Chapter 1109: Ling Xiaoxiao
"The people from the Seven Star Dao Palace do not know the correct path, and they lack jade burial suits. It will probably take them a while to catch up to me, so for now at least, I can pay them no mind." Yi Yun thought to himself as he walked.
After traveling a distance in the underground world, Yi Yun felt the surrounding air become increasingly heated. The rocks at his feet had been baked to a crystalline state from the high temperatures. A red liquid seemed to flow within them.
He matched his remembrance of the elder’s map with his surroundings, and discovered that he had entered the core region of the underground.
Once he entered the core region, the map would be useless. Yi Yun began to move in an increasingly careful manner.
He proceeded forward slowly in search of the Yang spirit.
Suddenly, a rumbling sound came from up ahead. Yi Yun initially believed that a terrifying entity would appear, but when he covertly approached he found something that stunned him.
In front of him was a majestic-looking molten waterfall. The boiling molten liquid splashed with countless sparks and flames. It flowed from top to bottom, with the bottom streaming into deeper depths.
Yi Yun stood at the boundary of the waterfall and looked down. Flames flickered beneath him in what he estimated was a thousand foot drop. A terrifying pure Yang aura constantly swelled from the bottom.
"What is this place..." Yi Yun was fascinated by what he saw. He never expected to find such a marvelous sight in the underground world.
At that moment, Yi Yun was suddenly startled.
He noticed a young girl standing on the other side of the waterfall. She looked down the waterfall, just like him.
The girl looked like she was about nine or ten and she had two pigtails. Her face was round and chubby like a carved piece of pink jade, and was the epitome of what a young beauty was.
He was somewhat astounded to encounter such an extremely cute girl in this horrifying underground world.
When Yi Yun looked at her, the young girl seemed to sense his gaze. She looked back at him with a large pair of eyes. She cocked her head and appeared rather astonished.
For some unknown reason, Yi Yun seemed to hear her voice despite her not opening her mouth.
"After the previous batch of people came, so many more have arrived. However, who knew that you would be the first of this new group to arrive? Shouldn’t the rest of them have the advantage in numbers?”
The girl’s voice was slick and sweet. It was extremely endearing.
Yi Yun thought to himself. The previous batch?
Could the girl be referring to the Divine Secrets Trading Company led by Ji Shuiyan’s grandfather? As for the new group which had the advantage in numbers, it likely referred to the Seven Star Dao Palace.
The girl was extremely mysterious. Her appearance here definitely had something to do with the area he was in.
"Little girl, who are you? The people you mentioned are..."
Before Yi Yun could finish his words, the girl suddenly let out a pearly laugh. Amid the laughter she leaped forward, and her petite and adorable figure plummeted down the waterfall.
"What..."
Yi Yun quickly took two steps forward and stretched his neck out to look down.
Billowing hot gases blasted up, ruffling Yi Yun’s hair. If a warrior with insufficient strength were to do what Yi Yun did, the outcome would range from having their eyes burned to being completely disintegrated.
Despite the hot gaseous waves, the girl’s figure was as light as a swallow. In a blink of an eye, she had landed at the bottom.
"This girl appears very familiar with the area." Yi Yun contemplated for a moment. If he were to continue searching like a headless fly, he might very well encounter unknown dangers.
The people from the Seven Star Dao Palace could very likely escape the humanoid creatures and catch up to him, so he needed to take advantage of every moment he had.
The girl was extremely odd, and the pure Yang gases beneath the waterfall were much more pure and refined than anywhere else...
"I’ll go down." Yi Yun did not hesitate any further and similarly threw his body down.
Upon entering the waterfall’s vicinity, Yi Yun immediately felt like his body was located in the core of a burning cauldron. He hurriedly augmented his Yuan Qi protection and powered his pure Yang body completely while he rapidly descended.
Boom!
Yi Yun landed on a red boulder.
At the bottom of the waterfall was a deep basin. In it was bubbling red molten metal. Any living creature who dropped into it would not even have bones left behind.
At that moment, Yi Yun saw a large pair of eyes emerge from the deep basin.
The eyes were the size of bronze bells and were extremely cold. The sight of them made Yi Yun break out into a cold sweat.
Thankfully, he was wearing the jade burial suit. The pair of eyes ignored him and silently sank back into the basin.
Yi Yun surveyed his surroundings warily and hurriedly searched for the girl.
His vision swept across the deep basin and he saw a petite figure moving towards a gigantic cave.
Yi Yun immediately chased after the figure.
Upon arriving at the entrance, Yi Yun was stunned once again.
The cave had two gigantic metal doors with numerous swords embedded in them.
At a glance, Yi Yun could tell that the quality of the swords was not bad. However, a large number of them were broken, so they were not very unusable.
"Why are there so many broken swords here...?"
The swords were from different ancient eras. The oldest had decayed to a mound of metallic dust. The newest was also covered in rust. The age gap between the two different eras was probably hundreds of millions apart.
The Sun Burial Sandsea’s legend said that this was a land that a sun crashed into. But now, Yi Yun had seen traces of humanity in its deep depths.
"What place is this?" Yi Yun stood by the door and after hesitating for a moment, he strode into the cave.
Upon entering the cave, he immediately felt his vision blur. The space around him instantly changed, which put him on high alert. His hand was already placed on his interspatial ring.
In the blink of an eye, Yi Yun’s feet came into contact with an ice-cold long slab of rock. He glanced at it and realized that he had arrived in a temple carved out of a boulder.
The temple, which had been buried in dust for an unknown period of time, was located at the bottom of a deep cave. As Yi Yun stood there, he felt a desolate aura that seemed to linger around the slab of long rocks at his feet.
There was a statue erected in the middle of the temple. When Yi Yun approached it, he realized that the statue was of the little girl. There were words carved at the bottom.
"My beloved daughter, Ling Xiaoxiao."
The words were written forcefully and with flair. They seemed to exude a melancholic feeling that could not be extinguished from the vestiges of time.
"This place was indeed inhabited. That girl’s name is Ling Xiaoxiao and is the beloved daughter of a senior. Then, how old is that girl." Yi Yun looked at the statue and found it fascinating. Could it be that he had encountered a ghost?
Suddenly, Yi Yun looked up.
A pair of white feet swayed on a crossbeam.
"Are you Ling Xiaoxiao?" asked Yi Yun.
The girl had been running around alone in this stone temple that had been abandoned for an extremely long period of time. The people that had erected her statue were probably no longer around.
The girl smiled slightly and did a gentle leap. Turning around, she ran into the inner sanctums of the temple.
Yi Yun was stunned. He realized that the girl was intent on leading him here and guiding him further.
After some hesitation, he followed after her.