Among the possible scenarios he could possibly face, this was the latest and most logical conclusion he had ended up formulating. So he wasn't very surprised to hear that his minions had traveled back to their origins, the world of the fiery sun which lay at the core of his skeletal monarch technique.
This was the source of the souls of his minions. If any anomaly related to them were to take place in his dao foundation, that burning planet would likely be the source of the anomaly too. The invisible existence which currently held the power to forcibly occupy his body had perhaps originated from that world as well. To his knowledge, there really wasn't any avenue leading to his dao tower other than that.
"Made a visit to the burning planet?!" He, however, pretended to be caught off guard. "What made you do that?"
Zhanxian replied, "we saw the calculations you were doing to predict the future of your cultivation, master. Since it looked...uh, devastating, the two of us were having a conversation here about what would happen to us when you end up as a cripple."
" 'When' I end up as a cripple, huh..."
"Yeah. That's a forgone conclusion at this point," Tun Shi Tian affirmed. "Then Zhanxian got depressed and began to wail like a little bitch-"
"But a strange incident interrupted our conversation," Zhanxian slapped the bird away and took the reigns of the explanation.
"What kind of strange incident?" Han Xuhan asked.
"A voice! Unintelligible sounds! We could hear it all over the tower. But we couldn't locate its source," Zhanxian answered in a hushed voice.
"So what did you do?"
"Of course, both of us ran to our own portions of the tower and hid there!" Zhanxian said, sounding proud.
"I wanted to investigate, but Zhanxian didn't let me," Tun Shi Tian protested, displeased that he was being described as a coward alongside Zhanxian.
Han Xuhan wanted to tell them that the disembodied voice had probably wished for them to investigate its source. But he decided against it and said, "then what?"
"Well, the voice died down after a while. Still, neither of us came out of our hiding corners. But then, an even stranger thing happened! Those law alphabets above us began to fall down from the ceiling like raindrops!"
All three of them gazed at the domed ceiling. With a shudder, Zhanxian continued, "At first we were terrified that this tower was finally falling apart! But then, we noticed that the fallen letters had begun to rearrange themselves into that foreign language you've been teaching us, master!"
"English?" Han Xuhan enquired. Both minions nodded in response.
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"Yes! It took us a while to decipher the message written there. It said- 'The technique which can save all of you can be found in the burning prison' !"
Han Xuhan tried to emit a surprised yelp. "How fascinating!"
Zhanxian's enthusiasm surged. "First we didn't realize what this burning prison is. So we got into an argument. And also, Tun Shi Tian kept insisting that the meaning of the sentence I deciphered was wrong! I'm pretty sure he just forgot some of the letters."
"Shut up, Zhanxian!" The bird raged from behind.
"In the end, Tun Shi Tian noticed that at the bottom of the message, there was an arrow-shaped letter pointing at Hai Yin Zhe's pit! It's quite strange that we didn't see the arrow earlier."
Han Xuhan didn't feel the need to explain that their guide, the perpetrator behind that scene was probably beyond frustrated to see that his blatantly obvious hints had failed to lure these two idiots down in that pit, which had prompted him to come up with a much more direct method of guidance, again and again.
"So we went towards the pit and recalled our last venture down there. It was so scary! The two of us didn't even have to argue this time to come to a decision! We decided not to go down!"
In the back of his mind, Han Xuhan suddenly found himself imagining a disembodied entity screaming at the sky in frustration.
"What made you change your mind?" He asked the minions, almost feeling a pint of sympathy for the entity trying to guide them.
Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian exchanged a nervous look.
"Uh...we got kicked off the edge of the pit," Tun Shi Tian answered reluctantly.
"Kicked off? You can fly, little Tian. Why would a kick make you fall into the pit?"
"We didn't just fall, we shot downwards so fast that when our senses recovered, we were already on that planet," Zhanxian explained.
"It was a pretty hard kick," remarked the owl.
"Understandable, understandable." Han Xuhan felt the churning vengeful emotions in his heart being quelled by a great degree upon imagining that scene.
But this also revealed another precious piece of information. The entity hiding inside his dao tower could exert physical force as well, just like his minions and Han Xuhan himself.
Casting furtive glances around, Han Xuhan gave an order Zhanxian must have been expecting. The skeletal, humanoid avatar flew closer towards him and executed the memory-sharing technique taught by Kong Ye.
A moment later, Han Xuhan found himself standing on a vast plateau, a smoky, lightless sky overhead. The fiery hell he had expected to face was not so close as the previous time. He could see a carpet of cackling flames in the horizon ahead, some on top of the mountains behind, some even dancing far above his head on empty air.
Zhanxian was clearly relieved. He slowly walked around his landing, talking to Tun Shi Tian and observing their surroundings.
The soil was covered in a layer of soot and ash. Occasionally, he found himself stepping on wooden planks, metallic objects too misshapen to identify, and rubbery substances that had melted into chunks of useless junk.
Structures as hard as concrete stuck out from the ground here and there, possibly portions of destroyed homes.
Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian cautiously trekked through the ruins, examining whatever they could find on their way, hoping to find a method to return to their dao tower.
They found some stone tablets containing foreign alphabets. Just like last time, Han Xuhan was able to glean the meaning of some of the words despite being completely unfamiliar with the language used on the tablets.
"House...Cherry...Zhu. House...Cherry...Shui. House...the fuck is this... Uh, blood? House Blood...Ren."
These tablets all seemed to be synonymous in terms of usage. Han Xuhan felt that these were the nameplates of the buildings, or perhaps if they were standing on the ruins of a sect, then these stone tablets could be containing the titles of the factions or pavilions of the sect, just like how the Crimson Snow sect had many mountain peaks with different names and characteristics.
Their exploration, unfortunately, was cut short by an alarming discovery.
The tides of fire on the horizon were creeping closer at an discernible speed. At some point, they had been surrounded by the burning, soul-like entities from all directions except a small gap just ahead.
Panicking, the minions rushed towards the gap, their speed nowhere near enough to match the advent of the waves of fire rushing towards them.
Thankfully, that gap in their formation was quite close. As the two minions reached the area, they realized the reason why no burning entity had approached them from this direction.
Here lay a chasm deep enough to completely escape the reach of the fiery red light that illuminated this planet. They couldn't even see the other side of the chasm...if there was any. It was as if an endless sea had dried up here, uncovering its abyssal depths.
The mouth of this chasm was curved, perhaps even circular, Han Xuhan couldn't really tell due to the lack of light here.
"Well, what are you waiting for Zhanxian? No fire here! That means we can hide here for the time being!"
Tun Shi Tian did not consider much more and dived downwards, spreading its wings vertically. Zhanxian took one last look at the hellish display closing up on him from all three directions and swiftly chose a suitable slope to slide down.