Chapter 204 - You Will Return to the Fire
Chapter 204: You Will Return to the Fire
After killing another batch of Razor Clams outside a cavity, Duan Yue, Tie Pin and Tie Fan had grown very tired and exhausted.
Tie Pin’s appearance turned old again, and he kept panting. “Tie Fan, Sir Duan, retreat with Tie Ling and the others first. I’ll wait for the Lord Holy Herald here.”
Looking at the Razor Clams pouting in at them, Tie Pin was afraid that if they stayed here for too long, they would not be able to hold out, and it would do more harm than good if all of them were killed. It would be ideal for the other two to retreat with the hopes of the Firefish clan while they still had the strength to do so.
Duan Yue’s face also looked slightly grave. “Where did that guy go? How can he be so unreliable at this critical juncture? He can’t be dead, can he?”
“Lord Holy Herald will never die!” Tie Ling suddenly appeared behind the crowd, together with Tie Bi and Tie Xin. The three of them exuded a fierce force and looked very different from before.
“Tie Ling, you have…” Tie Pin was taken aback, and he faintly sensed something from his son…
Tie Ling grinned and said, “Dad, I’ve advanced to become a third-tier sea refiner!”
Tie Pin gasped and his eyes grew wide. Overjoyed, he said, “Haha! I can’t believe this is real! Your temperament is exactly the same as that of Great Sea Refiners I’ve seen before. Haha! We, the Firefish clan, finally have our own Great Sea Refiner!”
“My lord!” Tie Fan also said with joy, “Look at Tie Bi and Tie Xin, they too have become peak nine-stars Martial Grandmasters!”
Tie Pin’s eyes fell on Tie Bi and Tie Xin. He immediately burst into tears of joy and murmured, “Heaven blesses the Firefish clan! Lord Holy Herald is indeed sent by the heaven to help us!”
But Duan Yue frowned and said unhappily, “Since you’ve reached the peak of the nine-stars, why don’t you just stay inside and make the breakthrough? Do you know that it will take you at least decades of hard cultivation to advance to the realm of Martial Emperors after missing this opportunity?”
That startled Tie Pin and woke him up. Furious, he said, “Get back inside and cultivate now! We will hold the enemies back here! Don’t come out again unless you’ve broken through to the realm of Martial Emperors!”
Tie Bi and Tie Xin exchanged a wry smile while Tie Ling said regretfully, “Dad, for some reason, there is no more Spirit Qi inside. Even the array constructed by the Lord Holy Herald cannot absorb any Spirit Qi.”
“What!”
Everyone was taken aback, and Tie Pin said shockingly, “How did that happen? Although this Kunwu Divine Tree is severely damaged, it is not yet at the stage of losing all its Spirit Qi!”
With a worried look, Duan Yue said, “Could this have something to do with that fellow?”
“Who is that fellow?” Suddenly, a voice boomed. It sounded from a great distance, but seemed to have come next to them in just a flash.
“Who goes there?!”
Everyone was shocked. Just the powerful voice alone had already filled their hearts with chills and made them shiver in fear.
In just a flash, a dark figure appeared in front of the crowd and said coldly, “The Kunwu Divine Tree suddenly lost all its Spirit Qi. Did you guys do it?”
Looking at the man, Tie Pin’s pupils constricted, and he cried out in horror, “Lord Wei Xi! You are Lord Wei Xi!”
Wei Xi gave him a lazy look and said in a cold voice, “Tie Pin, if you are wise, tell me why the Spirit Qi has disappeared. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being cruel to you.”
In the face of his mighty aura, Tie Pin could not help but tremble. But, he eventually he mustered his courage and roared, “I understand now! No wonder you were siding the Razor Clam clan when they occupied my clan’s divine tree! It turns out that you are their accomplice!”
“Hmph! Such a divine object can only be possessed by capable people. Your Firefish clan had occupied it for so many years, but all you knew was to eat its leaves. The Razor Clam clan had just taken over it for not long and the strength of their whole clan has already improved by several levels. Even I have benefited greatly from it. Don’t you feel ashamed? Now, quickly bring me back the Spirit Qi, or I’ll not only kill the few of you today, but also wipe out the whole Firefish clan!”
Wei Xi’s face grew ferocious. During this period, the benefits he obtained in the Kunwu Divine Tree were tremendous, but now they were destroyed by the few lowly worms in front of him. How could he not be angry?
With a miserable smile, Tie Pin said, “Lord Wei Xi, I don’t know why the Spirit Qi has disappeared. If you want to kill someone, just kill me and let the others go. For the past ten thousand years, the Firefish clan has been respectful to your Manta Ray clan, and we never missed the yearly tribute. I hope my lord can show mercy.”
“No more nonsense! Your tens of thousands of years of tributes are not even worth a day of my meditation here. So, you refuse to tell me, do you? Well, I’ll make you my first target then!”
Wei Xi did not want to listen to Tie Pin’s explanation. In his ear, those were just excuses for refusing to hand over the Spirit Qi. He reached out a hand and grabbed Tie Pin up as he said coldly, “This is your last chance. Speak!”
Tie Pin hurriedly shouted to the people behind him, “Don’t move! You are no match for him!”
