Free Web NovelChapter 164: The Burning Plains of Ghoza
The world changed not in a slow gradient, but in a single, brutal step.
One moment they were trekking through the rocky, wind-scoured foothills at the edge of the Azure Snow territory.
The next, Lin Tian’s boot crunched on a different kind of stone. It was porous, black, and still warm to the touch even in the early morning.
A wall of heat hit him in the face, thick with the stench of rotten eggs and scorched metal.
He stopped, and the others halted behind him.
"That’s it," Lu Cang said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "The maps weren’t exaggerating."
Before them, the land fell away into a vast, smoky basin. Jagged black rock formations rose like broken teeth.
In the distance, rivers of molten orange light crawled across the dark landscape, and the air shimmered with waves of distortion. The sky here was a permanent, bruised yellow, choked with ash and vapor.
From one extreme to another, Lin Tian thought. Ice to fire.
The cold of the mountains was a crisp, clean thing. This heat was oppressive. It pressed down on his lungs and made the sweat on his back evaporate before it could cool him.
His Ice Flame Qi stirred in his dantian, a balanced knot of opposites that seemed to regard the new environment with clinical interest.
"I can handle the ambient heat," Su Lan announced, stepping forward. She took a deep breath, and the air around her visibly cleared.
The choking sulfur smell lessened, replaced by a dry, clean warmth.
A faint golden aura, like the glow from banked coals, emanated from her skin.
"My physique treats this like a comfortable bath. Stay within ten paces of me, and the worst of it won’t touch you." frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Good," Lin Tian said. "You’re our vanguard here."
Xueya frowned, a delicate sheen of perspiration already on her temples. Her Ice Phoenix bloodline was the polar opposite of this place.
"The spiritual energy is chaotic. All fire and earth, no water or frost to speak of. Drawing on it will be difficult."
"Allow me, Lady Xueya," Yue Chan said softly. She unwound a length of pale, almost translucent silk from her wrist.
With a flick of her fingers, it unspooled into several strands, which she sent weaving through the air around them. The silks didn’t just hang there.
They pulsed with a subtle, cooling energy, creating a latticework network that intersected with Su Lan’s warm aura.
The effect was immediate. The suffocating blanket of heat pulled back, replaced by a manageable, dry warmth. It was like stepping from a furnace into a shaded courtyard.
"A coolant network," Yue Chan explained, her eyes tracking the flow of energy along her threads.
"It redirects and dissipates the ambient energy. It will not last forever under direct assault, but for travel, it is sufficient."
Lin Tian watched the silks work, a sense of profound satisfaction settling in his chest.
This is what we are now. Not just individual power, but a system. Each piece covering for the others.
"Lead on, Su Lan," he said.
They descended into the basin. The ground was treacherous, a crust of brittle rock over softer, hotter material beneath.
The sound was a constant, low rumble, like a giant sleeping below. After an hour of careful progress, the first signs of life appeared.
Not plants. There were none. But up ahead, near the base of a sloping cliff of obsidian, figures moved. The clang of metal on metal echoed strangely in the thick air.
"Smiths," Lu Cang muttered, his hand resting on his new sword’s hilt.
They were a rugged-looking bunch, men and women with leather aprons over soot-stained clothes.
They worked around a series of stone anvils and forge pits that glowed with unnatural, blue-tinged fire.
They were hammering what looked like raw, glowing ore into rough shapes. But they weren’t alone.
From a fissure in the cliff face, creatures emerged. They were made of congealed, semi-molten rock, with cores of blazing orange light.
They moved with a disturbing, liquid gait, leaving sizzling footprints on the stone. Lava beasts. Three of them shambled toward the smiths, their intent clear.
"Void-corrupted," Su Lan said, her voice tight. "I can feel it. Their fire is... sick. Twisted."
The smiths saw the threat. They didn’t run. They grabbed their hammers and tongs, forming a rough line.
One burly woman with arms like tree trunks hefted a massive sledge.
"For the Forge!" she roared, her voice cutting through the rumble.
The fight was brutal and short. The smiths were strong, their blows cracking the rocky shells of the beasts.
