Chapter 374 – Breaking the Ice
The gigantic Fire Source sphere a kilometer wide slowly rotated while releasing incomparable heat that distorted the surrounding space to blurriness. From time to time, there were severe vibrations when space burned through somewhere, accompanied by the wretched screams of some hapless monsters that were touched by the sphere flames.
From five different directions, the Ghost Phoenix, Emperor Occult Flame, the Fire Dragon, and the three other Divine Demonic creatures all charged towards the Source of Fire. This was what they had been planning for thousands of years. Seeing that success was imminent, they couldn’t suppress the excitement in their eyes.
It was extremely difficult to rise to the realm of Legendary. Considering how they had been stuck for thousands of years at this level of strength, one could imagine the hardships. However, this bottleneck could be smoothly passed if they absorbed just a sliver from the Fire Origin, so it was natural they’d risk their lives for it.
Excited by the breath of five Divine experts, the Source of Fire suddenly burst, and countless thick flame pillars shot out at them. Superheated fire pierced through space, bringing calamity upon who-knew-how-many alien creatures.
“Stupid things!” The huge head hiding under the sea of fire watched the five Divine experts desperately close in on the Source of Fire with a disdainful sneer. Fatty, wrapped in its tentacle with his face down, couldn’t see what happened.
Boom boom…! Explosions resounded as the five Divine experts each resisted the flame pillars. The Ghost Phoenix and Emperor Occult Flame weren’t affected with their high strength and kept charging in like meteors, while the other three painfully whined from bearing quite some damage.
“Arghh!” The Fire Dragon spat out a mouthful of blood. The pillar attack had cracked open its scales in at least seven spots. Despite being fire-attribute, the Fire Dragon couldn’t withstand such a high temperature. Bleeding all over, it let out a ferocious roar and desperately rushed forth.
“Where did it get the guts to come here with that kind of strength…?” the huge head mumbled.
A barrage of flame pillars, in addition to some flame monsters, shot out from the Source of Fire at the approaching Divine experts. They tried hard to dodge to avoid fighting as much as they could, and only parried head-on when dodging was impossible.
With those obstacles blocking their path, the distance that seemed passable in one wing flap became a chasm. The Ghost Phoenix made several attempts of contact, only to be forced out, making it so angry that it shrieked nonstop.
Of the five Divine experts, the dragon was the weakest and therefore suffered the most damage. In just ten-something minutes, it had been injured more than a dozen times and looked beyond horrible. Half of the tail was gone, the wings were almost roasted, and its whole body smelled like burnt meat.
“You’ll be it.” After the Fire Dragon had just finished dealing with a flame dragon from the Source of Fire with difficulty, the huge head took advantage to suddenly make its move. Several tentacles quietly shot out from the fire, gunning for the Fire Dragon.
Whoosh!
The Fire Dragon couldn’t react at all when it was already firmly bound by the tentacles. Not giving it a chance to cry for help, the tentacles rapidly dragged it down into the vast sea of fire.
“Where is the Fire Dragon?”
The Ghost Phoenix suddenly realized something was wrong. It carefully scanned the surroundings but couldn’t find the dragon anywhere. But at this critical moment when it was so close to the Source of Fire, it just didn’t have the heart to care about the missing irrelevant fellow.
At the sight of the huge head, the Fire Dragon’s eyes were full of horror. It struggled and growled but was unable to break free at all. It wanted to spit flames and burn the tentacles, but the tentacles emitted flames that were even more powerful. As a result, it was the Fire Dragon who ended up the one screaming in pain.
“Stop struggling. It’s useless.” The huge head swept the dragon an indifferent glance. In the air, dozens of tentacles suddenly wrapped around the dragon’s head, limbs, tail, and wings, trapping it there.
“To lift the Great Curse of Ice, the life of a Divine existence is the cost. The stronger the life force, the better the effect, and the less likely it is to fail. If the spell can be successfully removed, there will even be certain benefits. Human, you’re lucky this time. If you dare to not agree to my request after the curse is lifted, I will take my time to roast you into a meat skewer,” the huge head said to Fatty.
An obscure voice sounded from the mouth of the huge head, the tune sometimes high, sometimes low, with a lot of ups and downs. Hearing this voice, the fire spirits within the sea of fire flocked over Fatty and attached themselves to him with solemn expressions.
Countless fire spirits leaned on him to fight with the ice. It was clear how difficult it was to deal with this solid ice that was manifested from ice spirits, seeing how it hadn’t melted one bit in the temperature of the fires here. However, after the fire spirits gathered, a spot suddenly sizzled and a puff of white smoke drifted up. The ice block started to melt a little.
