Before long, the flames surrounding the rune sputtered and before Long Di’s gaze, the flame went and the entire chamber descended into silence.

Seeing this, Long Di began to sweat as he asked out loud.

“D-Did I break it?”

****

“Subdue it you charm-of-a-cockroach fool!” Wan Li couldn’t help but emerge from the void to shout at Long Di.

He wasn’t a fan of humans, but if he didn’t say something to this boy, he felt like he would bash his head into a wall of tofu to kill himself!

“You do care,” Long Di turned his head to look at the younger of the two protectors.

Wan Li didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This fool had an Earth Flame ripe for the picking and he was hesitating!

“Take it in before the flames return you cur! If you wait too long, they’ll return with a nuke-level force and you’ll die without a corpse! Here!” He held in his hand what appeared to be a piece of space stone. Though it was smaller than what Yaomu Shou had, it was still enough for the task.

“How do you know what a nuke is?” he asked.

“Oh, we listen to your conversations and the meaning can be inferred from that,” replied Wan Li.

“I think the word you’re looking for is deduced,” Long Di corrected.

Wan Li appeared enlightened, “Ah, you’re right. Thank you for that. You know, you’re not nearly as infuriating as I thou… wait a minute… what am I doing?”

“Having a civilised conversation?” answered Long Di.

“No, I’m not! I’m warning you of the Earth Fla-” Wan Li was roaring at Long Di when it came to an abrupt stop.

This was because he saw as Long Di with his arm outstretched was carefully dragging the rune of the Earth Flame into his Physique.

Curiously enough, the lightning that ran rampant within the physique was nowhere to be found.

Wan Li wasn’t sure when this happened since he was arguing with the equivalent of a verbal immovable object while he was a VERY stoppable force.

However, he didn’t pay any attention to this. For now, he simply observed the process of Long Di’s integration with the rune.

Once it reached his hand, it passed through the palm leaving behind a gentle ripple as if passing through water. After this, it was like it was in its own world, its own heaven, appearing minuscule, like a speck of dust.

Wan Li immediately activated his heavenly gaze to see through Long Di’s clothes so he could track the movement of the Earth Flame in its entirety. Was it creepy? Yes, yes, it was.

Soon, as per Long Di’s will, it was like a magnifying glass was cast over the speck as it zoomed in many times over until the rune was clearly in view once more.

It moved through this ‘heaven’ until it arrived at what would be the centre of Long Di’s chest, where it gently spun.

Vrrrm!

Ktch! Ktch! Ktch!

The rune shook once more before sparks of fire flickered all over. The sparks increased in number until the sight of the rune itself blurred.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, the flames roared to life as a soundless explosion went off!

At this moment, Long Di’s heaven was being assaulted by an ever-expanding sea of flames!

Long Di was able to see what was happening and he had to admit that if he had to face this explosion himself he would be well and truly dead.

After some time the explosion died down and Long Di could see the Crimson Horizon Flame just like it was before he took it for himself. The rune within was burning and though his Soul Seal couldn’t be seen, he could feel its presence and that alone was enough to let him know that this Earth Flame was his.

Long Di then raised a hand and through his will, a plume of flame twisted from the Crimson Horizon Flame.

It snaked its way through his arm and emerged from his palm in a controlled manner. It then raged upwards with a daunting heat that was melting the chamber Long Di was in.

He could feel the heat himself, but it felt more comfortable than anything else.

“Interesting…” he remarked.

Wan Li’s expression was grave when he saw this. He no longer had the space stone and felt like he was witnessing the rise of a monster in the future.

‘He’s fully integrated with and can control an Earth Flame through his own power. The family has dubbed him a criminal, but through virtue of the lady I can’t and shouldn’t act but I nearly helped him. What was wrong with me?’ Wan Li’s thoughts wandered as he merged back into the void.

Once Long Di was done testing the Crimson Horizon Flame, he dismissed it before his physique returned to normal.

‘Wait a second. If I can store power sources here, then doesn’t that mean I can store other things here, like say spiritual herbs?’ Long Di thought to himself of the possibilities of his physique. ‘I wonder how much time they take to grow? Hold on, does that mean I have to take in dirt? So many questions, so little time.’

