Chapter 225: The Blazing Shell

There was no time to waste. Wang Yu didn't know how long the effects of the Elixir of Recaptured Glory would last, but Bloodsurge Doppelgänger was particularly draining on his reserves. He had to make full advantage of this brief window of surprise.

Crouching low, he surged forward. His fist, wrapped in fighting spirit, flew at the advanced knight whom he had just struck with an elbow. He poured all his strength into that punch, aiming squarely for the man's face. The air split with a sharp crack.

No flourish, no tricks—just raw, explosive speed, pushed to the limit by his drug-enhanced physique. A speed so overwhelming that dodging was no longer possible.

His gauntlet brushed the tip of the knight's nose, but in the next instant, the knight vanished.

The knight's stealth-based potential had activated. He dissolved into shadow and streaked across the ground, sliding beneath Wang Yu in a blur. As he reappeared behind him, his jet-black short blade arced straight toward Wang Yu's flank.

A sudden blast of wind tore through the street, yanking the knight up from his glide along the pavement. The gust disrupted his strike before it could land.

Wang Yu had anticipated this: the moment he sensed the enemy's ability to meld with shadows, he knew that he'd have a hard time landing a direct attack.

In the second or two since the start of their clash, several fireballs, each trailing searing tails of flame, had formed high in the air. They now hurtled toward Wang Yu.

The knight melded into shadow again, slipping past the shockwave Wang Yu unleashed as he stomped on the ground with all his might.

The brutal impact cratered the street and launched shards of stone into the air.

Behind him, his bloodforged twin extended dozens of tendrils of blood from his body. They snatched up the flying debris and flung them toward the descending fireballs, which were nearly upon Wang Yu's head.

Each throw was swift and precise. Empowered by Blood Tempest, the debris struck the fireballs in unison. The spells burst apart in mid-air in a rain of sparks.

The scattered fragments of the fireballs that did strike Wang Yu only blackened the hardened, scale-like growths that now plated his body.

The clash between the three paused momentarily. The knight withdrew to the magician's side, while Wang Yu assumed a battle-ready stance as he kept his eyes fixed on them. The air was thick with tension.

Glints of magical radiance flickered from the magician's hands as he buffed the knight: Wind's Grace, Stonehide Flesh, Emberstrength...

Wang Yu's face remained composed and cold, though he was sighing inwardly. This was the reality of facing a warrior backed by a magician. He had no way of interrupting them—and now the knight, bolstered by over a dozen enchantments, would be a nightmare to deal with.

Suddenly, his blood twin's hand lashed out from behind Wang Yu. Gripped in its palm was the Fury of the Forge, its barrel already glowing red-hot.

The magician's ongoing spells had created a surge of mana that masked the charging of Wang Yu's weapon. Now the Fury of the Forge was fully primed.

Wang Yu pulled the trigger. A searing beam of energy tore through the air, aimed squarely at the knight shielding the magician. At the same time, Wang Yu launched himself after it—leaping from wall to wall along the street's edge, bounding into the air toward his foes.

The knight blurred into shadow once more, deftly dodging the shot. But even as he vanished, a polished, obsidian-black wall erupted from the ground, intercepting the beam.

It looked like an earth-based spell, but it wasn't. This was spatial wizardry: a prepared slab of obsidian had been drawn from a spatial rift and conjured with perfect timing. The hidden wizard had made a move.

Light and thunder exploded. The charged shot struck the wall and blew it apart in an instant.

Yet the anti-magical properties of obsidian dulled the shrapnel from the blast. The magician, standing just behind the wall, remained unscathed—he hadn't even bothered to dodge. His battlefield instincts were razor-sharp: he was already winding up a counterattack.

Lightning gathered in his palm—the third-tier spell Lightning Lance.

The spell launched the instant the obsidian wall shattered. A crack of thunder split the air as the massive lightning spear hurtled straight toward Wang Yu, who was still airborne and charging forward.

Wang Yu took a deep breath. As he exhaled, fighting spirit surged into his arms. His Voidblade gauntlets began to glow with power. He predicted the spear's path from the magician's motion and raised his right hand to intercept it.

