“Woof, woof!” The black puppy barked at him twice.

Uncle Tianshu suddenly smiled and said, “I was kidding, just kidding. Do I look like that sort of person?”

The black puppy lowered its head again and hunched listlessly over Ding Hao’s shoulder.

“Say, are your present looks also a disguise? How do you really look like?” Ding Hao was really curious about Tianshu.

With his magic power, he could easily change his appearance many thousand times. The coarse-looking old man who first sold the map, Xiaoyaozi, and finally the bronze-skinned middle-aged Martial Sage… this guy had almost deceived everyone. He had even reached the Martial Sage Realm, which really shocked Ding Hao.

But everyone was entitled to their own secrets, and Ding Hao did not want to probe into them.

Ding Hao did not even ask Uncle Tianshu about his adventures after he got into the Starry River Boundary Formation that resembled a black hole.

“D*mn, I didn’t expect to be in such deep sh*t. I didn’t even get to touch a Divine Artifact and was almost killed. I’ve lost big time…” Uncle Tianshu pulled a long face. After a pause, he asked Ding Hao, “So what do you intend to do next?”

“Go to the Southern Wilderness.” Ding Hao sounded very determined.

Ding Hao had wanted to visit the Southern Wilderness to find his sister, Ding Ke’er. He had just so happened to stumble into the ruins of the Sacred Hall. Unfortunately, he did not hear any news about his sister’s whereabouts, nor did he see any Muhuang Clan masters from the Southern Wilderness. If he wanted to find her, he had to venture deep into the Southern Wilderness.

“The Southern Wilderness? Yes, you should go.” Uncle Tianshu nodded and no longer protested. “I happen to have some business there too. Why don’t we go together?”

“Really? That’s great, haha.” Ding Hao was overjoyed.

Tianshu was originally a master from the Southern Wilderness, and his surname was also Muhuang. But he had always been sneaky and unwilling to answer Ding Hao’s questions. It would be great if he could lead the way.

While they were talking, something strange happened—

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The realm suddenly quaked, and the earth cracked open with bottomless fissures. The clouds in the sky turned chaotic. The void kept shaking, as if it would shatter anytime. The white stone pillars in mid-air amidst the clouds toppled one by one.

“Meow, what’s going on?” Evil Moon bent over and jumped onto Ding Hao’s shoulder.

“This place is going to be destroyed…” Uncle Tianshu said thoughtfully, “Let’s get out of here as fast as we can!”

They were in a small world inside the Towering Buddha Pagoda. This was a clear sign that the entire pagoda was going to collapse. Maybe it was because the Three Great Divine Artifacts had already been found and taken away—these large ruins no longer needed to exist.

Ding Hao and the rest immediately turned into streams of light, heading for the exit of this small world.

The moment they left the small world of the Holy Battlefield, which was like a fairyland, the space was completely destroyed. Everything in it disintegrated. The space instantly shrank into a tiny dot, disappearing from this plane of existence.

Ding Hao and the others appeared on a floor within the Towering Buddha Pagoda.

The divine tower shook violently, and web-like cracks appeared on its formerly indestructible walls…

The black hole-like Starry River Boundary Formation that was once here had long disappeared, leaving only remnant space formation aura. Ding Hao thought that the Shadow of Destruction, Chu Kuangtu, must have destroyed it. Even that cold frozen world had disappeared.

“The Towering Buddha Pagoda is about to be destroyed…” Uncle Tianshu cried.

This legendary tower, which had witnessed the glory days of a super sect, and was the last relic of the Sacred Hall left in this world, finally began to collapse after standing strong for 10,000 years…

“Let’s leave through the crack…”

Uncle Tianshu waved the black pot and made a huge hole on the cracked walls of the tower. Without its protective power, the walls were no longer as resilient as before. Ding Hao and his men bolted out of the hole like lightning.

The scene before him brightened immediately. He could smell the fresh air.

They were finally out of the Towering Buddha Pagoda.

Ding Hao froze himself in the void and looked back.

Behind him, the Towering Buddha Pagoda, like a crimson pillar supporting the sky, was shaking violently. Red rock fragments kept rolling down, and the exquisitely carved statues suspended on the tip of the angular tower had shattered, falling like raindrops.

Forlornness permeated this ancient site. The wind blew over the tower rubble, soughing a sad elegy, as if gods and devils were mourning its destruction…

All around the Towering Buddha Pagoda, that magnificent Sea of Opulent Buildings which was like a divine metropolis had long turned into rubble under the invasion of the ghoul army. Black smoldering rocks were everywhere, and deep cracks had appeared on the ground. It was like the final battlefield between the gods and the devils.

