The cultivator never realized that I was so close to him, with a single thrust and twist of my blade he fell to the ground before he even realized what hit him. And with his death, the array the rest of the cultivators were making fell apart, and the massive Blight Bearing Toad was upon them.
The cultivator wearing white tried his best to infuse more Qi into his formation, but to no avail, he failed to sustain an array that needed a dozen people working together to hold. And thankfully, he was too distracted by the massive toad that started taking down heads with its tongue than to look for the cause of his array's malfunction.
On any other day, I would have been spotted immediately, but thanks to my Sy Pearl for an eye, the cultivators couldn't use their divine sense in fear of being attacked by the 'Toad's anti-Divine Sense as they believed it to be.
In the imploding chaos, I managed to continue my rotation behind the Toad and reached to where no one can see me. The group of cultivators were now facing different and several waves of poisons from the toad, and they were not sparing a single treasure to use in attempt to save their lives.
But for all its worth, they're doing a fine job distracting the toad while trying to save their lives. Still, this distraction is not enough, as if I were to steal the Rose, both the toad and the group of cultivators will find only me as a target, I don't want that right now.
I continued watching and waiting for an opportunity to claim the rose, and it came rather too readily. The toad, pissed off, decided it was no longer funny to stay arrogant and defend itself from where it stood. It jumped at the nearest cultivator and managed to crush him to a pulp as it used its tongue to rip through the chest of another cultivator.
The white wearing cultivator decided that he was not going to die here today and pulled out a stamp from his pocket, though I have no idea how a stamp that can only be used to sign documents would fare in this situation, the moment the stamp was above the toad, it grew to massive size and fell down on the Toad suppressing it.
In that moment, the toad was unable to move, and the cultivators had more than enough time to grab the rose, but I was far ahead in the game as I grabbed the Black Nether Rose the moment the toad was gazing at the stamp that was falling on it, and with the rose taken, I scurried away to the depth of the cave, where the Heart Flame should be.
I could hear curses as the cultivators couldn't find the rose, then the sound of bones breaking, it seems that the toad managed to release itself from the seal and was now upon the cultivators, since it didn't see me steal the rose, it would definitely think that one of the cultivators that were attacking it were the ones who stole it and it will not hold back its wrath anymore.
I headed deeper into the caves and found an exit from where the Blight Bearing Toad cave was, it was an open area that looked upon a massive amalgamation of rocks and holes. Caves within caves, but thankfully they were all memorized in the map I had.
I managed to find the first pathways leading to the Heart Flame, the whole cave design looked more like a maze than a naturally made cave system. With a majority of the entrances of smaller caves dispersed everywhere, and all of them leading to dead ends.
The heat from the Heart Flame was strong enough that one could feel it revibrating through all of this system, and since the caves looked like hollowed honeycombs, anyone trying to use their divine sense will find it impossible to inspect the caves.
But with the help of the map in hand, I'll be able to find my way to the Heart Flame cave, and it wasn't taking long before the first sign of success appeared, though most will not call it a success if they were seeing what I was seeing.
In front of me was a massive bird-like creature, that perched atop one of the cave entrances. It had a green feathery coat, and a thin sharp beak, it looked half asleep but I wasn't going to blindly trust that. I needed to make sure that the bird was actually asleep and not faking it lest it would get a disgustingly poisonous free meal.
After approaching for a while, I noticed the Venom Spitting Skylark budging, and the moment I took another step, it pointed its beak at me and spat out bullet-sized spittle that I blocked with my robes. Thankfully, the robe didn't melt through, but the poison was potent enough and strong enough that it would usually drop any cultivator immediately.
"Little bird, your poison is useless against me. Do you really wish to fight?" I spoke.
It would have been crazy to actually speak to animals back in my world, but here, most animals and creatures that reach high cultivation levels are usually sentient and can understand speech.
The bird flapped its wings in arrogant defiance and I spat back near the bird, only my spittle was far more toxic than the bird's, it was a compound poison, a mix of the Mourning Burial Peta and the Fungal Greed's Torment.
The spit hit a nearby rock and immediately dissolved it, the bird stopped it's flapping and hesitantly took a step back.
"At least you know, if I really wanted to hit you with that, I could have, now move out of the way," I said as I gestured at the bird with a shooing motion.
The bird understood that it wouldn't be wise to cross someone with even stronger poison than he had so it decided to step aside and let me get in.
Once I was inside, I almost wished I didn't, the heat emanating from this cave was so high I felt my bones were about to melt. I hastily retreated to the entrance.
Looking back, I could honestly feel the Venom Spitting Skylark grinning and mocking me.
I grumbled under my breath, the poison God's Book mentioned that it's easy to 'refine' this Heart Flame, but I'm barely at the entrance and I felt as if my whole body was going to turn to cinders. heck, I couldn't even see this dammed flame.
Though I can't refine the flame right now, I believe that I can store it in the Poison God's book, I still don't have the required strength to use it, I think. I should at least be a Nascent Soul Cultivator to refine the flame.
But how can I take the flame if I can't even approach it? Well, it's simple, I'll send someone who can.
I pulled out X from the Poison God's book and gave him the book.
"Use this to store the Green Heart Flame," I said and the puppet nodded, book in hand and he moved inside the cave.
Though X can't use his full prows as he was suppressed by this small world's Laws, he still has a body made from some of the toughest materials that the Laughing Slaughterer had. He will not melt down to nothingness once exposed to the heart flame…probably. I think…I hope.
Soon after I sent X, I heard a loud noise behind me, it seems that the group that was following after me had an encounter with the Venom Spitting Skylark. Not my problem. Though I caused it, I won't take responsibility for their greed, they should have gone for the rose instead of trying to suppress the toad until it died.
And with the toad liberated, I'm more than certain that they suffered too many casualties than they would have expected, not to mention they would be ill-fit to fight against the skylark right after an arduous fight against a sixth tiered beast.
Time went by rather slowly, with the cultivators behind me in a life and death battle against the Skylark, and me waiting patiently for X to come out of the cave. I've no will nor strength to go and get the flame myself, it's just too damn hot even for an alchemist. My current body would turn to sizzling charcoal once I'm in too close to the heart flame, but X's metallic body might have more power to reap what I couldn't get.
After about half an hour, X came back, and surprisingly, bar the red-hot discoloration of his body, he didn't melt into a puddle of liquid metal as I had feared.
The puppet gave me the poison God's book, and I used my divine sense to inspect it, finding a gigantic pool of hot liquid green Heart Flame within it, coupled with a few flowers and spiritual herbs that only grow in extremely hot temperatures. Good finds.
I placed the book against my chest and it disappeared within my Sea of Consciousness. Now with my task complete, I need to make myself scarce, I have not been identified, and would rather not have any more people as enemies, especially since I'm in such an enclosed space.