308: Chapter 306 The Five-Colored Divine Bird

The moment Yun Ming's Divine Sense captured that familiar aura, his heart skipped a beat.

It was not fear, but excitement.

That aura was so familiar—so familiar that he did not need to identify it a second time to know who it was. He thought he would never see it again in this lifetime, that it had died in that catastrophe, and that it had vanished along with Yun Xi.

But it was still alive.

The aura was just ahead, getting closer and closer.

Yun Ming took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart, and resolutely changed his direction.

He wanted to go see with his own eyes if it was the one he was thinking of.

Yun Ming followed the aura, flying all the way to the west.

He activated the Fuli Heaven-Concealing Record, concealing his entire aura without leaving a single trace, even suppressing the color of his Escape Light to the absolute minimum.

The aura waxed and waned, drifting unpredictably, as if it were hiding on purpose, or perhaps injured.

Yun Ming did not dare to fly too fast, nor did he dare to get too close, keeping a constant distance of dozens of miles.

After flying for about half an hour, the terrain ahead suddenly changed.

The continuous mountain ranges broke off here, forming a massive basin.

In the center of the basin, a giant tree rose abruptly from the ground. Its trunk was astonishingly thick, and its canopy blotted out the sky and the sun, shrouding the entire basin in its shadow.

It was unknown how many tens of thousands of years the tree had lived. Its bark was as ancient as Dragon scales, and its foliage was as lush as a canopy.

At the very top of the giant tree, there was a massive bird's nest.

The nest was ridiculously large, spanning dozens of miles in diameter. The walls of the nest were woven from countless branches of spiritual wood, with Spirit Stones, Magic Treasures, and Yao Beast bones embedded between the branches, shimmering with spiritual light.

Looking from afar, it did not look like a nest, but more like a city suspended in mid-air.

Countless avian Yao Cultivators nested within.

Some were as small as sparrows, hopping on the branches; others were as large as houses, spreading their wings and soaring high.

Their cultivation bases ranged from Qi Refining to Golden Core, with occasional auras of the Nascent Soul Stage, but they were all suppressed by a much stronger aura. Yun Ming's Divine Sense probed forward cautiously; deep within the nest, he sensed an extremely terrifying pressure—at least of the Late Nascent Soul Stage, or perhaps even the Early Soul Transformation Stage.

He did not approach.

He flew halfway around the nest from a distance, landed on a concealed mountain peak, and carefully observed this behemoth woven from countless branches.

The outer branches of the nest were dense, with almost no gaps. The deeper one went, the wider the spacing between the branches became, and the dimmer the light.

Those branches were embedded with various glowing Spirit Stones and Yao Beast inner cores, illuminating the interior of the nest with alternating light and shadow, creating a mottled effect.

Yun Ming found a gap between the branches and quietly slipped inside.

He moved like an invisible wind along the shadows of the branches, not daring to make a single sound or leak a shred of aura. The Fuli Heaven-Concealing Record reduced his presence to the absolute minimum, and of the avian Yao Cultivators flying past him, not a single one noticed him.

Upon entering the interior of the nest, he saw a completely different landscape.

Just like a human city, there were streets, shops, squares, and residences here. The streets were paved with spiritual wood branches, flat and wide, with nest chambers of various sizes lining both sides. The goods sold in the shops were miscellaneous, ranging from human Medicinal Pills, Magical Artifacts, and Spirit Stones, to the bones, scales, and inner cores of the Yao Race, as well as some unknown Heaven And Earth Treasures.

Some Yao Cultivators were setting up stalls to trade, bargaining just like human merchants. Some Yao Cultivators were sparring, their Demonic Qi clashing and exploding into ripples of shockwaves. Some Yao Cultivators sat in a circle, communicating in a language Yun Ming could not understand, letting out sharp laughter from time to time. In a corner of the square, he saw several iron cages holding human Cultivators. Some were already dead, their corpses discarded carelessly to the side; some were still alive, curled up in a corner of the cages, their eyes vacant and their bodies trembling. Several Yao Cultivators gathered around the cages, clutching human arms or thighs in their claws, tearing and biting greedily, blood dripping from the corners of their mouths onto the ground.

Yun Ming's gaze grew cold. He glanced at the cultivation of those Yao Cultivators; most were at the Foundation Establishment and Golden Core stages, with an occasional few at the Early Nascent Soul Stage. He suppressed the urge to strike and continued walking inward. He memorized the layout here, as well as the auras and positions of those Yao Cultivators. He silently planned in his heart that once he found the source of that aura and finished his business, he would return to set this nest ablaze.

He followed that familiar aura, passing through layer after layer of branches and crossing nest chamber after nest chamber. The aura had no fixed position, sometimes in the east, sometimes in the west, as if searching for something, or perhaps evading something. Yun Ming followed behind, always maintaining a distance of dozens of yards, not daring to get too close.

The deeper he went into the nest, the wider the spacing between the branches became, and the more open the space grew. The branches overhead were layered, blocking out the sky, with only occasional beams of light filtering through the gaps. The branches beneath his feet were covered in moss, soft and silent when stepped upon. The air was filled with a damp, putrid smell, mixed with the scent of blood and Spirit Medicine, making it hard to tell if it was fragrant or foul.

Along the way, he passed many nest chambers. Some had spirit lamps hanging at their entrances, with voices and laughter coming from inside; others had their doors tightly shut, with faint screams and weeping echoing from within. Yun Ming did not stop; he had only one goal—that familiar aura getting closer and closer.

After passing through an unknown number of layers of branches, he finally found the source of the aura. On the edge of a relatively open platform in the middle-upper layer of the nest, a giant divine bird stood.

The divine bird was about three people tall, its entire body covered in five-colored feathers—red, green, gold, white, and black interwoven, glowing with brilliant colors. As the five colors flowed, a spiritual light faintly rippled across the surface of its feathers; with every breath it took, the spiritual light around its body flickered.

It stood at the edge of the platform, its slender neck slightly curved, and the crest on its head trembling slightly. Its amber eyes were as clear as glazed glass, reflecting the light and shadows of the thousands of spirit lamps in the nest deep within its pupils. Its tail feathers trailed behind it, several yards long, with a tiny spirit bead adorned at the tip of each tail feather. Within the spirit beads, Five Elements spiritual power was sealed, glowing faintly with its breathing. Its aura was profound and reserved, neither ostentatious nor oppressive, yet commanding respect.

Yun Ming stopped behind a distant branch, activating the Fuli Heaven-Concealing Record to its limit, making himself look like a lifeless rock. He stared at the Five-Colored Divine Bird for a long time, and only after confirming that it had not noticed him did he quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

His gaze fell upon those five-colored feathers, upon that slender neck, and into those amber eyes. He suddenly recalled a name from long ago, a name he thought he would never encounter again in this lifetime. He remembered a palm-sized, fluffy, multi-colored little bird. It used to perch on his shoulder, calling him "Master" in a tiny voice. It used to roll around in piles of Spirit Stones. It used to lie quietly by the door when he was in closed-door cultivation, waiting for him to come out.

Yun Ming's throat twitched. He made no sound, nor did he move. He merely watched the Five-Colored Divine Bird, watching it bathe in the light of the thousands of spirit lamps in the nest, watching it stand quietly at the edge of the platform, as if waiting for someone.

That was Jiu Jiu. He recognized it.