Duan Yue looked at the seal on his chest. Long tails grew out of the three black dots again, joining end to end and forming a circle. With that, his cultivation base dropped rapidly, and he was once again just a seven-stars Martial Grandmaster.
Tie Fan looked very anxious, but he dared not to step forward rashly.
“Hmph! At least you know your limitations.” Wei Xi showed his ferocious fangs and sneered, “You are a Martial Emperor, but if you still refuse to tell me, I’ll make you my tonic!”
“Release him!” Suddenly, a faint voice rang out, “Release him and I’ll tell you the reason why the Spirit Qi disappeared.”
Everyone’s expression changed slightly, but everyone showed a hint of joy.
“Who? Who goes there?”
Wei Xi’s expression changed drastically. Even with his cultivation base, he could not find the person, and he did not know where the voice came from.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. You said you want Spirit Qi? Fine, I’ll give it to you! Let’s see if you have the life to take it!” The voice sounded again. Suddenly, the void began to distort slightly, and everyone felt that the scene before their eyes became somewhat blurry.
Boom!
All of a sudden, a great sheet of flame came out of nowhere, rolling down like a landslide and enveloping everyone.
Wei Xi sucked in a cold breath as he watched a monstrous sea of flames come pouring down at him, and what was even more frightening to him was that there was a power in the flames that even he felt powerless against.
“How dare you fool me!” In a fit of rage, he threw Tie Pin away and protected himself with a layer of energy as he shot himself up like a cannonball, trying to rush out of this sea of flames.
“Ahh!”
Just as he rushed into the flames, however, he let out a miserable cry. To his horror, his layer of protective energy was burned off in an instant, and the flames penetrated through his skin into his body, burning at all his internal organs and bones and flesh.
“Ah! Impossible! How could this happen! Ridiculous, this is ridiculous!” Unwilling to accept the fact, Wei Xi roared in fury, “I’m a Martial Supreme! I’ve ruled over this sea area for over four hundred years! I’m invincible! How could I die here? AH! NOOOOOO!”
Within seconds, Wei Xi’s body was completely burned to the ground and vanished in the sea.
Duan Yue gasped. Looking at the flames that came pouring down, he hastily cried out in terror, “Hey! Hey! Be careful and don’t burn us! These flames kill everyone they touch!”
He was also an expert at controlling fire, but he felt a suffocating fear under this divine flame. It was a sense of submission that came from the depths of his soul. He immediately realized that this was the Phoenix True Flame!
Boom!
The sea of flames came straight down but spread out over the few of them, forming a large dome with them inside. After that, it began to spread out in all directions, turning everything along the way into nothingness.
“Divine flame…Is this the divine flame that had once given our ancestor the tremendous opportunity?” Tie Fan watched the mighty flame quietly. Meanwhile, the surrounding seawater receded, and the whole Kunwu Divine Tree was exposed in a vacuum as it began to go through the baptism of flame.
Tie Ling was greatly shocked as well, but after pausing for a moment, he quickly attended to Tie Pin’s injury. The clan chief was at the end of his life to begin with, and after overly exhausting his energy and being tortured by Wei Xi, he was at his last breath.
“Run for your life! The place is on fire!”
“Fu*k! Where did the fire come from? Who’s so careless?”
“Run my ass! Quickly put out the fire!”
“Put out my ass! All the people are dead! It’ll be too late if you don’t run now! Ahhh! NOOOO!”
“How can this be? I’m a Martial King! I’ve barely touched the flame…Ahhh! AHHHHH!”
The miserable shrieks and wails of the Razor Clams rose around them. People could be seen running desperately everywhere, but the speed of this Phoenix Divine Flame could almost directly break through space, and soon it had engulfed the whole Kunwu Divine Tree. All the members of the Razor Clam clan were burned to death inside.
The blazing fire continued to burn at the bottom of the sea. From afar, it looked like there was True Spirited Fire Phoenix coiling in a vacuum, with its body shrouded in bright red flames.
Tens of thousands of miles away, inside a crystal palace in the depths of the South Sea, an old man could be seen sitting cross-legged with a rainbow light swirled restlessly around him. His hands flashed in incantation gestures and kept producing various golden tadpole-like characters, as if he were cultivating some kind of very powerful divine ability.
Suddenly, he clasped his hands together and completely stopped cultivating. His eyes flicked open, from which came shooting out a beam of light as he stared in shock at the depths of the South Sea, as if he were looking through the void.
“What’s going on? What exactly is this feeling? Could there be some almighty expert descending into my South Sea?” The old man murmured to himself and rose to his feet. His face was serious and there was a deeply puzzled look in his eyes. “Marine Patrol Yaksha, where are you?” he cried out.
The seawater at the center of the crystal palace began to bubble, and a dark-skin sea man gradually appeared inside. Slowly, he walked out of the bubbles and dropped to one knee in front of the old man, “At your service, my lord!”
The old man said lightly, “Quickly go to the north to find out who exactly is displaying his divine power in my waters. Once you find that out, report back at once. And remember, don’t ever offend that person.”
“Understood!”
The Yaksha answered, and then his figure gradually became blurry, eventually disappearing from the crystal palace.