124 Volcanos Core. (1/2)
The short and bald Yuan Peng stepped towards the edge of the lake, Li Yang and the others following right behind him, the crowd parting to make way for them. Once he reached the edge of the water, Yuan Peng gave a light wave of his hand, a portion of the water rising up and hardening, forming a wide bridge that could be used to cross the lake.
Once he finished the bridge, it was he and the other future clan leaders, along with Li Yang and Fang Ying, that stepped onto it first. Sending the other disciples ahead first was tantamount to sending them to their deaths, and while they might not mind if the disciples from the other clans died, they could not afford to let their own disciples die for no purpose. As such it was they, the strongest people present, that had to take the lead and cross the lake.
As the island at the center of the lake was rather large it only took them around two minutes of walking across the bridge to get to the island, the volcano towering above them. The volcano was giving off a faint heat that caused the air around it to distort slightly, it felt like they were looking at the volcano through a thin film. Looking at the volcano from a closer distance they were able to see countless two to three meter wide and tall caves that had previously been hidden due to the distorted air. While they were looking at the various caves, the brown-haired and green-eyed Cui Xiyuing spoke up, her voice slightly hushed.
”We should agree on which cave to enter, splitting up would be simply idiotic. Also, I trust you can all feel that?”
Splitting up now would make the decision to wait for more people to arrive become completely pointless, it could indeed only be considered idiotic. The tall and black-haired Xiong Xieren nodded his head, plucking some grass and throwing it into the air, unleashing a visible stream of Qi from his finger at the same time. Both the grass and the Qi were slowly dragged towards the volcano, the grass even moving at a crawling pace when it landed on the ground. Xiong Xieren once again nodded his head, curiously gazing at the volcano.
”Aye. Seeing as it's dragging in not only Qi but also materialistic things, there's either a miniature tornado or a gravity well in there, both could explain why the treasure is made up of so many different elements.”
A gravity well was a rather special type of area, it was actually just a single point of highly condensed gravity so strong it sucked in all surrounding energies, and depending on how large the well was it could even draw in larger items. It was rather similar to the black holes that Li Yang used, but rather than suck in and destroy everything, a gravity well would only suck in and gather everything around it, so they could be quite useful for cultivation.
After Xiong Xieren confirmed what everyone was feeling, the rest of the group turned to look at Li Yang with unified glances, leaving the matter of choosing which cave to enter up to him. This was after all a volcano, and as the person here who had the strongest law of fire, it was best to leave things like figuring out their path to Li Yang. Li Yang simply shrugged his shoulders in a casual manner, he, Fang Ying, and Langshen walking past the rest of the group.
”It really doesn't matter which cave we use, they'll all lead to the same place.”
By checking and tracking the heat that each cave gave off, Li Yang could easily tell that each cave gave off the same level of heat and that all the heat came from the same source, the core of the volcano. With Li Yang taking the lead, the other people also quickly entered the caves, some of the other disciples choosing to follow Li Yang's group while the others entered the other caves, hoping that they might contain some small treasures they could pick up.
The moment they entered the caves, a wave of hot air blew against Li Yang's group, the faint smell of sulfur and ash hanging in the air. The energy in the cave was chaotic, a slight pulling force dragging the energy deeper into the cave. The earth in the cave was lightly red and seemed rather porous, a few small line-like etchings visible along the walls and ceiling of the caves. Cui Xiuying traced some of the lines with her fingers, using a thin layer of Qi to protect her skin from the heat.
”At first I thought that the beast hiding within the volcano might be an ant-type Demonic beast based on the myriad of caves, but these markings should have been made using claws. And looking at how the markings are placed, the claws should be placed on a hand with six, more likely seven, claws on each hand. Maybe a reptile-type Demonic beast?”
Cui Xiuying didn't know of a single ant-type Demonic beast that had six or seven claws, the maximum number she knew that they could have was four, and that was on a very rare ant-type Divine beast. No one here could give her a proper reply to her statement, but Tian Zheng also traced some of the markings, comparing them to each other before adding on to her statement.
”It also doesn't seem to be just the one beast. Most of the markings look the same, but there are small differences in several of them, they should not have been produced by the same beast. Just judging from this cave alone, we might be dealing with around four beasts in total.”
Even if the differences were minute, it was easy for people like Tian Zheng and the others to notice them, they hadn't reached their current positions and strength just by sheer luck. The atmosphere in the cave grew a bit more solemn as they headed further in, the more Demonic beasts they had to face, the more difficult their situation became. After they walked a bit deeper into the cave, moving for about five minutes, Yuan Peng spoke up, his head tilting slightly as he slid his palm over the markings.
”It's strange though, each of the markings contain very little energy, far too little to have come from a Demonic beast that has reached at least the middle stage of the Primordial Rune realm. The children of the main beast, perhaps?”
Even if the beast wasn't putting any energy into its claws, the etchings it created would still carry some of its energy, a marking of sorts that would designate this area as its territory. Walking at the front, Li Yang shrugged his shoulders, using his thumb to point at a bend in the cave ahead of them.
”Whatever the answer is, we're about to find out. The core's just around this bend.”
The bodies of Tian Zheng and the others immediately tensed up after they heard Li Yang's casual remark. None of them had been able to sense the energy of the Demonic beast or the treasure hiding in the volcano after entering the cave, the energy here was simply far too chaotic. Realizing that they had unknowingly arrived at its lair, how could they not grow a bit tense? They all drew their weapons and walked around the bend, arriving at the core of the volcano.