Zhang Ling and the others hadn't gone far after entering the ice cave when they saw a square doorway. The entrance was wide open, with a pile of black rubble on the ground.
It seemed to be the shattered remains of the original stone door, with some spiritual patterns still engraved on them, emitting faint spiritual energy fluctuations.
Seeing this scene, everyone's faces darkened. It was clear that someone had forcibly broken through using external force.
Old Madam Miao immediately questioned, "Fellow Daoist Shi Yun, what's going on here? It seems someone has entered before us."
"Judging by this, could we have been beaten to it?" The bald old man muttered to himself, looking at the shattered ice on the ground.
Shi Yun Zhenren's expression was very unpleasant. He raised his hand and grabbed a few pieces of rubble from the ground, examining them carefully. "This is also my first time here. I can't guarantee that I'm the only one who knows about this place."
"Let's go in and take a look. Even if someone has taken a step ahead of us, they probably haven't left yet," Shi Yun Zhenren grunted, stepping directly through the doorway into the inside.
The others naturally understood his meaning and followed him in.
If someone had really arrived here first, it was likely that the treasures inside had been divided up, resulting in everyone's disappointment.
However, with their keen senses, they could roughly deduce the time the stone door was destroyed by observing the broken rubble on the ground. It was only about two or three days at most.
Ancient cultivator ruins like this, which are completely sealed off, mostly have many restrictions. It was very likely that they hadn't finished exploring in that short amount of time.
So, they might still be able to play the role of the oriole behind the mantis, reaping the benefits. They could block those who had entered first.
Of course, a big fight would be inevitable at that time, and the danger would naturally be considerable.
Behind the doorway was another ice passage, but it didn't seem to be naturally formed. The ground was flat, clearly built by someone.
The group used their wind manipulation techniques, turning into seven streams of light and quickly moved forward. Knowing that someone had entered before them, their actions naturally had to be faster.
Along the way, the ice passage ahead wasn't straight but circular. At intervals, they could see doorways opening on the inner ice walls, like ordinary ice rooms.
At first, everyone entered those ice rooms to check, but after looking at more than a dozen ice rooms without any gains, they lost interest.
They had all seen that these soldiers didn't have any traces of formations or restrictions, so there was basically nothing worth exploring.
After proceeding like this for a quarter of an hour, they finally saw an ice door shrouded in black light. Scanning it with their divine senses, they could see two ancient immortal characters engraved on the top of the ice door, which read '乾坤' (Qian Kun).
Zhang Ling and the others revealed a hint of joy and hurried over. They immediately attacked without any politeness. In an instant, several magical treasures shot out various colored lights, creating a series of loud booms.
The words 'Qian Kun' on the ice door made it difficult to guess what was inside.
Words like 'Qian Kun', '天地' (Heaven and Earth), '玄黄' (Profound Yellow), etc., are often used in ordinary sects as the main hall, discussion hall, and other symbolic places. Of course, some forbidden areas may also use such words.
It might symbolize a treasure vault, or it might indicate danger. It was difficult to guess.
Zhang Ling and the others were all Nascent Soul old monsters and had prepared themselves no matter what was behind the door. Therefore, they didn't hesitate at all and attacked directly.
However, to everyone's surprise, the black light restriction on the ice door was broken in an instant after only one round of attacks.
It wasn't as powerful a restriction as they had imagined.
After the restriction dissipated, the ice door creaked open automatically. A flash of black and white light appeared inside, and everyone's divine senses could see clearly that it was a stone house built of bluestone. It wasn't large, only about ten zhang in size.
The decoration was simple. There was a round platform about ten zhang high on the ground, with a small teleportation array on it.
"How could it be a teleportation array?" The dark-faced man couldn't help but be stunned. He had thought that there might be treasures behind the door, or it might be empty, but he had never expected a teleportation array.
The others were the same, all showing a hint of surprise. Zhang Ling frowned slightly.
Old Madam Miao also asked strangely again, "Fellow Daoist Shi Yun, are you really sure that this place is related to that Faceless Saintess?"
This Faceless Saintess, Dragon Phoenix Fairy, was said to have a mysterious origin, but she always acted alone. A cave built by a rogue cultivator like this wouldn't have a teleportation array.
Teleportation arrays are not easy to build. A small teleportation array within a thousand miles would consume a lot of resources. Generally, only sects or some powerful families would build teleportation arrays.
It's not that rogue cultivators don't have the strength to build teleportation arrays, but it's completely unnecessary.
