Master of Strange Dao

An Lan's eyes were red, and her attack was a struggle with all her might, but unexpectedly, Gong Ze, knowing he would die, did not resist at all. Instead, he used her actions to add fuel to the fire, allowing the Life Fire within him to burn to a Realm he could never have reached in his lifetime.

The part of the Half-blessed land where the Jinlan Mine was situated, overlapping with the Wilderness, was forcefully severed by him, and large swathes of land were turned to ash. A crack had now appeared between the two areas.

And, as luck would have it, the gaps were filled with violent, all-consuming Magma, only causing the cracks to widen, much like quenching thirst with poison.

An Lan took out a Pill and swallowed it. Her face turned bright red instantly, and her aura climbed incessantly. She formed Seals with her hands, channeling the thunder from the sky into a massive river that roared downwards, washing away the Magma filling the cracks.

Within the Magma, numerous giant ice spikes shot out, piercing into both ends of the crack, and were immediately turned into steaming vapor by the Magma. Soon after, more giant ice spikes exploded out of nowhere, forcibly welding the cracks on both sides together.

The standoff between the ice and the Magma began, and thunder in the sky poured down like torrential rain.

…

When the Jinlan Mine first began to tremble, the villagers had already rushed out from the underground tunnels.

However, even so, dozens of people were trapped underground by the collapsing tunnels.

The trembling of the earth grew more intense without any respite.

"Outside," Old Yang bellowed, and the remaining villagers had no choice but to abandon those not trapped underground and flee the village for refuge.

However, the moment Yu Ziqing, Old Yang, and the crowd rushed out of the village and passed the Despair Abyss, they saw flames soaring into the sky ahead.

The air was twisting, and a Magma River about dozens of yards wide appeared in front of the village, the fiery flames forming a gigantic wall of fire hundreds of yards high.

The ground beneath their feet turned to Magma, everything reduced to ashes.

Soon, they saw the pitch-black sky brightening as countless blue and gold thunderbolts surged like a great river, cleaving through the flames and plunging into the Magma River.

Gigantic ice spikes, dozens of yards long, burst out from the Magma, and a pathway made of ice ridges formed within the Magma River. Soon after, the ice ridges vaporized, only for new ones to appear while the Magma River cooled and then heated up again, locked in a tug of war.

Yu Ziqing stared dumbfoundedly at the terrifying powers unfolding before him, feeling his skin burn with pain despite the great distance and his Third-tier Body Refinement status.

He didn't know what was happening.

He had thought that the increasing chaos outside might affect the Jinlan Mine, but he had never imagined it would be to this extent.

Standing just outside the dualistic hell of ice and fire and merely watching from afar, he already needed to circulate his Qi Blood Power to resist the high temperatures outside. Had he not refined his body, he might have been cooked alive the moment he saw those phenomena.

The next moment, as new thunderbolts struck the Magma River and new gigantic ice spikes exploded inside it, the entire Magma River suddenly blew up.

Scorching Magma and bone-chilling frost mixed together, turning into a great rain that spread in all directions.

The locust forest on the hillside to the right also suffered a fatal blow at this moment.

Flames and frost intermittently fell into it, beginning to be swallowed up by the layer of fallen leaves on the ground.

However, it was clear that these powers had exceeded the threshold the locust forest could endure.

One by one, locust trees were ignited, turning into blazing torches, while others were frozen solid into ice, shattering into pieces with the slightest impact.

The people who had just rushed out of the village had no choice but to retreat back into the Despair Abyss.

But even within the Despair Abyss, they could still see some flames and broken ice ridges rushing in, continuously falling. The flames that hit the ground burned for a long time, igniting out of nowhere.

The group had to retreat back into the village to avoid being affected further.

But by then, virtually everyone had suffered some degree of frostbite and burns, and it was fortunate that the two opposing forces cancelled each other out somewhat; otherwise, this wave would have killed many in the village.

Old Yang, now completely blackened, had several patches of his wool burned clean off, and his skin bore crisscrossing marks of burns and frostbite.

He ignored his own injuries, looking out of the village, his eyes filled with despair.

"It's over, the mine is going to fall into the Void."

"What in the world is going on?"

"I don't know what happened either, I just know it's over…" Old Yang was unusually distraught as he looked outside.

"The Jinlan Mine is a rare Half-blessed land. A part of its space overlaps with the Wilderness, right outside the village entrance. This part inside the village is actually an independent space.

Now someone with Great Divine Power has severed the linking part, and the overlapping part has been burned away directly. This place is going to plunge into the Void."

Yu Ziqing's thoughts raced, and he quickly asked again.

