Chapter 980: The Evolution Temple

"This place is..." Li Xiaofei carefully tried to make sense of his surroundings.

A long cavern stretched out before him. Just like when he had followed the Ancestor of Wisdom into the heart of the Holy Ruins from the cliff’s edge, this dimly lit cave appeared to be naturally formed. The massive circular tunnel twisted and spiraled endlessly toward an unknown destination.

Li Xiaofei let out a sigh. He still had many questions he wished to ask Lin Beichen, the Sword Immortal of the human race. But unexpectedly, before he could even ask, he had already been flung into this place by that very same Sword Immortal.

He more or less understood that this must be the hidden passage leading to the Evolution Temple. Just as the Ancestor of Wisdom had once led him from the cliff of the Land of Sacred Fall to the heart of the Holy Ruins in just over a dozen minutes, this cave corridor before him was likely capable of reaching the Evolution Temple in a similarly short amount of time.

Li Xiaofei turned around and bowed toward the void.

"My thanks to Senior Lin for your guidance."

Having expressed his gratitude, he strode boldly into the tunnel. At first, the cave was very dry but as he continued forward, white stalactites began to appear. Milky-white liquid continuously dripped from the tips of the hanging formations.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Feeling a flicker of curiosity, Li Xiaofei took out a jade container and collected some of the liquid. Since he had no idea what it was or where it came from, he refrained from trying to identify it carelessly.

The Evolution Temple was located deep within the Holy Ruins, and was second only to the Land of Annihilation in its remoteness. As such, the journey required was slightly longer.

Moreover, Li Xiaofei also encountered several Void Beasts along this tunnel. However, he slew all of them using the newly upgraded version of the Heart of Guardianship. After traveling in this manner for about two days, the space ahead finally widened dramatically.

A vast underground chamber unfolded before Li Xiaofei’s eyes. The air was thick with the pungent scent of sulfur and fire. Dark red rivers of magma crawled sluggishly across the blackened earth as far as the eye could see, flowing toward a distant, unknown end.

Countless lava lakes, each ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of meters in diameter, dotted the land like puddles on uneven ground after rain. Molten waves churned violently, bubbling like boiling water.

It looked like a world on the verge of destruction. Li Xiaofei stood at the mouth of a cave in a cliff face, about a thousand meters above ground, granting him a panoramic view of the distant landscape. The charcoal-black terrain stretched out endlessly.

"Is this the Evolution Temple?" he muttered, caught off guard.

Or perhaps this was the nearest accessible region to the Evolution Temple? As he stood suspended in the void, Li Xiaofei could feel the aura of death and savagery all around him. The intensity of this threatening presence weighed on him even more heavily than the dangers he had faced in the Land of Sacred Fall.

What made it even more eerie was that, unlike the Land of Sacred Fall, where danger manifested visibly through lightning storms and icy winds, this apocalyptic world before him revealed no clear source of danger.

Li Xiaofei focused his gaze. He vaguely made out what seemed to be traces of man-made structures in the distance, tens of thousands of meters away. It almost resembled an ancient altar.

A thought stirred in his mind. He summoned the undead bone dragon, Prince Ao Ying.

"Go take a look," he said, pointing toward the distant site.

Ao Ying let out a low growl and flew off with a piercing howl. The journey went smoothly. No traps or attacks blocked its path. Soon, it returned unharmed. Seeing this, Li Xiaofei felt reassured and leaped onto the bone dragon’s head. The massive creature tore through the void, heading toward the heart of the devastated wasteland.

Before long, they reached the sky above the ancient altar that Li Xiaofei had seen earlier. He transformed into a stream of light and descended, landing carefully to inspect the area.

It was a crude altar built from black stone, consisting of three distinct tiers. Sixteen full circles of white bones were neatly arranged around it. The bones had strange shapes, making it impossible to tell what kind of creatures they had come from. But they were definitely not human.

A stone pillar stood on top of the altar, holding an ancient flag aloft, its black leather surface painted with strange patterns in rough white strokes. At that moment, the white pigment on the flag shimmered faintly with a dim glow. Li Xiaofei reached out and touched the stone pillar. Instantly, a strange energy radiated outward.

A sudden surge of vitality coursed through him, and he felt as if he had just rested for ten days and nights. His entire body was flooded with an unprecedented sense of ease and renewal.

"What’s going on?" he murmured in surprise.

When he looked up again, he noticed that the white pattern on the flag had grown noticeably dimmer.

Could it be that this altar restores energy?

he speculated quietly.

One thing was certain, this altar was not naturally formed. Since this was the Evolution Temple, it was highly likely that the altar had been built by the Reapers. Yet it looked incredibly crude. The patterns on the flag were likely some kind of ancient totem.

After carefully inspecting the ancient altar, he found nothing more of note. So he moved on. Afterward, Li Xiaofei came across several hundred similar crude altars. There were hardly any differences between them. They were scattered all across the desolate wasteland. The flags fluttered in the sulfurous winds, each bearing eerie and peculiar white totems.

Yet he had yet to encounter a single intelligent lifeform. The hidden sense of danger, however, grew increasingly intense. The undead bone dragon no longer dared to fly in the open sky and had descended to crawl along the ground.

Fortunately, even crawling, it moved swiftly. Li Xiaofei sat atop its back as if he were riding a high-speed train.

Where exactly is the Evolution Temple?

Li Xiaofei was beginning to grow anxious.

Have I gone the wrong way?

Half a day passed. Suddenly, ferocious beastly roars echoed from up ahead. Moments later, waves upon waves of monsters surged across the blackened wasteland in the distance, stampeding straight toward Li Xiaofei’s position.

"Bull heads and ape bodies... What are these creatures?" muttered Li Xiaofei.

Li Xiaofei could see them clearly. They were a horde of creatures, each averaging five to six meters tall, covered entirely in black fur. They had the heads of savage bulls and the massive bodies of great apes.

Their speed was terrifying as they charged forward like a tidal wave. There were far too many of them to count. These were not friendly beings.

Li Xiaofei glanced at the surrounding terrain. Two deadly magma rivers flowed past about five hundred meters to either side, roaring as they went. With the monsters rushing in from the front, he and the undead bone dragon had no room to dodge or retreat.

In that case... I should charge through.

The battle erupted twenty-one seconds later. The monsters were formidable, and were roughly equivalent to stage nine Void Beasts. Moreover, they wielded the power of fire elements. The flames they spewed could reduce even a level eight Reaper to ashes in an instant.

If it had been the old Li Xiaofei, before Lin Beichen had awakened his combat instincts, facing such an overwhelming tide of monsters would have left him flustered and overwhelmed.

But now, he tore through them as if he were mowing grass. After six charges, every one of those strange creatures, whatever they were, had been utterly annihilated.

They aren’t Reapers... More like Void Beasts,

Li Xiaofei carefully examined the corpse of one of the monsters.

He quickly noticed something odd. The corpses decayed at a startling rate. In less than ten minutes, even their bones and flesh had dissolved into dark red blood that seeped into the blackish-brown soil.

On second thought, they don’t really seem like Void Beasts either,

Li Xiaofei was taken aback.

A gust of sulfurous wind howled through, sweeping away the stench of blood. The land returned to its deathly, unsettling stillness as if nothing had ever happened.