“They are currently at Houwu City?” Ji Ning was delighted. This really would make things much simpler.

“I received this information just a short while ago. Usually, cultivators will spend an extended period of time resting at Houwu City once they reach it. Let me reach out to Lord Houwu once more.” Divine Sovereign Goldsun immediately sent out his godsense to contact with one of his subordinates: “Help me immediately contact Lord Houwu and ask if Nuwa and Patriarch Treewind are still at Houwu City. If they are there, I would like to ask Lord Houwu to keep them here! Tell them that Daolord Darknorth will be arriving in around twenty million years and wishes to meet Nuwa.”

“Yes, Divine Sovereign.” This Hegemon servant of his had a Primaltwin in the distant city of Houwu.

……

Houwu City. Within the Blazesun Domain.

Houwu City was an enormous levitating city that saw several estates sprinkled throughout the city. Very few cultivators came here; generally speaking, only Eternal Emperors would ever dare to come here.

“Haha…” Loud laughter rang out, followed by a green-robed elder and two retainers flying into the skies above an estate.

“Brother Treewind! Brother Jade Rainbow!” the green-robed elder called out loudly, his voice shaking the entire estate. Soon, a total of five figures came flying out from within the estate, including Patriarch Treewind, Imperator Jade Rainbow, and Nuwa.

“Lord Governor, why have you come to our residence? If there’s anything you need from us, all you needed to do was send word.” Patriarch Treewind and the others were all quite courteous, and they hurriedly moved to welcome their guest.

The green-robed elder chortled as he turned his gaze towards Nuwa: “I come on important business, after all. This must be Nuwa?”

Nuwa said, “Nuwa greets you, Lord Governor.”

“Impressive, truly impressive. You were able to complete the Daomerge and reach Hegemony in just a hundred chaos cycles,” the green-robed elder praised. “No wonder Daolord Darknorth has come to seek you out.”

“You praise me too much. I made use of temporal acceleration treasures when I trained. My actual amount of time spent cultivating was far more than a hundred chaos cycles,” Nuwa said with a smile.

“Mm.” The green-robed elder said, “I’ve come to help Daolord Darknorth send you a message.”

“Help Daolord Darknorth send a message?” Nuwa, Patriarch Treewind, and Imperator Jade Rainbow were all stunned.

“Daolord Darknorth has sent word to me via Divine Sovereign Goldsun. He hopes that you will remain at Houwu City, because he’ll be arriving soon. Daolord Darknorth shall be descending upon Houwu City in person in twenty million years to meet with you, Nuwa.” The green-robed elder looked at Nuwa and smiled. “Nuwa, congratulations. Countless Hegemons and Emperors desperately desire to have a chance to meet with Daolord Darknorth, but never will. For you, however, Daolord Darknorth has flown all the way here from the incredibly distant Flamedragon Realmverse. It seems that he views you as being incredibly important! Haha, even I can’t help but envy you, Nuwa. If I need to ask for your help in the future, I hope you won’t refuse me.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to assist you.” Nuwa was rather puzzled. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but… I don’t believe Daolord Darknorth and I know each other.”

“Haha, if you don’t know each other, why would he go to such great lengths to meet with you? I imagine you’ll know who he is once he actually arrives.” The green-robed elder continued, “Alright, I’ve already conveyed his message. Just wait for him here in Houwu City; you’ll only need to pause for a few tens of millions of years! Also… please don’t make things difficult for me. Since Daolord Darknorth asked for me to keep you here, I wouldn’t dare to let you leave.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll wait at Houwu City for Daolord Darknorth,” Imperator Jade Rainbow said immediately.

“Good!” Lord Houwu smiled and nodded. “I’m off, then.” Patriarch Treeind, Imperator Jade Rainbow, and Nuwa all watched as Lord Houwu left.

“It seems we have to stay here for a time,” Patriarch Treewind said with a chuckle. “If we tried to leave, Lord Houwu would probably trap us here by force.”

“Hmph.” Imperator Jade Rainbow smiled coldly. “Lord Houwu has always been an arrogant and overbearing bully. He only spoke to us with courtesy for the sake of Daolord Darknorth. He wouldn’t dare to refuse to convey Daolord Darknorth’s message.”

“We were planning to hide in Houwu City for a time anyhow,” Patriarch Treewind said. “Let’s make use of this opportunity to meet with the legendary Daolord Darknorth. Nuwa, when that happens I might need to ask you to say a few words on my behalf.”

Nuwa said self-deprecatingly, “I still have no clue who this Daolord Darknorth really is.”

“Don’t be impatient. A mere twenty million years will go by like nothing. You’ll know soon enough,” Imperator Jade Rainbow said.

……

Time flowed on. Ning’s team left the Goldsun Palace and began to advance through the endless Great Dark. After a total of over twenty million years, they finally reached the Blazesun Domain.

