The Portal of Wonderland

“Bang” a series of explosive sounds rang out for a moment. The red tiger-shadow exploded as it collided with the golden sword-light. The golden sword-light also dispersed and transformed into a golden flying sword by the impact of this collision. Then, it whirled around and flew back.

The red-winged tiger demon suddenly sprang up, and rushed towards Shi Mu as it noticed that the golden sword-light was no longer there to resist it. It was in the air when it stretched open its ferocious mouth, and revealed a mouthful of dense and sharp teeth. Then, it pounded its mouth towards Shi Mu’s head as if it wanted to bit his head off.

Shi Mu had also gotten to his feet by now. And, Cai – who had been on his shoulder all this time – had long spread its wings and flown away in the air.

Shi Mu saw that the tiger beast flew up and swooped down towards him. But, he neither flinched back nor ducked out of the way. On the contrary, the sturdy muscles of his both arms swelled up. Then, Shi Mu supported his left hand with the right hand, and lifted it up with a sudden jerk. He made his withered-black left hand block the tiger beast.

The red-winged tiger was still in the air when it pounded its huge claw forward with full force. It wanted to push aside Shi Mu’s left hand, and bite off Shi Mu’s head as it had planned before.

A stuffy “Bang” resounded in the air when the red-winged tiger’s huge claw knocked against Shi Mu’s left hand.

An overwhelming frightening force gushed out with a loud rumbling sound. And, the red-winged tiger’s facial expression greatly changed as it saw this situation.

Then, a “Ka-cha” sound was heard.

The red-winged tiger’s massive claw shattered into pieces like a piece of porcelain – as if it had bumped into a rock. And then, it changed into minced meat and spread all over the place.

The red-winged tiger had thrown itself at Shi Mu with such a frightening momentum that it couldn’t control its body. Its head was about to knock against the black fist at any moment.

Shi Mu saw that and curled his black left hand into a tight fist. He then pounded it forward.

The red-winged tiger’s head also burst open like its claw had when it had come in contact with Shi Mu’s left fist. A stream of blood sprayed out everywhere along with the pieces of white brain as a result.

Also, the massive body of the red-winged tiger was thrown backwards by the impact of this collision. It fell a few dozen feet away. Its body made a few futile twitches at first. Then, it became motionless.

Yu Yi watched everything with his mouth slightly open in amazement. In fact, he couldn’t close his mouth for a long time.

Shi Mu put down his left hand, and exhaled a long breath. The fact was that he was panting at the moment, but there was a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

The might of his left hand had indeed reached an appalling degree. So much so that even an Earth-ranked demon beats couldn’t withstand the might of his blow. It was just that his left-hand’s movement was still slow. Otherwise, it would’ve become his trump card.

Shi Mu knew that he turned out successful this time by sheer luck. After all, he had just acted before the tiger beast as if he was merely a Xian Tian warrior. And, his performance made the opposite party loosen its guard. His performance might not have worked if he had a confrontation with an Erath-ranked martial warrior just now.

He tidied up his body and flicked some dust off his clothes. After that, he turned his hand and took out a beast soul bag. And, a ray of light flashed on it.

Then, a cluster of red light balls flew out of the red-winged tiger’s body, and submerged in the beast soul bag; it was the beast soul of this tiger demon.

Shi Mu then walked up to the corpse of the tiger demon, and examined it a few times. Then, he received its corpse as well.

The corpse of an Earth-ranked demon beast was of great value. Whether it was its flesh, bones or fur… every part of its body was considered a top-notch material. And, they could be sold at a pretty good price.

“Brother Shi, are you all right?” Yu Yi recovered from his trance at this moment. Then, he also walked over and asked.

“Yes, I’m all right.” Shi Mu flicked his sleeve.

His left hand’s sleeve had shredded to pieces, but there was still no injury in his hand.

“Brother Shi is indeed that kind of a person who keeps his everything secret. You are so powerful that you even struck and killed an Earth-ranked demon beast. This Yu genuinely admires you!” Yu Yi felt relieved when he saw that Shi Mu hadn’t sustained any injuries. However, a sense of admiration had also cropped up in his heart for Shi Mu.

“Brother Yu is flattering me.” Shi Mu showed a mild smile as he said.

“This place is close to the poisonous mist of the fire miasma. I have no idea how the tiger demon beast suddenly showed up here. But, I can say that this place isn’t safe by any means. So, let’s leave here right away,” Shi Mu said while gazing towards the red fog floating not far from them.

