After the Hunyuan Dao Lord finished speaking, he quietly looked at the three people present.
The Extreme Martial Dao Lord and the Yin-Yang Dao Lord exchanged a glance.
They had both entered the Sea of Spirit before, but they had found nothing.
However, the Hunyuan Dao Lord was of a senior generation with vast experience, and he had even fought the Mother of Hell. Perhaps he could discover something new.
Furthermore, there were subtle differences between the immortal and martial paths. It was possible the Hunyuan Dao Lord had a method to uncover the source of the anomaly in the Sea of Spirit.
The two exchanged another look, then turned to look at Chen Xu behind them.
Li Taiji spoke, "Fellow Daoist, would you be willing to accompany us?"
Chen Xu nodded. "That was my intention."
Upon receiving Chen Xu's reply, the three of them turned to the Hunyuan Dao Lord.
The immortal Dao Lord smiled and nodded. "Then there is no time to lose; let us depart immediately. I wish to uncover Hell's movements as soon as possible, for I have no desire to enter Hell again with all of you."
Then, Li Taiji raised his hand and summoned a black-and-white Taiji Map, which enveloped the four of them. He intended to use the Taiji Map to travel to the Sea of Spirit.
"Wait."
Just as Li Taiji was about to control the Taiji Map to reverse the starry river, the Hunyuan Dao Lord reached out and interrupted him.
"Fellow Daoists, you two cultivate the martial path and possess Spirit-Body Unity, allowing you to enter the Sea of Spirit with your physical bodies. However, your Spirit-Body Unity is far too conspicuous in that realm—it would be like a Haoyang sun in the dead of night."
"Put on these silk robes woven from the fluff of Nine Nether Dream Butterflies before you set out."
The Hunyuan Dao Lord took two silk robes from his sleeve. They were light and transparent, floating in the air as if they had no weight at all.
Li Taiji and the Extreme Martial Dao Lord took the silk robes and put them on without hesitation.
Then, the Hunyuan Dao Lord sat cross-legged on the ground. A soul body identical to his physical form emerged from the top of his head and walked into the Taiji Map.
Chen Xu did the same, though he did not sit down. His soul directly detached from his body and floated into the Taiji Map.
Thud!
A heavy sound echoed as the body crashed to the floor, even cracking the jade-white square tiles.
Fortunately, the four of them didn't care about such trivial matters. Li Taiji activated the Taiji Map, and the black and white fish swam around them, opening a space-time channel.
Whoosh!
With a sharp whistle of air, the Taiji Map passed through the space-time channel and entered the Sea of Spirit.
Only Li Hu remained in Huang Mao's residence to handle the aftermath.
"Sigh."
Li Hu shook his gourd handle and exerted his strength to pick up Chen Xu's avatar, placing it on a jade bed. He then withdrew from the Yin-Yang Dao Lord's domain to stand guard outside, ensuring no intruders entered.
As a Dao Lord's Progeny, Li Hu had seen his fair share of storms. He knew which matters were light and which were grave.
Anything involving Hell was naturally extremely serious, especially since it had already affected the two martial arts sacred lands—the Universe Daoist Academy and the Extreme Martial Arena—and their Progeny disciples.
Li Hu set aside his usual carefree nature and stayed behind to dutifully guard the bodies of the two Dao Lords.
...
In the Sea of Spirit, a space-time gate flashed briefly, and a Taiji Map leaped out, depositing the four Dao Lords.
In the next instant, the Hunyuan Dao Lord and Chen Xu immediately suppressed their soul fluctuations to hide themselves.
Otherwise, two Unique-tier souls in the Sea of Spirit would be like two Godzillas barging into a fish farm—far too conspicuous.
Their mere auras alone would be enough to frighten the small fish and shrimp into unconsciousness.
Once their auras were suppressed, the Hunyuan Dao Lord pinched his fingers and chanted an incantation to perform a secret technique.
