After following the group of demons along the mountain path for about a hundred li, they finally arrived at a cluster of caves. To be precise, it wasn’t just a single cave, but a whole group of them. Dozens of caves, large and small, were scattered across the mountainside. In front of these caves was a platform spanning several hundred square meters. On the platform, there were stone pots, stone bowls, grills, and stoves—everything one might need. Judging by the setup, it looked just like an open-air canteen. At the edge of the platform, there was a deep pool. When the little demons reached this spot, they stopped, and each one threw the human bodies in their hands—dead or alive—into the deep pool. After washing them clean, they set up the pots and lit the fires. From the look of things, it seemed they were about to start their meal.

Henry Clark paid no mind to the actions of these demons. In this world of gods and demons, eating humans was nothing out of the ordinary.

He simply followed behind William King, and after rounding the mountainside, a cave mansion far grander than the previous ones appeared before him.

Chapter 8: The Trapped Void Cave—A Glimpse of Fate (Part Four)

As for Henry Clark, he saw William King sitting cross-legged on a meditation mat, cultivating. Ever since William King had swallowed that pill, Henry Clark could clearly sense that his demonic aura had grown even stronger. He immediately understood that the pills in the jade gourd had the effect of enhancing spiritual energy. It seemed that William King’s formidable demonic power was all thanks to these pills. Then he glanced at the bamboo scroll, which William King had set aside. Looking closely, what he saw nearly made Henry Clark fall to the ground in shock. Why?

Because at the beginning of the bamboo scroll were four ancient characters: 《离火玄功》 (“Lihuo Profound Art”).

If Henry Clark had just arrived in this world, he would surely have been influenced by the martial arts novels of his previous life and mistaken this for some kind of secret martial arts manual. But in this world of gods and demons, only a cultivation method or secret worthy of the highest level would be called “Profound Art”—that is, the ancient shamanic secret arts, the cultivation methods practiced by the most powerful qi refiners of antiquity.

After the shattering of the primordial world, when heaven and earth were shrouded in dust, the rulers of the ancient world—the mighty and mysterious shamanic race—vanished, and with them disappeared their unrivaled Profound Arts and arrays. Only a few methods have survived to this day, the most famous being the “Eight-Nine Profound Art” of Erlang Zhenjun of Guanjiaokou.

In fact, for a long time, most people believed that apart from the Eight-Nine Profound Art, all other shamanic Profound Arts had been lost, not to mention their arrays. Who would have thought that another Profound Art would be found here?

It’s important to know that while shamanic Profound Arts and Daoist immortal techniques are somewhat similar, they are fundamentally different. The ancient great shamans were born from the turbid qi at the dawn of creation, fused with Pangu’s blood, and emphasized achieving sainthood through the physical body. Their methods focused on tempering their own bodies.

The most ancient Daoist qi refiners, on the other hand, were formed from the pure qi of heaven and earth—such as Hongjun—and their techniques focused on absorbing, refining, and utilizing the primordial energy of the world, ultimately refining their primordial spirit into pure qi. The physical body, for them, was not so important.

Later, as heaven and earth evolved and the pure and turbid qi merged, all things in the world came to possess both shamanic and Daoist traits, giving rise to all kinds of living beings.

In a sense, the cultivation methods of the demon race lean more toward the shamanic path.

No matter what kind of demon, by their nature, each should possess a unique innate supernatural ability, known as their “innate divine power.”

For example, Henry Clark is a crow, and so is William King. According to legend, the ancestors of crows were the three-legged golden crows, the great demon saints of the primordial era, who were shot down by the shamanic saint Hou Yi—those very suns. Therefore, the innate divine power of crows is the Solar Golden Fire.

Of course, that’s all nonsense. In this world, aside from that one survivor from the primordial era in the heavens, who else could wield the Solar Golden Fire that refines all things? And that one, well, lives far above the heavens and has no time to meddle in the affairs of this world.

This “Lihuo Profound Art” was the ultimate skill of the ancient great shaman Zhu Rong, the Fire God.

For fire-attribute demons like Henry Clark and William King, Zhu Rong’s Lihuo Profound Art was the most suitable cultivation method.

Besides Profound Arts, the ancient shamanic race had another ultimate skill: arrays.

The original arrays referred to those of the twelve ancestral shamans of antiquity. Each ancestral shaman had an array unique to them, and the arrays of later shamans were derived from these twelve. Every shaman had a unique array, and the power of an array depended on the shaman’s own abilities.

Within the space of an array, whatever happens is outside the laws of heaven, beyond the cycle of reincarnation, independent of the world, forming a realm of its own. The space where Henry Clark and William King now existed was just such an array space.

And whatever happens inside, not even a sage could divine.

At this thought, Henry Clark suddenly saw the light!

So that’s it—this is the reason for the feeling in my heart!!!

This is truly a place that conceals the workings of fate!