Yun Qingxue’s thoughts raced as she walked, and before she knew it, she had reached the deepest part of the cave. The temperature here was countless times higher than outside!
She stared in shock at the scene before her—every assumption she had made along the way was completely overturned!
The red light that had drawn her here was not some mysterious phenomenon, but fire…
From where she stood now, Yun Qingxue could no longer see the walls of the cave. All she saw was an endless sea of flames.
Within the fire, countless figures writhed and twisted, their agonized screams piercing and sorrowful.
As one group of people vanished into the flames, another would immediately appear, struggling and wailing just like the last.
Wave after wave of people—men, women, young and old—were swallowed by the fire, only for new ones to emerge endlessly.
Even mass suicides weren’t this relentless!
This was too eerie!
Yun Qingxue stood at the edge of the fire for a long time, but aside from the ceaseless procession of people throwing themselves into the flames, she sensed no immediate threat.
Was this an illusion?
She pinched herself hard, and pain immediately flared where she had twisted her skin.
Then it struck her—she had just done something foolish!
Pinching oneself only doesn’t hurt in dreams. Though illusions and dreams differ by just a single word, they are entirely different.
Dreams are fabrications of the mind, intangible. Whether pinching oneself or rolling on a bed of nails, there’d be no pain.
But illusions are different—they are false scenes conjured by others or nature. The scenery may be fake, but the person experiencing it is real. Pinching oneself would still hurt!
And her pain wouldn’t dispel the illusion.
Yun Qingxue turned around. Daise stood behind her, staring at the sea of fire with disbelief.
“So eerie!” Daise murmured fearfully as Yun Qingxue turned to face her.
Frowning, Yun Qingxue stepped toward Daise, her gaze fixed on something behind her.
Daise instinctively turned to look.
It was gone—the cave they had entered had vanished.
Behind them now stretched only a vast, gray, seemingly endless void.
Deep in the fire, figures still struggled.
With no way back, Yun Qingxue turned her attention to the endless flames.
“Stay close!” she ordered Daise and Liuli. A faint blue glow enveloped her as she raised her hand and struck the fire with a powerful palm strike.
The force of her attack split the flames in two.
“Go!” Yun Qingxue’s hands moved swiftly, summoning dozens of vines.
She controlled the vines to lash at the fire, keeping the path she had opened clear.
“Move!” Grabbing Liuli with one hand and pulling Daise with the other, Yun Qingxue dashed toward the other side of the fire.
Strange noises echoed from beyond the flames, but Yun Qingxue ignored them. With no way back, their only option was to cross the fire and see what lay ahead.
Yun Qingxue moved swiftly, pulling Daise through the flames in an instant. Behind them, the fire closed back up as quickly as it had parted.
The moment the flames rejoined, Yun Qingxue noticed something odd about the vines she had been controlling.
Before she could examine them closely, the green tendrils vanished into the fire.
“Who dares disrupt the law enforcement of the Netherworld?!” a sharp, chilling voice suddenly rang out.
Yun Qingxue turned toward the sound and saw over a dozen ferocious figures standing not far away.
Some had deathly pale faces, others were pitch-black like charcoal, and some were gaunt to the bone—but all shared the same grotesque, menacing appearance.
And their words were clear—she had disrupted the Netherworld’s law enforcement.
The Netherworld… wasn’t that the same as the legendary underworld?
Yun Qingxue blinked.
She had crossed the sea of fire, but now, not far from where she stood, figures in white robes were desperately climbing a mountain covered in razor-sharp blades.
Their bodies were drenched in blood…
A mountain of blades…
A sea of fire…
A group of terrifying demons…
Tormented souls…
Damn, this was the standard setup of the Eighteen Hells!
Yun Qingxue was stunned. She had prepared for danger, but she never expected to step out of a cave and straight into the Netherworld—and worse, the Eighteen Hells!
She suddenly recalled her master’s words about the Yunhuang Illusion—a place where reality and illusion overlapped.
Perhaps everything before her was just an illusion…
“Who are you?!” one of the demons snarled when Yun Qingxue didn’t respond.
“I’m a friend of Xiao Xiaoxiao,” Yun Qingxue replied, remembering the quirky but loyal ghost girl.
“The Queen of the Netherworld’s friend?” The demon muttered, then widened its bulging, bell-like eyes. “Proof? And how did you walk out of the fire?”
Proof?
Yun Qingxue thought for a moment. “I accidentally wandered here. As for proof… go inform Xiao Xiaoxiao that Yun Qingxue is looking for her. She’ll know.”
The demons huddled together, whispering, before one quickly floated away.
“Esteemed guest, please wait. We’ll summon the Queen,” another demon said with a forced smile.
Yun Qingxue nodded, noting their title for Xiao Xiaoxiao.
Queen of the Netherworld? Wasn’t that the exclusive title for the King of the Netherworld’s wife?
Had Xiao Xiaoxiao married the King of the Netherworld?!
The demon subtly scrutinized Yun Qingxue before returning to its duties with its companions.
Yun Qingxue and Daise stood in the small clearing between the mountain of blades and the sea of fire, watching as the demons herded wave after wave of souls into the flames or onto the blades.
The souls endured the torment until they collapsed, only to reappear at the edge moments later, forced back into suffering—an endless cycle of agony and screams.
“Qingxue!”
About twenty minutes later, a bright, clear female voice called out from afar.
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