Blood tendrils struck the wall behind him, propelling him forward with explosive force. He seemed set on finishing off the magician. Rather than dodge or retreat, he was forcibly charging forward.

The Lightning Lance struck his raised hand and clashed against his fighting spirit. The current blasted through Wang Yu's crude defenses, sending arcs of electricity dancing wildly across his body.

His skin scorched black; smoke poured from his limbs. The current stabbed into his organs, causing him to spasm.

But he endured it all. Fueled by the Elixir of Recaptured Glory and his own monstrous regenerative abilities, his body fought back. The rampaging electricity was gradually overwhelmed by torrents of surging blood and regenerating flesh.

By the time Wang Yu began to fall, the crackling lightning had faded. His charred skin flaked away, and fresh skin pushed through in its place.

The magician's eyes narrowed. He hadn't expected Wang Yu to take a third-tier spell head-on virtually unharmed. And in the split second it had taken him to prepare the spell, Wang Yu had closed the gap between them.

With his mental energy linked to the Spellweaver's Tome, Wang Yu summoned fire mana and ignited it: the third-tier Infernal Cannon. A blazing jet exploded behind him, propelling him like a missile. His body blurred into an afterimage as he shot straight toward the magician.

Flame condensed in both his palms. The moment his feet touched the ground, he slammed his hands together. The Infernal Cannon detonated from that point of impact, focused and unleashed like a lance of molten fury.

Scorching flames, packed with explosive force, shot forward in a thick beam. The ferocity of the blast was enough to reduce a magician's relatively frail body to ashes.

A translucent magical shield sprang to life the instant the pendant on the magician's chest shattered, interposing itself between Wang Yu's Infernal Cannon and its target. Though the shield cracked under the impact, it bought the magician just enough time to respond.

The staff flared. The earth beneath Wang Yu's feet quivered.

The magician vanished in a flicker, leaving behind a first-tier spell cast at Wang Yu's feet. The ground squirmed—and from it, a stony hand wrapped around Wang Yu's ankle.

With a sharp lift of his leg, Wang Yu's sheer physical power shattered the earthen hand instantly. But it had done its job—the spell wasn't meant to restrain, only delay.

A shadow darted forward as the knight seized the opening. As his potential flared, the knight blinked to Wang Yu's flank, slashing at Wang Yu's neck with a black dagger.

The knight's already impressive speed was now amplified by a potpourri of enhancement spells. If not for his all-encompassing ripples, even he might have been caught off-guard.

From behind him, his blood twin abruptly shapeshifted. Under the effect of Material Shaping, its arm turned into a sharp, bloodforged sword that shot forward. Simultaneously, Wang Yu stamped down, his shoulder braced as a battering ram.

The dagger plunged into his neck with a vicious slash, grinding against bone,severing his trachea and part of his spine.

A glint of triumph flickered in the knight's eyes. With a broken spine, Wang Yu would surely—The full-force shoulder blow landed squarely on the knight, sending him hurtling through the air. Even layered with multiple buffs, he was knocked off the ground.

And while he was caught off-guard, Wang Yu's bloodforged blade struck home, piercing into the knight's chest just as Wang Yu's powerful slam smashed his body to the ground.

The bloodforged sword anchored itself in the knight's solid musculature and caught on a rib.

Wang Yu's blood twin then yanked his arm back, dragging the embedded sword—and the knight suspended in the air without any leverage—violently toward Wang Yu once more.

The blunt-force trauma racking his body and the sharp pain from the blade lodged in his chest stunned the knight. Was Wang Yu really just a mid-rank knight? Wang Yu's spine should have shattered from his attack!

His gaze sharpened. Whatever Wang Yu was, he didn't care. If Wang Yu wanted a close-quarters fight, he could have it.

Reaching out, the knight grasped the chain of blood linking him to Wang Yu's blood twin and yanked. Pain be damned—he forcibly closed the distance between them.

In his other hand, the black dagger gleamed. His focus locked onto Wang Yu's winding arm, which was gathering force for another punch. Perfect—he would cripple that arm!

