Chapter 109 — The Mystic Fire Altar

On his shoulder Grey gave a low cry and stirred, as if uneasy. Ming Li patted it gently, and it gradually quieted. The surroundings were strange enough, true, yet this did not look like any important place of the Burning Cloud Valley—otherwise, after coming all this way, he would surely have encountered at least one guard disciple.

Ming Li turned these thoughts over in his mind as he followed the path around the last bend.

Suddenly, composed as he was, he could not help but shudder. Before him opened a great stretch of bare ground, and a wave of heat came rushing at his face, blowing from who knew where.

At the very center of the clearing stood a vast, circular altar, its base suspended in the air, supported by thirteen giant pillars of white jade stone, each three zhang tall. Twelve of the pillars ringed the altar's rim, each so thick that two men with arms linked could barely encircle it; and at the altar's center stood the thickest pillar of all, which looked to require at least five or six men with joined arms to embrace.

Above the altar, every structure was built of a strange crimson stone—steps, balustrades, all of it. At the altar's heart soared a lofty, imposing hall in the shape of a pagoda, three stories high, each story roughly half the size of the one below, and yet each appeared to rise an incredible ten zhang.

Seen from afar, the altar was simply a vast blaze of burning crimson flame stabbing at the sky. Standing at its foot, Ming Li seemed no more than an ant, utterly insignificant.

Ming Li drew a deep breath. The structure before him was truly astonishing; the phrase "work of the gods" would surely be no exaggeration here. He had never imagined the Burning Cloud Valley could hold a building of such majestic scale. He pondered inwardly, and in a moment, recalling the stone tablet he had just passed, he vaguely understood that this place before him must be the famed site of the Burning Cloud Valley spoken of in rumor—the Mystic Fire Altar.

He steadied himself, then drifted over without a sound. Apart from the Mystic Fire Altar before him, the surroundings were bare empty ground with no cover at all. Fortunately there were no guards about, and his movement was swift; in an instant he had reached the altar's base.

The moment he drew near the altar, the heat in the air rose severalfold at once. Even one of Ming Li's cultivation could feel his mind grown restless and confused, a faint sweat breaking out on his brow. Ming Li frowned, secretly startled, then bethought himself of whether Grey could withstand such fierce heat; he turned to look, and saw Grey crouched on his shoulder scratching its head and ears, seemingly oblivious to the heat around it.

Ming Li was taken aback. He had a vague sense that Grey had been most unusual of late—especially since it had devoured the spirit herbs and strange stones in the Heavenly Emperor's Treasure House atop that divine tree in the Death Swamp, its body had plainly begun to change little by little.

Still, in the present circumstances, it was surely better that Grey did not fear the heat than that it did, and Ming Li had no mind just now to trouble himself over such matters. He was pondering whether to leap up onto the Mystic Fire Altar when a sound of footsteps suddenly came from above.

Ming Li's brow knit; he cast a swift glance around and saw no cover whatsoever. After a moment's thought he flew beneath the altar and concealed himself behind one of the massive white jade pillars.

Hiding behind the pillar, he reached out unconsciously to touch the stone—and suddenly his hand was scalded. His reflexes were swift indeed; at once he snatched his hand back.

Beneath the Mystic Fire Altar, even the stone pillars were scalding hot.

The footsteps grew louder; plainly someone was coming down. Then an aged voice said slowly, "Since the Valley Master invites me, I shall of course go. Only tell me this—why have those Fish-Men suddenly grown so savage as to be on the verge of attacking the valley?"

Ming Li, hidden in the pillar's shadow, looked out and saw Li Xun and Yan Fei following behind a grey-robed elder, descending with reverent expressions.