'Whoa… Xuefeng… Even my heart is fluttering right now,' Ming reacted.
'Mhmm, mine too…' Ling confirmed. "Since when did he become so romantic?'
'Wasn't I always like this?' Xuefeng asked but he kept eye contact with Mona. Convincing her of his sincerity was the most important.
Mona stared at him in silence before she picked up the Water Stone and slowly walked up to him. When she sniffed his hand and let Xuefeng pet her, the crowd cheered madly.
"If anyone asks me in the future how did our Xuefeng get so many beautiful wives… I will show them this scene…" the Commentator concluded. "It seems like no one will stop Xuefeng once he gets his third stone."
He wasn't the only one. Everyone already thought so as well but the crowd was still excited to see the ultimate power of the top expert.
"Aaah, fuck!" Xuefeng suddenly cursed, the Bracelet's Spirit punishing him again, this time even more aggressive.
It definitely didn't have patience at all. The third, Water Stone socket on the gauntlet was shining brightly as if demanding him to take the stone already.
"Does it hurt?" Mona asked calmly as she put the Water Stone in his hand. "Take it."
He grasped the stone, it's surface cool and refreshing to the skin but he didn't hurry.
"It hurts but only a little bit. If I don't make an active effort to claim the Elemental Stones, this Bracelet punishes me for stalling using pain. I think it only recognizes violence as the only way to achieve things," Xuefeng explained as he fidgeted the stone in his fingers. "What made you agree?"
Mona tilted her head and replied casually, "If you really need it to survive, you would chase me all over the Realm to get it and I would never have my peace. Since it will take me a while to recover my strength, it would be really annoying."
"So you don't want to be my friend?" Xuefeng asked curiously but Mona sat down in response, wrapping her tail around her.
"I didn't say that. Now that you took my Love Token, I'm going to bother you instead. I'm your problem now."
Xuefeng couldn't help but smile at that reply and finally placed the Water Stone in the socket.
"I can live with tha—"
Boom!
He couldn't finish as a sudden explosion disturbed him, the Elemental Spirit breaking inside the barriers of his mind. It didn't bring him any pain as if they were already connected, giving the Spirit full access to his body.
"First Gate Opened. Searching for the closest Stone. Next Target: Lightning Stone."
An empty-sounding voice announced before his surroundings blurred, giving him no time to react. He wasn't losing consciousness but instead, he moved so fast the background looked like moving stars.
'What the…'
His mind skimmed through some unknown to him terrain in godspeed mode when it came to a stop. He found himself in a dark place, full of creepy dead trees surrounding a gigantic hole in the ground. Leaning forward a bit, he couldn't see the bottom of it beside the stone spike piercing from the walls.
'Welcome to the Hell Hole, a place of no return.'
He read the sign at the edge before his background turned dark again as his mind rushed down the hole. It took more than five seconds of darkness for him to reach the bottom and his mind was literally blown away.
'There is another world underneath Heaven Realm?!'
A boundless dark space greeted him only to be welcomed by another large noise.
ROAAAR!
Tens of beast roars filled the cave before the place shook from clear signs of battle. His mind kept traveling while the beast's roars were never-ending. He quickly concluded it was definitely a bad place to drop to.
It wasn't the end.
The darkness slowly faded away as golden light filled the tunnel and he entered into his final destination, a different world hidden within the darkness.
'Fate Stones!'
Two words that Drakos would die to hear. Thousands of Fate Stones grew directly from the ground and what surprised him more, he wasn't the only human there!
Hundreds of people mined Fate Stones while even more fought with beasts, bigger in size than any house. He had no doubt that any of those were Celestial Stage Beasts or probably even exceeding it. They required so many experts just to push them back and they couldn't even hurt them. All they did was buy more time for their team.
Xuefeng finally stopped, hovering in the sky when all the humans began to run away in panic.
"She is coming!"
Both the miners and the fighters didn't hesitate as they flew away towards the nearby tunnels. Xuefeng didn't know what's going on but he noticed a certain detail that connected all the people inside. All of them had the same symbol on their back, with three words underneath it.
