Clang!

The Lihuo Divine Furnace blazed with firelight piercing the sky, ringing out in loud metallic tones — like a burning, translucent divine mountain, scorching to the extreme. The furnace body was struck again and again into ever-changing shapes.

The unknown creature’s strength was staggering, hammering the fire furnace into twisted deformations, sending out a thunderous din that could shake the heavens, causing countless protrusions to bulge out across its surface.

The Lihuo Divine Furnace — over a hundred meters tall, burning in raging waves — turned half the sky a blazing red. It rocked violently from the impacts, on the verge of being overturned at any moment.

The clanging would not cease. One moment the furnace body looked like a flattened persimmon, the next like a shattered teacup — bizarre shapes beyond description.

Such force made one’s blood run cold. Even a cultivator of the Third Secret Realm could not withstand it — this could truly be called heaven-shaking might.

The Lihuo Divine Furnace was like a lump of clay — kneaded and shaped however one pleased, reshaped into all manner of forms, yet stubbornly refusing to break.

“Daoren, what kind of furnace is this? It is nearly indestructible.” Yao Xi could not help but ask.

It was far too tough, this battered furnace — hammered completely out of shape, reduced to something unrecognizable, which seemed almost ridiculous — and yet it would not shatter. The whole thing felt incomprehensible.

Ye Fan gave an embarrassed laugh and said: “This humble Daoist picked it up while wandering the world.”

The Yaochi Saintess appeared thoughtful, gazing at the deformed Lihuo Divine Furnace. “It looks very much like a replica of the Solar Divine Furnace — though its power falls considerably short.”

“This battered furnace actually has some notable origin?” Li Desheng clicked his tongue.

“Its power is indeed far below that of a Solar Divine Furnace replica — but in sheer toughness, it surpasses that by a wide margin. It simply cannot be destroyed!” Old Blade Handle muttered to himself.

Yao Guang Sage Son stood atop the furnace lid like an immortal sovereign, ten thousand streams of sacred light blazing outward. With him at the center, an eternal radiance surrounded everything. He and the furnace together formed a complete suppression, trapping the unknown creature within — the creature let out desperate roars but could not break free.

“Everyone, join forces — let us refine this creature quickly. This place is not suitable for lingering.” Old Blade Handle advised.

Five people moved in concert to assist Yao Guang Sage Son. Stream after stream of divine power poured into the fire furnace, filling it with translucent, crystalline light.

Though the furnace continued to deform and was not particularly overwhelming in power, it was capable of absorbing all six people’s divine power without showing any signs of bursting.

“Rooaarrgh…”

The desperate shrieks grew ever weaker. The bronze furnace pulsed with light. The sun-disc on the furnace body — along with the faint imprints of several divine birds — began to blaze with extraordinary brilliance.

“Look — the patterns on the furnace have disappeared!” Li Desheng cried out in surprise.

On the Lihuo Divine Furnace, the sun-disc and the several divine birds blazed with swelling radiance — and then vanished entirely.

“This battered furnace really does have something extraordinary about it.” Old Blade Handle kept muttering. “The sun and divine bird imprints have gone inside the furnace — they’ve joined in the refining of the demon.”

Everyone could sense it: the temperature of the fire furnace surged sharply. Their divine power flowed in like rivers into the sea, continuously absorbed, as the furnace blazed with boundless radiance.

The unknown creature’s shrieks came in an unbroken stream, until at last it fell completely silent and weak — silent, with no further sound, and simultaneously the furnace grew still.

At this point the bronze furnace looked like a multi-lobed gourd — misshapen and bizarre. The furnace lid had deformed and fused shut over the opening; it took Ye Fan a long while to pry it open.

The furnace was inverted. A scatter of black ash poured out — the powerful unknown creature had been refined down to nothing but drifting cinders. Everyone clicked their tongues in silent astonishment.

“Is that thing going to need some major repairs now?” Li Desheng felt like laughing. The furnace looked too absurd.

Ye Fan gave a casual gesture, and the furnace shrank back to an inch in height and appeared in his palm — still lumpy and misshapen as a rotten persimmon, yet clear and translucent throughout.

“Daoren, might you be willing to part with this furnace? I am willing to offer a precious treasure in exchange.” Yao Guang Sage Son smiled warmly as he descended to the ground.

Ye Fan shook his head. Just for the fact that the furnace could not be destroyed — and always seemed to restore itself on its own — he could not trade it away. He needed time to understand it properly.

Old Blade Handle advised: “We should leave here quickly. Whatever creature was just refined was most likely nothing but a foot soldier — likely just a minor guard for some terrifying existence.”

