While Maria and Celaine were despairing at having no choice but to cross this living hell, Mira was actually quite excited.
Mira's favorite activities are killing and training, so naturally, she will welcome any form of training, especially body tempering.
Cultivating Qi is incredibly boring, one has to spend hours after hours of absorbing and refining Qi just for a slight advancement while tempering the body is different. One actually has to use their brain when tempering their body so they don't accidentally kill themselves. This is much more exciting than mindlessly cultivating!
Mira went ahead and took the lead and started walking upstream. She wasn't going incredibly fast since it was too hot, but she was going at a moderate pace.
Maria and Celaine also woke up and started following Mira. It's not like they had a choice and they might be rewarded something good if they survive!
***
Nothing interesting happened on their journey to the Black Castle. They didn't meet any enemies, they didn't almost fall in the lava for some reason, nor did they turn into pieces of charcoal.
The only thing of interest is the increasing heat, but this isn't anything new. Mira was constantly using her ice which ended up bringing several benefits. Not only was her comprehension of her Absolute Ice Dao increasing, but her control was getting better as well. This was on top of the ice cooling them down a bit.
Whenever Mira got tired, Celaine would take over and start using her Wind Affinity to keep some of the heat away from them.
Maria was useless during this journey since her light element wasn't any help.
Mira thought about wanting to jump in the lava, but she knew that she'd turn to ash before she could even hit the surface. It had nothing to do with willpower or determination, just a simple difference in strength.
Just being within 100 meters of it was enough to make her skin want to melt.
Occasionally, they'd have to stop to get used to the heat, but a wall of lava would form behind them and force them to continue.
After many hours of hellish walking, they finally made it to the lava dragon's mouth.
The volcanos were surrounding this lava dragon and lava flowed from them continuously into the lava dragon lake.
They tried to scout a path that they could take that wouldn't result in them being burnt to a crisp, but alas things wouldn't be so simple.
Not long after thinking that, a small black pathway was erected from the lava dragon lake. It was just wide enough for one person to cross and it seemed to lead all the way to the Black Castle.
It was only around 10 meters above the lava dragon lake, which was one-tenth the distance that they stayed at when traveling up the lava river. Not to mention that this lava dragon lake is much hotter compared to the river.
Gulp.
The three of them didn't want to step on that death trap, but it seemed they'd be forced to if they wanted to get out of this situation.
While they were waiting, a wall of lava formed behind them and started to encroach on their position.
"Well, fuck. I guess we just have to go for it." Mira said while walking towards the black pathway.
Once her feet hit the first step, it felt like they were going to melt off. Just the heat alone basically forced her to continue walking just so she wouldn't have to feel that unbearable heat anymore.
Mira soon started to run along the pathway and the other 2 soon followed up.
Maria was behind Mira and Celaine was behind Maria, except there was a slight problem.
The pathway behind Mira was dropping back into the lava at a rapid pace and was quickly catching up to her.
"AHHH! RUN! HURRY! THE PATH IS RETREATING BACK INTO THE LAVA!!" Celaine screamed with all her might and ran as fast as she could.
She even summoned her wings and used her wind to speed up the process.
Mira and Maria heard her and quickly did the same thing. Except Mira was unable to since her ice wings would just get melted as soon as she made them. Mira was forced to try and cover her feet with ice for as long as possible and just book it!
The 3 of them were running full speed ahead towards the Black Castle with the threat of instant death right behind them.
At one point, the path was falling just a few centimeters behind Celaine, but she wasn't able to run any faster.
"Waah!! Someone help me! Why'd I agree to come to this hell hole?! I want to go home!! Sniff… Sniff… AHHH!!" Celaine started crying but didn't give up on running.
They have been running at full speed for a few hours now and were incredibly tired, but Mira and Maria eventually made it across the lava dragon lake.
They both turned around and saw Celaine crying her eyes out, but it was so hot that her tears would evaporate instantly.
They both used up all of their power just to cross this damn lake and wouldn't be able to assist Celaine.
They could only hope that she doesn't fall into the lava dragon lake and survive, but it seems that the chance of that happening isn't high.
The path was currently falling almost right under her feet and she wasn't able to go any faster.
Celaine knew that this might be the end and decided to use the rest of her Qi into her wings and muster up every bit of wind that she could. She put every ounce of power that her body had into the next step and leaped.
As soon as she leaped she used up as much wind power and Qi that she could and propelled her wings forwards.
She shot forward like a bolt of lightning, but it seemed that she was still going to fall a bit short. She landed on the path again and was only 20 meters away from crossing the lava dragon lake, but wasn't able to fully make it through. She didn't have the strength to move anymore after that last-ditch effort.
Mira and Maria didn't want to just sit there and watch Celaine wait for death so they used whatever energy remained in their body and dashed towards her.
Maria leaped forward and grabbed Celaine's hand. Mira then dashed forward, grabbed Maria's leg, and tossed the both of them on land.
"Fucking hell…" Mira muttered before collapsing next to Maria and Celaine, who also collapsed from exhaustion.
Once the path completely retreated back into the lava dragon lake, the booming voice resounded throughout the area again.
"Congratulations, young ones, on being able to make it to this Great One's nest! Though this achievement is nothing since this is just the basic requirement for being able to meet with this Great One! Now onto the real trial! Mwahaha! Make sure to suffer properly for my enjoyment, young on-eh? Did they die? Did I perhaps go a bit too far?" The booming voice turned a bit sad and meek towards the end.