'Dark Fate Sect… Did I discovered some secret operation going on?'
Too bad, he didn't have time to get an answer as sudden lightning snapped right in front of him.
Boom!
The explosion blew a group of cultivators away, killing them instantly. They popped like a balloon of Qi, leaving no remains on the site.
Boom! Boom!
Two more Golden Lightning launched forward, exploding another two groups. By the time he realized what was going on, only about ten percent reached the tunnels.
'So they were using Avatars…' Xuefeng guessed and turned in the direction of the strikes.
A ball of Golden Lightning moved closer before it hovered in the sky, just a hundred meters away from him. Even from that far he could feel the power of the lightning, finding it even more destructing than Golden Queen.
After a moment, the Lightning faded away and Xuefeng realized it wasn't any beast but a person instead. He couldn't help but wonder if his luck was this bad or someone was controlling his life to make it even harder.
"Seriously? Another beauty? Just perfect," Xuefeng commented out loud as he rolled his eyes.
He was just hit by a troublesome situation with a Celestial Fox only to meet another one. He already struck a deal by trading himself for the Water Stone and now he would face the same with the Lightning Stone.
A beautiful mature woman had the Stone stuck inside her forehead and it was none other than the one he needed.
'Why can't it be a guy or some old man? It would be so much easier killing them compared to the stunning beauties. Come on, give me a break,' Xuefeng complained, knowing himself very well. He could only kill women if they asked for it by hurting him or insulting his wives.
The woman in front of him didn't look like she even talked much, staring coldly ahead of her. He was casually checking out her body when her head suddenly turned, looking directly at him.
"Are you done?" she asked coldly as she extended her hand to him, a Golden Lightning forming on top of her palm. "I don't know who you are, but if you dare come here, I will kill you."
Swoosh!
The Lightning shot out, so fast he would have no time to react even if he could.
'Oh, fuc—'
Xuefeng didn't even finish his curse when his body got stuck on his chest. He thought it was just a vision from the Elemental Bracelet but everything was real!
"Ahh!!" Xuefeng screamed, feeling his body and mind exploding only to regain control, appearing back in the Arena.
"Xuefeng? Are you okay? You suddenly fell to the ground. Why did you scream?" Mona questioned as she sat next to him but he didn't find the breath to respond.
Hu... Hu…
He desperately tried to catch his breath as he reached to his chest but he found no wounds. All that was left was pure pain across his chest.
"Don't worry… I'm fine. Just a headache," Xuefeng assured as he struggled to sit up.
'Xuefeng! Where happened? The Elemental Bracelet suddenly ripped a part of your soul away. Are you okay?' Ming and Ling also questioned worried and he finally realized what happened.
'I think the Elemental Bracelet created an avatar for me and led me to the location of the Lightning Stone. I just died there,' Xuefeng explained. 'I feel like my soul is about to explode.'
'Don't worry, your soul is not in any danger. Ling already began healing it before you came back,' Ming assured.
'Do you know Hell Hole?' Xuefeng asked curiously.
'Yes, but I have never been there personally,' Ming replied. 'Is that where the next Stone is?'
'It's at the bottom of it. There is a huge mine of Fate Stones with gigantic beasts. I found out that Dark Fate Sect is sending their Avatars there to mine them,' Xuefeng explained hurriedly. 'But that's not all. The Lightning Stone is stuck to a woman's forehead who is protecting that place. She killed almost all of the Dark Fate Sect Members when I got there. She then spotted me even though I was hidden and killed me too.'
'Damn, don't even mention those bastards. It's good they died,' Ming cursed. 'About the Fate Stones, it's natural for them to grow in the Heaven Realm. They are like normal minerals just rarer.'
'Can you show us how the girl looked?' Ling asked curiously, and Xuefeng didn't mind, displaying the women from his memory in full view.
He didn't expect Ling to be this stunned.
'No way… This is impossible….'