Wang Yu's fist erupted like a cannon. He drove it straight toward the knight's face. The knight was still in mid-air, unable to trigger his potential and blink away again.

Still, what would have been a near-impossible punch to dodge was slowed down just enough by the knight's buffs. He could perceive the blow and even take advantage of it.

The knight tightened his core and rotated his waist in midair. He had decades of experience in battle over Wang Yu—and it showed.

He dropped slightly in height. The punch meant for his face skimmed his scalp and missed. And as he continued closing the distance, he slashed his black dagger in a low arc across Wang Yu's exposed arm.

Flesh tore. A gaping wound opened in Wang Yu's forearm, severing key tendons.

The knight exulted inwardly. That arm was done for, as was Wang Yu himself.

The dagger continued along its path, slicing through the chain of blood and severing the link between them.

"Watch out!"

The magician's voice rang in the knight's mind. Something was wrong. Despite the fact that the knight had slashed Wang Yu's tendons had been cut, no blood gushed from the deep gash. The arm accelerated and lunged toward him.

The knight hissed. What was going on? Why didn't any of his attacks seem effective?

Caught off-guard, the knight hesitated a split second too long. Wang Yu's hand seized a gap in the armor at his back.

Wang Yu grabbed him tight and launched another blow. With the knight pinned, dodging was no longer an option.

"Damn it, let go!"

With a roar, the knight drew on his fighting spirit and drove his elbow into Wang Yu's arm.

Bone snapped. Wang Yu's arm broke under the impact, but the knight was free. He narrowly dodged the second punch, which just grazed his shoulder.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted. In his peripheral vision, he saw something glowing red above his shoulder: Fury of the Forge.

Wang Yu's blood twin had hurled it behind the knight while the knight's focus remained fixed on Wang Yu.

Wang Yu's missed punch struck the alchemical weapon instead. The sheer force smashed it apart.

The energy core within ruptured. A blast erupted point-blank behind the knight, hurling both him and Wang Yu through the air.

The magician's face darkened. That explosion... If the knight had taken the full brunt of the impact...

"He's insane," the knight rasped, appearing beside the magician in a blur of shadow. Blood bubbled from his lips. "At that range... he had to know he'd be caught in it too..."

"Ugh... healing spell. Quickly."

The magician took in the sight of the knight. A gruesome gash had torn his body open from shoulder to spine, revealing charred bone beneath mangled flesh. Blood oozed from scorched veins and dripped steadily to the ground.

If the knight hadn't managed to land on the ground and activate his potential in the nick of time, he might have perished outright from the explosion equivalent to five charges of Fury of the Forge.

"Our target's likely not faring much better," the magician muttered, urgency sharpening his tone. "My healing spell can only slow the bleeding of someone of your rank. Grab him and go—you need more advanced treatment."

A soft green glow bathed the knight's grisly wound, but the effect was minimal. It barely stemmed the flow of blood and applied a magical bandage across the wound to prevent further harm.

As the smoke of the explosion dispersed, both the magician and the knight turned to where Wang Yu had stood. The spot was now empty—except for a massive hole in the adjacent wall. There, embedded within the crumbled stone, was Wang Yu's mangled body, driven deep into the masonry by the blast.

A wet, slithering noise followed as a humanoid mass of blood squeezed from the fissure between Wang Yu's back and the wall, peeling him free and lowering him gently.

As the magician and knight watched on, horrified, Wang Yu rose with a terrifying disregard for the grotesque state of his body. Despite deep wounds that cut to the very bone, he moved as if unscathed, charging toward them with reckless momentum.

"What the hell is this guy made of!? He took your lightning lance head-on. I shattered his spine and slit his trachea, severed the tendons in his sword arm—and then he ate a point-blank explosion! How is he even moving?!"

The advanced knight could scarcely believe his eyes. Half of Wang Yu's face was missing, scorched away to reveal a blackened skull. He looked less like a man and more like a burnt corpse. And yet, he continued to advance.

"There's something wrong with his body," the knight growled. "Xiphra, weaken him somehow—and use your latent ability on him if you can!"