“It’s very possible. The nearby area is probably not safe either.” The Yaochi Saintess nodded in agreement.

Any living entity within the Primordial Forbidden Zone was extraordinarily dangerous. The odds of surviving an encounter were virtually zero. That creature had been powerful, but still fell far short of what legend described.

Ye Fan felt a chill in his heart. Beneath this ground, there very likely lay sleeping beings of the Primordial royal clans — that creature had been merely a guardian.

“Move — now!”

Six figures flew onward, not daring to linger for even a moment.

Ordinarily, only a weaker guardian would be left to watch over those who slept. Once the more powerful ones awakened — or once the royal clan was disturbed — even the great Sage Masters of the various sacred grounds would likely meet a bitter end.

By now it was already deep into the night. The group had traveled barely a few li when they heard a deep, low roar from behind, accompanied by a powerful surge of killing energy.

Their hearts seized — just as expected, a stronger creature had awakened. What gave them a measure of reassurance was that the creature had not immediately given chase.

“Wait — what is that ahead?”

At the distant edge of the horizon, there was a hazy mass — a great dark shadow blocking the way ahead.

“Ruins — a vast expanse of ruins!”

Before them lay a sweeping field of ancient ruins, heavy with desolation and decay, collapsed walls and crumbled ramparts stretching across their path.

“Let’s go around.”

No one wanted any unexpected incidents. If something were disturbed and came rushing out, it would be yet another bottomless well of trouble.

The six chose the red wasteland to the right, intending to skirt around the ruins.

Suddenly, a wave of sinister and deathly killing energy swept in, making everyone’s spine run cold and the hair on their bodies stand on end.

“That thing has given chase!” Li Desheng went pale with terror.

The six looked back. There, about a li away, was a dark silhouette with disheveled hair. Its height was comparable to an ordinary person’s, but its ashen grey hair trailed all the way to the ground, concealing its true face.

Unsettling fur covered its entire body.

A pair of hollow, empty eyes devoured the moonlight. Thin wisps and strands of silver moonbeam filtered through the hanging grey hair that swept the ground and vanished into those hollow eye sockets.

“What in the world is… that?”

The sound of heavy, coarse breathing carried clearly across an entire li of distance — matching the deep, low roaring from a moment ago. It was one and the same creature.

“Move!”

This creature was many times more powerful than the one they had just faced. Everyone felt a bone-deep dread — not the slightest impulse to fight rose within them.

There was only one option now — flee. They absolutely could not win against it; charging forward would be suicide.

Savage killing energy surged forward like a tide — razor-sharp, like a blade. Every person’s skin broke out in gooseflesh.

The six fled at full speed, their feet never touching the ground, six shadow-like traces in the night beneath the moon.

The unknown creature let out a low, muffled roar and gave chase — yet, to everyone’s bewilderment, it had barely traveled several hundred zhang before it suddenly stopped.

“Why did it stop?” No one could understand.

“Wait — hold up!” Ye Fan’s heart sank as he raised his hand to halt the others.

He felt intensely uneasy. The path ahead appeared to be clear, yet something deeply wrong stirred in his gut.

Behind them, the terrifying creature with its ground-length grey hair — whose killing energy alone had been enough to make people tremble — fixed its gaze on them for a moment, then turned and disappeared into the darkness.

“It actually left. It didn’t give chase — why?” Li Desheng was utterly baffled.

Ye Fan’s expression was grave. Employing the terrain-reading method recorded in the Book of Celestial Sources, he swept his gaze across the area.

“Excavator Brother, what have you seen?” Li Desheng had come to deeply trust Ye Fan’s understanding of such matters.

“I also sense something is off.” Yao Xi furrowed her brow.

“Something is indeed strange — extreme Yin, extreme softness. Extremely dangerous.” Yao Guang Sage Son’s spiritual intuition was extraordinarily sharp; his instincts had already detected the threat.

“My friends — we are in serious trouble.” At that very moment, Ye Fan changed color. His heart lurched with dread. He had not in the slightest expected to encounter terrain like this.

“Haven’t we almost left the Primordial Forbidden Zone? Are we in danger again?” Li Desheng demanded.

“Yes — and danger of a particularly terrifying kind. This is an exceptionally rare formation of terrain.” Ye Fan pointed ahead and said: “Open your minds and look carefully — you will certainly sense the anomaly.”

“A blood moon!” the Yaochi Saintess cried out in shock.

“A crescent moon drenched in blood — extreme Yin, extreme softness!” Yao Xi’s peerless face broke into an expression of shock.

