With a flash of light, Kai and Mia appeared back near the crashed house.
"I kind of forgot that I don't know where the space gate is." Kai said with a sheepish expression.
"You know, sometimes, you act like a child." Mia sighed and shook her head in dismay.
"I don't think you would want to meet me when I am serious because one time, I was serious. And what happened afterwards..." Kai trailed off as he got plunged into his memories.
"What, you destroyed a sect? Or perhaps a palace or a town?" Mia started wondering about what Kai could have done. He chuckled at her words, though his laughter was deprived of any humor.
"I destroyed an entire planet." He said slowly and Mia gasped.
"And in case you were wondering about the planet I destroyed, it was the realm of fairies." Kai said and jumped down into the sea. He didn't get wet but the feeling of cool water running across his body was relaxing.
'But I thought that the planet got destroyed because multiple suns exploded at once.' Mia thought.
The destruction of the fairy realm was a major gossip topic in the upper realms. Many believed that the sun goddess destroyed the fairy realm because she had a grudge against them.
And honestly, it was kind of expected. Every single fairy was killed during the planet's destruction and nothing of the planet remained as it had been burned off to dust.
But when the fairies were alive, they were the most hateable creatures alive. Fairies were not some winged babies who came at night to collect your teeth and give you a gold coin.
Nor were they some wish-granting lunatics. They were cruel and wicked and were absolute sadists and masochists. They enjoyed it when humans suffered. They kidnapped mortals and then brought them to the fairy realm to torture them and they enjoyed it. The fairies were hated by almost everyone, except for those who were like them.
So when they died, almost every realm jumped up in joy. Many even threw parties to celebrate their destruction.
"Maybe we should go and check the place where I fell." Kai suggested as he jumped back on the land. It was an impressive sight to watch as he jumped 100 feet straight in the air and that was no joke.
He took Mia's hand and they disappeared. He teleported them to Ryazu city, which was surprisingly near his crashing site. He then teleported south of there.
"This is the exact spot." Kai said as they appeared in the forest where Kai had crash-landed after falling for 16 years.
This was also the place where he first met those cultivators from the southern continent. At that time, Kai had to run away from them because he wasn't sure about his power.
However, afterward, when he had checked his powers, he had teleported back to obtain his revenge. Unfortunately, they had vanished.
"Kai, are you sensing that." Mia suddenly said as a dark wave of energy spread through the entire forest.
"It can't be. I know that form of energy." Kai said in a grim voice and started walking towards the west of the forest as though the power was calling out to him.
"A rank 4 camouflaging formation created by heaven spirit realms formation masters." Kai muttered as they reached a cave.
He waved his hands and the formation parted away. A huge black swirling portal-like object came into view. It was about 5 feet long and 8 feet wide. The vibe coming from it was clear - 'touch me and you will be fucked up for your entire life.'
"That's not just any space gate. That's a corrupted Space gate." Kai whistled slowly as he stepped forward to examine it.
"But how can a corrupted Space gate be here? No, first of all, how was a space gate created on this planet in the first place?" Mia asked as she frowned at the space gate.
"This gate was not linked to the southern continent at all. Its real destination was supposed to be the central continent. And if what I am saying is correct, then the space gate on the southern continent was also connected to the central continent. This gate was never made for travel between any continents, except for the central one.
In the past, before its corruption, if you would enter this, then you would come out of the space gate present on the central continent. And that space gate must have been connected with four other space gates that were present on every continent." Kai explained as he touched the outlines of the black portal.
"That's still doesn't answer the question. Who created this in the first place?" Mia asked, her face full of frustration.
"The only thing I know is that someone from the upper realms created this." He said.
"Well, that sucks." Mia sighed.
"We can't even enter the southern continent as this space gate is corrupted." Kai sighed too.
"What will happen if we enter it?" Mia as her eyes lit up. She carefully reached forward and touched the edges of the space gate.
Shockingly, it started moving up her skin entirely covering her hand up to her elbows. It might have covered her entire body but thankfully, Kai destroyed it.
"Every time someone used this, they lost a part of their soul to this gate. The more it was used, the more it started craving souls. Now, if someone enters it, their soul would be sucked instantly thus leaving them soulless. Meaning that they would either be brain-dead morons or people who don't feel anything or something else entirely. Honestly, everyone has a different reaction when they lose their soul." Kai finished his explanation before his hands lit up with black flames.
"You said if someone enters it, they lose their soul. What would happen if you entered it?" Mia asked in a slow voice and Kai extinguished his flames.
"I would be able to cross it without any problem and I can also take you with me." Kai asked and raised his eyebrows at her.
"What if there is a harem member on that continent? And what if there is a clue on the person who created this?" She raised her own eyebrows.
"You want to explore the southern continent, don't you?" Kai laughed before taking hold of her hand. Both of them jumped into the portal and their surroundings blackened.
A purple shadow moved inside the darkness. Where its eyes should have been, there were only empty eye sockets. Its face was completely blackened and a mouth opened up to reveal a set of sharp fangs.
"That's a creature formed by sucking on all those human souls." Kai explained to a confused Mia.
Souls contained pure energy and they gave a person life. If someone sucked that energy, would they too gain life? It was quite a mystery that Kai himself had researched on.
In his entire lifetime, he had only seen eight corrupted space gates, the one they were inside was the ninth one. Out of the eight corrupted ones, three had real manifestation like the half-human creature in front of them.
"Don't even think about it." Kai warned the creature but it didn't listen and lunged at him, trying to eat his neck.
"Why doesn't anyone listen to what I say?!" He said out loud before swatting the creature away with his right hand. It flew a good 400 meters away before it was knocked unconscious.
"Nobody listens to you cause you are like a child." Mia said in a disapproving voice as Kai just shook his head.
"I cannot destroy this creature without destroying the space gate as both of them are being powered by the souls. I will deal with him after our journey on the southern continent." Kai said as he snapped his fingers and a gap appeared in the black wall.
Kai and Mia jumped into the gap and they gracefully landed on land. The sun was beating down on them and the entire place was extremely hot.
"Well, that's why you don't reincarnate, or in my case, fall on the southern continent. It's too damn hot and you might as well die before you could cultivate." Kai sighed as he removed the cloak he was wearing. He then removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.
Kai's golden-white skin was made visible. He flexed his arms and his muscles moved along with it.
"Just remove your robes and jacket and you are summer-ready." Kai said to Mia as she dropped her robes and jacket on the floor. She was left standing in her black tank top and shorts.
"Did Kiana lose her soul too as she and that mustache guy came here?" Mia asked as she summoned some of her ice and held out her hand in front of Kai.
"Her soul was bound with the mustache dude's soul so that creature was only able to suck the mustache guy's original soul. The bounded part of his soul was still merged with Kiana's soul so he was able to control her however, his control became less and less effective with time." He explained and took out a strawberry syrup bottle from his pendant. Mia created two ice cones and drenched them in strawberry syrup as she handed one of them to Kai while sucking on the other one.
"Shall we begin our explo-" Kai said as he finished his cone but stopped speaking as he saw a huge mass of flames rippling around him.
"Sera, what is happening?" He asked as the flames died down and Seraphina the Phoenix made her appearance.
But before she could answer. Kai's eyes started glowing red and he fell on the ground, his hands holding his head.
"It's her, Kai. It's her." Sera slowly said as her eyes, too, started glowing.