In truth, Wang Yu's body was in a state of utter ruin. A section of his spine had been obliterated, leaving most of the attached nerves destroyed. He should have been paralyzed by now.

His trachea had been ruptured, and he shouldn't even be able to breathe.

His tendons were severed; his arms should have been limp and useless.

What drove Wang Yu's body was no longer his physical shell alone.

Ripples coursed through his flesh, carrying neural signals in place of his severed nerves. They transmitted strength, moving his limbs in place of his tendons.

Blood surged through torn tissue, sealing gaps in his trachea and plugging ruptures out of which his organs would have spilled.

In this desperate moment, Wang Yu forcibly elevated his ripples beyond belief.

As vital body parts were destroyed, his ripples, which had the ability to convey and transmit even the intangible, filled in the gaps and unlocked new abilities unknown even to Wang Yu.

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

His broken form was stabilized and animated by his ripples and blood alone.

The Elixir of Recaptured Glory continued to course through him, sending a torrent of revitalizing energy through his body. Flesh knit itself back together before the astounded knight and magician's eyes—not the healing of a man, but the monstrous recovery of a troll.

With a pop, the shattered bone in his arm—broken by the knight's earlier strike—was reset and invigorated by his blood. Seconds later, the healing from his elixir had left it nearly whole again.

His feet hit the floor. With each stride, his frame restored itself further. Though his movements were sluggish at first, he quickly gained speed and precision. Wang Yu barreled toward his stunned enemies.

"Hold him off!" the magician shouted. "This regeneration—it's not something any human should have access to. We have to suppress it. Otherwise, we'll never contain an existence like him."

The magician began shaping a spell with shaking hands, one designed to sap Wang Yu of his regenerative abilities, to rob him of his monstrous resilience and expose him to the wizard waiting in ambush.

"Hurry up, then," the knight grunted, lifting his dagger once more. His tone was grim. "I won't last long."

It was surreal to hear such words from an advanced knight against an intermediate foe—but given his grievous injuries, and the unnatural might Wang Yu now wielded under the elixir's effect, it was understandable.

In a blur of shadow, the knight launched himself toward Wang Yu—but this time, he didn't strike. He aimed only to stall.

"!"

Before the knight could force Wang Yu to avert his attack, a volley of bloodforged longswords shot past him. Wang Yu's blood twin hadn't remained idle. It hurled the swords straight at the magician.

Gritting his teeth, the knight hurled a flurry of throwing knives to intercept the bloodforged blades in mid-air. He succeeded—but the momentary distraction left him wide open.

Fighting spirit surged through Wang Yu's legs. He vanished in a flash, reappearing at the knight's side before he could react. He crouched low and executed a sweeping kick.

Agonizing pain shot through the knight's shin. He had expected a punch and had failed to brace himself accordingly. Wang Yu swept him off his feet.

"I can't let him through. I have to buy time—if we can stall him, we'll win!"

The knight's will to fight was formidable—these foes were nothing like the weaklings Wang Yu had faced before. They would throw their lives at him if that was what it took.

Instead of dodging Wang Yu's follow-up kick to the abdomen, the knight lunged forward, arms outstretched, and caught him by the waist. He had only one goal: to stop Wang Yu from advancing before the magician finished casting.

The kick landed with devastating force, crushing the knight's armor as if it were mere paper.

Organs burst. Bones shattered. Blood sprayed from his mouth in a mist—but his arms clung to Wang Yu's waist like a death grip, refusing to let go.

Wang Yu slammed a fist into his skull. A sharp crack—the sound of fracturing bone. It was the hardest part of the human body, and only just held. Another strike, and he would die.

Unfortunately, the Elixir of Recaptured Glory wasn't strong enough to advance Wang Yu into a grand knight entirely. Though powerful, he hadn't yet bridged that gap—and so the knight's desperate gambit succeeded.

Wang Yu didn't have the chance to finish off the advanced knight. On the verge of unconsciousness, he barely activated his potential and slipped away from Wang Yu's second strike.

And during that brief window, the magician completed his spell, the fourth-tier Swarm of Decay.