Whooosh. Endless flames were flying through this entire region, as were blazing rocks. In front of them was an incredibly vast and dazzling realmverse which was filled with planets and stars that all looked like giant balls of fire.

“The Eight Domains.” Hegemon Goodsong was dressed in red robes, and his entire body gleamed like gold. He smiled and immediately began to introduce the place: “In the vast Chaosverse, there are many sacred places which are formed by the convergence of certain types of energy! This place is the closest region to the Quintessence of the Chaosverse, and it is divided into eight incredibly marvelous domains. The Blazesun Domain is filled with the power of countless flames.

Ning nodded while the nearby Azurefiend said, “The ‘Icewind Sea’ we visited in the past was a place which was formed from a convergence of freezing energy that was roughly comparable to a territory in size! The Blazesun Domain, however, is unfathomably vaster in size and scope than the Icewind Sea. It is one of the Eight Domains, the most supreme of sacred lands, and it is comparable in size to more than half of a realmverse.”

The Icewind Sea was an ‘ordinary’ sacred land, while the Eight Domains were the most supreme sacred lands of the entire Chaosverse. All sorts of unique living beings had gathered here, including Sourcewalkers, the occasional Chaos Primordials, and more.

“Daolord,” Hegemon Goodsong said warmly, “There are two ways for us to travel into Houwu City. The first way is fairly safe; it involves us avoiding many dangerous locations, and it’ll take us tens of millions of years to get there. The other method is to just blaze our way straight through. We might run into quite a great deal of danger in doing so, but we’ll only need five hundred thousand years or so.”

“We’ll go straight through,” Ning said.

“Right on!” Hegemon Goodsong continued hurriedly, “We might encounter some danger when going straight through, but I should be able to resolve any dangers myself. If we encounter something really serious, we can then have the Flamewing God intervene as well. There should be no need for you to personally intervene, Daolord.”

“Alright.” Ning nodded. Goodsong was now a Golden Emperor; between him and the Flamewing God, the vast majority of dangers could be easily resolved.

Whoosh. The realmship flew straight into the Blazesun Domain, charging towards Houwu City at maximum speed.

The Blazesun Domain was a place where an incredibly vast amount of flaming energy congregated. Its vast size actually gave it superior stability, resulting in it being a world unto itself. It was filled with fire, but there are also places with earth, water, stone, and more. There were many empty pockets of space where the temperature was a bit higher than in ‘normal’ realmverses, but Celestial Immortals and Empyrean Gods would still be able to survive.

The more stable a region was, the more hospitable for life it would generally be.

But of course, the Blazesun Domain also had some incredibly dangerous places within it, places which were far deadlier than the Icewind Sea. The Icewind Sea merely had two Sourcewalkers in it; the Blazesun Domain had far more! However, they were scattered throughout the entire domain, making chances of running into them quite low.

……

Whoosh. A dark-red river could be seen surging through the emptiness of space, stretching off into infinity. This dark-red river had to be many millions of kilometers long, and it emanated an aura of endless heat. Every so often, a few serpentine beings could be seen swimming through the river.

“Gwaaaaar!” A long black serpent lifted its head and half of its enormous body above the surface of the river, focusing its flaming gaze on Ning’s realmship, which was advancing through the region at high speeds. Its eyes were filled with malevolence, and it raised its serpentine head high as it let out an earth-shaking roar.

The roar actually generated a ripple of power that caused space around it to twist and distort. Instantly, additional giant blackflame serpents lifted their heads up as well. Cultivators were actually trespassing here? They were courting death!

The environment here was extremely inhospitable to ordinary life. There was no way to warp through spacetime here, and so Ning’s group had to physically fly through this region. If they wanted to avoid it, they would have to take a detour that would last millions of years.

“Blackflame River has dozens of these giant blackflame serpents living within it. All of them are unique creatures born from the Quintessence of the Chaosverse, but only three of them have reached the Otherverse Lord level of power. Most of the others are Hegemons; they are of little danger,” Hegemon Goodsong immediately explained. “Once Flamewing appears, they’ll be so terrified that they won’t dare to move.”

“Mm.” Ning said, “Flamewing, go out with Goodsong and give these little black snakes a good scare.”

“Heh heh heh… they look delicious, actually.” Flamewing immediately flew out of the realmship, letting out an excited howl as it transformed into its true form. Bathed in flames, the Flamewing God flapped its giant wings and immediately swooped down towards the nearest blackflame serpent. Clearly, Flamewing enjoyed being in the fiery environment of the Blazesun Domain. Being here excited it, and as a result it moved with such incredible speeds that the giant blackflame serpent was terrified. Its malevolent aura vanished and it immediately moved to flee… but how could it possibly escape?