"Do not break through to the Foundation Realm yet," Lestes said calmly.
Feng Luo Chen lifted her head, confusion flickering in her eyes. His words caught her off guard. The seal within her body was already weakening. At most, a few more days remained before her cultivation would fully recover.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
The fire crackled between them as Lestes slowly turned the spit over the flames before replying.
"You and I will soon enter a secret realm," he said evenly. "Only cultivators below the Foundation Realm are allowed to enter."
Realisation gradually dawned on Feng Luo Chen's face.
Many ancient secret realms were protected by restrictive formations, barriers designed to filter those who entered. Some were judged by age, others by bloodline, and many by cultivation level. Anyone exceeding the allowed threshold would be rejected… or sometimes even killed by the realm's defensive forces.
"If you break through now," Lestes continued calmly, "you will be excluded."
His tone was steady, as though the matter had already been decided.
Feng Luo Chen lowered her gaze slightly, thinking.
Suppressing a breakthrough was something most cultivators would never consider. Once the threshold of a new realm appeared within reach, few had the discipline to hold themselves back.
But this situation was different.
If a secret realm was involved, especially one worth delaying advancement for, then its value must far exceed that of a simple breakthrough.
After a moment, she nodded.
"Understood."
Lestes returned the nod faintly.
The secret realm he mentioned was not unfamiliar to him.
It was the very place where Ning Wan'er's soul had once been wounded.
A faint chill passed through his mind as he recalled the memory. It was not an emotional reaction, but a cold, analytical one. If he intended to protect Ning Wan'er, speculation alone would not be enough. He needed answers.
The poison lingering within her soul was no ordinary toxin. It corroded the soul itself, slowly, relentlessly, like a mist that never dispersed.
Even worse was the fragmented soul sealed within her.
That shattered remnant, shrouded in poisonous miasma, clung to her spirit like a parasite. It had not fully awakened, yet it refused to dissipate. Instead, it fed just enough energy to maintain its fragile existence inside her spiritual sea.
At present, however, Lestes was too weak.
Forcefully removing the poison or extracting the fragmented soul would be reckless. The parasite was intertwined too deeply with Ning Wan'er's divine sense essence. A careless attempt might not save her; it might destroy her entirely.
But ignoring the problem was not an option either.
The parasitic soul was slowly eroding her consciousness. One day, it would devour her completely and take possession of her body.
There was only one solution.
He had to understand the origin of the poison mist and the fragmented soul hidden within it.
Everything traced back to that secret realm.
If he wished to uncover the nature of the toxin and the will embedded in that shattered soul, he had to return to its source. Only by witnessing the birthplace of that corruption could he unravel its structure.
And there was something else.
A faint suspicion lingered in his mind.
Behind the poison mist and the fragmented soul, there was a far greater secret.
And somehow… it was connected to him.
The strange resonance he had felt while exploring Ning Wan'er's divine sense realm had not been a coincidence.
The secret realm Lestes referred to was known as the Mysterious Poison Realm.
Its true origin remained unknown.
According to ancient records scattered across the Heavenly Martial Continent, the realm first appeared roughly one thousand years ago at the western edge of the Fallen Demon Forest. No one knew where it came from. One day, the space above the forest simply distorted, forming a gateway to an independent pocket world.
Since then, the realm had opened once every hundred years.
For most of the century, the entire realm remained sealed beneath a dense and terrifying poison mist. The miasma was so corrosive that even Foundation Realm cultivators could not survive within it for long.
However, whenever the realm opened, the poisonous fog temporarily retreated from a limited area near the entrance. This created a narrow region that cultivators could safely explore.
It was within this small region that the realm's value lay.
The Mysterious Poison Realm was rich with rare medicinal herbs. Many of them were essential ingredients used to refine the Foundation Pill.
The Foundation Pill was an extremely precious medicine used by cultivators who had reached the peak of the ninth stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. With its assistance, breaking through the bottleneck and entering the Foundation Realm became far easier.
For that reason alone, countless cultivators sought entry to the realm every century.
Occasionally, even rarer treasures appeared.