"Is there someone outside trying to extinguish the fire?"

"Put out what fire? If that person does nothing, this place will fall into the Void. If that person does intervene, it will fall even faster. Such drastic merging of ice and fire will lead to an explosion at some point, completely severing the already broken link!

The path has also been sealed off by the two forces. None of us can escape now."

While they spoke, another anomaly occurred outside.

The Magma River, previously stretching across the outside, exploded again internally, and the scorching steam turned into a white column of smoke, accompanied by a whooshing sound, shooting straight into the sky.

Following that horizontal Magma River, a crack emerged on the ground, vertically extending towards the direction of the village.

Scorching steam hissed from the crack, closely followed by blindingly bright lava that erupted from within, the crack growing ever larger.

The Cece Despair Abyss along with the locust forest on the right were split in two by this Magma River.

Merely a few breaths later, the accumulated pressure could no longer be contained. Beneath the earth, another loud noise was heard as the hillside where the Despair Abyss was located, along with the hillside where the locust forest lay, were directly blown up into the air.

At the end of this Magma River, the fog at the entrance of the village also suddenly dissipated at that moment.

However, behind the dissipating fog, there was only a huge crater stretching for ten miles, and beyond the crater lay a wilderness covered with snow.

The Jinlan Mine, the village, and the surrounding mountains that once existed here were all gone.

Faintly, within that massive crater, one could still catch sight of a dark crack slowly healing as the world amended the void in its space.

And the Jinlan Mine had fallen into the Void.

An Lan hovered in the air, her complexion turning from pale to green, never expecting things to end up this way.

She could not understand why Gong Ze was so concerned about the Jinlan Mine.

When she saw Gong Ze standing there, throwing his head back in mad laughter, she understood.

Gong Ze did not know; he was merely attempting, in his dying moments, to leave a trace for the people of Dali.

But when she intervened, Gong Ze was certain.

The most important reason for her Magical Treasure's manifestation was the Jinlan Ore mined from the Jinlan Mine.

An Lan's face looked terribly grim, and now, reflecting back, she understood.

She had to take action; failing to do so would mean complete ruin, while acting might still offer a chance for redemption.

No matter how it was considered, the outcome was already like this.

This expedition had not yielded any great achievements, but instead, they had brought back a huge disgrace.

Many of Daqian's plans would be forced to a halt.

A few months ago, when the One-day Cold in her possession was born, she had suggested it.

To immediately take action, to take control of the Jinlan Mine in their hands.

Because the ability to craft that Magical Treasure, the Jinlan extracted from the Jinlan Ore, was the most crucial factor.

Before that, the research and experiments on Jinlan Ore, though slightly better than other trivial junk, were not significantly so; Jinlan Ore was merely one fish caught among many in a wide net cast.

Similar little fish, just considered an insignificant step in their plans, were too numerous, and without showing their value, it was impossible for Daqian to station people everywhere, to station their experts to oversee.

But all changed after it showed its value.

However, at that time, right when the calamity of Great Sun burst upon the Wilderness, everyone's attention was drawn there.

After discussing it, Daqian decided it was better to maintain the status quo for the time being; starting work then was too conspicuous. They would wait until the matters of the Wilderness were resolved or until some other major event diverted everyone's attention, and then they would quietly seize control of the Jinlan Mine.

Now, they could not wait any longer; the mine was gone.

...

In the village, the earth was still shaking violently, the shaking reaching its limits, the ground breaking apart, and then suddenly, it stopped.

Yu Ziqing raised his head, looking towards the sky.

In the night sky, the stars were no longer visible, the dim sky now seemed suddenly filled with large patches of pure blackness, besides these, there were also some bright spots, some linear cracks running across the sky.

The fog at the village entrance had also vanished, replaced by a cliff. Outside the village entrance was profound darkness, pure darkness, without a speck of light.

It was as if the earth had been forcefully severed.

"We've already fallen into the Void... " Old Yang muttered, looking into the darkness outside the village entrance.

"If there were a Refining God Cultivator of the Yang God Realm here, they might still have a chance to return, but for us, there's only one outcome: to be forever lost in the Void along with the mine."

The more he knew, the clearer he understood how utterly desperate their situation was.

Yu Ziqing fell silent for a moment, looking at the panic-stricken villagers who completely lacked understanding of what to do, at Old Yang who was filled with despair, and at the village chief who was forcing himself to stand.

This place was where he had come to in this world, the only place he could have enough food, not suffer from cold, and where people were kind to him.

And now someone wanted to destroy this place.

Incidentally, that involved killing him and everyone here.