Kchak!

The flow of energy to the array broke the moment the rock was removed.

Van looked down at the ordinary rock in the palm of his hand and felt satisfaction fill him. The energy source of the Flamestorm Abyss Entrapment Array had now been removed by him, and the array had been successfully neutralised!

Instinctively, Van rubbed the small rock on his robes and as a result a gleaming orange surface was revealed. A strong aura of flame emitted from the pebble, immediately causing Van to feel comfortable and at ease.

[It's actually another flame essence!]

The red-haired youth realized.

The compact orange pebble emitted an aura that reminded him of the Tri-Divine Blood Flame but was actually incredibly different. The Tri-Divine Blood Flame was full of potent life or blood essence, granting Van the unique ability to sense people's weaknesses. This new flame essence gave off a much more chaotic and dominating aura, as if it were an Asura filled with rage at the world.

Van's eyes gleamed with excitement. As he held the warm little pebble in his hand, the orange light within jumped and flickered. He caressed the amber stone and felt the flame essence get sucked into himself. The red-haired youth felt his palm grow hot as the flame essence entered his body. Van shuddered as the overwhelmingly powerful and chaotic flame essence burned his blood. The flame essence raged through his body, unwilling to be shackled within a mortal vessel.

The heat rose to unbearable heights. Red, ugly blisters formed on Van's skin. The red-haired youth shuddered.

 [No!]

Van pulled on the power of the Tri-Divine Blood Flame and surrounded the new flame essence with its powerful lifeforce. Big droplets of sweat formed on Van's brow as the two flame essences warred with each other. Eventually, the Tri-Divine Blood Flame combined with Van's natural physique subdued the amber flame essence and it entered his mindscape, settling beside the b.l.o.o.d.y red light of the Tri-Divine Blood Essence. The youth's hair was lifted by an invisible wind. When it settled back down, it seemed to have grown longer by a few centimeters.

Van let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Looking at the chaotic amber flame in his mindscape the red-haired youth displayed a wry smile. If not for his strange physique, he was afraid he would have died a gruesome death as he was burned from within.

"So unruly!" Van exclaimed, "I think I will call you the 'Abyssal Storm Flame' after the array I found you in."

The amber flame in his mindscape didn't react. It just burned brightly in its own s.p.a.ce, giving off the aura of a small tyrant. Van chuckled.

Despite its small size, the Abyssal Storm Flame was able to power the entire 100km expanse of the powerful Firestorm Abyss Entrapment Array which could even befuddle Sea Establishment experts. Van just hoped that as the rock was small and appeared ordinary, the onlookers in the coliseum would not know he had just obtained a powerful treasure.

"It's time to leave this place."

Van lifted his head and looked at the dimming sky above. The sun was setting.

______

"H-he did it!"

The two friends were speechless with shock. They turned and looked at each other, excitement growing in their bellies. They felt like they had just witnessed something crazy. A mere 7th level Qi Distillation disciple had managed to escape from a naturally formed entrapment array that could even contain those in the Sea Establishment realm!

"Now that's a f.u.c.king genius!" One of them exclaimed loudly, unable to hold it in.

One of their sleeping neighbours woke up and with an annoyed tone of voice asked them what they were being so noisy for.

"Bro –!" The two friends quickly explained what had happened. The sleepy neighbour's eyes instantly goggled.

"Are you serious?"

Waves spread through the crowd as the news spread.

______

RUMBLE!

Madam Sophia's fingers weakened and the cup of wine fell to the ground, spilling its contents over the floor.

Her face paled as she watched the Firestorm Abyss Entrapment Array fizzle out.

How?

She remembered the terrifying and dreadful feeling of being trapped within the freezing walls of the ice-affiliated equivalent of the Firestorm Abyss Entrapment Array, the Ice Blizzard Formation. Entrapment arrays were extremely good at their purpose. First their illusions would cause you to lose all hope, then when you tried to solve them they would trap your mind until you went crazy. She remembered how the whiteness and blankness within the array had absolutely terrified her. Without her newly formed spiritual sense she would not have been able to find the weakness of the array and escape from it.

But this 7th rank Qi Distillation had done it!

He did what she could not imagine in 1000 years!

Madam Sophia laughed hollowly. The solitary figure standing casually at the bottom of the deep canyon and felt the image burn into her retina. She steadied herself and gripped the window ledge so tightly that the wood splintered.

If he had the ability to break the entrapment array then naturally, he was not the little white sheep that he had painted himself to be. She finally understood why Cordelia and Daphne's actions had been so muddled in the earlier rounds – it was all his doing!

He had hidden himself so well and acted like the innocent flower, only to hide a vicious serpent underneath!

Madam Sophia's gaze grew cold. She had underestimated him too much and now her reputation in the sect was at risk. She imagined the other Elder's mocking laughs and pointing fingers and grinded her teeth.

But...

It was not too late.

With narrowed eyes, Madam Sophia suddenly produced a small flute made of jade from her sleeve. She placed this jade flute between her lips and played a strange melody.

When she finally placed the jade flute down, her anger had calmed down. A small, gentle smile reappeared on her elegant visage.

______

On top of a tree thousands of metres high, a youth stood silently. With his fiery red locks and calm demeanour, he made a striking figure.

Van extended his spiritual sense outwards. The invisible web of his spiritual intent spread outwards, soft and silky. After climbing out of the canyon he decided that the first plan of action was to find a vantage point from which he could see as much of the Underworld Labyrinth as possible. He sensed this immensely tall tree and had finally climbed to the top. While he could see quite far with his eyes, it was nothing compared to his newly formed spiritual sense.

