A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The cold winds of the icy plains whipped up the last piece of ice.

Ye Shuli crouched down and picked up the elemental compass that was half-buried in the snow. The lapis lazuli pointer pierced through the blizzard and pointed straight to the northwest.

Jiang Ye tore off a piece of his shirt to wrap his bleeding right hand. As he bent over, frost flowers clung to his eyelashes. "This thing is more punctual than the rooster crowing at Old Wu's house—look at this crimson-purple skyline, our fire gift package has arrived."

Three days later they stood on the cracked red rock face.

Ye Shuli's ice-silk gauze skirt curled and scorched the moment it touched the ground. Jiang Ye used his sword sheath to pick up a piece of gravel and threw it into the valley. The stone turned into white smoke in mid-air. "Good heavens, this temperature is enough to roast eighteen beggar's chickens." He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and the Xuanbing jade pendant hanging at his waist was shrinking at a visible speed.

A rumbling, thunderous tremor came from the Earth's core, and the lava river suddenly split to the sides.

A fiery giant, thirty feet tall, rose from the mantle, lava flowing down the grooves of its rocky body, and a necklace of twelve firestone beads around its neck distorted the air with its heat. "More greedy ants," the guardian's voice crackled with sparks, and a wave of heat from its raised hand overturned an obsidian pillar three feet away.

Jiang Ye staggered and stuck two ice spikes into the crevice to steady himself, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Brother!"

"We only need a spark the size of a fingernail!" Before the words were finished, a palm print the size of a city gate slammed down on him.

Ye Shuli flung out her Ice Soul Silk to wrap around Jiang Ye's waist, pulling him into the trough that had just been washed by lava. The rock wall against his back instantly scalded him with blisters.

"Negotiations failed." Jiang Ye grimaced as he pulled out the half-crystal cluster embedded in his ribs, the wound emitting a burnt smell.

Ye Shuli stared at the spiderweb-like cracks on the jade bracelet, the ice element shield creaking under the high temperature.

Seven zhang away, the Flame Guardian gathered a swirling crimson-gold vortex in his palm, and the air in the entire valley began to flow backward.

"Hold me tight." Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's wrist, and frost flowers spread wildly along their skin where they were touching.

Jiang Ye's eyes widened the moment the ice armor covered his face: "You wouldn't be going to—" Before he could finish speaking, he was dragged toward the collapsing core of the fireball, where the ice-blue shield collided with the crimson flames, bursting out a blinding light.

The guardian let out a deafening roar.

Ye Shuli felt as if her internal organs were evaporating, while the silver-blue light threads seeping from the cracks in the jade bracelet were weaving into a cocoon-like network.

When the last piece of ice armor shattered, they fell into absolute silence.

The rolling, crimson-gold sea of ​​fire here has solidified into liquid amber, and the rhomboid crystal suspended in the center is shedding its charred outer shell.

A flickering flame remained on Jiang Ye's clothes. He reached out to catch the falling ashes, but suddenly froze—the ashes, upon touching the crystal, blossomed into translucent lotus flowers of fire.

The liquid amber suddenly solidified when Jiang Ye touched the lotus flower with his fingertips.

Ye Shuli's Ice Soul Silk suddenly straightened, binding the void three inches above the crystal—where a cluster of dark blue flames suddenly ignited.

"Back off!" She pulled Jiang Ye and rolled him toward the crevice on the right.

The spot where he had stood exploded into a magma pillar with a diameter of two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters). The Flame Guardian's shattered right arm was reassembling in the magma, and the glow from the twelve fire stones dyed half the sky red.

Jiang Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. The Xuanbing Jade Pendant was now only the size of a thumb. "This guy is even more troublesome than Widow Wang of West Street." He tore open his shirt to reveal the dark golden spirit patterns on his chest, a defensive array drawn three days ago with the blood of the Ice Qilin.

Ye Shuli's jade bracelet suddenly emitted a buzzing sound, and seven elemental light spots flowed within the cracks.

The guardian's roar unleashed a wave of lava.

Ye Shuli wrapped the Ice Soul Silk around her wrist bone, and frost flowers formed an ice crystal crown along the ends of her hair: "The rock layer in the southwest corner is the thinnest." Jiang Ye understood and threw out the last three cold iron nails. The moment they were driven into the rock crevice, the entire red rock wall collapsed with a roar.

The fallen rubble formed a natural barrier.

Taking advantage of the moment, Ye Shuli rushed toward the floating crystal, and behind her came the sizzling sound of burning flesh—Jiang Ye had used his body to block the fire chains thrown by the guardian.

The fabric on the boy's back instantly carbonized, but the golden light of the defensive array seeped into his meridians through the wound.

"Here you go!" Jiang Ye tossed over the blood-stained Xuanbing jade pendant.

Ye Shuli bit her tongue and sprayed her blood essence onto the jade bracelet. A seven-colored beam of light shot into the sky, colliding with the dark blue flames to create a spiderweb-like spatial rift.

The guardian's movements suddenly stopped, and the firestone necklace around his neck began to shatter one by one.

Ye Shuli's fingertips finally touched the crystal.

The intense heat burned through three meridians in the arm, but the jade bracelet emitted an even stronger silver light.

The six elements that had been collected earlier flew out from the storage ring, turning into streams of light that swirled around the fire element core.

Jiang Ye coughed up blood and raised his sword, the remaining ice element on the blade forming the final barrier.

"Break!" Ye Shuli crushed the Xuanbing Jade Pendant.

The cold current, carrying the fire core, crashed into the elemental vortex, and the seven-colored glow condensed into a butterfly-shaped mark between her brows.

The magma within a radius of a hundred miles froze simultaneously, and the Flame Guardian's massive body shattered into countless sparks.

Jiang Ye slumped onto the ice, looking at the elemental light bands floating around Ye Shuli: "You're like a glowing coral tree now." He tried to force a smile, his chest heaving as more blood clots came out.

Ye Shuli raised her hand and pressed the healing mist onto his charred wound, and the magma beneath the ice suddenly rippled with strange silver spots.

The newly generated elemental power condensed into a cluster of crystals in Ye Shuli's palm.

As she tried to mobilize her power, tiny black cracks suddenly appeared in the air.

Jiang Ye's communication jade pendant exploded into powder without warning, and the healing mist that had not yet dissipated twisted into a spiral shape in the air.

"Something's not right." Ye Shuli grabbed Jiang Ye and quickly retreated.

The space where they had just been stood collapsed into a point like crumpled rice paper.

The crisp sound of shattering glass echoed from beneath the frozen magma layer, and a pressure beyond elemental forces rose from the earth's core.

Jiang Ye's sword suddenly floated into the air, pointing southeast.

The positioning spirit stone embedded in the sword hilt flashed wildly, indicating the location of the emergency teleportation array they had buried half a month ago.

Golden-red blood beads seeped from the butterfly mark between Ye Shuli's eyebrows, and uncontrolled elemental turbulence tore open more spatial rifts at her feet.

"Hurry up!" Jiang Ye used his last bit of spiritual power to activate the Earth Escape Talisman.

The moment the two sank into the rock layer, the entire fiery land was like a walnut being crushed by an invisible giant hand, and the shattered spatial fragments swallowed the vast red earth into nothingness.

Outside the protective shield formed by the Earth-遁符 (Earth-遁符 is a type of talisman used in geomancy), they saw the frozen magma turn into a silvery fluid, flowing back into the twisted black cracks.