Crash!

The lofty divine pagoda could not hold on any longer, and it collapsed with a loud crash.

Like a red dragon at the end of its life, it could no longer soar into the sky and had fallen to the earth instead. The whole earth was quaking.

A huge crack appeared on the ground, swallowing up all the rubble of the red divine pagoda.

Then, the earth rumbled like some force was squeezing it. The plates of the earth collided with one other, and then the crack that had devoured the tower rubble became like a slowly closing black mouth, engulfing everything.

By now, there were no traces of the Sacred Hall left in this realm.

The last traces of that Human Clan sect, once so gloriously powerful, were completely gone.

“They’re all gone!”

Even Uncle Tianshu could not help but sigh.

Although they had gained a lot from this expedition, they still felt a little sad and faintly missed what was once before them.

“Eh?” Uncle Tianshu suddenly exclaimed.

“Meow, old bastard, why are you so shocked? You scared me!” Evil Moon had a big scare, the fur on its back standing.

“Look over there…” Tianshu pointed to the distant horizon.

“Is that… snow? Snow has covered the entire forest. What’s so strange about that…” Before Ding Hao could finish his sentence, he was stunned.

He had noticed a problem.

A month ago, when they entered the Bone-burying Forest, it was early summer. Everything was alive, the grass was long and lush, and birds were flying. Yet now, why was the distant forest covered with snow?

A gust of wind blew, bringing with it a chill unique to winter.

“It’s already… late winter?” he thought.

Ding Hao was stunned.

Only a month or so had passed in the pagoda, yet more than six months had gone by in the outside world? At least half a year must have passed.

How was that possible?

“Let’s go and have a look!”

Ding Hao and Tianshu exchanged glances and turned into streams of light with their strange pets. In an instant, they had traversed hundreds of kilometers. Hovering high in the sky, they gazed out in all directions.

There was a vast expanse of white in this region. Snowflakes danced on the mountains like silver snakes, and the plains were covered with white snow. Large tracts of the forest were cloaked in snow. Now and then, shades of dull green would gleam within the holly trees, adorning this vast snowy terrain.

A cold wind blew, and large snowflakes were drifting down the sky.

It was indeed winter.

How could this be?

“Did time pass slower in the Towering Buddha Pagoda than in the outside world?” Uncle Tianshu was also a little confused. He had not expected this either.

“That’s not the most important question.” Ding Hao thought of something and said even more solemnly, “Although it is winter, we don’t know for sure how much time has passed. It could have been half a year, one-and-a-half years, or even two-and-a-half years… maybe even a few centuries!”

“Don’t scare me… lad!” Uncle Tianshu’s voice trembled a little.

It would be a disaster even if only three or four years—let alone a few centuries—had passed! Because he still had many important things to do.

“Maybe we’ll only know after we get out of the Bone-burying Forest.”

Ding Hao took out his Black Lightning motorcycle and raced out of the Bone-burying Forest with Tianshu and their strange pets.

…

“We’re finally out of that vast forest…”

The Black Lightning stopped on a frosty mountain peak, about 50 kilometers away from the Bone-burying Forest. The vroom of the engine died abruptly.

Uncle Tianshu jumped off the motorcycle and stretched himself. It had been half a month since they walked out of the Towering Buddha Pagoda. They had been racing madly all this while and were now finally out of that vast snowy forest.

“Huining City, the largest metropolis of Orchid Province, is just 500 km up north.” Ding Hao looked at the dark sky on the horizon, feeling a bad premonition in his heart. “We have to hurry. Once we reach Huining City, we will know everything.”

The accelerated passing of time was a mystery to Ding Hao, making him anxious for the first time.

After a short rest, they continued on their way.

Soon, they would see Huining City at a distance.

Although Orchid Province was a very remote minor province of the Divine Central Continent, Huining City was not small at all. It was larger than many big cities in the Northern Region. Ding Hao had rested there before trekking the Bone-burying Forest, so he knew the city quite well.

Under the indigo sky, the far-off Huining City was quiet.

“Something’s wrong.” Uncle Tianshu’s expression froze and he said, “We’re already nearing a Human Clan settlement. Why are there still strong Demon Auras in the air?”

Ding Hao’s complexion had also changed greatly.

The closer they got to Huining City, the more he could sense the strong Demon Auras around this region. There were many different Demon Auras here. Using his Qi detection skills, he had detected many dense beams of Demon Aura of varying power, soaring above Huining City like gyrating tornadoes.