Against The Heavens 124 Volcano's Core.

Once he finished the bridge, it was he and the other future clan leaders, along with Li Yang and Fang Ying, that stepped onto it first. Sending the other disciples ahead first was tantamount to sending them to their deaths, and while they might not mind if the disciples from the other clans died, they could not afford to let their own disciples die for no purpose. As such it was they, the strongest people present, that had to take the lead and cross the lake.

As the island at the center of the lake was rather large it only took them around two minutes of walking across the bridge to get to the island, the volcano towering above them. The volcano was giving off a faint heat that caused the air around it to distort slightly, it felt like they were looking at the volcano through a thin film. Looking at the volcano from a closer distance they were able to see countless two to three meter wide and tall caves that had previously been hidden due to the distorted air. While they were looking at the various caves, the brown-haired and green-eyed Cui Xiyuing spoke up, her voice slightly hushed.

"We should agree on which cave to enter, splitting up would be simply idiotic. Also, I trust you can all feel that?"

Splitting up now would make the decision to wait for more people to arrive become completely pointless, it could indeed only be considered idiotic. The tall and black-haired Xiong Xieren nodded his head, plucking some gra.s.s and throwing it into the air, unleas.h.i.+ng a visible stream of Qi from his finger at the same time. Both the gra.s.s and the Qi were slowly dragged towards the volcano, the gra.s.s even moving at a crawling pace when it landed on the ground. Xiong Xieren once again nodded his head, curiously gazing at the volcano.

"Aye. Seeing as it's dragging in not only Qi but also materialistic things, there's either a miniature tornado or a gravity well in there, both could explain why the treasure is made up of so many different elements."

A gravity well was a rather special type of area, it was actually just a single point of highly condensed gravity so strong it sucked in all surrounding energies, and depending on how large the well was it could even draw in larger items. It was rather similar to the black holes that Li Yang used, but rather than suck in and destroy everything, a gravity well would only suck in and gather everything around it, so they could be quite useful for cultivation.

After Xiong Xieren confirmed what everyone was feeling, the rest of the group turned to look at Li Yang with unified glances, leaving the matter of choosing which cave to enter up to him. This was after all a volcano, and as the person here who had the strongest law of fire, it was best to leave things like figuring out their path to Li Yang. Li Yang simply shrugged his shoulders in a casual manner, he, Fang Ying, and Langshen walking past the rest of the group.

"It really doesn't matter which cave we use, they'll all lead to the same place."

By checking and tracking the heat that each cave gave off, Li Yang could easily tell that each cave gave off the same level of heat and that all the heat came from the same source, the core of the volcano. With Li Yang taking the lead, the other people also quickly entered the caves, some of the other disciples choosing to follow Li Yang's group while the others entered the other caves, hoping that they might contain some small treasures they could pick up.

The moment they entered the caves, a wave of hot air blew against Li Yang's group, the faint smell of sulfur and ash hanging in the air. The energy in the cave was chaotic, a slight pulling force dragging the energy deeper into the cave. The earth in the cave was lightly red and seemed rather porous, a few small line-like etchings visible along the walls and ceiling of the caves. Cui Xiuying traced some of the lines with her fingers, using a thin layer of Qi to protect her skin from the heat.

"At first I thought that the beast hiding within the volcano might be an ant-type Demonic beast based on the myriad of caves, but these markings should have been made using claws. And looking at how the markings are placed, the claws should be placed on a hand with six, more likely seven, claws on each hand. Maybe a reptile-type Demonic beast?"

Cui Xiuying didn't know of a single ant-type Demonic beast that had six or seven claws, the maximum number she knew that they could have was four, and that was on a very rare ant-type Divine beast. No one here could give her a proper reply to her statement, but Tian Zheng also traced some of the markings, comparing them to each other before adding on to her statement.

"It also doesn't seem to be just the one beast. Most of the markings look the same, but there are small differences in several of them, they should not have been produced by the same beast. Just judging from this cave alone, we might be dealing with around four beasts in total."

Even if the differences were minute, it was easy for people like Tian Zheng and the others to notice them, they hadn't reached their current positions and strength just by sheer luck. The atmosphere in the cave grew a bit more solemn as they headed further in, the more Demonic beasts they had to face, the more difficult their situation became. After they walked a bit deeper into the cave, moving for about five minutes, Yuan Peng spoke up, his head tilting slightly as he slid his palm over the markings.

"It's strange though, each of the markings contain very little energy, far too little to have come from a Demonic beast that has reached at least the middle stage of the Primordial Rune realm. The children of the main beast, perhaps?"

Even if the beast wasn't putting any energy into its claws, the etchings it created would still carry some of its energy, a marking of sorts that would designate this area as its territory. Walking at the front, Li Yang shrugged his shoulders, using his thumb to point at a bend in the cave ahead of them.

"Whatever the answer is, we're about to find out. The core's just around this bend."

