Inside the cracks Yilu Lok and his two escorts are standing examining their surroundings.
"Wow this environment is really something. Do you know how big this crack is?"
Felling the demonic energy in the air Yilu Lok asks his two escorts. One of them thinks and says.
"According to what we have found in all these years since this is a red crack it should have an area of three square miles.
Yilu Lok places his hand on his chin.
"It's quite big so how do we close this crack?"
"Young master, we have to find its source and destroy it. But the problems is location of the source is not fixed we have to first locate it and then destroy it"
Yilu Lok smiles and says.
"Then what are you waiting for? Let's go and find the source."
Yilu Lok starts to explore the crack. Both the escorts do not have any other choice they look at each other and shake their heads helplessly and follow Yilu Lok.
After walking a distance of half a mile Yilu Lok and two escorts find a desert made of gray ash above the gray ash bones of beasts can be seen.
The two escorts become alert and unsheath their swords. Yilu Lok also unsheaths his sword. The sword was given to him by Yilu Yan.
The sword's blade is silvery in colour that gives it a striking and mystical appearance. The hilt is wrapped in a dark material, likely leather or fabric, providing a strong grip, and it continues seamlessly from the scabbard. The sword is sheathed in a long, sleek black scabbard with faint reflective highlights, giving it a sharp and elegant look. A hint of dark blue aura can be felt from the sword.
The sword's name is Soulblade. It is said to be created by a blacksmith named Mo Tianxu. In ancient times during the rebellion of Murim against the three empires.
The legend about this blade is that blacksmith Mo Tianxu has a grudge against the Wu empire. He created this blade using a meteor that fell from the sky long ago and he burned his soul for forging this sword.
This sword is one of the five great swords of Murim alongside Namgung family's Azure Sky sword. And among all the swords Soulblade is sharpest, capable of cutting even the soul of its enemy. Yilu Yan obtained this sword at great war and after the dinner of night before Yilu Lok's journey to Heavenly Demon Divine Cult he gave it to Yilu Lok.
Yilu Lok and two escorts cautiously start taking steps. After walking for fifty meters suddenly from beneath the feet of the escort on the left a poison stinger emerges and attacks him, in a split second he uses his sword to block the stinger but he is thrown in the air from the impact.
The second escort quickly arrives before the stinger and cuts the tail.
"Screech!"
A loud screech leaves the mouth of the owner of the tail and it emerges from the sand and gives a venomous look to the second escort.
The demon beast is a big scorpion that is two metres in length. It has a black exoscalation and its large pincers are very much capable of crushing large boulders into dust.
The first escort recovers from the impact and jumps at the top of the giant scorpion and stabs his sword in its head. The scorpion struggles for some time but it is futile the escort is a strong first class warrior and after struggling it dies.
The first escort gets off from the dead scorpion. As Yilu Lok and the two escorts are about to have a sigh of relief, few more scorpions appear from beneath the grey desert due to the screech of the dead scorpion.
All the scorpion looks at the corpse of their dead friend and goes into a frenzy and starts to attack Yilu Lok and two escorts.
"Young master, stay back."
One of the escorts screams and both of the escorts jump at the scorpions. But there are more scorpions than they can handle and two scorpions get past them and attack Yilu Lok.
"Young Masterrr."
Both of the escorts feel that the sky has fallen over their heads as they try to shake off the scorpions they are fighting to help Yilu Lok. Although the giant scorpions are weak they are large in numbers so they are not able to shake them off.
One of the scorpions reaches Yilu Lok despair can be seen in the eyes of the escort. But the next scene left both of them stunned.
One of the scorpions is about a few feet away from Yilu Lok. As Yilu Lok comes into his striking range the scorpion swings his tail and uses his stinger to stab Yilu Lok.
As the stinger is about to hit Yilu Lok's head Yilu Lok swings the soulblade upwards and splits the stinger in two. Before the scorpion can come to his senses Yilu Lok takes a step and stabs his soulblade inside the mouth of the scorpion.
The scorpion tries to screech but is unable to so in his last ditch effort he swings his left pincer at Yilu Lok.
Yilu Lok stays calm and simply swings his soulblade horizontally. The soulblade cuts through the scorpion's mouth and collides with the pincer.
Sparks erupt from the collision and the soulblade pushes back the pincer and a deep cut can be seen where the sword has struck.
Although Yilu Lok can't train his inner qi but because of his strong body even without inner qi Yilu Lok is able to fight a second class warrior and now with soulblade he is capable enough to fight an ordinary first class warrior for some time. And the scorpions barely have the strength of a weak second class warrior.
After Yilu Lok kills the first scorpion the second scorpion attacks him from behind using his pincer.
Yilu Lok rotates clockwise and swings his soulblade. The soulblade and pincer collide but this time Yilu Lok takes a few steps back. As for the pincer there is a deep cut in it from which blue blood is flowing.
The second scorpion does not give up after his attack fails but swings his second pincer upwards to split Yilu Lok into half. But Yilu Lok gently swings his sword, deflecting the pincer to the side using the pincer's own force. And just like last time he enters the gap and stabs his sword deep into the throat of the second scorpion killing him.
Both of the escorts kill the other scorpion quickly and arrive before Yilu Lok.
"Second Young master please punish us for our incompetence because of us you almost died."
"Yes, young master punish us."
Yilu Lok waves his hand and says.
"Stop, everything happened because I entered this crack. You are simply doing your own job and that was an unavoidable circumstance so don't worry about it."
"But young mas..."
Yilu Lok stops him.
"I said stop, let's look for the source of this crack."
Yilu Lok starts walking towards the corpses of the scorpions and touches them one by one and all of the corpses are collected inside by the black bracelet. After Yilu Lok finishes collecting all the corpses he starts to leave both the escorts follow behind him.
Far away from Yilu Lok and two escorts a black shadow is looking at them leaving with his crimson eyes then it suddenly disappears into the gray desert.
As Yilu Lok is looking out for danger he suddenly senses movement from his black bracelet as if the bracelet is attracted to something. Yilu Lok feels that the only thing that attracts this black bracelet will be either a very strong demon beast or source of the crack.
'I don't think there are any strong demon beasts. According to the escorts, the strongest demon beast is at best at the level of a first class warrior. There is a possibility that there is a stronger monster but the black bracelet is given to me by unknown so the only possibility is the source of the crack.'
After thinking for some time Yilu Lok decides to go in the direction pointed by the black bracelet.
***
Outside of the rift other groups have assembled other than Yilu Lok and his two escorts.
Jiu Jin looks around and is unable to find Yilu Lok.
"Where is the young master?"
All the escorts look around and do not find Yilu Lok.
"Since young is not here, let's go find him. But where can he have gone?"
One of the escorts says.
"Not only the young master but the escorts who went with him have returned. Do they encounter something?"
"What can they encounter? All the demon beasts are weak and the two who went with the young master are first class warriors."
"But still…"
Suddenly one of the escorts says.
"But what if they have entered the crack?"
One of the escorts refuted him.
"I don't think so if they have encountered a crack the escorts would have come back to report."
All the escorts start to fight. Jiu Jin, captain of the escorts, thinks for a second and stops them.
"He might be right that they should have entered a crack."
"But why would they go inside?"
"It might be the orders of the young master but it doesn't matter now. Does anyone know which side the young master and others went?"
One of the escorts points in the direction and all of them go in search of Yilu Lok.
Soon they arrive in front of the rift.
"Sure enough, the young master and the others have entered the crack, let's go and follow them."
Jiu Jin and the other escorts enter the crack.