Martial Peak

Chapter 1204, The Third Layer

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain

The journey forward was calm and uneventful. After exiting the plain, Yang Kai walked for more than ten days, but strangely he did not meet anyone along the way.

This situation was quite abnormal and aroused his curiosity.

Whether it was in the Flame Area or the Treasure Area, although he had not encountered many people, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t met anyone. It was as if the cultivators looking for spirit grasses and spirit medicines in the Treasure Area had all disappeared, making Yang Kai feel a sense of alarm in his heart, wondering whether something terrible had occurred here.

He wondered what exactly could have transpired while he had been underground mining Saint Crystals that led to everyone simply vanishing.

Continue to go forward for a few days, Yang Kai could now see the third-layer Flame Area but had still not seen any signs of other people.

Half a day later, Yang Kai reached the edge of the third-layer Flame Area, and staring at the fiery world in front of him, his expression became dignified.

The third-layer Flame Area and the outermost Flame Area looked no different, but Yang Kai could tell that it was far more dangerous. At a minimum, the heat and fire poison here was incomparable to the outermost layer.

However... it also didn’t seem as inaccessible as Qian Tong had said. Yang Kai examined this region for a while and probed its aura carefully, but forget about him, Yang Kai even estimated that some of the other elites from the various great forces should be able to enter this layer as long as they were well prepared.

Was the danger here greater than what he could see on the surface?

While Yang Kai was mulling over this, two figures suddenly appeared a thousand meters away. These two people were wearing the same uniform and should be from the same Sect, both of them Third-Order Saint Kings.

Yang Kai also noticed that the Saint Qi aura they gave off was far richer and purer than ordinary Third Order Saint Kings, so obviously they were elites from their Sect.

The two of them ran forward swiftly, not even sparing Yang Kai a single glance.

When they arrived at the edge of the third-layer Flame Area, they whispered a few words between themselves before a light blue halo rose from one of them, covering him in a cold aura. Obviously this was created by some kind of Ice Attribute artefact. As soon as this blue halo enveloped him, he plunged into the third-layer Flame Area.

Yang Kai was stunned!

Wasn’t it said that no one could enter the third-layer? Was this guy that reckless or simply insane? Why did he just rush in?

Wei Gu Chang wouldn’t have deceived him; Yang Kai was certain of that. At that time, he had warned Yang Kai seriously, but the scene in front of him now was very different from what Wei Gu Chang had told him.

Seeing a cold aura appearing on the second person, just before he could enter the Flame Area, Yang Kai quickly shouted, “This friend, please wait!”

Hearing this shout, the man frowned and looked towards Yang Kai unhappily.

When he arrived here with his fellow Sect Brother, they had noticed Yang Kai’s existence, but seeing how he was just a First Order Saint King, neither of them had considered Yang Kai worthy of any attention.

But now, this First Order Saint King had actually called out to him, so he responded in a cold tone, “What?”

Yang Kai cupped his fists, and knowing the other party was in a bad mood, smiled politely and asked, “Please do not be angry, I was simply curious. Wasn’t the third-layer Flame Area said to be extremely dangerous, a place no one who entered could return from? How come Your Excellency and your fellow disciples are able to enter it?”

“No one who enters can return from?” The man sneered as he squinted towards Yang Kai, “That may have been true for previous openings of the Flowing Flame Sand Field, but this time it seems things are a little different. I don’t know why, but now the third-layer Flame Area can be entered. Of course, someone with your weak cultivation would only be courting death by trying to enter!”

Saying so, he then rushed into the Flame Area impatiently, not bothering to speak any more nonsense with Yang Kai.

After he left, Yang Kai stood in place with a frown.

Was the third-layer of the Flowing Flame Sand Field really accessible now? Listening to that person, he didn’t seem to know the reason behind it, but that didn’t change the fact that he had really gone in.

No wonder the Treasure Area seemed devoid of people, most of them must have gone into the third layer.

How exactly this news came out and how it was confirmed, Yang Kai didn’t know, but two or three thousand cultivators had entered the second layer, all of them elites from their respective Sects, so someone noticing something wasn’t that surprising.

Since the Flowing Flame Sand Field first appeared, the third-layer had never been visited; no one could even enter it, so it was hard to imagine how many benefits were waiting inside to be harvested.

The Flowing Flame Sand Field was at least tens of thousands of years old. In a place where no one had set foot for tens of thousands of years, how could there not be treasures?

No wonder everyone seemed desperate to enter. Even if they had to face great risks, as long as they could obtain enough benefits, what did it matter?

Benefits always coexisted with risks. Cultivators had never been afraid of taking risks. The more dangerous the place, the more it would stimulate their desire to explore.

Now that everyone else has gone in, Yang Kai no longer delayed, immediately pushing his Saint Qi to protect himself and diving into the third-layer Flame Area.

The omnipresent heat instantly wrapped Yang Kai from all directions, causing a tingling pain on his skin as if it were being roasted. The fire poison in the air was also far more potent than the outermost layer.

In this kind of environment, besides those well-prepared and powerful Third Order Saint King cultivators, no one else should be able to enter.