“What is the significance of that?” Old Blade Handle asked.

“This is what is spoken of in legend as the Crimson Blood Cavern — what lies beneath is a place of extreme Yin and supreme softness.” Ye Fan answered.

Just ahead, all was perfectly still. To the inattentive eye, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at all — but if one stilled the mind and carefully reached out with one’s senses, the anomaly quickly became apparent.

On the ground, there was a blood moon — echoing the bright moon above in the sky, drawing down the moonlight from across the heavens. Yet once that moonlight entered the earth, it turned a deep crimson red.

It was a blood-stained crescent moon, radiating energy of supreme Yin and supreme softness. The more one gazed at it, the more unsettled one became.

“What is below there…?” Li Desheng asked, his voice quavering.

Ye Fan did not answer. This was the infamous Crimson Moon Cavern — extraordinarily terrifying. What lay beneath was beyond anyone’s ability to say with certainty.

“Above ground, a blood moon. Below, a divine cavern. This is a cursed land.”

The Crimson Blood Cavern — the Book of Celestial Sources had devoted several full pages to describing it. It was one of the most terrifying death zones ever recorded.

“I understand now why that fearsome creature behind us retreated — it was frightened off by the Crimson Moon Cavern.” Old Blade Handle said gravely.

Now that it had come to this, everyone understood they were in serious trouble. They had experienced firsthand just how dangerous that creature had been — utterly impossible to resist. The trembling dread it had provoked was still making them shiver at the memory. Yet even it had been driven away by this Crimson Moon Cavern.

The blood-stained crescent moon, branded upon the earth — a sight that struck at one’s very soul.

“Daoren, how can we escape this calamity?” Li Desheng pinned all his hopes on Ye Fan.

“The only way is to go around. The one thing in our favor is that we haven’t yet entered within that blood moon.”

The blood moon’s radius spanned several li. Where they currently stood was precisely in the gap between the ruins and the blood moon — they had not yet entered its range.

“Retreating is not an option — that creature is behind us. We can only move slightly closer to the ruins and then continue forward.” Yao Guang Sage Son offered.

“Don’t move yet — let me look closer.” Ye Fan observed the ruins with care.

The unexpected encounter with the Crimson Moon Cavern had unsettled his mind and spirit deeply. About to leave the Primordial Forbidden Zone, and yet here was another of the world’s most extraordinary death zones — it felt deeply wrong. A premonition of ill fortune rose within him.

“This…” Ye Fan’s expression changed. The more he studied the ruins, the more alarmed he became. His premonition was proving itself correct.

The Fallen Sun Ridge!

The Fallen Sun Ridge and the Crimson Moon Cavern were spoken of in the same breath — and they occasionally manifested together. When the two coexisted, the result was supremely terrifying. Such a pairing had been encountered only in the rarest of times — never more than three places throughout all of history.

“Daoren, what have you seen?”

“Something is wrong!” Ye Fan was startled. The Fallen Sun Ridge did not have as heavy a concentration of Yang energy as he had imagined — it was different from what he expected.

“I sense it — there is a black blazing sun, of supreme Yang, supreme strength. Yet even it is no match for the supreme Yin of the Crimson Moon Cavern.” Yao Guang Sage Son spoke up.

“Yes — faintly, there is a black sun, imprinted among the ruins.” The Yaochi Saintess furrowed her brow.

Yao Xi sensed the presence of the black sun and asked: “What kind of terrain is this?”

“This is what is known in legend as the Fallen Sun Ridge — spoken of in the same breath as the Crimson Moon Cavern. When the two coexist, gods are slain if they come, and Buddhas are destroyed if they arrive.” Ye Fan answered, then added: “And yet something is off — the energy of supreme Yang and supreme strength seems somewhat diminished.”

“What?! This is the Fallen Sun Ridge?”

“It is truly this place!”

“Could this be… the Great Emperor Hengyu’s weapon-forging ground?!”

Yao Guang Sage Son, Yao Xi, and the Yaochi Saintess all cried out in astonishment.

Old Blade Handle too was shaken, his face covered in shock. “This is where the Jiang Family’s Great Emperor refined his extreme Dao weapons?!”

“Great Emperor Hengyu — his might shook the world and his name resounded through the ages. He lived in the ancient era; surely it has been a full hundred thousand years or more since then.” Li Desheng’s face was also filled with awe.

Ye Fan heard these words and felt a surge of shock wash through him. A Great Emperor had once entered the Primordial Forbidden Zone and used the terrifying Fallen Sun Ridge to refine an extreme Dao weapon — the thought was simply staggering.