The Great Desolate is boundless and endless.
There is no sky above the Great Desolate, nor earth below.
It is like a vast, infinite void.
On this day.
A group of over ten people set out from the Xiaoluo Secret Realm, heading for the most bustling Fengyue Small World in the Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain.
At the lead was a woman.
The woman possessed a delicate and beautiful appearance, clad in azure Immortal Armor, looking heroic and valiant. Beneath her feet was a massive white elephant, which appeared particularly docile. As it moved through the void, it seemed to shrink the ground with each step, covering hundreds of meters with every stride.
This woman was precisely the master of the Xiaoluo Secret Realm, Qiānlíng.
The docile, massive white elephant beneath her feet was an Immortal Beast Mount, also Qiānlíng's steed.
In the Great Desolate, perhaps every Immortal possesses their own Immortal Weapon and Immortal Armor, but not everyone has their own Immortal Beast Mount. The effort and Immortal Stones required to raise an Immortal Beast Mount are beyond what ordinary Immortals can bear. Forget about those rare Immortal Beast Mounts; even raising an ordinary crane requires a massive amount of Immortal Stones to sustain.
Therefore.
Ordinary Immortals typically wouldn't even consider raising an Immortal Beast Mount. After all, survival in the Great Desolate is difficult enough; feeding oneself is already a problem, so who has the spare energy to raise an Immortal Beast Mount? It's more practical to use those Immortal Stones to temper Immortal Weapons and magical treasures.
However.
For Immortals with abundant resources, raising an Immortal Beast Mount is essential. Firstly, since ancient times in the Great Desolate, Immortal Beast Mounts have, in a sense, been a symbol of status. Especially in the last ten thousand years of the modern era, the sky is filled with increasingly younger Immortals who haven't experienced the baptism and sedimentation of time. Their mental states grow more restless, and they spend their days competing in a prevailing trend of comparing whose Immortal Beast Mount is more powerful.
Men are restless, women are vain.
These days, if you don't have an Immortal Beast Mount, you can't even find an Immortal companion. Nowadays, when female Immortals choose partners, they particularly value this point.
If one possesses a rare Immortal Beast Mount, it's absolutely like having a Grand Luo tied to your feet—wherever you go, you make an impression. Choosing an Immortal companion naturally becomes much easier.
Of course.
The function of an Immortal Beast Mount isn't merely a symbol of status. Many Immortal Beasts are born with powerful supernatural abilities. They can not only protect their masters but can even turn danger into safety in critical moments. For example, the Immortal Beast beneath Qiānlíng's feet is a rare type called the Nine Mysteries Star Elephant. A single roar from this elephant can force even a Superior Immortal to retreat. Its physical body is so strong that even a Golden Immortal would find it difficult to shake. Most terrifyingly, this Nine Mysteries Star Elephant also possesses the power of the Nine Mysteries Stars, fully capable of rivaling a Grand Luo Golden Immortal.
Qiānlíng is now the master of the Xiaoluo Secret Realm, representing the Xiaoluo Secret Realm. Since the Xiaoluo Secret Realm has decided to no longer remain hidden from the world, the superficial formalities must still be observed. A rare Nine Mysteries Star Elephant not only symbolizes Qiānlíng's own status but also the status of the entire Xiaoluo Secret Realm.
To say that Patriarch Danqing had sharp vision when recommending Qiānlíng to serve as the master of Xiaoluo was truly apt. In just a few short decades, Qiānlíng, relying on her own strength, has made quite a name for herself in this Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain and is hailed as Fairy Qiānlíng.
In the Great Desolate, 'Fairy' is an honorific title. Not all female Immortals are called Fairies; only those with a certain level of influence are hailed as such.
Behind Qiānlíng, the over ten others were also cultivators from the Xiaoluo Secret Realm. Although none of them had Immortal Beast Mounts, each was clad in Immortal Armor, riding their own Immortal Weapons and magical treasures in sword-flight. Moreover, each looked very cautious, their eyes darting left and right, their divine senses enveloping all directions.
