Chapter 134 - 104: Do Not Fight a Prepared Wizard!

Chapter 134: Chapter 104: Do Not Fight a Prepared Wizard!

The Fire Element surged through the rift like a tide, rising and falling with each wave varying in scale.

The environment of the Fallen Land posed two main threats. The first was the elemental tides. Roughly once every hourglass, the concentration of the Fire Element would skyrocket from ten times the normal level to twenty times, or even higher. During these surges, the power of non-Fire Witchcraft was halved, and protective shields required double the Magic Power to maintain. The duration of the tides varied, sometimes lasting a few minutes, other times a quarter of an hour.

The second threat was memory echoes. This place was once the battlefield of an ancient war between Elemental Spirits. The Spiritual Power that erupted when High Tier individuals perished had lingered for untold tens of thousands of years, randomly projecting memory fragments of their battles and interfering with a person’s cognition. Sometimes, those nearby would experience the pain, fear, and despair of the exact moment of death. If one’s Spiritual Power was not strong enough, they would be completely overwhelmed by those emotions.

This was exactly what Ella had just experienced. She now stood in the center, her Spiritual Force Field enveloping the four of them. Her Spiritual Power was the highest in the team, and the memory echoes constantly shattered as they crashed against her force field.

Chen Shang marked the first segment of their path on the map. "We’ll follow this route."

He walked at the forefront, his Eye of True Sight constantly active as he searched for the troughs in the Fire Element tides—the intervals where the concentration was relatively lower and the tide’s influence was weaker. With him leading the way, Evelyn followed beside Ella, while Twilight brought up the rear. The four moved at a brisk pace, barely making a sound.

Chen Shang released several Huowas from his Space Book. These were Fire Element scouting types specially inscribed for this mission. Small and fast, they possessed a keen perception of the Fire Element. They darted forward silently, leaving behind faint golden footprints on the vitrified ground.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the first Huowa stepped into the peak of an elemental tide and was swallowed by the surging Fire Element. Chen Shang sensed its Rune Circuit overload and burn out within seconds. He steered clear of that spot and released a second one.

After venturing into the Fallen Land for about an hourglass, the Huowa up ahead suddenly sped back, its Runes flashing in warning.

"Careful, something’s coming!" Chen Shang warned aloud.

Several fist-sized Fire Elemental Spirits surged out of the crevices ahead, their formless bodies blazing with dark orange flames. Screeching, they lunged at the team. Evelyn raised her hand. Instead of compressing the flames in her palm, she let them expand directly into a fan-shaped wall of fire that pushed forward.

The moment it swept out, the Fire Elemental Spirits crashed into the blazing wall and were instantly engulfed and destroyed, leaving not even a speck of ash behind. The remaining few attempted to flank them. Evelyn clenched her fingers, and the wall of fire split into several fiery snakes that accurately coiled around each spirit, strangling them into nothingness.

Evelyn spoke, "These spirits have high flame resistance, but the Fire Element here is so active. Once Magic takes shape, it naturally absorbs the surrounding environmental energy, which increases its power."

Chen Shang nodded, continuously adjusting their path to bypass areas where the Fire Element concentration was too dense.

"These things have low intelligence. Maybe I can try to confuse them," Ella suddenly offered. Her Nightmare Witchcraft wasn’t as effective on Elemental Creatures as it was on Flesh and Blood Creatures, but using Spiritual Power to deceive Low Tier Fire Elemental Spirits was absolutely no problem. All she needed to do was implant an illusion into their perception that nothing was there.

"Can your Spiritual Power hold up?" Chen Shang asked with some concern.

"I brought potions," Ella replied with a nod.

Sure enough, when they encountered more Low Tier Fire Elemental Spirits emerging from the ground fissures shortly after, the creatures merely drifted around them a few times before floating away. Chen Shang and the others all took out their Spiritual Power Potions and gave them to Ella. Although this consumed more resources, it avoided many unnecessary battles and prevented them from causing a commotion that might attract High Tier Elemental Spirits.

Twilight’s Black Fog was evaporating rapidly under the intense heat, consuming Magic Power at three times the normal rate. Consequently, she silently activated a Defensive Witch Artifact given to her by Iliet. The Black Fog underwent a miraculous reaction. Originally grayish-white, it slowly turned dark red after manipulating the Fire Element. The rate of evaporation slowed down, and its Defense Power actually increased. Wizard Apprentices possessed the quality of constantly learning and improving, which allowed them to make rapid adjustments on the fly.

***

The Fallen Land was much larger than it appeared on the map. Chen Shang led the team for nearly three hourglasses, stopping to rest twice along the way to hydrate and engage in restorative Meditation.

The rift grew deeper, and the Fire Element concentration reached twenty times the normal level. The disparity between the peaks and troughs of the elemental tides was widening. Chen Shang meticulously refined their route, repeatedly confirming every turn through his Eye of True Sight. They lost several more Huowas, depleting the reserves in his Space Book, but he didn’t hold back on using them.

As they rounded a bend in the rift, their field of vision suddenly opened up. A massive circular basin appeared before them. The ground was no longer vitrified glass; instead, it was a grayish-white, bone-like substance. Through his Eye of True Sight, Chen Shang could see clearly that it was ancient rock strata baked into ceramic by extreme heat.

However, his attention was quickly drawn to something else—a sword plunged into the very center of the basin.

The blade was taller than a person, incredibly broad and thick. Its surface was covered in dark red fissures, within which crimson and azure lights flowed. The original material of the hilt was completely unrecognizable, blackened by the erosion of time and flames, but its shape indicated it was meant to be wielded with two hands.

Where the sword pierced the ground, a dense network of fine cracks spiderwebbed outward across the ceramic rock.