Chapter 373 – The Source of Fire

A black flame rose and burned the whole space into void, striking at the Occult Flame Palace and sending it flying with a boom.

“Ghost Phoenix, you…” Everyone inside the palace flew into a rage. The Demonic creatures, like the Ghost Phoenix, all shrank and rushed out. Emperor Occult Flame hesitated a little, but then with an icy face, he exploded the palace into a mass of brilliant fireworks that forced away the black flame.

Several figures passed through the turbulent space. After a while, the place was empty. The seal that had been temporarily halted by the ice ball explosion began to resume operation.

“Shit!” The moment Emperor Occult Flame had the palace burst, Fatty only had time for a curse before the turbulent flame rolled him away to who-knows-where. Only when the residual explosion gradually dissipated could he see the surroundings clearly.

It was an endless sea of fire, with flames rising and roaring below, thousands of meters high. Flame dragons, flame tigers, flame phoenixes, flame unicorns, flame humanoids, and other spirits made of fire roamed, forming a huge nation of fire.

These spirits had formed a basic organization. Many flame Demonic monsters could be seen devouring each other to strengthen themselves, and some flame humanoids in teams were hunting lone, stray monsters.

A flame dragon thousands of meters long roared as it flew past. Immediately, thousands of flame humanoids attacked. Wearing translucent flame armor and holding strange bows and arrows, they fired arrows at the dragon in unison. Sprinkles of flames rained down from where they hit the flame dragon. With a cry of pain, it turned around and swooped down.

As soon as the flame dragon turned around, a huge claw poked out of the sea of fire below and viciously scratched at it, tearing away a large patch of scales. This was a flame beast whose body length wasn’t any smaller than that of the flame dragon. After the successful sneak attack, it immediately ran back into the depths of the fire, not wanting to continue the fight.

The dragon let out an angry roar, thinking whether it should chase after the beast or kill the flame humanoids below. All of a sudden, a strange voice came from a distance. Hearing this sound, the dragon, as well as the thousands of humanoids, seemed to be jolted at the same time. They all stopped fighting and hurriedly rushed in the direction of the voice.

What a strange world. Fatty exclaimed. He who was frozen and immobilized was being pushed by the force of the flames, turning and rolling as he drifted about everywhere.

All that he saw along the way were fire Demonic monsters fighting and slaughtering. He witnessed for himself a mid-rank Yao salamander swallow a wounded high-rank Yao of the same kind, and after that directly advanced into a high-rank itself.

No wonder West is so obsessed with this place. There is such a good thing here. Fatty recalled West's entrustment. The guy had asked Fatty to come here and have a look, but he hadn’t told him exactly what to do after that. Since the monsters here could advance by devouring each other, wouldn’t that mean West would be able to rank up from the 9th enhancement to Saint if he was here? Even breakthrough to the Celestial tier even.

Damn Asatrya! If I can absorb the fire elements here, then I’ll definitely have enough fire energy in my Elemental Mystery Realm. Fatty cursed in his heart. Although the Elemental Skill Book had absorbed a lot of elemental energy, it was simply not enough to repair the mystery realm. Just a fraction of the fire energy here would be enough to meet the amount of fire energy needed.

It was a pity that Fatty’s body and soul were frozen, he had no way to absorb the fire energy right before his eyes.

What a waste, what a shame. Looking at the spirits made of rich fire elements floating around, Fatty’s heart dripped blood.

An endless army of Demonic monsters rushed through the flames towards a certain place. There, the Ghost Phoenix was letting out loud cries and black flames blotted the space, burning all incoming flame monsters to nothingness. If it weren't for the fact that the Ghost Phoenix was already too powerful to benefit from devouring these flame monsters, the energy it could have gained from these monsters alone instead of killing them would be worth the trip.

“It should be there.” The Ghost Phoenix looked at the depths of the fire and spread its wings, and a black flame instantly swept open a passage. The phoenix then shot like lightning into it.

At the same time, Emperor Occult Flame, the Fire Dragon, together with the others also rushed to the depths of the fire.

“More outsiders.” A voice sounded at the bottom of the sea of fire, followed by bursts of raging flames. A passage hundreds of meters wide appeared where a huge head slowly emerged from the bottom.

This head was jagged above, covered in huge, fiery red tentacles one meter wide and as long as a kilometer. The pair of eyes on the head was as big as a pond, full of boiling magma.

“Oh? What a strange thing.” Not far from the place where the head appeared, Fatty happened to waft by. A tentacle rolled and Fatty disappeared in the flames.