Even if there were Second-Order Saint Kings that could enter this place, they wouldn’t be able to remain for more than a few days at a time before exiting. In this damned place, the consumption was just too large to sustain. Without being able to circulate their Secret Arts to supplement their Saint Qi, it would be impossible to maintain their reserves just using Saint Crystals.

There were two or three thousand people who entered the second layer Treasure Area, but Yang Kai estimated that the number of people who could enter the third-layer should be less than five hundred, and as time passed, that number would only continue to decrease. Some of these people would die inside, some would be forced to leave, and eventually only the most elite would remain.

The ambient heat here made Yang Kai very excited. Although such heat still couldn’t meet his requirements for refining the Profound Yin Sunflower Water, as long as he went deeper, he could naturally find a suitable place.

The situation in the third-layer Flame Area was indeed much more dangerous than that in the first layer. The Fire Spirit Beasts that leapt from the cracks in the ground to launch sneak attacks were no longer Fifth or Sixth-Order but instead were all Seventh or Eighth-Order. On top of that, these Fire Spirit Beasts now appeared in groups rather than individually.

If one wasn’t careful, they would find themselves besieged by a large number of Fire Spirit Beasts.

Less than a day after Yang Kai entered the third layer, he had already encountered three attacks from Fire Spirit Beast groups. He had killed off the first two groups and harvested a lot of Fire Crystal Stones, but the third group had proven too much for him to handle and he could only escape.

Back in first layer Flame Area’s strange mountain valley, Yang Kai had been able to engage in a mass slaughter of Fire Spirit Beast only because they were mostly Fifth or Sixth-Order and easy to kill in large groups.

But it was different in the third layer. Confronting these Fire Spirit Beasts would only force him to consume energy in vain, so Yang Kai made the decision to withdraw.

At one point, Yang Kai stopped somewhere in the third-layer and stared forward.

Not far away, there were two incomplete corpses lying on the ground. These corpses were completely scorched and a faint rotten aura was being emitted from them.

It was a man and a woman, and judging from their clothing, they should be elite disciples from Shadow Moon Hall. Those who could reach this place must have been together with Wei Gu Chang, so Yang Kai figured he had at least met this two before somewhere.

While waiting for the Flowing Flame Sand Field to open, there were several people who had been together with Wei Gu Chang and Dong Xuan’er, these two were probably among them.

Now they were dead here, and from the looks of things, Wei Gu Chang didn’t even have the spare capacity to gather their corpses. The situation here must have been very dangerous.

[He and Dong Xuan’er should be fine though, right?] Yang Kai frowned, taking out the communication artefact Wei Gu Chang had given him from his Space Ring and pouring his Divine Sense into it, hoping to get in touch with either Wei Gu Chang or Dong Xuan’er.

Unfortunately, after pouring his Divine Sense into the communication artefact, quite some time passed but Yang Kai still didn’t receive any reply. Yang Kai couldn’t tell if they were simply too far away from him, or they didn’t have time to check their communication artefacts. It was even possible that their communication artefacts were inside their Space Rings.

Shaking his head, Yang Kai sent out two balls of Demonic Flames and burned the bodies of the two Shadow Moon Hall disciples before continuing deeper into the third-layer.

He and these two Shadow Moon Hall disciples hadn’t even exchanged greetings but out of consideration for Qian Tong and Wei Gu Chang’s face, Yang Kai didn’t let their dead bodies simply rot out in the open. He didn’t think it necessary to go so far as collecting them and finding a place to bury them.

The third-layer was filled with crisis, but there were also numerous treasures.

Yang Kai quickly harvested more than a dozen rare and precious Fire Attribute spirit grasses and spirit medicines, each one reaching a high medicinal age incomparable to the ones he had collected in the second layer.

Judging from the potency of their medicinal efficacies, the youngest of these herbs was still three thousand years old, with the oldest ones being so ancient Yang Kai wasn’t even able to estimate their age.

The grades of these herbs were also not low, all of them at least Origin Grade High-Rank with two of them even reaching Origin King Grade.

A ten-thousand-year-old Origin Grade herb was actually no less valuable than an Origin King Grade herb. These herbs had great use to Yang Kai. They were good things that couldn’t be bought in the outside world and if they could be used in Alchemy, they would only produce the best quality of pills and even possibly improve the grade of the pill.

[How many layers does the Flowing Flame Sand Field have?] Yang Kai didn’t know, since the farthest anyone has gotten to was three.

The deeper one went, the smaller the area and the more likely cultivators would run into each other. Yang Kai was a worldly individual and understood that a First Order Saint King like him being able to enter the second layer was astonishing enough, but him being able to move about freely in the third-layer would truly shock others.

So after entering the third-layer, he had been trying to avoid other people. Once he noticed another life aura with his Divine Sense, Yang Kai would immediately make a detour.

Behaving as such, he was able to coexist with others in peace.

Killing Fire Spirit Beast, collecting herbs, looking for a place to refine the Profound Yin Sunflower Water.

In short, Yang Kai was having a good time in this treasure hunt.