Long Di exited the mouth of the tunnel and returned to the ‘darkness’ of the Abyss where Shen Ling and the others had disappeared into.

Sha…

The darkness quivered before it began to fade and lighten in colour.

Long Di squinted his eyes and he could swear he saw Shen Ling walking a boundless distance from within the darkness. The darkness lightened the closer she got.

By the time he blinked his eyes, she was already before him and the darkness was all but gone.

When Long Di saw her current state, he couldn’t help cocking his head to the side to take it all in.

Yaomu Shou and Xiannu Liang were still attached to her, but they were both catatonic.

Their legs were tightly wrapped around her waist but their hands were free and dropped to their sides. Their upper bodies slightly leaned back while their heads rocked back and swung with the slightest movement.

“I-I couldn’t get them off,” Shen Ling said with a sigh.

She then looked around and seeing the current state of things, looked back at Long Di in shock, “You got the Earth Flame!?”

To answer her question, Long Di raised a finger and activated his Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique. He impelled the flame to erupt from his fingertip, surprising her!

“Incredible! Now we can finally leave!” she said with great relief.

“Yeah, and we… can you walk like that?” he asked, seeing the two deadweights hanging from her sides like malnourished sloths.

“Fortunately, yes,” she answered with an annoyed look.

“Okay, then let’s go.” Long Di started to return the way they came.

As Shen Ling followed him, she noticed severe burn marks on certain parts of Long Di's body. Her heartache when she imagined how much pain he must have gone through but remained tight-lipped about it.

Not wanting him to think about it, she refrained from asking him and continued on their way in silence.

More than an hour or so later, Long Di finally emerged from the cave and took a deep breath of fresh air.

Yaomu Shou and Xiannu Liang who had awoken some time ago walked past him steeped in misery.

This was the second time they went through the most miserable moment in their lives and they promised themselves they would never do it again. Nobody could force them to suffer through that again.

Shu!

A white shadow flashed by before Lord Whiskers Furryback the first arrived before Long Di before sitting down beside him.

Knowing what this meant, Long Di got to scratching Lord Whiskers’s head which caused a reverberative purr to echo out.

Oddly enough, the purr caused a comfortable feeling to swell up in both Xiannu Liang and Yaomu Shou.

Shen Ling walked up to Long Di’s side and eyed Lord Whiskers with a small smile. This so-called evil creature of calamity was as far removed from its reputation based on what she saw.

“C-Can I try?” she asked Long Di.

“Sure,” Long Di nodded.

He tactlessly took her hand, which caused a blush to creep up her cheeks, before putting it where his hand was, teaching her how to rub between Lord Whiskers’s ears.

“Did you protect Jia Yan and Zi Yu well?” Long Di asked Lord Whiskers.

The latter sleepily nodded with its eyes still closed, revelling in the ear rub it was receiving.

After taking a bit more time to recover herself, Yaomu Shou walked over to Long Di asking, “Where to now? Are you gonna leave the demon region now?”

Long Di wasn’t in a rush to answer as he called over Xiannu Liang to help him heal.

Once that was being done, he got to thinking before answering, “Well, all things considered, we can either go to that swirling mist in the sky or deal with the enlarging dot en route to us.”

“Swirling mist in the sk-” Yaomu Shou looked up before the last letter got caught in her throat.

“5.”

Yaomu Shou turned her attention back to Long Di, her face flushed with excitement, “L-Long Di, that’s a spiritual rea-”

“4.”

“What are you counting?” she just realised that Long Di was counting down for some obscure reason.

“3. ETA.”

“What’s ETA?” she asked.

“2. Estimated time of arrival,” Long Di answered.

Yaomu Shou’s confusion deepened, “Arrival of what?”

Looking up, Long Di replied, “One. Terrible customer service.”

“Terrible custom-”

Boom!

“Long Di!”

Yaomu Shou: “First Uncle Yan!?”

Uncle Yan: “Young Miss, there is major trouble!”

Long Di: “Oh look, a wild goddess has appeared. Sup Mina?”

“Screw you! Give me back my blessings! It’s really important!”

“Okay.”

“Eh!?”