Published: February 8, 2025
Night Demon Plain, Cursed Abyss!
This was once a place of hope for Ye Zhongming, alongside the Blessing Gate of the Temple of Dawn and the Sacred Pool of the Posthumous Child King City, as he left the Secret Realm.
He never expected to find himself wandering here.
Although he couldn’t figure out what had happened, Ye Zhongming knew that something magical must have occurred to him. It should be related to the Key of the Secret Realm, and perhaps also to the special profession of the Dark Abyss Envoy.
However, no matter what, Ye Zhongming realized that he had likely not been directly erased by the everlasting fall into the abyss from that profession.
But now, his situation seemed… a bit dire.
The rolling lava should be in an extremely high-temperature state, yet Ye Zhongming, whose spirit was drifting, felt nothing at all. At certain moments, he would even find himself closely observing the lava, clearly seeing the bubbles on its surface swelling up and then bursting with a pop.
He could see the lava rolling, just like ocean waves.
Then, what made Ye Zhongming's scalp tingle was the realization that he had actually entered the lava!
After a sudden rush of tension, he realized that he was merely a wandering soul; entering the lava didn’t seem to matter at all.
Relaxing, he discovered that the lava was actually quite beautiful.
Was that a form of life?
Ye Zhongming saw a nearly transparent little fish swimming in the lava, appearing to have no scales at all, boldly unafraid of the intense heat. This could be considered a miracle of life.
As if sensing something, the little fish that had been swimming in the distance turned their heads and came to the place where Ye Zhongming ‘was,’ looking around with confusion.
At that moment, Ye Zhongming realized that these little fish had purple magic crystals!
Seventh-level! So many seventh-level ones!
If Ye Zhongming’s body were still here, he would instinctively swallow his saliva.
There were already many seventh-level sea beasts in the sea beast tide; just during the attack on the Inner City, there had been more than ten, and during the roulette challenge, there were nearly fifty existing seventh-level ones.
With such numbers, it was enough to make human evolvers feel despair.
However, how many little fish were there in this not-so-large school? Probably more than a hundred!
One hundred seventh-level mutated life forms! Even though Ye Zhongming was only a soul here, he felt a mountain-like pressure.
Nothing was discovered; this group of seventh-level mutated life forms, or rather, magic creatures, drifted away.
Continuing to drift downwards, he went deeper into the lava, where the color of the lava grew increasingly vivid, right down to the bottom.
He thought reaching the bottom would be the end, but one discovery left him stunned for quite a while.
He saw that at the bottom of this sea of lava, there was actually a… furnace?
Ye Zhongming wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it looked very much like a furnace. Beneath it lay a black metal platform with a gigantic silver hammer on top.
Since he was a bit far away and his spiritual power hadn’t drifted close to the furnace, Ye Zhongming couldn’t see clearly; he just felt that it should be a type of forging platform.
But who built this forging platform beneath the sea of lava? Whether it was the furnace or the metal platform, or that metal hammer, they were all made of metal. What kind of metal could endure such high temperatures in lava for a long time?
That must be something valuable; that was the first thought that crossed Ye Zhongming's mind, followed by deep confusion.
But before he could ponder any further, his soul began to drift out, returning to the Cursed Abyss above, then continuing to float in another direction.
As Ye Zhongming's ‘spirit’ left, a magic creature hidden in the deepest cave of a mountain beside the Cursed Abyss slowly opened its eyes, glanced at the direction where Ye Zhongming had departed, and then closed its eyes again.
Beneath its gaze, a piece of silver crystal representing the ninth level shimmered brightly on its forehead.