Immortal Armor, Immortal Weapons.
These are indispensable items for any Immortal in the Great Desolate.
Immortal Armor is for defense, Immortal Weapons are for combat.
Especially when leaving a Secret Realm and traversing the Great Desolate, almost every Immortal will don Immortal Armor and ride Immortal Weapons in flight to prevent unexpected incidents.
After all, the Great Desolate is chaotic.
Killing for loot and seizing others' resources happen frequently.
Moreover, in this vast, infinite Great Desolate, if you die, you die. After death, you might not even find your corpse.
Besides preventing murder and robbery, it's also to guard against evil demons.
Compared to those who kill for loot, evil demons are even more terrifying. Without exception, all evil demons are almost unfathomably deep. Usually, when encountering an evil demon in the Great Desolate, the first thing to do is flee for your life. If you fall into an evil demon's hands, dying counts as good luck; more often, you are directly refined—refined into undead, refined into zombies, and so on.
However.
The dangers in the Great Desolate are not limited to these.
The Great Desolate also hides a terrifying type of Desolate Beast.
These Desolate Beasts are born in the Great Desolate and grow in the Great Desolate. No one knows how many eons they have experienced or how much of heaven and earth's essence they have absorbed. Each one is more ancient, more terrifying, and more powerful than the last. Forget ordinary Immortals; even Grand Luo Golden Immortals are as insignificant as ants before those Desolate Beasts.
For example, the Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain has two terrifyingly enormous birds.
No one knows from which era these two great birds were born. It is only known that one is a fire bird, the other a water bird. They appear once every thousand years, like mortal enemies. When they appear, they inevitably fight fiercely, plunging the entire Heavenly Domain into a duality of ice and fire. This is also the origin of why this Heavenly Domain is called the Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain.
Many powerful experts have wanted to hunt these two great birds, but in the end, they paid a heavy price. The Immortals of the Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain have joined forces to encircle and suppress them more than once, but the results were always a hasty retreat.
Fortunately, the two great bird Desolate Beasts lurking in the Dual-Pole Heavenly Domain only appear every thousand years, and there are always signs before their appearance. Therefore, no one pays them much mind.
"So, how is it?
Little drunkard, isn't the Great Desolate beautiful?"
Within the Xiaoluo Secret Realm's team, Qiānniǎo was also clad in Immortal Armor, treading on an Immortal Sword. However, her Immortal Armor wasn't as dignified as Qiānlíng's; it looked more like a gauze dress. Though not heroic and valiant, it appeared delicate and lovely.
Perhaps to carry Gu Qingfeng, Qiānniǎo had enlarged her Immortal Sword, making it look like a lone leaf boat sailing through the starry river. She stood majestically at the front with her arms crossed, while Gu Qingfeng sat lazily in the back, a seemingly excited spirit monkey climbing on his shoulder.
Every time she roamed the Great Desolate, Qiānniǎo would get very excited, and this time was no exception. Treading on her Immortal Sword, she flew with such delight—sometimes making a loop, sometimes a sharp turn, sometimes diving headfirst—as if deliberately showing off her superb sword-riding skills to Gu Qingfeng. She thought she would scare Gu Qingfeng into howling, but unexpectedly, Gu Qingfeng was just as usual, sitting there lazily. Forget being scared into howling; he didn't even furrow his brow. That ordinary-looking face still appeared listless, full of nothing but laziness, without any other emotion whatsoever.
"I say, big sister, can you settle down a bit? Don't suddenly make a sharp turn."
"Hmph!
So you do know how to be afraid!
This Fairy thought you weren't scared at all!
I knew you were just pretending to be calm, but inside, you're scared to death, right?"
"Scared of what? I'm not scared at all!
I'm just getting dizzy and nauseous from your turning!"