BTTH : Wandering Soul

Despite the journey till now being rather peaceful everyone was on their toes, ready to act anytime. Xiao Yan wasn't experienced mercenary but he too could feel the presence of strong beasts in the mountains. The focus exercises helped him a lot, so he was less tense than few others.

As it was still the border of the outer region, they only encountered few rank 1 beasts. They handled them easily. But one encounter with a rank 2 beast had given them trouble. Although no one was seriously injured, it was still a close call. So they decided to stop for injuries as well as to rest. As for Xiao Yan he wasn't injured due to his rather high physical strength.

After almost two hours they reached rather peaceful clearing, like some sort of gathering place for mercenaries. It was the only place that wasn't filled with greenery. Like a brown circle in middle of green sea. They decided to rest here for some time and then continue afterward. But Xiao Yan had other plans.

He silently escaped from the group in certain direction. His decision to leave the clan wasn't just to train. But he had sensed something in these mountains. Despite so much distance he could pinpoint location of this disturbance. And that was the exact reason he decided to take it seriously.

It was like someone was calling him. Whenever he would go even a little bit in that direction, he'd feel that pull. He had waited several days to see if it fades, but it only grew stronger. It had started a few months ago. A few day after he started doing focus exercises to focus on different sounds. And after he concentrated on one of the sounds, it slowly got louder, from a simple hum to a clear calling, "come...come...". Initially it was only one word, but as time passed it increased in intensity, saying "come...embrace your destiny...".

So he ventured deep inside. And as he went on he started to realize that in the way he encountered no magical beasts. It was now almost evening, but still the same thing. Soon he reached a cliff. And the he could sense that the location of that voice was just ahead. So he decided to climb down. after carefully taking a rope from his ring, he tied it to a tree on the cliff. And used it to slowly go down. Due to his intense physical exercises it was easy for him.

He climbed almost 30 feet down, still couldn't see the bottom. But deciding to trust his instincts he kept going. Soon he reached the end of the ropes. Thinking that he could use wines of wild plants to extend the rope he slowly climbed up. But suddenly the soft pull from that location increased exponentially. Before he could do anything he was falling fast.

He couldn't move, bound tightly by an invisible force. After a few moments, his rapid descent slowed, and he was drawn into a concealed cave beneath the cliff. The entrance was hidden by an intricate illusion, blending seamlessly with the greenery spread across the steep cliff wall, making it impossible to notice.

After a few seconds of darkness, he found himself in a world split into two extremes. On one side, boiling lava bubbled and roared, while on the other, an icy expanse radiated bone-chilling cold. Standing at the border, he felt both searing heat and biting cold simultaneously, as if caught between two opposing forces. Other than that rare medicinal plants could be seen which would grow in icy cold and fiery hot environment.

Before he could even process his surroundings, his vision blurred, and he was pulled into a dreamlike void filled with unending darkness. Gradually, a figure emerged, casting a dim light that split the space into two distinct halves—one blazing with fiery red heat and the other radiating an icy blue chill. These extremes coursed through his body, neither repelling nor merging, but coexisting in perpetual motion. The shifting forces made him appear like a vessel embodying the balance of fire and ice, an enigmatic harmony of opposites.

Xiao Yan was tranced to see such a existence, at the same time he also felt closeness to him that he had never felt before. Like a part of him that he never knew existed before. And suddenly he realized that this was the thing that kept calling him. And this was the reason he had came here. But he couldn't do anything but stare at the existence in front of him with wide eyes.

The figure soon started talking in some ancient language that Xiao Yan couldn't understand. But these words went straight in his soul, making him unable to ever forget them. After a while the the figure vanished and all that left was eternal darkness.

Just as he felt like his consciousness is going to be devoured by the eternal darkness, the dream realm collapsed and he woke up with a start. The space before him was changed. Instead of the previous extremes of searing heat and biting cold, the sensations were now much milder, with gentle warmth and a cool chill replacing the harsh contrasts. The space reflected this change as well, with the once fiery lava now subdued to a lower temperature and the chilling ice warmed to a less freezing state, creating a gentler balance between heat and cold.

Though these were still uncomfortable extremes for Xiao Yan, he could tolerate them, albeit barely, unlike the unbearable intensity of the previous ones. He just stood there for a while, not knowing what to do. The space was big, bigger than a football stadium, but he couldn't see any exits.

He stood near the edge of the 'cave', precisely on the line dividing the two extremes of red-hot and ice-blue energy. At the center of this space, a small, volcano-like structure pulsed with energy fluctuations. Streams of red and blue particles swirled upward around it, converging at the peak before flowing underground. From there, the red particles spread toward the fiery side, and the blue particles to the icy side. This endless cycle created a constant, gentle fluctuation of energy, maintaining the space's dynamic balance.

Xiao Yan observed the fluctuations intently, sensing that this volcano was the heart of this space, constantly providing it with the energy and maintaining the delicate balance between two extremities. As Xiao Yan became immersed in observing the mesmerizing scene, a sudden, thunderous roar jolted him from his thoughts. To his shock, the previously empty space was now occupied by nearly half a dozen Rank 1 magical beasts. What surprised him even more was their distribution—some prowled on the icy cold side, while others roamed the fiery hot side. As he stepped toward the red-hot side and focused on the beasts on the fiery hot side, the space before him shifted. The icy blue side vanished along with beasts in that region, leaving only the fiery expanse in its place.