"Come on!" Old Liu drew the Ice Crystal, secretly tucking it into his palm. He rose to his feet and roared with fury to draw the attention of the Firelight Beast. "Beast, come here!"

"Chirp..." The Firelight Beast seemed to possess human understanding. It let out a long cry, coiled its body into a blaze of flame, and charged toward Old Liu.

The sheer momentum was so shocking that the Ground Mole was terrified and burrowed behind Old Liu. Old Liu gritted his teeth, clenching his fists, bracing for the heavy strike of the Firelight Beast.

"Ah!" A blast of heat washed over him as the ball of red fire slammed into Old Liu's chest. With a sharp cry, Old Liu was pinned against the wall behind him. He suppressed the excruciating pain and stretched out a hand, managing to gain a firm hold on the Firelight Beast. However, the beast's fur was searingly sharp and hot; the skin on his hand was already scorched raw. "Damn it! Watch my Ice Crystal Five Stars."

The Firelight Beast only focused on tormenting Old Liu with its prickly hide, completely unaware of the Ice Crystal materializing above its head. The crystal accelerated its descent onto the beast, on the verge of activating and dissolving into a puddle of water, when a wave of chilling air swept down, misting the entire space. The Ice Crystal was instantly frozen solid!

"Beast, come back now." A gentle voice drifted in, and a woman in white robes, holding a slender feather fan, hovered above the volcano’s crater. With a single sweep of her fan, she recalled the Firelight Beast into her embrace.

Old Liu, struggling against the intense pain, looked up. Seeing that he had almost defeated the Firelight Beast, he demanded, "Who are you? Is this Firelight Beast your pet?"

The white-robed woman possessed a lovely face, her figure perfectly balanced beneath the flowing white skirt. With an air of detached serenity, she smiled faintly. "Seeing that you use the Thin Face Blade and the magic of the Strange Beast Dao, you must also be a practitioner of the Ancient Strange Path?"

"Hmph!" For the first time, Old Liu barely reacted to seeing a beauty; the pain made him impatient. "I am Liu Kai. I am indeed a successor of the Ancient Strange Path. May I ask what title you hold, Elder Sister?"

The woman slowly descended before Old Liu. She lightly brushed his wound with her feather fan and smiled faintly. "Who I am is unimportant. Do you know this is the crater of Mount Buxian, and also the core locus of my Ancient Strange Path's Three Abyss Snow Dissolving Palace formation? How did some unknown nobody like you end up here?"

Old Liu felt the chill penetrate his body, and instantly his pain lessened significantly. He tucked away his Thin Face Blade and questioned, "Are there women in the Daoist cultivation paths?"

"The Strange Path Arts originally originated from the Queen Mother of the West at Mount Buxian; it is entirely normal for women to cultivate it." The woman stepped lightly, and wherever her feet landed, the intense heat vanished. "How many chapters of the Strange Path Arts have you learned? To be unable to deal with even a single Firelight Beast."

This was the first time Old Liu heard that the Strange Path Arts stemmed from the Queen Mother of the West. Everything Huang Le'er had said before must have been true. He sighed. "You must tell me who you are first. I don't even know why I appeared here."

The white-robed woman waved her fan and extended an exquisite finger, performing a calculation. "The Ancient Strange Path has eight chapters in total. I am the original custodian of the first chapter, the Strange Beast Dao—Beast Mother Yu Jiuhu. Have you, a Dao cultivator, ever heard of me?"

"Yu Jiuhu?" Old Liu pondered. He had studied the Beast Dao since childhood and seemed to recall seeing that name in certain ancient texts. He dared not slight her and knelt in homage. "So it is the progenitor of the Beast Dao, Elder Yu. Your humble junior, Liu Kai, pays his respects."

Yu Jiuhu possessed boundless magical power and understood the highest realms of the Beast Dao. Seeing that Liu Kai was somewhat fated to meet her, she said, "I calculate by my fingers that your body must have undergone some form of magical transformation, or perhaps an upheaval across time. Your arrival here suggests a destined encounter between us. I have witnessed your Beast Dao cultivation; it remains at the most rudimentary stage of object transformation."

"Time travel?" Old Liu realized this possibility too. If this was the present day, Mount Buxian should be called Changbai Mountain. It seemed he had traveled back tens of thousands of years. "Your junior’s study of the Beast Dao is shallow, and my abilities are limited to that level."

"It is evident your cultivation lacks pure Beast Dao. Many can specialize in one of the eight classic texts of the Ancient Strange Path, but mastering them all is not so easy." Yu Jiuhu saw through Liu Kai's internal Daoist cultivation with a single glance. She sighed softly and presented the Firelight Beast she held in her arms to Liu Kai. "The essence of the Beast Dao lies not in mere transformation, but in the fusion with Divine Beasts. Ordinary object transformation only allows you to mimic their shape, not possess their ability. To achieve true accomplishment, you must commit to cultivating a specific Divine Beast."

This theory was brand new to Old Liu. He imagined his abilities: if he transformed into a bird, beast, insect, or fish, he would only gain the power to swim or fly, utterly insufficient for combat. Even when facing a fighting-capable Firelight Beast, he could only mimic its form: "I ask for Elder Yu's guidance."

Yu Jiuhu smiled gently and tossed the Firelight Beast out. The highly spirited beast burrowed directly into the Thin Face Blade behind Old Liu. At that moment, the Ground Mole within the Thin Face Blade and the Firelight Beast merged into one after a brief struggle.

"This..." Old Liu stared blankly at the fusion of the two. What hopped beside him now was a small creature resembling a squirrel, covered entirely in sharp quills yet possessing an utterly charming face. After a moment of faint light, the little creature transformed once more into the Thin Face Blade. The blade still looked like a scalpel, but the edge had completely vanished into the air; it now possessed only a handle.

"You and the Firelight Beast had a destined acquaintance through conflict. Cultivate together," Yu Jiuhu spoke, then used her fan to sweep Old Liu out of the volcano's crater. Watching him leave, her expression turned grave. "In the world millions of years from now, you must bring the Firelight Beast back to Mount Buxian. The Ancient Strange Path needs a successor from later generations to save it."

"What... Elder?" Old Liu was caught in a violent gale, spinning disorientingly as he flew for an unknown time. He vaguely caught Yu Jiuhu's words. Could it be that the Ancient Strange Path faced a sectarian crisis even in ancient times? Was it the terror of a passing Death God, or conflicts with other sects? How many ancient entanglements were hidden in this world?

"Hey! Wake up!" In his daze, Old Liu heard Ye Xiu's shout. He felt an intense burning beneath his feet. Startled awake, he realized Ye Xiu was using his Purple Flame to scorch his soles. He staggered and jumped up. "Damn it, is this how you wake people up?"

Seeing Old Liu awake, Ye Xiu relaxed considerably. He urgently asked, "It’s a good thing you’re not dead yet! What exactly did you encounter in there? Elder, Elder, you kept muttering."

"Right!" Old Liu quickly pulled out his Thin Face Blade. The hilt presented a small grip; the edge was nowhere to be seen. This meant his cultivation on the Thin Face Blade had advanced by a step. He grabbed Ye Xiu. "Look at my Thin Face Blade..."