Yu Yi naturally didn’t have any objection to this.

Shi Mu quickly called Cai back. Then, he stimulated the Green-Winged flying carriage, and flew in the direction of the Red Flame City along with Yu Yi.

Two hours had passed like this when a black spot appeared before Shi Mu’s eyes.

“Brother Shi, that’s the Red Flame city.” Yu Yi pointed to the front.

Shi Mu nodded and stimulated a magic art with his right hand. And, the speed of their flying carriage increased in response.

The black point gradually turned into a magnificent city as they continued to get closer to it. This city was situated on the ground.

The extensive scope of this city was not inferior to that of the Rising Sun City’s. In addition, the architectural style here looked rough and wild. The walls of the city were nearly a thousand feet high. The whole body of these walls was made of square-shaped large rocks. These rocks were bright red in color. Also, each one of them was almost the size of a small house.

They looked at the city from midair. They saw that the streets of the city extended in all directions in a crisscross pattern. And, there were innumerable buildings on either side of these streets. In addition, pedestrians looked as tiny as ants from midair.

However, the most conspicuous sight was a black mountain peak that towered aloft in the center of the city. The mountain peak was very lofty as if reached the sky. Also, numerous, densely-packed buildings were built from the bottom to the peak of the mountain.

Moreover, three big characters were mentioned on the summit of the gigantic city gate — “Red Flame City”. They were emanating bursts of red light.

The Red Flame City looked like a red behemoth standing on the ground. Even the surrounding volcanic mountain ranges appeared very tiny in front of this large city.

“Wow!” Cai issued a strange cry.

“The Red Flame City fully justifies its reputation!” Shi Mu looked at the large city in front, and made a heartfelt exclamation inwardly.

“The Red Flame City is not regarded the best city on the Western Continent. But, it definitely ranks among the top five best cities on the continent.” Yu Yi said; his words were smeared with a hint pride.

Shi Mu threw a glance at Yu Yi once and nodded.

From the appearance point of view… the majestic imposing aura of the Red Flame City was still far beyond the Rising Sun City.

“Let’s go. Let’s put off this discussion until we enter the city.” Shi Mu said. At the same time, he urged the Green-Winged flying carriage and made it descend. Then, both of them got off the carriage and walked toward the city gate.

A fleeing light appeared in the surrounding. Then, it descended at the entrance to the city gate.

There were many varied sizes entrances in the gigantic city wall apart from the main city gate.

Yu Yi guided Shi Mu and made him descend in front of a small gate. There was a queue of a dozen or more people in front of them at the moment. Both of them stood at the very end of this queue.

Shi Mu looked at the people who stood before them, and found that all of them were Xian Tian warriors or so. Also, there was a hint of travel fatigue on their faces. But, their facial features gave off a kind of vicious feeling.

“It seems that these people must be the ones who leave the city for their practice,” Shi Mu saw them and felt surprised inwardly.

The queue moved ahead fast. And, soon the time came when Shi Mu and Yu Yi paid some spirit stones and walked into the city.

The two of them came to a street after having entered the city. The street was very spacious and clean. The ground was paved with dark-red flagstone, and wisps of steam were ascending from them. The temperature here was obviously much higher than outside.

“The black mountain peak in the middle of this city is actually a large volcanic crater. This area isn’t hot. The closer you approach the central area, the higher the temperature will be.” Yu Yi said.

Shi Mu nodded in response. The city was quite famous for refined tools. And, it sounded very convincing too. After all, refining tools in a place like this was indeed very convenient.

There were some shops on either side of this street. But, five or six shops out of ten were either blacksmith shops or weapons shops.

“These shops are nothing special to look at since they only keep some ordinary things. This city is divided into two parts — inner city and outer city. The outer city isn’t bustling since it’s a residential area. The genuinely large weapons shops and workshops are situated in the inner city.” Yu Yi said.

Shi Mu’s heart thumped when he heard these words. He had just noticed that a few magic tools were arranged in some of these shops, and their quality was also good. What would be the real good things here if these tools were regarded as ordinary things? Could it be that the weapon shops here also had spirit tools directly placed for sale?

Shi Mu didn’t only guess this possibility in his heart, but also asked it straight.

“Spirit tool… You can find any spirit tool you want in any large-scale shop of the inner city. In fact, even a magic weapon isn’t impossible to purchase as long as you have sufficient spirit stones.” Yu Yi said with a mischievous smile.