"This Underworld Labyrinth is simply too big. That canyon was just one area of the second stage and yet it was already so huge. I've observed everything in the area within a 100km radius and cannot even see the boundaries of this place."

Van felt admiration for the ancients in his heart. How had they built this miraculous place? Why had they?

Actually, even the Four Great Sects of Dragon City did not necessarily have an answer. Although they used the Monster Mausoleum as a training ground and compet.i.tion, it was not created by them. It was a relic created in ancient times that happened to be a bountiful resource for treasures. Some hundreds of years ago, the most powerful sects from Dragon City discovered it and after they felt that they extracted the most powerful items, then converted it into a suitable training ground for the young and talented.  

Van's spiritual sense crept outwards like mola.s.ses.

Within his mind's eye, a detailed and three-dimensional map of the land around him formed. There were several promising areas where the spiritual energy was thick and tempting.

There was a patch of ground full of twisting and writhing vines that grabbed onto cultivators and sank them to the bottom where their flesh-eating flowers were waiting. One could imagine that within those dense vines a powerful treasure hid.

About 50km from his location, Van found a meadow with a pure and powerful spiritual aura.  His heart rate sped up slightly.

"That seems like a place filled with fortune," Van muttered, "Unfortunately it is surrounded on all sides by a dense forest filled with high-level demon beasts wandering inside. There's also pair of 8th ranked Azure Lyre Birds with a nest who will definitely defend that place to the death."

Van's spiritual sense was moving away from that area when suddenly he sensed a number of auras moving around within a 15km radius of the meadow.  

The red-haired youth's temper immediately flared up. His fist clenched.

"Asking for death!" He spat.

The youth's figure vanished from the top of the tree. Aside from a few flattened leaves, one would not be able to detect that someone had been there seconds ago.

______

In the far away meadow, a group of four rough-looking cultivators were gathered menacingly around a smaller, s.h.i.+vering form. Three of them held the smallest figure immobile, while the fourth one stood menacingly in front.

The group's leader was a tall and broad man around thirty-four years of age who went by the name of 'Grey Wolf.' Grey Wolf had the look of someone who indulged too often in alcohol, as evidenced by his ruddy complexion and the shaking of his finger tips as he held up the crude-looking broadsword in his hand.

"It's our lucky day!" He rumbled, a leer crossing his face. Grey Wolf's companions, three other rogue cultivators like himself, grinned in agreement. They licked their lips as they looked at the fat mutton-like sect disciple in front of them. The little sect disciple s.h.i.+vered but maintained his defiant look. There was a wound on his arm that was bleeding profusely, causing a bright red bloom to form on the front of his green robes.

This little sect disciple was precisely Samuel, the small youth who whole-heartedly admired his battalion captain. Earlier he had thought he had found immense fortune by landing in the meadow, but he had forgotten the cla.s.sic proverb –'a great tree attracts the wind!' In this world, possessing wealth beyond one's means was equal to a death sentence.

"We finally found the f.u.c.ker who cleared out all the herbs here before us," Grey Wolf said loudly, "Turns out he is only a weak little 5th rank cultivator. Just a little slice and he already looks like this!"

The other three chuckled with greedy looks in their eyes. If not for the restriction on the standard-issue waist pouches they had been given, they would have killed the youth ages ago. However, as the Monster Mausoleum was an event organised by the Great Sects to train their disciples and let them gain fortune, these standard-issue waist pouches were actually spelled so that they could only be opened by the person who owned it. In other words, stealing the waist pouch was useless, the only way you could get the treasures within would by to coerce the owner.

Grey Wolf grinned evilly. He could be very 'persuasive' alright.

"Where to cut next, mm? Fat little lamb?" The broadsword flashed through the air, pointing at various body parts before pressing into soft flesh, "…Maybe here?"

Samuel's pale face tightened. Blood continued to flow sluggishly from his wound.

"I won't give anything to you. I would rather die first!"

Grey Wolf laughed uproariously. His three cronies joined in, cackling like deranged hyenas.

"You would rather die, huh? I know many ways to make someone die as slowly as possible. First, I will slice off the tender little lobes of your ears, then I'll take the first knuckle of your fingers, your eyelids… you won't die, little boy. But you'll keep feeling the exquisite pain of keeping your pride if you don't hand over the goods!" Grey Wolf said with a leer.

"Do your worst," Samuel gritted out. His pride as a disciple of the Cedar Sect would not allow him to shamefully hand over the treasures, he himself had gathered. Besides, it wasn't like he would die in real life… just experience excruciating pain that he would probably have nightmares about for the rest of his life…

"Very well," Grey Wolf's yellowed eyes glinted, "You would rather take the hard path when you could just take the easy way out. This is the stupidity and brainlessness of those so-called sect disciples, huh? I'm glad that I never joined a sect, turns out they just churn out r.e.t.a.r.ded trash like this. Heh, little boy. I think I will start with your face first, for talking back to-!"

Grey Wolf's eyes widened.

He staggered forwards, a bright red gout of blood spraying from his lips.

"Brother!" His three cronies shouted.

Grey Wolf grabbed the sharp item sticking out of his chest, blood spilling from his lips. With the last of his energy, he turned his head.

"W-who?!"

A dispa.s.sionate red-haired youth coldly looked back at him. The young man's flaming red hair and demeanour were not ordinary, alike to a blade that had been sharpened to lethality and then tempered to extreme strength.

The youth's lips moved. His eyes flashed.

"No one is allowed to touch my people!"