Mystic Eyes: My Eyes Steal the Laws of Cultivation

Chapter 376 - 377

The orange flame disappeared silently behind Kyrian the moment he crossed the gate.

Kyrian did not even notice. Or perhaps he simply did not care. His eyes were focused on the path ahead, and nothing else mattered at that moment.

On the other side of the gate, there was only a staircase. Long. Dark. Deep.

The surrounding walls were made of the same dark red stone as the gate, smooth and polished by time, covered in runes nearly erased by centuries of oblivion.

Small orange fire torches floated attached to the walls at regular intervals, faintly illuminating the descending corridor with a light that resembled dying embers more than living flames.

Kyrian looked downward. The staircase seemed endless, step after step vanishing into the darkness below, as if the entire mountain were hollow inside.

Then he began descending.

...

The sound of his footsteps echoed continuously through the depths of the mountain.

Each step seemed to take him deeper into the heart of the Great Volcano.

The heat remained intense, but different now. Before, the heat had been wild, destructive, a chaotic natural force trying to consume everything around it.

Down there, within that endless staircase, the heat felt... controlled. Tamed. As if someone had molded the very essence of fire in that place, turning it into something almost docile.

Kyrian continued descending in silence.

Time passed slowly.

One hour.

Two.

Three.

He could feel the weight of the mountain above his head, an invisible pressure that seemed to squeeze his shoulders, his head, and his chest.

He felt magma circulating through the depths of the volcano like monstrous rivers flowing around that hidden place, their currents creating vibrations that trembled through the stone.

Occasionally, the walls trembled slightly. Deep roars echoed in the distance, the sound of earth moving, lava flowing, and the volcano itself breathing.

The Great Volcano was alive.

Finally...

After almost three entire hours of descending, three hours of measured footsteps, silence, and suffocating heat, Kyrian saw the end of the staircase.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

Then he stepped out of the corridor.

And stopped.

The sight before him was gigantic.

The place was not a simple room. It was not a chamber, nor a hall, nor anything Kyrian could have imagined.

It was practically a colossal dome carved inside the volcano itself.

Above, hundreds of meters overhead, lava moved violently behind a translucent reddish barrier.

It was like an ocean of fire suspended above his head, waves of magma constantly crashing against the formation, illuminating the entire region with orange and red flashes that danced like slow lightning.

Below... there was lava as well.

Everywhere.

Kyrian stood on a platform attached to the wall of the dome, a narrow ledge of dark red stone that barely had enough space for three people standing side by side. Ahead of him there was only a narrow bridge, so narrow that two people could not walk side by side across it, stretching over that sea of magma.

The bridge led to a gigantic altar located exactly at the center of the chamber.

Silent and ancient.

Kyrian immediately began walking.

The sound of his footsteps echoed across the bridge while the magma below bubbled violently.

The heat there was monstrous, far worse than anywhere in the Inner Area, far worse than the edge of the crater. Kyrian felt his skin tingle, his eyes burn, and his breathing grow more difficult.

But he did not stop.

He kept walking until he reached the altar.

Then he finally saw what rested upon it.

A single stone coffin. Gigantic. Covered with thousands of red runes.

The inscriptions glowed faintly, like embers nearly extinguished after centuries of waiting.

But Kyrian could feel the monstrous Qi hidden within them, an energy so dense, so concentrated, that it seemed ready to explode at any moment.

That was Ming Hai’s tomb.

Kyrian slowly approached, his eyes scanning every detail of the coffin.

But the instant he arrived before the altar...

Something changed.

A deep sound echoed through the chamber.

The lava below began moving violently.

Gigantic waves rose around the bridge, so high that Kyrian feared the magma would reach where he stood. They crashed against the walls of the dome with enough force to make the entire structure tremble.

Kyrian immediately stepped back, his eyes sweeping across the environment in search of the source.

Then something emerged from the lava.

First, a gigantic head.

Then shoulders.

Arms.

A colossal torso.

Lava continuously flowed from that body as the creature rose, incandescent droplets falling back into the ocean of fire below like a rain of stars. Magma cascaded from its body like blazing waterfalls, creating small explosions of vapor where it touched the surface.

The creature continued rising.

And rising.

Until it became fully visible behind the altar.

Kyrian slowly raised his eyes.

And finally saw a true Fire Spirit.

For a moment...

Kyrian felt pressure.

A pressure similar to that of the Five-Horned Lava Lizard, but different at the same time. It was not exactly the same, the lizard possessed dragon blood, an ancient and imposing lineage. The Spirit carried a different kind of pressure.

It was an instinctive, primal sensation. As if the being before him was naturally superior to humans, superior to beasts, superior to practically everything Kyrian had ever encountered.

There was something in the Spirit’s eyes, in the way it observed Kyrian, that suggested a different kind of intelligence.

’Fascinating.’ Kyrian thought.

The pressure lasted only a moment.

Then it vanished, dissipated by the natural resistance of his eyes. Kyrian did not need to activate any special power, his eyes, even in their neutral form, were already capable of neutralizing that kind of spiritual coercion.

The Fire Spirit observed Kyrian silently.

Its body was gigantic, easily over fifteen meters tall, perhaps twenty. It occupied the space behind the altar like a living mountain, motionless and imposing.

But its appearance was far more human than Kyrian had imagined.

It looked human. A gigantic, disproportionate human, but human nonetheless. It had arms, legs, a torso, and a head. The proportions were not perfect, the arms were too long, and the shoulders too broad, but the resemblance was undeniable.

Its body was translucent and orange, formed entirely from condensed fire and pure Qi. Within that body, rivers of energy continuously circulated like blood, following paths that resembled human meridians.

Kyrian could see everything with his eyes, the flow of Qi, the structure of the body, and the way the energy moved.

’It is literally made of Qi and fire.’ Kyrian thought.

’No flesh. No bones. Just... fire.’

The amount of Qi inside that being was absurd. Kyrian felt as though he were standing before a bottomless abyss, no matter how much he tried to measure it, he could not reach the end.

Far beyond any cultivator he had ever encountered.

Far beyond Dong Zhen.

Far beyond any elder Kyrian had ever known.