Chapter 588 Flames!

Urk never imagined that the young adventurer standing before it—a black-haired youth with sharp features—could push things this far.

The Sahuagin had prepared far more for this Sacrificial Ritual than anyone on the battlefield could have guessed.

They had deliberately launched an early offensive to disrupt Dodd's plans, conducted a probing attack to gauge the adventurers' strength, and deployed a massive number of fishmen in the waters around Stodd Island to monitor passing ships, all to ensure no Class Holders of the Transcendent Tier or higher were involved.

Urk was absolutely certain that among the adventurers on the coast, there were no Transcendent powerhouses exceeding Class Level 10—not even anyone remotely close.

The strongest among them were perhaps around Class Level 7 or 8, still a long way from the Transcendent threshold.

Not to mention that their strength had been further suppressed by Dodd's Secret Realm ritual.

Given the defensive forces the Sahuagin had deployed for this Sacrificial Ritual, these adventurers might inflict some casualties, but their chances of claiming ultimate victory were practically zero.

And indeed, judging solely by the state of the battlefield on the coast, things were playing out exactly as Urk had predicted.

The weakened adventurers clung to survival in their respective squads under the fishman siege. Though a few powerful individuals occasionally pulled off striking feats, the overall momentum steadily tilted in the fishmen's favor.

The two sides were locked in a bitter struggle, destined to last until the Sacrificial Ritual was completed. Then, the envoy from the divine kingdom would enter the battlefield, sweeping through the enemy with irresistible force to declare the battle over.

However, the moment that black-haired adventurer was blasted deep into the waters among the fishman army—far from the shore—by a single punch from the envoy...

...the flow of the battlefield instantly took a bizarre turn.

Urk had no idea how the human managed to suppress the injuries from that strike.

After plunging beneath the surface, he hadn't been crippled and slaughtered by the swarming fishmen as expected.

Instead, he displayed the exact same speed he had possessed at the start—perhaps even faster.

He tore through the water using that special combat technique, moving like the avatar of a black wolf.

His nimble, evasive movements left even the tribe's most adept aquatic hunters in the dust, forcing them to wonder whose home turf the ocean truly was.

The black-haired adventurer had a crystal-clear objective: assassinating the priest Spellcasters within the fishman ranks.

And miraculously, he was actually pulling it off.

When faced with the few remaining elite guards in the water, he either deftly bypassed them or cleanly dispatched them.

When faced with the spells unleashed by the Spellcasters—Urk included—he either mitigated them with his equipment or endured them with sheer physical resilience.

Urk stood on a coastal reef, meditating to recover a sliver of the mental energy and magic depleted by its chain-casting and the Sacrificial Ritual.

By the time the priest looked out at the sea again, nothing remained but utter carnage.

Naturally, Urk's mood was anything but pleasant.

As the commander of this fishman force, every single member—even the lowest grunt—was part of its power base, a stepping stone for its future ascension.

Not to mention that Xia Nan was exclusively hunting the tribe's crucially important priest Spellcasters.

Even if the slaughter stopped right now with zero further casualties, Urk felt it had already suffered a catastrophic loss.

Fortunately, the ritual had been completed. The divine envoy had descended into the Material Plane, marking Urk's mission as a resounding success; troop losses wouldn't detract from its monumental contribution.

Furthermore, after slaying so many fishman priests, this black-haired adventurer with his absurd combat prowess had finally been forced into a heavily injured state. Urk only needed to—

Hum—

Its thoughts were interrupted by a sudden humming resonating through the air.

An emerald light brimming with life aura erupted from the black-haired adventurer, rapidly knitting together the gruesome, bleeding wounds across his body.

In just a few short breaths, he recovered from severe injuries to a state of light wounds.

'How—'

Shock jolted through Urk. It instinctively guessed that the human possessed some kind of special combat technique or Rare-grade equipment capable of rapid healing.

Magical radiance flickered across the surface of the staff in its hand as it moved to interrupt the opponent's spellcasting.

But that sharp, towering figure had already transformed back into a pitch-black wolf silhouette, howling as it charged straight in.

As the commander of the Sahuagin forces, the core Spellcaster, and the highest-ranking entity on the battlefield aside from the Bloodskin Shark Beast...

Urk naturally had its own personal guard.

—Three four-armed fishmen, visibly larger and far deadlier than their kin, along with a fully armored elite fishman commander.

With a single command, the elite commander and one of the guards moved to intercept Xia Nan's charge.

Boasting immense combat experience, Urk knew the human possessed speed and mobility far exceeding an ordinary adventurer. His resistances had also been thoroughly tested.

Therefore, the first spell Urk chose was intended to restrict him physically.

—2nd-Circle · Transmutation · Spike Growth!

Magical radiance projected from the tip of the staff, anticipating the sprinting black wolf and landing perfectly in his inevitable path.

Hard, thorny vines erupted from the sandy soil. As if possessing a life of their own, they swayed and lashed around Xia Nan's calves, rapidly climbing upward.

