A cold light flashed on Mu Hongyi's sword. "Xuan Qing."

Qin Yuan nodded: "Back then at the Divine Sect's headquarters, we only severely injured him, but didn't have time to kill him. It seems he's found a new backer."

"A backer even bigger than the Heavenly Secrets Cult Leader?" Red Moon stood up, spear in hand.

"We'll know once we find it." Qin Yuan stood up, and the bone blade flew into his hand automatically. "Yan Lingji, Mu Hongyi, come with me. The rest of you stay at the camp and guard the entrance to the Mist Sea. If anything comes out, kill it without mercy."

"Why the two of them?" Yueyao asked softly, holding the flowers.

"Because they have the strongest tempers," Qin Yuan said, "and they need to vent."

Yan Lingji's flames reignited, but this time they were flames of excitement. Mu Hongyi didn't speak, but simply drew her longsword; the chill on its blade was colder than the ice beneath Bingji's feet.

Three hundred miles west of the Sea of ​​Fog lies an abandoned mine.

This place was once a spirit stone mine of an ancient sect, mined for countless millennia. The mountain's interior was riddled with holes, resembling the carcass of a giant beast whose internal organs had been ripped out. Now, the air here is filled with a rotten, sweet smell, like the aroma of flesh and blood burning together with spices.

Deep within the mine, a black altar is in operation.

The altar was covered in twisted runes, identical to those on the former headquarters of the Heavenly Mystery Cult, but even more ancient and sinister. Dozens of black-robed cultists knelt around the altar, chanting incomprehensible incantations. In the center of the altar, a dense mass of black energy surged, each surge generating an invisible wave that traveled along the mine tunnels into the flowing demonic energy of the misty sea.

Xuanqing stood at the highest point of the altar, looking down at everything.

He had aged considerably since then. His hair was completely white, the wrinkles on his face were so deep they looked as if they had been carved by a knife, his eyes were sunken, his cheekbones were high, and he looked like a skeleton draped in human skin. But in his eyes, those deeply sunken eyes, burned a strange fervor.

"Soon..." Xuan Qing murmured to himself, his withered fingers tightly gripping a black crystal. "Soon... The will of the ancient gods is about to descend, and all realms will submit to—"

Before he could finish speaking, a scream came from the direction of the mine entrance.

Xuan Qing turned around abruptly and saw a flame roaring from the depths of the mine tunnel. The cultists along the way were engulfed by the flame before they could even react, and their screams were reduced to ashes.

"Yan Ling Ji." Xuan Qing's eyes narrowed.

The flames stopped ten feet in front of the altar, and Yan Lingji emerged from them, surrounded by the scorching heat of heavenly fire. With each step she took, the rocks beneath her feet melted into lava.

"Old man, you're still alive?" Yan Lingji sneered. "It's a real pity that Qin Yuan's strike didn't kill you back then."

"Heavenly Fire Holy Body..." Xuan Qing stared at Yan Ling Ji, his withered lips twitching into an ugly smile. "Very good, saves this old man the trouble of going looking for it myself. You should feel honored to offer your Holy Body as a sacrifice to the ancient god."

As soon as he finished speaking, the black energy on the altar suddenly surged, transforming into a black tentacle tens of feet long, which lashed down fiercely at Yan Lingji.

Yan Lingji did not dodge.

A sword light flew out from behind her, precisely slicing the tentacle in two. Before the severed tentacle even hit the ground, it was shredded into pieces by the boundless sword intent attached to the sword light.

Mu Hongyi stepped forward, sword in hand, and stood beside Yan Lingji. The sword's edge pointed diagonally at the ground, her cold and beautiful face devoid of any expression: "You talk too much nonsense."

Xuan Qing's expression finally changed. He recognized the sword light—it was this very sword that had severed his arm outside the Goddess Palace years ago.

"Two people..." Xuan Qing took a step back, his withered hand pressing against the altar, "Then let them both stay!"

He bit his tongue and spat a mouthful of blood onto the altar. The moment the blood landed on the black crystal, the entire altar began to tremble violently. All the runes engraved on the altar lit up, and black energy surged from each rune, gathering in the air to form a huge vortex.

From within the vortex, a giant, bluish-black hand emerged.

The hand had five fingers, each ten zhang long, with barbed claws at the tips, and bits of flesh from some unknown creature clung to the claws. Then came the second hand, and then the third—

A three-armed, demonic giant crawled out of the vortex. It was over a hundred feet tall and covered in thick scales, each scale bearing a distorted human face. The eyes of those faces were still moving, and their lips opened and closed, emitting silent wails.

"This is a gift from the ancient gods!" Xuan Qing roared with laughter. "You ants, tremble before the power of the ancient gods!"

The demonic giant let out a deafening roar and slammed down with all three hands at the same time.

Yan Lingji and Mu Hongyi dodged at the same time. The spot where they had just stood was smashed into a crater dozens of feet deep, with flying rocks and billowing dust.

"This beast's aura... peak Creation Realm." Yan Lingji landed at the top of the mine tunnel, hanging upside down as she looked at the giant. "Not easy to deal with."

"Just hold them off." Mu Hongyi's voice came from the other side.

Yan Lingji grinned, her smile brimming with fighting spirit: "Hold it back? I'm going to burn it!"

Flames shot skyward, the primal power of the Heavenly Fire Sacred Body was pushed to its limit, and Yan Lingji transformed into a meteor-like pillar of fire, crashing into the head of the demonized giant. The giant raised a hand to try and block her, but the temperature of the Heavenly Fire far exceeded its expectations. The hand began to melt the moment it touched the flames, and the human face on the scales let out a shrill scream.