Near the outer edges of the poison mist, dangerously close to the lethal miasma, one could sometimes find even more valuable medicinal plants. These rare herbs far exceeded the worth of ordinary Foundation Pill ingredients.
Because of these treasures, the secret realm became extremely coveted.
Over time, control of the realm gradually fell into the hands of the Five Major Sects of the region.
Spirit Beast Mountain specialised in raising and controlling spirit beasts. Their disciples fought alongside contracted beasts, forming powerful partnerships in battle.
Heavenly Que Fortress focused on defensive cultivation arts. The sect was famous for its formation arrays, protective techniques, and artefact forging. Their headquarters was said to be nearly impossible to breach.
Thousand Sword Sect followed the pure path of the sword. Their disciples cultivated flying swords and mastered devastating offensive techniques capable of overwhelming enemies with sheer destructive force.
Divine Sound Valley practised mysterious sound-based cultivation methods. Their disciples used instruments such as guqin, jade flutes, bells, and war drums. Their sound techniques could create illusions, attack the soul directly, or disrupt an opponent's mind.
Vajra Sect specialised in body cultivation. Their disciples refined their physical bodies through Golden Body and Diamond Body techniques, turning flesh harder than steel.
Together, these five sects monopolised the Mysterious Poison Realm.
Each time the realm opened, only one hundred and twenty cultivators could enter.
This restriction was not imposed by the sects but by the secret realm itself. Any attempt to force additional cultivators inside would trigger violent spatial rejection, often resulting in severe injury or death.
Of those one hundred and twenty places, the Five Major Sects claimed the largest share.
Each sect held fifteen entry slots, allowing seventy-five disciples to enter during each opening.
The remaining forty-five positions were divided among powerful cultivation families and smaller sects in the surrounding regions.
Even those positions were fiercely contested.
Major families competed through alliances, negotiations, and martial contests to obtain entry tokens. Smaller sects sometimes spent decades gathering resources just to secure a single opportunity for one disciple.
For ordinary cultivators with no backing, entering the Mysterious Poison Realm was nearly impossible.
Yet every century, countless cultivators still gathered near the entrance of the Fallen Demon Forest, hoping to seize the rare chance.
For many of them, this secret realm represented their only opportunity to obtain the ingredients required for a Foundation Pill, and with it, the chance to step into the Foundation Realm.
Ling Xing Yue belonged to the Thousand Sword Sect.
Within the sect, she was a Core Formation cultivator, a status that placed her among the senior elders. With such strength came considerable authority.
Whenever the Mysterious Poison Realm opened, each of the Five Major Sects controlled fifteen entry seats. Normally, these seats were reserved for the sect's most talented Qi Condensation disciples.
But for someone like Ling Xing Yue, obtaining a few extra seats was not difficult.
With a single word, the allocation could easily change.
Lestes had already made his request.
He needed two seats.
One for Feng Luo Chen.
One for himself.
To Ling Xing Yue, such a request was trivial. Among the fifteen places controlled by the Thousand Sword Sect, giving away two was hardly worth mentioning.
At present, Lestes and Feng Luo Chen were resting at the eastern edge of the Fallen Demon Forest.
The forest stretched across a vast expanse of land. Its depths were filled with ancient legends and countless dangers. Demon beasts roamed freely within its inner regions, while poisonous swamps, hidden ravines, and forgotten ruins lay scattered across the wilderness.
Few cultivators dared to venture too deeply.
The entrance to the Mysterious Poison Realm, however, was not located here.
It lay far away, at the western edge of the Fallen Demon Forest, where the forest met a barren range of blackened mountains.
"Rest early," Lestes said calmly.
The firelight flickered across his face as he spoke.
"We leave tomorrow," he continued, "for the western edge of the Fallen Demon Forest."
Feng Luo Chen glanced at him and understood the meaning behind his words. The journey ahead would not be short, and once they entered the deeper regions of the forest, danger would become constant.
She nodded softly.
"Understood, Master."
The night fell quiet again.
Only the crackling of the fire and the distant sounds of the forest remained. Above them, the dark canopy of trees swayed gently in the wind, as if the vast wilderness itself were watching.
Tomorrow, their journey toward the Mysterious Poison Realm would begin.