The Path to the Most Evil Ground

A small white beast, utterly eye-catching, walked along a parallel path with its hands behind its back, chin tilted skyward, wearing dark glasses and chewing a blade of grass. It looked cool, impossibly cool, and its words were even more outrageous.

The Martial Imprint nearly slapped it in frustration. He bounced and cursed in the time-space passage. Xiao Chen was already dumbstruck. This was definitely not Keke's style, and from the Martial Imprint's outbursts, he gathered that this tough little creature was not much older than Keke—very young indeed.

No wonder the Martial Imprint had said earlier that he wanted to teach "that one's" precious darling a lesson. That referred to Keke, and Xiao Chen himself had taken a beating as collateral. Just as he suspected: the crooked characters this cool little beast wrote were exactly the same as Keke's—sprawling and clumsy! But overall, Keke was far prettier. Her parents… were very eccentric.

The white beast maintained its parallel course, goading the Martial Imprint to the brink of madness. He trembled like an addict and wanted nothing more than to charge over and settle the score.

"That divine staff really is a waste. If old Martial Imprint knew how his descendant was being tormented, he'd die of rage all over again," the little beast remarked.

These words made the Martial Imprint's forehead darken with fury, but he forced himself to endure, wanting to hear more. Yet the beast said nothing for the next half day, just walked with its hands behind its back, gazing at the sky.

"@!#$%… Go on, say it!" the Martial Imprint raged.

"Traversing a thousand ages, I found no worthy foe. Pity my talent is too supreme. Sigh, no help for it…"

Hearing such narcissism, the Martial Imprint nearly tore his hair out. But no matter how much he fumed, he could do nothing. The little beast suddenly accelerated and vanished in an instant.

Bai Qi, ever practical, chose this moment to deliver another blow: "Martial Imprint, it seems you didn't worship that heaven-defying little beast in vain."

"What?! What are you saying?!" The Martial Imprint exploded, grabbing Bai Qi and nearly tearing him apart.

"It's the truth. If we follow its parallel path, we'll likely find a way out," Bai Qi insisted earnestly. "Our separation is immeasurable in time, but space is unchanging. Following its route, we will find the exit."

His reasoning had some merit, but countless variables still lurked in this chaotic spacetime. Yet with no other choice, they grasped at this hope.

Forcing himself to do his utmost, the Martial Imprint hastened forward. To his surprise, they soon encountered the little beast again, still strolling along their parallel course.

This continued for seven or eight days, until the beast finally disappeared, as if crossing through a watery curtain, leaving only ripples in its wake.

It took the Martial Imprint two months to force a passage near that spot, then he bombarded the area daily, hoping to open a spatial gate.

Whether the beast was too heaven-defying or the Martial Imprint too inept, it took three months to open a hole the size of a grain of rice. The outside air rushed in.

"Open!" the Martial Imprint shouted, and finally pried open a spatial rift.

"Charge! Hurry!" he bellowed.

Xiao Chen, Bai Qi, the Golden Divine Halberd, and the Dark-Iron Seal shot through the rift like lightning. The Martial Imprint collapsed after them, utterly drained.

They had landed in a desolate land of gray-brown earth, barren and empty, stretching into lonely silence.

"I understand now. Even without the Slaughter Light, we had to walk this chaotic spacetime to reach the Most Evil Ground. It is the necessary path!" The Martial Imprint's words shook them all. The road was perilous beyond belief.

Days later they crossed the barren waste, and ahead green began to appear. Soon they felt as if they had entered a paradise—divine trees swaying with emerald light, orchids and immortal fruits fragrant and abundant. Flowers bloomed, springs bubbled, streams tinkled, all thick with spiritual energy.

The Golden Divine Halberd nodded. "All that dead land with not a blade of grass, and suddenly this? The contrast is too great. There's something wrong…"

But this was their only route. Xiao Chen unceremoniously gathered huge quantities of spirit fruits into his acupoint space.

And then—with a thunderous crash—a beautiful peak ahead shattered. A colossal bone dragon burst into the sky, its body writhing like a mountain ridge. It was the skeleton of an Ancestral Dragon, stretching a hundred li. Its skull held a faint divine fire—a fire seed being of terrifying power. The Ancestral Dragon bones alone were enough to inspire awe, almost eternal and indestructible.

"The human and celestial civilizations have shown their power, so why not the dragon race?" the Martial Imprint said, seeming unsurprised. "It appears here."

He did not dare be careless. The white-bone Ancestral Dragon emitted a mysterious power that threatened even him.

