The flaming river twisted like a serpent beneath the Scorch Realm, its molten currents concealing secrets older than the sects themselves. Jalen descended deeper, the Origin Shard pulsing within his dantian like a beacon, guiding him through the inferno's wrath.
For three days, he swam through the blazing torrent, his body wrapped in layers of elemental qi, reinforced by the fused Flaming Dragon Core. The heat gnawed at his flesh, the pressure threatened to crush his bones—but Jalen pressed on, his will unshaken.
At last, he emerged into a cavern of fire. The air shimmered with illusion—a maze designed to trap intruders in an endless loop. But Jalen's cultivation had long surpassed such tricks. With the Luminal Edge pulsing at his side, a blade capable of severing even the deepest formations, he sliced through the illusion with ease.
The mirage shattered, revealing a spiral staircase of flame descending into the earth.
At its base, a flaming formation awaited him—a complex array of runes and sigils, each one radiating heat and ancient intent. Jalen didn't pause to decipher it. With a single, decisive strike, he shattered the formation, sending shockwaves through the cavern.
The ground trembled.
A bridge of fire surged forth across a yawning chasm, leading to an island wreathed in roaring flame. Cultivators dotted the scorched landscape—those who had entered long before him—locked in battle against flame beasts rising from the lava. Their cultivation realms ranged from Peak Moon to Peak Imperial, each drawn by the legend of the treasure said to lie within the palace at the island's heart.
The Origin Shard didn't wait for permission—it seized control again.
Jalen's body moved like a phantom, slipping past flame beasts and cultivators alike, his presence barely a flicker in the infernal haze. Barriers that had held back even the strongest from elite sects and ancient families shattered at his touch.
They had relied on brute force and cultivation alone to endure coming to this place, but without affinity to flame, they were merely guests in a domain that rejected them. That's until Jalen made it possible for them to move forward.
The palace loomed ahead, a monolith of scorched obsidian and blazing gold. Its gates were sealed by a flame barrier that pulsed with sentient resistance, a living wall of fire that had repelled countless attempts to breach it.
But the Origin Shard didn't care.
It tore through the barrier like parchment in a storm, dragging Jalen into the palace's inner sanctum with a force that defied comprehension. Outside, the cultivators stared in stunned silence—then surged forward, grateful the barrier was down. The race for the treasure had truly begun.
Inside, chaos reigned.
Flames erupted from every direction, licking across the marble floor and scorching the air into shimmering waves. Cultivators clashed in frenzied combat, driven by desperation and greed, all chasing the same prize rumored to lie at the palace's heart—the flame beast crown.
Jalen had assumed the Origin Shard was after the Flame Beast Crown. It made sense—every cultivator here was chasing it, and the shard had dragged him straight into the palace's heart, a place many struggled to reach due to the maze-like formations designed to obscure the treasure's location. There, the crown hovered in regal silence atop its podium.
But as Jalen stood before it, the shard hesitated. To his surprise it wasn't devouring it—wasn't reacting at all, in fact. Not like it usually did with treasures, it desired to make Jalen stronger.
It wasn't here for the crown, Jalen concluded. Then what is it after?
Although Jalen did not realize it yet, a hidden sub-realm lay somewhere in this room. And within it pulsed a treasure far more ancient and potent than the flame beast crown above—a hundred-thousand-year-old Flaming Lotus, radiating divine flame essence that could temper the soul and reshape the core of any cultivator who survived its wrath.
That was what the Origin Shard was truly after.
Using spirit sense, the shard located the entrance—concealed behind the podium where the flame beast crown hovered in regal silence. Without hesitation, it broke the seal and descended into the sub-realm, a vast domain of hellfire so intense it could melt the bones of Spirit Fusion Realm experts carved from ancient flame law. Lava rivers snaked through jagged terrain, and the air itself screamed with heat.
At the center of it, over five hundred feet from where Jalen had entered, a chamber pulsed with divine intensity. He didn't know it yet, but the Origin Shard did.
That was its destination.
The Flaming Lotus awaited.
The shard had already shattered nine formations using Luminal Edge, and as it destroyed the final formation protecting the lotus chamber less than fifty feet away, the sub realm retaliated.
Six colossal flaming hands erupted from the chasm walls, each one forged from ancient flame law and imbued with the power of the Sky Limit Realm—a realm so far beyond Immortal that its techniques could erase existence itself.
Their fingers crackled with annihilation flame, capable of severing soul threads. Their palms distorted space, warping reality with every movement.
Their aura threatened to burn Jalen's soul out of time, erasing him from memory, lineage, and fate.
Jalen's eyes narrowed. One touch, and he'd be gone forever.
He didn't waste time attacking. These weren't enemies—they were laws incarnate, stronger than any attack he could muster right now. He focused solely on evasion.
He activated the fifteenth light art technique, Thread Fusion, merging the third light art technique, Luminous Veil Step, with the second Spirit Wind Art technique, Dance Like the Wind, to amplify his speed and agility. Even so, it wasn't enough to fully escape the flaming hands.
His body shimmered, becoming a blur of radiant afterimages. The hands struck with terrifying precision, but each time they passed through illusions—missing his true form by inches.
One hand grazed his shoulder—his skin blistered instantly. Another slammed into the ground behind him, creating a crater of molten void, where even flame qi refused to exist.
Jalen weaved through the barrage, breath ragged, qi surging wildly. The Origin Shard pulsed in sync, shielding his soul from the erasure aura, but he still suffered some critical internal damage from just the mere force of the attacks. For half a day, he danced on the edge of oblivion, the flaming hands blocking every path to the lotus chamber.
He needed a plan.
First, he advanced to the edge of the chamber, which took him about an hour and a half—just close enough to mark the location. Then, he retreated dozens of feet away, which took him another hour, luring the flaming hands into a wider formation arc.
Then came the gambit.
He activated the eleventh light art technique, Flash Reversion, fused with the first shadow art technique, Eclipse Motion, via Thread Fusion—an advanced spatial technique that allowed him to teleport to a previously visited point within a limited time window.
In a blink, he reappeared three feet from the lotus chamber's edge—the exact spot he had reached earlier.
The flaming hands reacted instantly.
But they were a millisecond too late.
Jalen was already out of range, beyond the reach of their erasure formation. He landed at the edge of the chamber, his body scorched, his qi trembling—but alive.