The barbs scored deep scratches across his leg armor. A few snaked into the unprotected gaps, tearing through his clothing and leaving a web of fine, bleeding cuts across his flesh.

The boiling battle intent in his chest suppressed the pain almost instinctively.

Since it was a 2nd-Circle spell, breaking free with brute force alone would be difficult. He cleverly used the razor-sharp astral winds swirling around [Fang Hunt] to slice the vines away.

Regardless, his momentum was inevitably stalled.

And exploiting that momentary lag, another spell crashed down on him.

—1st-Circle · Evocation · Burning Hands!

It was a relatively basic fire spell.

The damage was respectable, but its casting time was notoriously long. Anyone with a slightly higher Agility attribute could easily react and dodge, and it applied no lingering damage.

Right now, however, both of those flaws were perfectly covered by the preceding [Spike Growth].

The barbed vines wrapping his legs not only crippled his mobility and made dodging the flames impossible, but they also acted as the perfect kindling, channeling the fire to roast the prey caught within.

As a thoroughly combat-hardened Spellcaster, Urk's spell selection and timing were absolutely flawless.

Just as the two spells overlapped to produce their lethal reaction, the intercepting elite commander and the four-armed fishman arrived right in front of Xia Nan.

Leveraging the reach of their polearms, the two tridents formed an unavoidable pincer angle, thrusting straight into the prey trapped in the briar patch.

One deadly trap seamlessly linked to the next.

The overwhelming battlefield control of a true Spellcaster was displayed to perfection through Urk.

Any other adventurer of the same level—or even one with a higher Class Level—would undoubtedly perish under such a suffocating barrage.

But Xia Nan was different.

His exceptional combat talent, the innate intuition born of an otherworldly soul, and his absurdly solid foundation of martial prowess all merged together, pushed to their absolute limits.

The moment he set foot within the radius of [Spike Growth], he had already sensed the danger.

His razor-sharp Perception allowed him to instantly detect the scorching heat hiding within the follow-up magical radiance, as well as the two Sahuagin closing in from the front.

Processing everything he had observed on the battlefield, his brain instinctively ran a pre-simulation of the clash.

Even without knowing the exact mechanics behind the spells, his intuition had already mapped out the likely sequence of events.

Therefore, when the fishman's magical flames crawled up the vines and ignited against his body...

Xia Nan felt no panic or confusion.

Because he knew that these flames alone couldn't kill him.

The true killing blow lay with the two fishmen taking advantage of the opening.

"Awoo—" A resonant wolf howl suddenly erupted across the coast.

Scorching winds surged. The biting astral energy of [Fang Hunt] manifested into a blurred wolf silhouette woven from blazing flames and charred thorns.

Facing Urk's spell assault, Xia Nan didn't waste a single ounce of strength trying to shake off the clinging fire.

Instead, he allowed the tangerine flames of [Burning Hands]—weakened by the "+25% Fire Resistance" of his [Abyssal Current] armor—to sear his flesh.

He focused all his attention on the two elite fishmen thrusting at him.

He threw his left arm up. The pitch-black Snake-Scale Arm Shield caught the fishman commander's stab head-on. The [Heavy Tide] channeled through the shield bash sent the fishman reeling off balance.

In his right hand, he angled the [Ember Fall] straight sword downward, wedging the blade directly between the prongs of the trident thrusting from his right. Grinding against the metal, he leveraged his overwhelming Strength, slashing upward to forcefully drag the trident—and the fishman's center of gravity—into the air.

He let go.

The dark gray straight sword slipped from his grasp.

Abandoning his upright stance, he lunged into a deep forward step. Driving with his thighs and channeling force through his core, he explosively closed the distance, stepping right beside the fishman.

His leather boots stomped heavily into the ground. Half-spinning, his left hand reached back and drew the blade over his shoulder.

Residual sparks scattered into the air.

Like the Arm Shield, the wooden sword [Azure Pine] hailed from the Snake Den Secret Realm. It cleaved the air with a short, heavy hum.

A razor-sharp arc flashed and vanished.

A trail of glowing blue blood followed the fishman's severed head as it flew high into the sky, its expression forever frozen.

Only then did the [Ember Fall] straight sword he had released finally spin back down under gravity's pull.

Catching it seamlessly, he sheathed [Azure Pine] over his back and spun around with another [Heavy Tide] shield bash. It smashed squarely into the Sahuagin on his left just as it regained its footing, violently stripping it of its balance a second time.

A [Spinning Slash] slammed into the trident the creature raised in defense, the edge biting squarely into its webbed fingers and forcing it to drop the weapon.

A second [Spinning Slash] cleaved across the fishman commander's chest armor. The massive kinetic impact drove the struggling creature completely off its feet, sending it sliding backward.

A third [Spinning Slash] accurately bit through its neck, decapitating it.

"Thud. Thud."

The cold sound of two fishman corpses hitting the ground echoed through the air.

