The moment he stepped inside the entrance, the scene before him suddenly distorted. Right after, he felt the sky and ground spin, as if his body was sent flying by a storm. He unconsciously closed his eyes. Only after a long time, did that weightless feeling finally disappear slowly. When he opened his eyes, he only saw a pitch black darkness.
Where… is this?
As Itachi pondered his surroundings, two lines of narrow golden light suddenly appeared in the pitch black darkness before him. Immediately after, the two narrow lines of golden luminance slowly opened like a pair of slightly narrowed eyes… No! That exactly was a pair of eyes! A pair of incomparably gigantic golden eyes that was embedded inside the pitch black space.
The eyes of the Phoenix!!
"Greetings, human. Welcome to the trial grounds. You are the first challenger without the phoenix bloodline in these past thousand years."
A dignified voice resounded within his mind; from the timbre of the voice, it was clearly a female voice. Itachi looked at this pair of golden eyes, and probed: "You are… the spirit of the phoenix?"
"That is correct. I am an immortal soul left here by the phoenix, yet I am also an existence independent of the phoenix. I preserve this trial ground and receive all challengers. Spirit of the Phoenix, is the most fitting title for me."
Itachi's eyes flashed, since he seemed to have discovered the source of the pulling force, the remnant spirit of the True God, Phoenix.
"If I can complete this trial to the utmost degree, I can gain a portion of its remnant spirit, enough to satisfy my first soul containment point, allowing me to truly begin cultivating the {{Nine Bestial Devil Dao}} technique."
Having thought this far Itachi awaited further instructions from the Phoenix spirit.
"The trial has three stages in total, respectively: First stage: Purgatory Flame Demon; second stage: Arrows of the Phoenix; third stage: Corruption of the Heart's Flame. If you wish to forfeit during the trial, you may shout out at anytime and I'll immediately let you leave the trial grounds. You may die if you forcibly endure the trial…. I wish you success."
Just as the Spirit of the Phoenix's voice faded, the pair of golden eyes slowly disappeared inside the world of pitch black darkness.
The world before Itachi's eyes spun once again. Moments later, the darkness entirely disappeared, and the world around him impressively transformed into a field of deep red.
The ground under his feet appeared to be a deep red color. The ground was uneven; disorderly boulders were scattered around and mountains of varying heights were layered one after another. Even the mountain's surface was crimson, as if it could spew out flames which could reach the heavens at any time. Looking upwards, the sky was also a field of deep red.
Stalks of ember were distributed across every direction on the fire-red colored ground. Some of the embers were only a few inches tall, while some had even shot up for over ten meters in height. On both sides, pools after pools of red-colored lava bubbled like boiling water… Drawing out an incomparably terrifying scene of a lava purgatory.
Unquestionably, the wind here was scorching hot as the air's temperature reached a terrifying height. Just with the temperature here alone, let alone an profound practitioner of the Elementary Profound Realm, even if a profound practitioner of the True Profound Realm exhausted all his strength, he would only be able to barely endure.
But the temperature here to Itachi could only be described with one word:
Comfortable!
Due to absorbing the Evil God's fire seed this was a relaxing area for him to be in, unable to cause him any discomfort.
Itachi walked forwards for a period of time, before in front of him, a huge beast appeared in front of him, formed from the coagulation of the lava and rocks in his surroundings, forming a terrifying looking lava demon, emanating shockingly, the aura of an Earth profound realm cultivator!
However, towards this towering and powerful beast Itachi displayed no change of expression, appearing as dismissive as before.
Activating his Sharingan, Itachi merely said one word,
"{{Kamui}}!"
Before a terrifying spatial distortion appeared, completely decimating the top half of this terrifying demon, leaving merely it's legs there.
Itachi walked past the remnants of the so called Purgatory Demon, as its legs slowly collapsed as well.
And at this time, the scenery before him suddenly distorted. In the midst of the distortion, it spun in a blur, and when everything had finally stabilized, the red land, volcanoes and pools of lava…. All of it disappeared. What replaced it was an expanse of nothingness, a wilderness so flat that there wasn't any uneven land to be seen.
"Second stage of the trial: Arrows of the Phoenix."