“Magic weapon!” Shi Mu was flabbergasted to hear that he can even buy a magic weapon in the Red Flame City. However, a considerably large number of spirit stones might be needed for the same even if this statement was true.

Shi Mu exhaled a breath. His eyes revealed a hint of excitement since he felt much more interested in the Red Flame City.

“Let’s go. We should go to the inner city.” Yu Yi waved his hand, and a yellow light appeared in response. Then, it lifted his body and flew up.

“We are in the city. Doesn’t it have any order to prohibit spatial magic spell?” Shi Mu asked in a surprised manner.

“The Red Flame City is too big. So, it’s too inconvenient to rely only on foot to travel within the city.” Yu Yi explained.

Shi Mu heard his words, but didn’t speak anything. He simply stimulated his blue jade shuttle and made it fly. Then, Both Shi Mu and Yu Yi turned into two streaks of light, and flew in the direction of the inner city.

They also got a panoramic view of the city below when they were flying in the air.

As Yu Yi had previously said… the more they went deeper into the city, the livelier the shops looked below.

The area of the Red Flame city was genuinely very enormous. Therefore, it took them a very long to reach the inner city.

The inner city wasn’t separated from the outer city by any city wall. But, there was a river in the city that acted as the dividing line between the inner city and the outer city.

The two of them finally landed in the inner city. Shi Mu swept his gaze around as he landed there, and his eyes brightened up in response.

The layout of the shops around here was obviously much better than the shops of the outer city. The shops with large storefront were basically weapon shops.

Shi Mu saw a weapon store on the left-hand side. There were square-shaped sandalwood tables and wooden frames inside. Each and everything arranged on top of them were all kinds of weapons, such as – sword, hatchets, spears, axes, and so on. Also, each weapon was emitting faint rays of light. The fact was that all of them were magic weapons.

Shi Mu had strong eyesight. So, he could clearly see that a few wooden tables were arranged in the innermost area of the shop. And, they were enveloped in the light cover of a prohibition spell. In addition, several weapons were placed inside that light cover. There was a large distance between him and those tables. Also, these tables were under the protection of some prohibition magic spell. However, Shi Mu could still sense that all those weapons contained strong spiritual energy.

“Spirit tool!” Shi Mu eyes lit up.

“Brother Shi, do you want to buy one or two handy spirit tools?” Yu Yi asked since he had noticed Shi Mu’s facial expression.

“The Red Flame City is famous for its refined tools. So, I naturally want to buy a couple of them since we are here now.” Shi Mu said.

“Brother Shi, you’d better not go to this kind of shop if you are thinking of buying a spirit tool. These shop owners are unlikely to take out the genuinely good things in front of common customers,” Yu Yi suggested.

“In that case, I would ask Brother Yu for guidance,” Shi Mu’s eyes flickered once as he said.

“I’m not worthy of giving you guidance. However, I have lived here for a long time. So, I’m familiar with some matters. Brother Shi, I have some important matter to take care of right now. But, you can accompany me to the Red Flame Palace if you have some free time. I will tell you the details of this matter later,” Yu Yi said.

The expression in Shi Mu’s eyes changed, and he gave him a nod in agreement.

Yu Yi let out a sigh of relief. After that, he stepped forward and walked toward a street ahead. Shi Mu also stepped forward and followed him.

This street was very spacious. The more they moved forward, the denser the crowd of people became on the road. These people were similarly hurrying forward as Yu Yi.

Shi Mu and Yu Yi as turned around a street, and saw a massive red-colored palace in front of them. The area of this palace was quite large. Three big characters were written on top of the palace – “Red Flame Palace”. There were many people who were walking in and out of the palace.

Yu Yi lightly walked into the palace in a very convenient manner as if he was quite familiar with this palace. Shi Mu also followed him in.

A hall appeared in front of them as they entered the palace. It was surrounded by some white stone tablets; they were a few feet in height. Lines of characters were written on top of it. And, the content was a variety of missions.

This included missions like the collection of some kind of materials, hunting demon beats, and so on. Each mission had a corresponding reward, and most of them were spirit stones. But, some magic tools, spirit tools, pills, and other stuff were also used to pay the reward.

A ray of light flashed across Shi Mu’s eyes as he saw this scene. This place bore a great similarity to that of Black Demon Sect’s mission hall.