Chapter 308 - Warmth

Time slowly passed. As he stared at the flames that were dying out, Li Huowang took off his punctured shoes. He wiped off the water before throwing them into the fire.

With the addition of new fuel, the fire grew stronger and the temperature rose a little. It was to the point that Li Huowang was forced to retreat a little from the flames.

However, even though he moved back, Li Huowang felt the temperature growing higher and higher instead. He, who had been on the verge of dying from hypothermia until just a moment ago, was now covered in sweat.

“Wait, why is it suddenly so hot?” Li Huowang removed his wet clothes and saw a plume of black smoke rising from his body.

Phew~

Li Huowang breathed out, only to see sparks coming out from his mouth.

“Hot! It’s too hot!” shouted Li Huowang as he stood up and removed all of his clothes.

But in an instant, Li Huowang saw as the small fire grew large and enveloped him.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Li Huowang kneeled on the ground in pain. The pain was so intense that it almost caused him to faint.

“What is happening?” Li Huowang raised his head and saw that flames had covered everything around him. There were flames everywhere. The entire field of reeds was on fire. Not a single inch of it was left untouched.

Through the flames, Li Huowang saw the people around him running and crying until they could no longer move. Then, they fell onto the ground and became fuel for the fire.

At that moment, Li Huowang realized something—he was lighting up some plastic bottles in his hallucination, but in reality he had lit up his own body to conduct one of the rituals from the Profound Records!

“No! Nonononono!” Covered in flames, Li Huowang stood up and ran toward them in a panic.

Li Huowang got close, but in the process, the flames burning his body became even more intense. The closer he got, the faster the people around him burned up,

𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

At that moment, Li Huowang saw a lady fall in front of him, her finger pointing toward the direction of Cowheart Mountain as she muttered, “My little girl...”

“Why is this happening? I had already suppressed it! So why?!” Li Huowang punched the ground with his blackened fist.

Li Huowang didn’t know when the fire stopped. When he finally came back to his senses, everything around him had been burned to the ground while he just kneeled there motionlessly with white smoke coming off him.

His entire body was in immense pain, but it was nowhere near the pain in his heart.

He was the one who burned all of Bai Lingmiao’s family, and now he had to tell her the truth himself.

“Tsk tsk tsk.”

At that moment, the man with the wooden mask appeared and looked at the surroundings in awe. As he looked at Li Huowang’s bronze coin veil that had been heated to the point of glowing red, the man with the wooden mask slowly approached and checked on Li Huowang. “Hey, are you still alive?”

Hearing his voice, Li Huowang raised his head slightly. Black ash fell from his neck.

Seeing that Li Huowang was still alive, the man with the wooden mask sighed in relief and quickly helped him up. Then, they slowly walked out from within the field of reeds that had been burned to the ground.

“Why are you risking your life? This was just a minor mission from the Surveillance Bureau. You must be new right? Let me tell you this: the next time you see a mission with very little reward, you don’t have to go all out. Plus, they are just a group of people from a regular sect, the White Lotus Sect. Do you need to go all out like that? Are the people from the Ao Jing Sect all this irritable?” said the man.

However, Li Huowang didn’t say anything and just continued walking.

“I’m Liu Zongyuan from Moongate. What is your name? Wait... are you practicing noble silence like the monks?” asked the man as he introduced himself.

At that moment, having walked out from the burnt field of reeds, Li Huowang suddenly remembered something and touched the wound on his stomach. He saw that the lance that had stabbed into his stomach had been burnt into charcoal and was embedded within his abdomen.

Li Huowang carefully pulled it out and saw a hole the size of a walnut in his abdomen. Then, he carefully placed his burnt finger into the hole.

“Yikes.” Liu Zongyuan felt his scalp go numb when he saw what Li Huowang was doing.

Just as Li Huowang’s finger was about to push into the hole, a dried tentacle trembling stretched out from the hole. Then, it coiled around Li Huowang’s finger. At the same time, a bizarre eyeball could be seen within his stomach.

“Huh? You are quite weird. What’s that thing inside your stomach? I’ve never heard of the Ao Jing Sect having something like this,” said Liu Zongyuan.

Li Huowang looked at Liu Zongyuan and lied, “Nascent Soul.”

“A Nascent Soul? Don’t they usually place those on the neck? Why is it inside your stomach? Aren’t you afraid of turning it into poop?” questioned Liu Zongyuan.

However, Li Huowang just ignored him and continued walking.

“Aiya, there’s no need to be so cold. The mission is already over,” called out Liu Zongyuan as he followed Li Huowang.

Hearing this, Li Huowang smiled bitterly. “Yeah. It’s over. You are right.”

“Are you feeling sad for them? You don’t need to. Do you know why the other villages around Cowheart Mountain disappeared? It’s because they killed all of them. They have killed many times more people than you ever have. So, you were actually enacting justice for the Heavens,” said Liu Zongyuan. He thought that Li Huowang was feeling guilty about killing all of them.

At this point, Li Huowang removed his hands from Liu Zongyuan’s shoulder. “You should go. We will go our separate ways from here.”

“Go?” Liu Zongyuan stood there with a confused look on his face as he looked at the charred Li Huowang. “Where can you go looking like that? The bugs will directly eat a delicious chunk of barbecued meat like you.”

“Don’t worry. I can handle them. Just go,” said Li Huowang as he sat down on the ground.

Liu Zongyuan scratched his head and turned toward a small forest. He took a few steps, but then sighed and approached Li Huowang once again. “Nevermind. I would rather help you out all the way. Close your eyes.”

“What are you doing?” asked Li Huowang as he looked at the wooden mask.

“Just do as I say. Do you think I would hurt you? If I don’t take care of you, then you will just die in a couple of days,” said Liu Zongyuan.

Hearing this, Li Huowang raised his burnt hands and covered his eyes. His eyelids had also been burned off.

Shua shua shua~

His eyes closed, Li Huowang suddenly felt something moving on his body. He felt the soft fur and thought it resembled a brush.

Half an hour later, Liu Zongyuan’s voice rang out once more, “Ok, you can take down your hands now.”

Li Huowang put down his hands and saw that the skin that had been burned off had regrown. But on closer inspection, Li Huowang noticed that it wasn’t his skin. It was a thin layer of pink paper. The color reminded him of the paper dolls that people burned for the dead.

At this point, Li Huowang not only had a layer of paper skin, but he was also wearing a paper shirt.

But for some reason, even though it looked cheap, all of the pain was completely gone; it was as if he was never burned.

“Don’t touch water and don’t get wet in rain or it will lose its effectiveness,” said Liu Zongyuan.

“Which sect are you from? This is very special.” Li Huowang looked at the person wearing the wooden mask.

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m from Moongate. This is a special method that involves gluing. Other than that, we also specialize in arrangement, fusion, pass, moon, parting, pull, and open,” replied Liu Zongyuan.

When Liu Zongyuan saw Li Huowang just sit there in a daze, he laughed. “You don’t understand it? Hehe, that’s a good thing. We intentionally explain it as such so the others wouldn’t know the specifics of our powers. Oh, you haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Er Jiu.”

“Alright, goodbye Er Jiu.” Liu Zongyuan turned around and disappeared into the forest.

As he saw Liu Zongyuan disappear into the forest, Li Huowang inspected the skin made of paper. He found that the skin would easily puncture or break if he used too much force.

However, the pain couldn’t do anything to Li Huowang. He just remained seated and stared in the direction of Cowheart Mountain.

His eyes were filled with despair.

“

I

have killed everyone within the Bai family. How am I going to tell her...?”