Chapter 347: Sunless Umbral Basin
Chapter 347: Sunless Umbral Basin
The black-iron skiff hovered at the very edge of the pitch-black wasteland.
Rhain stood at the forefront of the deck.
With a thought, a flash of spatial light illuminated the dim air, and the huge skiff vanished into his spatial ring.
"If we continue to ride the skiff, it will attract more of the dangers from basin," Rhain stated.
Lyra crossed her arms beneath her chest, her crimson eyes scanning the desolate environment.
"I know that," Lyra snorted haughtily. "You don’t need to instruct me like a novice."
Without waiting for him, she took the lead, stepping directly past the boundary and into the Sunless Umbral Basin.
The moment their boots crossed the threshold, the environment proved incredibly hostile.
A thick dark fog aggressively surged toward them, carrying a highly toxic miasma that sought to invade their pores and rot their meridians from the inside out.
Fwoosh—!
Without a single second of hesitation, Lyra’s beautiful crimson eyes flashed.
A majestic, orange-crimson fire erupted from her body. Her True Heavenly Flame cloaked her entirely, radiating a blistering heat that effortlessly burned away the toxic fog before it could even touch her skin.
She walked forward with the confident elegance of a fire goddess, casting a sidelong glance to see how Rhain would handle the deadly miasma.
What she saw made her almost stagger and fall.
Rhain didn’t summon his Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame.
He hadn’t even bothered to erect a barrier of essence.
He simply walked beside her, casually breathing in the toxic air as if it were a fresh spring breeze.
The deadly miasma swirled around him, seeping into his body, but instead of rotting his flesh, the pitch-black void within his dantian spun fiercely.
The devouring nature of the Abyssal Sovereign Physique ruthlessly crushed and assimilated the poison, converting it into harmless pure energy the second it entered his body.
What kind of human does breathe the toxic miasma of the Sunless Umbral Basin as the fresh air?
"Monster,’ Lyra muttered inwardly.
But outwardly, she maintained her haughty composure, letting out a cold snort and turning her face away so he wouldn’t see her shock.
Protected by their respective methods, the two walked deeper into the perpetual darkness, completely immune to the environmental hazards that would have instantly killed an ordinary expert.
As they ventured further into the eerie, petrified forest, the sheer scale of the danger lurking within the Basin became glaringly apparent.
Towering, dead trees made reached upward like the skeletal fingers of giant demons.
"We need to locate the mutated multi-headed fire python quickly," Rhain murmured.
He closed his dark grey eyes, intending to expand his vast, thousands of miles Spiritual Sea to map out the basin and pinpoint the beast’s location.
But the moment his soul power rushed outward—
Rhain’s brow furrowed into a deep frown.
It felt as though his consciousness had slammed into a heavy wall.
The unique laws governing the Basin’s toxic miasma forcefully restricted his spritual sense.
Instead of covering thousands of miles, his perception was brutally compressed to barely a few hundred meters.
"The suppression here is incredibly powerful," Rhain spoke solemnly, scanning his surroundings. "My Spiritual Sense is heavily restricted. We will have to navigate this forest blindly."
Lyra gripped the hilt of her rapier, her senses on high alert. "Then stay close. The beasts here are not like the ones in the outside world."
She was entirely correct.
As they walked silently through the twisted petrified forest....
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Without making a single sound, and without triggering even a microscopic fluctuation of essence, a pack of massive beasts erupted from the dense fog.
Shadow-Stalker Panthers!
Every single one of them radiated the dense aura of a Core Formation Realm beast.
They moved with fluid agility, their claws aimed directly at the vital spots of the two intruders.
Rhain’s dark grey eyes narrowed, and a vortex of pitch-black essence began to gather at his knuckles.
He raised his hand, prepared to casually dispatch the entire pack into nothingness.
But before he could throw a punch—
"Stand back!"
Lyra stepped fiercely in front of him, blocking his path.
She threw a haughty glance over her shoulder, her chin tilted upward.
"I will handle this alone!"
BOOM—!!!
An overwhelming pressure exploded from Lyra’s slender frame, instantly blowing the surrounding miasma away.
𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Rhain’s eyes flashed with a hint of surprise.
Core Formation Realm—Level 4!
Thanks to the flawless, impurity-clearing Mystic-Grade pills Rhain had carelessly tossed to her back in Valdris City, her previously shattered foundation had not only been perfectly stabilized, but her cultivation had experienced an explosive surge, pushing her directly to the fourth level!
"Crimson Tempest Rend!" Lyra shouted, her voice echoing with the majesty of a fire goddess.
Lyra swung her rapier.
A overwhelmingly oppressive wave of crimson aura, entirely wrapped in her True Heavenly Flame, tore through the petrified forest.
SLASH! CLANG! BOOM!
With breathtaking elegance and ruthlessness, Lyra wove through the panthers’ coordinated assault.
The orange-crimson True Heavenly Flame coating her blade sliced through their thick hides as easily as cutting through wet paper.
A panther lunged at her blind spot, but Lyra pivoted gracefully on her heel, driving her blazing rapier straight through its skull and incinerating its entire body in a second.
Within ten seconds, the entire pack of Shadow-Stalker Panthers had been reduced to scorched, headless corpses littering the ground.
Lyra flicked her rapier, burning the residual blood from the blade, and turned back to look at Rhain with a smug smirk.
Rhain simply gave a faint nod of approval.
’Her combat instincts have sharpened considerably,’ Rhain evaluated silently. ’And she has integrated her Heavenly Flame much more efficiently into her strikes.’
He decided to simply place his hands behind his back and conserve his own essence. If she was so eager to prove herself and clear the path, he was more than willing to let her do the heavy lifting.
However, as Rhain glanced at the scorched corpses of the panthers, his expression remained analytical.
As Lyra had spoken earlier, these beasts were undeniably far more dangerous than any Core Formation creatures in the outside world.
Their perfect adaptation to the miasma and their complete lack of essence leakage gave them huge advantage as the ambush predators.
They continued deeper into the wasteland.
A short while later, another silent ambush occurred.
A second group of venomous, six-legged arachnids.
Lyra dispatched them with the exact same ruthless elegance.
She turned around, expecting to throw another haughty remark at Rhain.
But Rhain was no longer walking behind her.
He had suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"What is it?" Lyra asked, her smirk fading as she noticed the chillingly serious expression on his face.
She had not seen this look on him since they had entered this basin.
Rhain didn’t answer immediately.
His dark grey eyes had instantly ignited with a piercing, brilliant golden light.
Eyes of Truth!
The golden glow pierced straight through the thick toxic fog, extending far beyond the few hundred meters his Spiritual Sense was restricted to.
He stared intently at a rocky ridge situated a short distance away from them.
"We have a few guests," Rhain stated, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.