He ordered the others to go ahead while he intercepted it.

A piercing dragon cry shook heaven and earth as it rose to coil in the sky like endless white clouds.

"Get back!" The Martial Imprint unleashed the very essence of martial arts, his fist light shooting hundreds of li, flooding the dragon's bones. The dragon's horns blazed as it rushed forward, refusing to retreat.

Xiao Chen did not hesitate, flying as fast as he could. Only after ten thousand li did he slow down.

They waited one hour, two hours, three… It was not until the next day that the Martial Imprint returned, looking sick and weary.

"Divine staff, you are an Ancestral God weapon… Could you not defeat that skeleton?"

The Golden Divine Halberd and Dark-Iron Seal kept chattering, failing to notice the Martial Imprint's dark expression.

"Damn it!" He swept his hand and buried both weapons three hundred zhang underground. Long after, they crawled back up, covered in dirt.

"Easy for you to say," the Martial Imprint fumed. "That Ancestral Dragon skeleton brought out its reverse scale! Any of you try that, and you'd be vaporized instantly. Besides, I didn't want to kill it. It was created to guard the path to the Most Evil Ground, a trial for later generations. I couldn't bear to destroy it."

A reverse scale from an Ancestral Dragon was an attack that would make even Ancestral Gods pale. But the Martial Imprint's later words were debatable.

For the next half month, they encountered all kinds of dangers and witnessed many astonishing things. Then, one day, the Martial Imprint sensed something.

"We're close. The Most Evil Ground is within a few hundred li."

But a grave expression crossed his face. His powerful divine sense detected an extraordinary aura. Ahead lay endless, ordinary hills covered in trees, but the pressure they emitted felt overwhelming.

"Follow far behind me. Don't come close."

He walked step by step.

Only when they climbed those hills did Xiao Chen realize with horror that they were made entirely of rubble, overgrown with grass. The ruins stretched for fifty li, and far ahead an ancient, timeless aura pulsed.

A hundred li further, they spotted a colossal city standing whole on the horizon. Its majesty immediately stunned Xiao Chen. Its style was exactly like the Dead City!

He had long suspected the Most Evil Ground was in the Death World. Now he was even more certain. Could this be one of those legendary ancient demon cities deep in the Death World?

Meanwhile, on Dragon Island, little Keke had successfully advanced to the Half-Ancestor realm. Months earlier, sound asleep, she had weathered all the heavenly thunder without any damage. When she woke, she furiously demanded to know who had attacked her. The thousands of watching cultivators were dumbstruck and deeply wounded by her complaints. They all lamented heaven's injustice. Only after the Dragon Clan War God King patiently explained did she calm down. But her next remark nearly floored the crowd: "I'm so sleepy. I want to go back to sleep. Don't stare at me like that."

Rubbing her eyes, she drifted off again—a nap that stretched into months. After three months, the Dragon Clan War God King, unable to bear it any longer, had to forcibly wake her. Keke sat up drowsily, rubbing her eyes, looking wronged. "I'm really so sleepy…"

The usually patient War God King nearly lost his temper, but he restrained himself. "You've slept for over a hundred and fifty years. You already reached the Half-Ancestor realm in your sleep. Aren't you satisfied?"

"No," the little beast replied seriously, nodding.

The War God King nearly fell over, and the surrounding dragon elders felt like vomiting blood. They had no words for this snow-white beast.

A dragon girl who had previously used the fruits of the seven sacred trees to wake Keke spoke up. "Don't you want to know about Xiao Chen? After a hundred and fifty years, he has reappeared, but he seems to be lost in the Most Evil Ground again…"

Hearing this, Keke perked up. A glimmer of spirit returned to her hazy eyes. "Ya-ya! I'm going to save him now!"

And so, no longer drowsy, she asked a few quick questions, then turned into a white beam and shot off Dragon Island. She was heading for the Soul Realm, where many Half-Ancestors had vanished, to save Xiao Chen.

But before going, she decided to test her Half-Ancestor divine powers. Overseas, countless races gathered on many sacred islands. On that day, all cultivators heard a childish voice resound through heaven and earth:

"Keke's Ultimate Art—Eat the World!"

In an instant, from every sacred island, spiritual essences soared into the sky, converging toward a single point. Soon a white little beast was buried under a mountain of spirit herbs, divine fruit, and celestial mushrooms. Everyone clearly heard her dissatisfied mutter: "That's not enough. More, come again…"

That day, a host of powerful cultivators flew into the sky to catch a thief. But before they could arrive, Keke had already reached the boundary of the Soul Realm.