There was a reason the Living Disaster couldn’t find the soul of the cobra it smashed. It hadn’t fought many creatures at the same level of power as it, but it still knew that it had to squash his soul. A Demonic Beast’s intelligence did not correlate to its tier, but as they got older and stronger, they would also get smarter. Some animals were far more intelligent than others, but unfortunately the Living Disaster was not one of them. Sage had seen its memories and knew that it had evolved from a normal animal into a Spirit Animal, and then it consumed a treasure and became a true Demonic Beast.

That treasure was actually the reason that Sage was now inside the Universe Ring and being laughed at by Guan Zhenyan.

“Hahaha, that was a good trick, but aren’t you being a little too greedy? You got in, but how are you going to get out? You might be counting on being ‘passed’, but sorry to tell you this turtle doesn’t work the normal way!”

Sage wanted to correct him calling it a turtle, but technically all tortoises were turtles. There was also the fact that this world had a completely different classification system. How does a mountain sized tortoise that spews lava from its mouth pair up against other monsters?

“I have no desire to be crapped out by a monster. We’re here to steal the Living Disaster’s greatest treasure. I just have to figure out how to get to it.”

Guan Zhenyan took a pull from his pipe and puffed a huge cloud of smoke out, which just like his projection, was illusory. He looked at Sage as if he had something to say, creating a pregnant pause that left Sage waiting. Just when Sage was about to get angry, he pulled the pipe out of his mouth, “What are you waiting for? If you waste too much time, the ring is going to start getting damaged.”

Resisting the urge to throttle the man, Sage was startled by his revelation. He sent his consciousness outward. Out through the layers of the Universe Ring and through the Flying Beast Sword it was hidden within. He realized the problem immediately. The Flying Beast Sword was on the verge of destruction. It was already glowing red hot and its internal structure was on the verge of collapse.

Within the Universe Ring, Tao Ba suddenly appeared next to Sage’s Nascent Soul.

“The bastard is right. The ring will start to take damage soon. I am here to inform you that if the damage the ring receives passes a certain threshold, it will be transported away and you will receive a warning.”

“Wait, a warning?”

“The ring is very valuable and if you do not properly safeguard it, it will be taken from you and your privileges will be revoked.”

Sage was not pleased. Why wasn’t he told all this before? He opened his mouth, ready to ask more follow up questions, but Tao Ba looked remarkably professional at this moment and held up a hand, “Don’t ask for more. No, flattery will not help here. This is one of the core rules. You are still not allowed to know anything more.”

“Alright, but how much damage is the ring going to take and how long will it last before it gets ‘transported’ away?”

Tao Ba looked up for a moment, his eyes glazed and then he looked back at Sage, “It will take about 2 hours for this place to harm the ring enough to trigger the transportation.”

How am I supposed to find it in just two hours? This thing is the size of a mountain. It would take longer than that to scale the outside of the thing, how can I possibly traverse the interior with that little time? Wait a moment, there’s another option.

Outside the Universe Ring, the Flying Beast Sword wasn’t just burning for no reason. He’d thrown it into the giant Tortoise’s mouth and now it was somewhere inside the beast’s stomach. Trapped inside the beast, the poor messenger sword had no chance at all. The meager amount of power the magical device had was just enough to let it fly through the air while carrying the beast bag built into it. While Sage’s version was a little more powerful to compensate for the larger size that let it hide the Universe Ring, it still had no chance against the giant tortoise. The interior of its body was flooded with its internal energies and in order for the flying sword to move it had to counter those energies. Sage hadn’t ever entered a hostile entity's belly, so he was hoping that the flying sword could travel inside. Unfortunately, once it had been swallowed, he realized that plan was a bust.

The Flying Beast Sword was already starting to collapse and the ring was already starting to be subjected to the heat from the outside. A giant insect suddenly appeared next to the Flying Beast Sword. It was a huge beetle with a dark red carapace and a single huge horn on its head. Unfortunately, said beetle had already started to smoke after just a few seconds and Sage recalled it. Charming Lance Beetle is a bust.

A series of other large insects started to appear in succession, each of them not lasting quite so long as the beetle had, with the exception of a huge black worm. The Warp Worm seemed to be twice as resilient as the beetle, with its mouth opened wide, but it was still a losing battle. Instead of being roasted inside and out, the Warp Worm’s unusual internal energy defense meant that only its outer skin was being cooked. Even so, that only gave it a durability of minutes instead of seconds.

I have to buy more time! The ring on its own will be slowly damaged, so that means I have to protect it.

With desperation setting in, he tried to hastily stamp out a Formation Array to protect against the heat, but his efforts were fruitless. The Flying Beast Sword was laying atop a rocky floor in the center of a tunnel, but it was not normal rock. The walls, ceiling and floor of the ‘tunnel’ they were in pulsed with glowing red veins of magma. This was no tunnel, but somewhere deep inside the giant tortoise. He’d had a hard time following where they were going and had no idea if they were still trapped in its throat, had moved into its stomach, trapped in what might pass for its intestines, or there might even be some arcane configuration to its internal body, which meant they could be anywhere. For all he knew, this small tunnel was one of the tortoise’s veins. It certainly didn’t explain the lack of blood, but for something made of stone, did it even have blood?

The Living Disaster’s body resisted the placement of formations, especially since the calculations to make a powerful formation required incorporating the position of the stars, and careful analysis of the existing energy patterns. Being deep inside another creature’s body severely ruined his chances of a successful formation. With that avenue cut off, Sage used the most brute force method he could think of. A new Warp Worm appeared and the ring was placed inside it. Then Sage released the battered Blacksilver Pawns and had them take the ‘King’ configuration around the Warp Worm. Two layers of armor bought the worm a little more operating time, but it consumed a huge amount of Qi to try and match the restoration rate of the Blue Icesilver and the Black Enhydros with the destructive heat surrounding the Warp Worm from all sides.

Even so, the Warp Worm was still slowly getting cooked. From the damage it was taking, Sage calculated that a single Warp Worm was only going to be able to last about half an hour.

Better than just a few minutes. It will have to do.