Breathing heavily, Xia Nan gasped for air. His body was covered in burns, his nasal cavity filled with the stench of blood and searing heat.

He didn't get even a single second of rest.

The moment the fishman's head hit the dirt...

...another booming hum erupted from the reef beside the altar, violently warping the surrounding magical particles.

He looked toward the sound.

Taking advantage of the two Sahuagin pinning Xia Nan down, the elderly fishman priest had gripped its staff with both hands, lips fluttering in a whispered incantation.

A sphere of fire radiating an aura of lethal destruction hovered ominously above its head. Flames churned within as the sphere rapidly expanded.

3rd-Circle · Evocation · Fireball!

He had witnessed the might of this infamous spell at close range during his past adventures.

He knew with absolute certainty that with his current physical state and the mere 25% Fire Resistance of his [Abyssal Current] armor, face-tanking such a spell was borderline impossible.

If it hit him, he would be forced to flip over his final trump card.

However, the duration of Stage 2 was limited, and aside from the priest, there was a far more terrifying enemy on the battlefield that desperately needed dealing with.

Xia Nan couldn't afford to waste that trump card here.

Therefore—

His gaze snapped forward. The two four-armed elite guards remaining by the fishman priest's side were already roaring, shielding their master.

From their bared fangs and brandished claws, it was obvious they had no intention of letting him simply pass.

Thoughts raced through his mind.

Without a shred of hesitation, Xia Nan charged toward the priest once more.

Yet his pitch-black eyes entirely ignored the fishman guards blocking his path.

Instead, he locked his stare dead on the suspended fireball, and on the staff gripped tightly in the priest's hands.

The violent tangerine blaze reflected in his pupils. He furrowed his brows, as if probing for something.

'Closer, just a little closer...'

Having witnessed the black-haired adventurer endure its spell and slaughter two fishmen with its own eyes...

...Urk had to admit it felt a rare pang of admiration mixed with its shock. This was despite being born into the Sahuagin tribe, naturally prejudiced against and hateful toward all other races.

Such youth, such battle prowess, such mental fortitude—he was a rarity among all the adventurers it had ever encountered in its lifetime.

What a pity—no, it wasn't a pity at all.

From a Sahuagin's perspective, snuffing out a young adventurer with such a predictably bright future was an immense pleasure, and brought nothing but absolute benefit to its race.

Based on its calculations of the human's speed, Urk didn't believe the adventurer could cross that distance, bypass two elite guards, and reach it in the few seconds it would take for the spell to complete.

As for any potential ranged attacks like the one that had destroyed the altar, Urk had long since prepared a countermeasure. Be it a longsword or a trident, nothing would ever reach it.

As long as—

Right at that moment, the adventurer's sudden movement shattered Urk's train of thought.

Just as he was about to close in on the elite fishmen, he suddenly ground to a halt.

He dropped into a crouch. Stabbing his straight sword into the dirt, he crossed it against the Arm Shield raised in front of him, assuming a textbook defensive posture.

'Does he plan to block the blast of [Fireball] with that?'

'But if even [Burning Hands] left such obvious burns on his body, then this—'

Doubt crept into its mind, but the charging [Fireball] overhead had already reached its final stage.

Urk instinctively sharpened its focus. Pouring the last drop of required mana into the spell model, it used its mental energy to lock onto the crouching black-haired adventurer.

Right at that split second, just as the spell was about to materialize...

...an invisible force erupted from out of nowhere. It acted like a Mage Hand, yet it lacked any physical form or coalescence of magical particles.

First, it viciously shoved against the arm gripping the staff, brutally severing the flow of mana.

The sudden ambush caused Urk's heart to lurch, catching it at the most critical juncture of casting. It reflexively mobilized its mental energy, desperately trying to stabilize the spell model.

But then the invisible force hammered directly into its forehead. The blow threw Urk backward, making it stagger and nearly lose its footing.

The force itself was actually quite weak. It caused no physical damage.

Yet it was wedged absolutely flawlessly into the exact microsecond the [Fireball] was finalizing and waiting to be unleashed.

It shattered Urk's cast.

No one knew what expression warped the face of the weathered, elderly priest in that instant.

Because the moment it nearly fell over, the miniature sun of a fireball hovering directly overhead crashed down.

"Boom!!!"

A berserk wave of heat and surging flames erupted in every direction.

The terrifying temperature, hot enough to vitrify the sandy soil, instantly incinerated the two defenseless fishman guards in the front into scorched husks.

Fortunately for Urk, it possessed some sort of one-time defensive item. Even taking the point-blank backlash of the spell, a translucent barrier sprang up over its body, warding off the searing flames. This was exactly why it hadn't feared Xia Nan's ranged attacks.

Unfortunately for Urk, it had only barely survived the blast of its own [Fireball], and before it could even begin to process what had happened...

...a dark gray straight sword, still radiating blistering heat, tore through its chest amidst the howl of a wolf.