Chapter 914: Still Alive?
As Xuan Hao dropped the small swirling vortex of fire down towards the spider swarm below, it seemed like some sort of restriction had been removed, causing the fire vortex to rapidly expand in all directions. By the time that the swirling vortex reached the swarm below, it had already grown enough to cover half of the spiders present inside the underground space.
FWOOSH-!
Not even stopping for a single second when faced with the natural formation of the spiders, the fire vortex directly burned through it like a hot knife through butter. Soon engulfing the spiders below, reducing them to nothing more than cinders that soon crumbled and became one with the ground below.
SCREEECH!
Even the Domain Lord Realm spider didn't stand a chance when faced with the fire vortex that had by now turned into an unstoppable fire cyclone that swept through anything living inside the underground space. Soon consuming the rest of the spiders that had been unable to make their way inside the underground space.
Whoosh~
Together with the last spider being reduced to nothing more than ash that soon drifted away in the strong wind created by the fire cyclone, an eerie silence soon overtook the underground space as the fire cyclone dispersed. The only sound outside of the faint crackling embers of what remained from the powerful Domain Lord Realm spider being the hastened breathing of the terrified weaker demon beasts clinging on to the side of the cliff with all their strength.
None of them dared to move even a single muscle, as they all looked down towards Xuan Hao who was standing amidst the molten rocks of what had once been the rocky ground of the cave system that they had spent their entire life inside of.
All of them understood that the only reason they were still alive was because that person had ignored them. If not, they would have ended up like the spider swarm below!
For this reason, all of these weaker demon beasts silently prayed that Xuan Hao would just leave without caring about them.
"Even without the use of a technique to strengthen it, the Dao of Fire is actually so powerful!" Not aware of the thoughts going through the heads of the weaker demon beasts motionlessly looking down at him from the cliff, Xuan Hao muttered this to himself while taking in the damage caused by the fire cyclone. Astonished over just how powerful the Dao of Fire was when used for attacking.
Even the Dao of Ice, that he had invented and learnt several techniques for, was nowhere near as strong as the Dao of Fire. Only the Dao of the Sword came anywhere close to the Dao of Fire when comparing the power and destruction it could cause.
In that sense, the Dao of Ice was more of a supportive type of Dao that weakened his enemy and helped enhance the strength of his other Daos, like Descend of the Ice God's Sword, a technique that combined both the Dao of the Sword and the Dao of Ice into a single powerful attack.
Thinking about this, Xuan Hao could not help wondering if he would be able to create a similarly powerful technique by combing the Dao of Ice and the Dao of Fire, but... Thinking about it for a few more seconds, it would probably make more sense to combine the Dao of Fire and the Dao of the Sword. The only problem he could foresee with this, was that the merger of the two into a single attack might cause some kind of instability due to just how violent the two powers were...
Shaking his head as he decided to put the matter of finding a way to merge the Dao of Fire and the Dao of the Sword together into some sort of attack technique, Xuan Hao began making his way towards the path leading out of the cave system he had found himself inside of after entering the mystic realm.
Bang-bang-bang
Much to the relief of the weaker demon beasts clinging on to the side of the cliff with all the strength left in their bodies, who let go of the cliff side and fell to the ground the moment he left.
Roooaaaar~!
Roar!
Roar~
All of them let out small roars filled with happiness, some of the weakest Qi Condensation Realm demon beasts had even burnt part of their life essence in an attempt to not fall down from the cliff and catch Xuan Hao's attention earlier, their strength and future potential being permanently damaged as a result.
In the end, the demon beasts were just happy to have survived, as they all soon left the area below the cliff before beginning the long process of recovery back in what remained of their home. None of them dared to take the risk and climb up the cliff to find out where the rest of the demon beasts had gone. Fearful that they might encounter another terrifying being like Xuan Hao on the other side.
...
Coming out of the cave system that the entrance at the Flying Sword Sect was connected to, Xuan Hao could not help stopping to admire the endless forest that spread out before him. If not for the fact that he knew that he was inside a mystic realm, he would have thought he was still somewhere on the Ewaria Continent.
Looking at the mystic realm in another way, it was no different from a different world. After all, to the demon beasts living inside the mystic realm, they had no idea about the Ewaria Continent that the mystic realm was attached to and would not think that there was a much bigger world out there.
Then again, who was to say that he was different from the demon beasts of the mystic realm? From what he knew, there should still be another three continents out there that he had still not visited. Not to mention there might be even more worlds out there similar to that of the world that the Ewaria Continent and other three continents existed inside of. Maybe there were worlds even larger than that and he just didn't know, similar to the demon beasts who had no idea about the larger Ewaria Continent outside their mystic realm...
Well, even if that is the case, my current strength is far too weak for me to concern myself about the possibilities of larger worlds existing in the void outside...
Understanding that his cultivation was far too weak to start deliberating on these kinds of questions for now, Xuan Hao decided not to think anymore about what might be lurking in the seemingly endless empty void outside the Ewaria Continent. Instead, he decided to focus his attention back on what remained of the spiders on the ground in front of the entrance to the cave system.
"Hm? What in the world..."
In doing so, Xuan Hao suddenly discovered the black ash left behind after the death of these spiders had actually started moving along in the ground in a slow motion that even his divine sense had not managed to pick it up at first due to just how slow the black ash was moving.
Whoosh-!
Knowing that this should be impossible given that he had made sure to kill the spiders earlier, Xuan Hao directly used his dao domain to lift some of the black ash on the ground up into the air before starting to thoroughly inspect it with both his dao domain and divine sense. Not wanting to miss anything.
This... The black ash is actually still connected by the natural formation from earlier!?
Analyzing the black ash with the help of both his dao domain and divine sense, it did not take long for him to discover that the natural formation that the spiders had used to defend against his attack earlier, was still active and the thing behind the slow movement of the black ash.
"But... What is providing the energy to keep the formation active? It doesn't absorb qi from the outside, as I would already have sensed it if that was the case and the spiders that kept the formation active before are all dead!" Muttering this to himself as he felt a sense of confusion he had not felt in a long time, Xuan Hao could not figure out where the energy to keep the formation active came from.
Even if the energy it used at the moment was miniscule when compared to before, it would still be burning through the qi equivalent to the full dantian of a Core Formation Realm Expert every hour to move such a large amount of black ash!
For this reason, there had to be somewhere that the energy was coming from, it was just that he could not see it, something that frustrated Xuan Hao to no end. Especially considering that he should have already killed the other party, but now, what little remained of the other party, suddenly got up and began to leave.