“What is this place?” Before Fatty could react, he found that his environment had changed. The flames were gone and he was surrounded by a squirming red cliff.

“Kill, kill all outsiders!” The monster didn’t even feel a thing when it swallowed Fatty in one gulp. It opened its mouth and issued a loud whistling. In a blink of an eye, the sea of fire erupted with even more violence.

“So many monsters?” The faces of the Ghost Phoenix’s group sank and they hurriedly moved back. Countless flame monsters rushed out of the fire, coming at them like they didn’t care about their lives. No matter how strong, they’d be consumed alive when surrounded by so many monsters at once.

“Forward!” The Ghost Phoenix resolutely screeched. A thread of black fire as thick as a wrist shot out from its beak, not burning hot at all but quietly hit the incoming herd of flame monsters.

In an instant, the monsters shot by the thread silently disappeared – not vaporized, but completely disappeared. Not only those shot but even those that were scraped just a little bit also met the same end.

Zoom! The Ghost Phoenix shrank into a palm-sized phoenix and streaked along the passage.

From the other directions, the other Divine experts also opened a passage and rushed to the deepest part of the fire.

“A lot of people have come this time.” Within the raging fire, the huge head that was quietly watching suddenly spat. Still encased in ice, Fatty appeared in front of the head.

Asatrya’s ultimate forbidden spell was so strong that even in this place, the ice block had not melted in the slightest.

“The Great Curse of Ice?”

Seeing the ice block, the head’s expressionless face suddenly changed. A moment later, it burst out laughing.

“Interesting, very interesting. The forbidden Great Curse of Ice cast at the cost of the life of a God-level existence is actually used to seal a fragile human being. Hahaha, how very interesting. Are all the ice fellows now so weak?”

Although there was nothing he could do, Fatty jumped in shock. The Great Curse of Ice was indeed worthy of being the ultimate forbidden ice spell, it actually cost the life force of a Divine expert to be cast.

“Great Curse of Ice, heh. Whoever those ice fellows hate, I like.” The huge head slowly disappeared. While it did, a tentacle stretched out to wrap around Fatty who then disappeared into the flames with it.

“The Source of Fire, ahh… Last time, that damn kirin got some, I wonder who has the luck this time. But whoever that is, I’ll destroy whoever dares to steal from me.” The murmur of the huge head echoed in the flames.

Being wrapped up in the tentacle, Fatty drifted in a direction until they finally arrived at a place. There was no life in this empty place, only rich fire elements.

“To remove the Great Curse of Ice also requires the life of another Divine existence. You are lucky to meet me and to have so many outsiders to choose from for this. Human, listen up, I saved you, so you have to do something for me. Swear by your race that you will, won't you?” The huge head appeared in Fatty's field of vision while its voice boomed into his ears, sending a shock that made him dizzy.

Having said these words, the head no longer continued. It ignored Fatty and looked to the distance, in the depths of the fire.

There suspended a huge red sphere at least a kilometer wide, rotating quietly. On the ball, flames of various colors floated around, conjuring up a series of fire monsters that roared. Within the radius of a kilometer of the sphere, there was nothing. Even the flames rolled back at once to avoid it.

“Here, it’s this place.” The face of the madly charging Ghost Phoenix brightened. With a long screech, its body returned to its original size. The wingspan of over a kilometer violently flapped, picking up a storm that swept away all the monsters chasing after it.

“The Source of Fire, a must for the advancement to the Legendary tier! Hahahaha, here I come!” A burst of crazed laughter rang out far away, where the shadow of Emperor Occult Flame came into view.

“Heheh, everyone is so quick.” Although the Fire Dragon was weaker than the rest, it was still not something those flame monsters could stop.

A little later, the Heartburn Grass, the Demonic Eye Flame Beast and the demon whose name Fatty didn’t know all appeared around the sphere with greedy expressions.

“The Source of Fire,” Emperor Occult Flame murmured.

“Just a sliver of it, and I can advance to Legendary.” The Heartburn Grass’ leaves quivered violently, showing its fluctuating emotions.

“The Source of Fire is mine!” the Demonic Eye Flame Beast shrieked.

“Whoever gets it, owns it.” The demon whose name Fatty didn’t know coldly smiled.

Glancing at each other, the Divine experts roared and rushed towards the huge sphere at the same time.

“Go for it. And when you get it, you will find out what the true Source of Fire really is,” said the huge head in a muffled voice. Its thousands of tentacles danced wildly, crushing all the flame monsters around before the huge mouth sucked them in and burped out a satisfied moan.