The bodies of Tian Zheng and the others immediately tensed up after they heard Li Yang's casual remark. None of them had been able to sense the energy of the Demonic beast or the treasure hiding in the volcano after entering the cave, the energy here was simply far too chaotic. Realizing that they had unknowingly arrived at its lair, how could they not grow a bit tense? They all drew their weapons and walked around the bend, arriving at the core of the volcano.

The core of the volcano was a vast and hollow cavern that was practically completely empty, a pool of magma about 200 meters wide located at the center of the cavern. The pool was unleas.h.i.+ng a strong gravitational pull, sucking in all the surrounding Qi and loose items, the gravity well was clearly located within the pool.

Floating above the pool were seven different lights, one brown, one turquoise, one crimson, one blue, one silver, one green, and one that was a darker brown. Each of the seven lights was bobbing around slightly as if they were dancing around each other, everyone acutely aware of what these seven lights were, seven different elementals.

And standing guard around this pool and the seven elementals was the Demonic beasts guarding it. There were seven Demonic beasts, each of them looking like a 10-meter long snake with eight limbs that ended in thin and vicious claws. Each of the beasts matched the color of one of the elementals, they most likely shared the same element.

The eyes of the seven snakes congreated on Li Yang's group the moment they walked around the bend, sending them an insidious glare. The seven snakes suddenly moved, crawling on top of each other and unleas.h.i.+ng a blinding light that filled the entire cave. Once the light pa.s.sed, the seven snakes had vanished, a nearly 200-meter long and seven-headed hydra with a thick dragon-like body standing in its place, a guttural voice leaking out from all seven mouths at once.

"You certainly waited quite patiently, humans, you are more vigilant than I expected."

Each of the seven snakes only had the energy of a beast at the late stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm, but when they fused they almost reached the late stage of the Primordial Rune realm, enabling the beast to speak the human tongue. The seven pairs of eyes swept over the group, suddenly gathering on an excited Li Yang and Langshen, shock and confusion quickly appearing in the fourteen eyes.

"Why ar...!"

A thunderous boom echoed throughout the cave before the hydra got to finish its sentence, Li Yang riding on a thick bolt of golden lightning and cras.h.i.+ng into the crimson one of the hydra's heads. His golden sword was piercing through one of its scales and digging into its body, allowing him to stand directly next to its eye, whispering in a voice so low that only the two of them could hear it.

"Now now, why don't you be nice and quiet? If you don't tattle, neither will I."

Li Yang glanced down at the pool of magma while talking, making it abundantly clear to the hydra what he was talking about. The other people here might not be able to notice, but the moment the seven snakes had fused, Li Yang had sensed the aura of a Divine beast from it. As it too was a Divine beast, the hydra was able to sense that Li Yang could be considered a humanoid Divine beast, it was likely about to ask why Divine beasts like him and Langshen were working together with humans.

The others here knew that Langshen was a Divine Beast, but they had no idea that Li Yang could be considered one. And if he could help it, he would prefer to keep it that way, so he had to quickly shut up the hydra. The hydra's eyes narrowed after hearing Li Yang's threat, but it didn't shake him off, simply replying in a low voice.

"Blackmailing me, are you?"

It hadn't expected Li Yang to detect what was hiding beneath the gravity well, the Hydra's eighth body, as well as the eight elemental. The hydra was originally born here, much like the elementals were being born here, which was why the elementals and the hydra shared the same elements. As the gravity well dragged in more and more energy, new elementals and new bodies for the hydra would be born, it was the birth of the eighth ones that had sp.a.w.ned the grandiose scene that had attracted everyone here. Li Yang's lips curled up slightly, his shoulders shrugging lightly as he looked deeply into the eye of the hydra.

"No, I'm stating facts. You can spill my secret now, but that just means that you'll be properly dying here."

Even if these seven heads were killed here, as long as the eighth body remained alive, the hydra could return to his strongest state given enough time. But if even the eighth body was killed, then the hydra would end up being truly dead, something it wanted to avoid at all cost. The hydra studied Li Yang for a quick instance, eventually judging that he didn't seem to be the type that would go against his word. The hydra blinked once and gave a fractal nod of the head that Li Yang was latching onto, Li Yang returning a faint nod.

"Good boy."

Li Yang pulled out his sword and sent a lightning bolt toward Fang Ying, riding on it to immediately return to her. Both he and the beast could communicate incredibly quickly, so the exchange actually only took around one second, to the others it simply looked like he had exchanged moves with the hydra already. Once he landed next to Fang Ying, he transmitted a message into her ears using his Qi.

"Don't tell anyone about the tiny body hiding at the bottom of the gravity well. And if possible, even if we are unable to get our hands on any of the elementals, I want to get my hands on as much of its blood as possible, especially the blood in the crimson and the blue head."

He could feel that the crimson head had the fire element and that the blue head had the lightning element, getting the blood from these heads would be very beneficial for Jinwu and Shenlong. Fang Ying nodded her head, merging with Langshen as her white sword appeared in her grasp. Before getting their hands on the blood of this hydra, they would have to defeat it first.