As more and more fire elements were attracted by the huge head’s incantation and gathered on Fatty, the ice melted faster and faster, becoming visibly smaller. It still looked thick, but it was only a matter of time before it melted completely.
As for the Divine experts, their progress was facing increasing obstacles when numerous Demonic flame monsters came at them like crazy from the Source of Fire. Made up of the purest fire from the source itself, these monsters were especially powerful and won in numbers to boot. For the moment, they forced the Divine experts to repeatedly retreat.
“Damnable! Why are there so many of them?!” Seeing more monsters still coming after all their slaughtering, even the Ghost Phoenix grew anxious.
“How did Black Kirin get through?” The Emperor Occult Flame and the others all wondered what method the Black Kirin had used to pass all this hindrance and reach the Source of Fire.
“Black Kirin? Humph!” At the mention of this name, the huge head snorted and revealed emotions for the first time. It was the kind of anger and frustration of one who had been tricked.
While the Divine experts went all out to near the Source of Fire, the huge head kept gathering fire elements to lift the curse on Fatty. Only Fatty sat idly, he logged on and off several times, waiting for the ice to melt.
Three days later, Fatty felt all light around as the ice trapping his body finally disappeared completely into wisps of white fog rising into the air. Fatty clicked his tongue. According to his estimation, at least millions of fire spirits’ worth of fire elements were consumed in the process of melting the ice block.
But melting the ice wasn’t the end of it, the most important thing was to lift the Great Curse of Ice on Fatty’s soul. Only in this way could he be revived on the spot or fly back to the resurrection point.
“It’s your turn.” The huge head looked at the Fire Dragon who, having been trapped for three days, had gone all soft from fear. Catching the look from the huge head, it immediately whimpered.
Boom! A flame burst out from the Fire Dragon and enveloped it. A moment later, the huge dragon vanished, leaving only a mass of fiery red energy constantly churning in its spot.
As the huge head chanted an incantation aloud, the energy whooshed over Fatty’s head, encased him, and gradually penetrated his body.
It hurts! If Fatty could talk right now, that was what he would cry out. This kind of pain wasn’t physical, but spiritual torture. At this moment, it was like his soul was being rinsed a thousand times over in boiling water, the pain was so excruciating it made Fatty want to faint.
Ding.
System Notification: You are suffering from unbearable pain. Do you want to log off?
Fatty decisively chose ‘no.’ Since the system didn’t force him off, it meant the pain was within tolerance.
This kind of pain came and went quickly. In a few minutes, all the fiery red energy around Fatty melted into his body, and the pain in his soul gradually disappeared, replaced by a feeling like soaking in warm water.
“Ahhh,” Fatty moaned as he found that he could move again.
The Great Curse of Ice is really horrifying. Fatty still felt lingering fear in his heart. When he had been frozen, his soul had suffered constant torture by the cold. When the curse was being lifted, he still had to suffer from extreme scorching. Any mentally unstable person would have been kicked out of the system in his shoes.
“Human,” the huge head’s voice boomed as the sea of fire surged.
“Nice to meet you, my friend. Thank you very much for your help.” Fatty spread his arms, only to find that the other was too big that he could only hug a tentacle, so he awkwardly put down his hands.
“I helped you for a reason.” All of the tentacles on the huge head danced, stirring the flames into chaos.
“I know, please go ahead.” After all, if it weren’t for this guy, Fatty would be still frozen in ice waiting for a rescue that might never come, so he was very grateful to this terrifying fellow.
“This place has existed for many years, so many that I don’t know how long, because I was born here.” The huge head slowly began to narrate some irrelevant things. “Here, I saw with my own eyes the birth of each fire spirit. I watched them fight, devour, evolve amongst themselves, and see the establishment of one fire nation after another. For a long time, I had thought that this was the entire world, but it was not until a fellow broke in that I realized that I was wrong.”
Fatty sat there in the air, listening. Even though there was nothing under his butt, this kind of floaty feeling also let him relax a little.
“It was a Black Kirin. It told me about the outside world, the Demon world, the Human world, the races and the gratitude and grudges between them. Only then did I know that the outside world was so wonderful that this small space could not at all compare. So, I made a deal with it.”
“And that was you giving it the Source of Fire, and in exchange, it would find a way to get you out?” asked Fatty. Earlier, he had heard from the Divine experts’ discussion about how the Black Kirin had acquired a sliver of the Source of Fire. Obviously, this was where the problem lay.
