"Your intelligence source is a bit unreliable," Hei Lou Lan said, sitting down casually on the ground while healing her wounds.
Her left arm had a long bloody gash stretching from the back of her hand all the way to her elbow.
This was a mark left behind by a desolate beast they had encountered earlier, the Flying Sword Rat.
The Flying Sword Rat was small in size but extremely fast. A slight slip in attention and one would be cut by its sharp claws.
Even though Hei Lou Lan possessed the Great Strength True Martial Physique, with godly strength and astonishing recovery, treating this wound took a lot of effort.
This was because the cut from the Flying Sword Rat's claws was filled with Golden Path Dao Marks, which repelled the Strength Path Dao Marks in Hei Lou Lan's immortal body, inhibiting the recovery ability of her Great Strength Immortal Body.
After a while, Hei Lou Lan finally eliminated the wound, forming a thin layer of pinkish flesh scab.
She came over to Fang Yuan. Fang Yuan was sitting cross-legged on the ground, using a sharp index finger like iron to carve a topographic map of their survey onto a flat mountain rock.
There were dozens of green peaks here. Most of them housed a desolate beast, such as the Star Desolate Dog, the Flying Sword Rat, or the Drill Bear.
On the peaks without desolate beasts, large packs of wild animals and a massive number of Gu Worms lived together.
It was obvious that Seven Star Child had invested a massive amount of effort into managing the Starry Sky Grotto-Heaven to have such a dense population of desolate beasts in this area.
But strangely, there were no ancient desolate beasts. Ancient desolate beasts were comparable to Rank Seven combat power. Logically, a well-managed Starry Sky Grotto-Heaven like this should have had ancient desolate beasts.
This was just the first oddity. The second oddity was that the Heaven Spirit hadn't appeared for a long time.
Fang Yuan and Hei Lou Lan had been exploring around. Although they encountered many battles, they managed to escape smoothly.
Strictly speaking, the two of them were invaders, but this Starry Sky Blessed Land seemed to have no Heaven Spirit presiding over it. The encirclement and suppression that Fang Yuan had expected never happened.
The third oddity was that Fang Yuan absolutely couldn't find the Poison Gas Swamp.
According to his past life memories, the area he was standing in now was a small fragment world of the Grotto-Heaven that his trusted subordinates had explored and plundered in his past life. The Poison Gas Swamp was originally near that ancient forest. No matter how he searched, Fang Yuan couldn't find it.
"Could it be that the Poison Gas Swamp is a landform that formed hundreds of years later? I came here ahead of schedule, so I can't find it. If that's the case, my plan to hunt the Star Demon Bats will fall through."
Fang Yuan stared at the topographic map on the stone. As he was thinking, he suddenly felt a burst of intense light radiate towards him.
He and Hei Lou Lan looked up simultaneously. At some unknown time, countless specks of light had appeared in the blue-green sky.
These tiny star lights multiplied, growing more and more numerous. In the blink of an eye, they filled the entire sky and earth, falling profusely like a heavy snow.
"This is a heavenly phenomenon unique to a Grotto-Heaven," Fang Yuan said, standing up with a vigilant expression. He activated the Lion Hair Armor.
Hei Lou Lan also activated a defensive killing move, caution in her heart.
The starlight was brilliant, illuminating everything. One after another, the roars of beasts came from the various mountain peaks, some clear and crisp, others long and drawn-out or hoarse.
A strong wind suddenly rose, and all the star points converged towards the peak of a single mountain.
After a blinding flash of blue light, the star points vanished, and a resplendent palace, exquisite and gorgeous, appeared out of thin air on the mountaintop.
"This palace..." Fang Yuan's pupils constricted. The palace's structure was very familiar to him. It was clearly the broken walls and ruins scattered throughout the fragment world in his past life memories. But the ruins that had been broken back then were now completely intact.
Fang Yuan and Hei Lou Lan exchanged a glance. The latter speculated, "Could it be that a specific time has arrived, and the heavenly phenomenon triggered the appearance of the palace?"
"Or did the Heaven Spirit deliberately set this up to lure us in?" Fang Yuan's eyes flickered with light.
The two of them hesitated for only a moment before deciding to go and investigate the Star Palace.
At the same time, in another region of the Starry Sky Grotto-Heaven.
A fierce battle was coming to an end.
"Despicable beast, taste this king's fist!" A stone giant as tall as a mountain shouted, his fist smashing down, instantly churning up a hurricane and detonating the air.
The desolate beast Flying Bear was too slow to dodge. Its head was hit by the giant stone fist. With a loud bang, it fell to the ground, creating a huge crater. Rocks and soil flew everywhere, dust rose up, and the entire earth trembled.
The stone giant was not satisfied. He spread his ten fingers, raised his hands high, and then slammed them down fiercely.
With a heavy thud, both palms landed heavily on the Flying Bear's snow-white, plump body.