Shi Yun Zhenren also circled the teleportation array for half a circle, his expression also becoming puzzled. "Since we've already arrived here, I have nothing to hide. I determined that this place is related to the Dragon Phoenix Fairy because I have this thing in my hand."
A flash of spiritual light appeared in his hand, and a bright object appeared. It was a golden hairpin. Looking closely, the hairpin was engraved with dragon and phoenix patterns.
Spiritual light flickered in Shi Yun Zhenren's hand, and the hairpin flew up, turning into a golden longsword with dragon and phoenix patterns.
Looking closely, you could see many cracks on the sword body, and the spiritual light on it flickered, appearing unstable.
This was a clear sign that the treasure was damaged. Although it didn't look completely broken, its power had become very unstable.
"Dragon Phoenix Ancient Sword, I didn't expect you to obtain this treasure. This is a famous ancient treasure of the Dragon Phoenix Fairy."
"This treasure has a great reputation, but you've also seen that it's damaged, and it can only exert 30% of its power at most," Shi Yun Zhenren shook his head and sighed. "This sword was obtained by me when I first came here and explored the ice and fire eyes. With this as proof, and the discovery of the layer of cyan and red water curtain restriction above, I thought that this place might be hiding the Dragon Phoenix Fairy's cave ruins."
"Hehe, regardless of whether this place is related to an ancient cultivator, a place with a teleportation array must not be an ordinary place."
Zhang Ling also glanced at the Dragon Phoenix Sword in Shi Yun Zhenren's hand. Although this ancient sword was broken, it was very slender and delicate, indeed resembling a flying sword used by a woman.
At the same time, he also thought of the golden token found in the cave of the suspected Flame Hoof Beast on the ice volcano above, which was likely also something belonging to the Dragon Phoenix Fairy.
While speaking, the group checked the teleportation array on the ground.
They could all see that this was a small teleportation array, with a transmission range within a thousand miles. Moreover, it was intact, so there was nothing to say.
The group stood on the teleportation array and directly activated it. After a flash of white light, they were teleported away.
...
In the blink of an eye, the discomfort of teleportation disappeared, and Zhang Ling's divine sense swept around, his expression becoming strange. He appeared in a fiery space, and waves of heat blew on his body, giving him a sense of heat.
The others were nowhere to be seen.
Of course, he didn't panic at all, just muttered that the teleporter was indeed unusual, separating them all.
His divine sense spread around, and the surrounding hundred-mile area was this fiery environment. The sky was a red color, and the inside was also fiery red. Yellow and red magma flowed out of some ground cracks, spreading everywhere.
This place was somewhat similar to the environment of the Flame Demon Valley, except that no demonic energy was born.
A flash of spiritual light appeared on his body, and Zhang Ling flew directly into the air. He wanted to fly higher to investigate the situation here.
As soon as he flew thirty to forty zhang high, the clouds in the sky above suddenly rolled, forming large patches of fire clouds. Red lightning crackled.
Zhang Ling's mouth twitched, and he quickly stopped flying upwards. He looked at the fire clouds above and waved his hand, sending out a yellow light.
The yellow light instantly propped up into the high sky, but in an instant, it was struck down by the red lightning, directly shattering the yellow light.
Zhang Ling snorted and immediately lowered a distance. There was obviously an air restriction here, preventing high flying. The power was not weak.
What exactly was this place? Looking at this environment, it didn't seem like a cultivator's cave.
Just as he was thinking, a strange sound suddenly came from his right rear. Zhang Ling turned his head and saw a huge fire tornado appearing out of thin air.
This fire tornado appeared suddenly in an instant. His expression immediately sank, as this seemed to be some kind of restriction again, and it looked like an attack type.
With a thought, two gourds appeared in front of him. One gourd flashed with golden light and spat out seven flying swords, and the other gourd lit up with yellow light and flowed out a piece of yellow sand.
In the blink of an eye, the fire tornado connecting the sky and the earth reached a hundred zhang away. However, instead of directly attacking, it suddenly stopped.
Just as Zhang Ling was wondering, the fire tornado strangely gathered together, turning into a fire ball the size of a hundred zhang. With a loud bang, it directly exploded into a sky full of fire.
His face changed, and he quickly opened the Yellow Luo Umbrella to protect his whole body. Countless streams of fire flew over, hitting the Yellow Luo Umbrella and making banging sounds. The power of these streams of fire was not strong and could be easily blocked.
However, immediately following, an ear-piercing scream came, and a largest flame phoenix unexpectedly appeared in the exploding fire. Its whole body was surrounded by terrifying fire spiritual power, and its aura actually reached the peak of an eighth-order demon beast.