But the creatures were relentless. Where a limb was shattered, molten material flowed to repair it. One smith screamed as a glancing splash of liquid rock seared across his leg.
Lin Tian didn’t need to give an order. He just started moving.
He didn’t run at the beasts. He angled himself between the smiths and the fissure, planting his feet. He wanted to test something.
The Domain. In this place.
He didn’t expand it fully. That would be a declaration, a beacon. Instead, he focused on the principle, letting the balanced Ice Flame Qi in his vambraces activate.
A sphere of influence, maybe fifteen feet across, bloomed around him. The air inside didn’t become cold. It didn’t become hot.
It became neutral.
The chaotic, burning spiritual energy of the plains hit the boundary of his domain and... settled.
The scorching heat vanished, replaced by a temperate, breathable atmosphere.
The stench of sulfur was cleansed away. Under his feet, the black, burning rock lost its blistering heat, cooling to a comfortable warmth.
One of the lava beasts, sensing the shift in energy, turned its blazing core toward him. It lurched into the edge of his domain.
The effect was instantaneous. The violent, unstable heat that held its form together met the harmonizing pressure of Lin Tian’s will.
The creature shuddered. The orange light in its core flickered, confused. Its semi-liquid body began to solidify, not into a cohesive form, but into brittle, crumbling slag.
It took one more step and collapsed into a pile of inert, dark stone, the light in its core guttering out.
The other two beasts, still engaged with the smiths, seemed to falter. Su Lan didn’t wait.
She raised a hand, and a whip of condensed, pure golden fire snapped out. It wasn’t the wild, consuming fire of the plains. It was controlled, surgical. It sliced through one beast’s core, and the creature exploded into harmless sparks.
Xueya, staying within Yue Chan’s cooling network, simply pointed a finger. A needle-thin beam of absolute frost lanced out, not at the beast, but at the fissure it had emerged from.
The opening sealed with a crackle of instantly-formed obsidian, cutting off the flow of corrupted energy.
The last beast, disoriented and alone, was quickly surrounded and smashed apart by the vengeful smiths.
Silence returned, broken only by the distant rumble of the plains and the pained gasp of the injured man.
The lead smith woman lowered her hammer, her chest heaving. She looked from the pile of slag in Lin Tian’s domain to his group, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and wariness.
"Travelers," she called out, her voice rough. "You have our thanks. That was... some trick."
Lin let his domain contract back into his vambraces. The oppressive heat rushed back in, though Su Lan and Yue Chan’s combined efforts softened it immediately.
He walked toward the smiths, his team falling in behind him.
"It was a test," Lin Tian said honestly, looking at the cooled patch of ground his domain had created. It stood out, a perfect circle of neutral, livable space in the middle of the hellscape.
I can change the land itself. Not just fight on it.
The smith woman followed his gaze, then looked back at him, a new understanding dawning in her eyes. She wasn’t just looking at a powerful cultivator. She was looking at someone who could carve out a piece of sanity in the madness.
"A test," she repeated slowly. She wiped soot from her face with a thick forearm.
"Well. You passed. What brings people like you to the Burning Plains of Ghoza? This is no place for a picnic."
Lin Tian met her gaze. "We’re looking for the Sea of Eternal Embers."
The smiths exchanged glances. The woman’s expression turned grim. "That’s not a place you look for," she said.
"That’s a place that finds you, if you’re damned lucky or cursed stupid. The way is through the heart of the fire, where the land bleeds and the sky burns. The things that live there... they make those corrupted beasts look like campfire sparks."
She gestured to the now-sealed fissure.
"This is just the border. A scrape. You want the Sea? You’ll need more than a cooling trick and a pretty domain."
Lin Tian looked past her, into the shimmering, violent depths of the basin. The heat haze made the distant mountains of fire look like they were dancing.
We have more, he thought, feeling the steady presences of Xueya, Su Lan, and Yue Chan at his back, and the ready strength of Lu Cang beside him.
We have a system. And we’re just getting started.
He nodded to the smith. "We’ll manage."
End of Chapter 164