Then, he pulled a Daoized silver thread from his fingertips and spat out a breath of celestial qi. The silver thread seemed to come to life, swimming through the Sea of Spirit.
The Hunyuan Dao Lord gave the silver thread a light flick with his index finger. It shot forward, and the Hunyuan Dao Lord followed closely behind.
The other three saw this and followed suit.
Only Chen Xu performed an extra action: he left a coordinate at their starting point.
As the four of them chased the silver thread into the distance, a spatial gate opened at the coordinate.
Then, a massive swarm of ghosts poured out, flooding into the Sea of Spirit.
Chen Xu did not have a foundation as deep as the Hunyuan Dao Lord's, nor did he know as many Daoist techniques.
As the Lord of the Undead, if he lacked anything, it certainly wasn't subordinates. If a hundred or a thousand ghosts weren't enough, then he would bring ten thousand or a hundred thousand. He didn't believe they wouldn't find the problem.
Furthermore, ghosts had one advantage over the four Dao Lords: their low realm.
Indeed, in this situation, a low realm was an advantage.
Since the Extreme Martial Dao Lord and Li Taiji had visited once before and found nothing, it meant the Hellfire hiding in the Sea of Spirit was extremely sensitive.
It would avoid powerful auras and only strike at the weak.
The fact that it was parasitic rather than directly burning the victims' souls further proved that this Hellfire was selective and targeted in its actions, making it incredibly insidious.
Once the hundreds of thousands of ghosts arrived, they scattered in all directions like a plague of locusts, giving quite a fright to the transcendents who were scavenging for Soul Fluid.
"Holy crap, where did all these ghosts come from? I've never heard of a ghost tide of this scale in the Sea of Spirit!"
"Yeah, I've heard of soul fish tides, Nightmare Snail disasters, and those dreaded Sunken Jellyfish swarms, but since when were there ghosts? Something's wrong. The Sea of Spirit is getting weirder and weirder."
"I agree. Hey! Little friend, is that a Dream Shell Pearl you're holding in your soul? It's almost as big as an eyeball!"
"Hahaha! A treasure like that is likely too much for you to handle, little friend. Why don't you let this old Daoist keep it safe for you?"
"Pah! In your dreams!"
The two began to chase each other, only to be swallowed by the subsequent ghost tide.
The Dream Shell Pearl was taken as a trophy by one of the ghosts and tucked away.
On the other side, the four Dao Lords had followed the Hunyuan Dao Lord's silver thread for a great distance.
Suddenly, the silver thread's speed surged as it dove toward the depths. The four of them hurriedly accelerated to keep up.
With a soft splash, the silver thread plunged into the deep-sea silt at the bottom of the Sea of Spirit and vanished.
However, the four did not continue searching, for they felt they had already found their target.
But the target was so massive, so important, and so serious that they were still unwilling to believe it. They could only pray that something had gone wrong with the Hunyuan Dao Lord's technique.
Chen Xu couldn't help but ask.
"Fellow Daoist Hunyuan, are you sure your tracking technique is correct? Is the aura of the Hellfire truly inside there?"
As he spoke, Chen Xu's soul projected a massive arrow pointing forward, accompanied by several exclamation marks to express his shock.
Li Taiji and the Extreme Martial Dao Lord also looked at the Hunyuan Dao Lord, waiting for his answer.
"Sigh, I also wish my technique had failed. But my Chaos Seeking-Origin Technique can find a target with precision even in the void turbulence zones of the Cosmic Sea."
"Let alone in a place like the Sea of Spirit, where there is almost no interference."
The reason the four were so solemn was that directly ahead of the silt where the silver thread had vanished was a vast field of active volcanoes.
These volcanoes in the depths of the Sea of Spirit were the place of origin for all spiritual beings and the final burial site of the Sea of Spirit's World Will. It was known throughout the myriad worlds as the Placenta of the Sea of Spirit.
If something had gone wrong here, the scale of the disaster would be unimaginable.
Rate on N.U.