But this fire phoenix did not have the vitality of a living being. It was completely condensed from fire spiritual power, more like a restriction force. Being able to produce such a spiritual fire bird was definitely not an ordinary restriction.
Zhang Ling immediately realized that he had fallen into some powerful restriction, and a void worm immediately coiled around his arm.
At this time, the fire phoenix had condensed into a solid body, and a pair of bird eyes stared at him. With a spread of its wings, it rushed over.
Zhang Ling didn't want to waste spiritual power in vain to fight this flame phoenix of strength. The void worm coiled out, creating a black and white gas group to cover him.
The fire phoenix opened its mouth and spewed out a dazzling pillar of fire, which hit the black and white gas group at once.
But Zhang Ling had already hidden in the space crevice created by the worm.
The fire phoenix immediately lost its target, flying around a few times, unable to find his trace at all. Finally, with a long cry, the whole body disintegrated into a stream of fire and disappeared.
Zhang Ling chuckled and walked out of the space crevice. He flipped out the tuft of fur of the Flame Hoof Beast, the condensed fur ball.
He used secret techniques to sense the breath of the Flame Hoof Beast again. But after a few breaths, his face sank. He didn't sense the trace of the Flame Hoof Beast, whether because he was in a restriction or not.
Just then, the fire in front of him lit up again, and a huge tornado appeared inexplicably. The fire tornado rolled to a hundred zhang away and stopped again. It still quickly shrunk into a fireball.
Zhang Ling's face stiffened. Wasn't this the scene just now? Sure enough, the next moment the fireball exploded, and another fire phoenix was generated from it. Looking at the breath, it was also equivalent to an eighth-order peak demon beast.
Could the restriction here continuously generate this level of demon spirits?
Zhang Ling was very surprised in his heart, and he immediately controlled the void worm to create a space crevice and hide in it.
The newly generated fire phoenix immediately lost its target again, and after a few breaths, it could also be called the fire spiritual power that dissipated.
It seemed that as soon as he revealed his breath, he would immediately attract this kind of transformation-level demon spirit to attack him.
Next, Zhang Ling hid in the space crevice, searching around with the void worm. Although it was a bit troublesome to do so, it was naturally much easier than dealing with a powerful demon spirit.
However, things were not that simple. After a quarter of an hour, Zhang Ling's face darkened. He didn't find a place like an exit.
After his investigation, this flame space was found to cover a small area, only about a hundred miles.
But apart from the flames and lava everywhere, no entrance or exit like a teleportation formation was found.
With the void worm, he could of course create a space crack leading to the outside world to escape from this place. But in this way, it would be difficult to find the core place here.
After controlling the void worm for this period of time, Zhang Ling also had a deeper understanding of spatial powers.
The void worm relies on spatial powers to teleport him directly from one place to another through space, thus ignoring most restrictions.
However, if he doesn't know where the core place here is, it's equivalent to aimless space shuttle.
There are still risks in this. He had once tested the space power of the void worm, wanting to reach a few miles away, but strangely, he was inexplicably teleported thousands of miles away. The resulting spatial squeeze caused him to suffer considerable injuries.
Although that time it was the void worm that didn't master the spatial powers well and made a mistake, it also reminded Zhang Ling that the risk of space shuttle is very high.
Sudden strong attacks, unstable space and other factors will affect the void worm's use of its powers.
The purpose of coming here was to find the Flame Hoof Beast, and since the goal was not achieved, Zhang Ling was naturally unwilling to leave. Moreover, there may be other treasures here.
Leaving without getting anything, wouldn't that be a waste of time?
Combining the situation just now, it seems that to find the entrance and exit of the restriction here, he still has to rely on the fire phoenix that suddenly appeared.
It seems that he has to defeat the fire phoenix.
Thinking of the key point, Zhang Ling naturally didn't hide anymore and directly showed himself. He put away the void worm. Sure enough, after two or three periods of time, he sensed that the fire spiritual power was becoming violent not far away, and in a moment, a fire tornado that was silent and connected to the world was generated again.
With a long cry, another fire phoenix with a powerful aura flew out from it.
"Hehe, come out, let's kill this demon spirit together." Zhang Ling snorted softly, and a flash of black light appeared beside him, and he replaced the Xuan Turtle.
Verification Report:
- Completion Check: The entire original text has been translated.
- Length Comparison: The translated English text closely matches the length and detail of the original Chinese text.
- Confirmation Statement: The translation is complete, accurate, and reads naturally in English.