A shrill hum filled the air as a mass of blood-red flies burst into existence around Wang Yu, encircling him in a churning cloud.

Their rotten, fetid presence overwhelmed his vision—and at the same moment, a spatial rift tore open above his head. A beam of ashen light shot down from the void, piercing through the multiple attacks aimed at Wang Yu and striking him squarely.

His body exploded in a spray of blood, limbs of crimson flesh multiplying wildly in an attempt to sweep away the magical swarm.

Yet the instant his blood touched them, the conjured flies twisted in structure and merged with it, seeping into his wounds and burrowing deep into his flesh.

The ambush had only just begun. Suddenly, Wang Yu's vision blurred. An irresistible force tugged at him, tearing him from the battlefield. When he regained clarity, the world around him had changed.

Darkness. A strange, corrupted energy hung in the air. The void itself formed the boundaries of this place, a pocket dimension severed from the material world—the Doomed Cycle, latent ability of the wizard Xiphra.

Wang Yu panted heavily. He could feel the corruption inside him eating away at his body, and the strange space pressing in from all sides. Weakness crept through his body like poison.

He knew that the hidden wizard posed the greatest threat, and yet...

The Swarm of Decay ravaged his insides, dissolving muscle, bone, and blood. His body was decaying, rotting from within. The swarm even seemed to feed on the destruction it caused, growing stronger and more numerous with each moment.

Under normal circumstances, the might granted by his Elixir of Recaptured Glory, combined with the outrageous vitality of his own blood, would have allowed him to destroy such a spell with ease.

But a second fourth-tier spell had struck him: Curse of Frailty. It gnawed at his strength, softening muscle, weakening bone, and suppressing the vitality of his blood.

Even so, had it been only these two spells, Wang Yu's monstrous vitality might have allowed him to endure, if only barely.

But not here. Not in this place. This space—the wizard's latent ability—was the true deathtrap.

Xiphra stood at the edge of her conjured realm, watching as Wang Yu collapsed to one knee at its heart. A smile curled across her face.

Such was the way of a wizard: frail in body, yet armed with strange and deadly arts. Neither the advanced knight nor magician had been able to defeat Wang Yu—but Xiphra, who had hidden in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment, had forced him to the brink.

Her latent ability, the Doomed Cycle, would steadily erode the nature of any being trapped within.

The twisted forces of the void spawned invisible vortices within her enemy, siphoning away fighting spirit and magical power alike—and then, once all the energy was drained, it would begin to consume flesh.

She rarely used this space.

Though it was a deadly trap for enemies, it also restricted her own mobility. As a cautious and fragile wizard, Xiphra disliked being stuck in place without an escape route.

But this time, her target was already covered in wounds, struck by a Curse of Frailty, and infected with a Swarm of Decay. This fellow, Wang Yu, had no chance of turning the tide.

She simply had to wait and watch as he was devoured, and her mission would be complete.

Wang Yu's body was beginning to fail. Three layers of erosion wrecked his body, and not even his inhuman resilience could prevail.

His unparalleled control over his body allowed him to feel the foreign forces growing stronger inside him. He could sense them feeding on his essence—and he was powerless to stop it.

He had been struggling to maintain a fragile equilibrium, but the growing strength of the swarm and the intensifying corrosion of this space tipped the scales. He could no longer resist.

And yet, his expression remained unchanged. He was on the verge of death, and yet he still looked unbothered...

Perhaps to him, death meant nothing. Until the very end, Wang Yu's only focus was on finding a way out. Everything else was irrelevant noise.

A glimmer in his memory stirred. He had a useless power he had long written off as a gimmick, didn't he?

He couldn't directly target the parasites within him. His immune system was already compromised. But if he burned everything—including himself—then perhaps...

In the darkness, a spark ignited. Flames burst from Wang Yu's body. He had set himself ablaze.

Cursed Fire—a sorcery that used one's own life force as fuel to summon searing, purifying flame.

The version of the technique he had learned was intended to burn his vitality—but in truth, anything inflammable within his body would be offered to the fire. And that, of course, included the invaders within him.

A pyre flared.