Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
Chapter 144
Scarlet Flame Incinerates the Ocean, Roasting the Colossal Squid
A shrieking gale saturated with the pungent stench of sea brine lashed viscous froth against the sheer granite precipices.
Deep within the subterranean abyss of Blood Wave Bay’s underground cavern, the atmosphere was suffocating and humid, hanging so heavy it felt as though an invisible hand were crushing human lungs. Murky, blood-tinted swells surged violently, churning against jagged limestone shelves strewn with the desiccated carcasses of hundreds of ill-fated sea creatures. The nauseating stench of foul seabed mire blended with putrefying fish blubber, slamming straight into the nostrils and provoking a gagging revulsion.
At the very vortex of the subterranean whirlpool, a titanic silhouette slowly broke through the surface.
Its bulk was as immense as a sunken fortress submerged in rotting kelp and toxic slime. Slick, deep-crimson hide rippled rhythmically to the sound of its gargantuan, bubbling respirations. Eight primary tentacles, each as thick as a centuries-old primeval tree trunk requiring two grown men to encircle, were lined with rows of cup-like suckers bristling with hooked black keratin talons. They lashed outward in every direction, whipping the subterranean air into ear-splitting shrieks.
The Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid!
A monstrous predator perched at the absolute apex of the Upper Warrior class—a bloodthirsty subterranean tyrant that held undisputed dominion over the subterranean waterways burrowing out into Blood Wave Bay.
Crack... CRACK... BOOOOM!
A tentacle thick as a temple pillar tore through the curtain of subterranean water, hammering down with brutal momentum toward the stone ledge where two human silhouettes stood.
Gu Ling gritted her teeth until blood seeped from her gums. She wore the deep azure combat battle armor exclusive to second-year disciples of Shenzhou Archmage Academy, but the edge of her cuirass had already been ripped to shreds. Her bare shoulder was exposed, smeared with crushed stone dust and streaked with crimson lacerations. Her slender, trembling hands were hoisted high above her head, straining to sustain a fragile, undulating curtain of water in midair.
Pfft!
The crushing impact of several thousand tons slammed downward, violently churning the blood and vitality in her thoracic cavity. Gu Ling staggered back several steps, a vivid scarlet streak dribbling from the corner of her lips. Her Water Barrier shattered into hundreds of thousands of glistening droplets before dissolving into nothingness.
“Damn it... This aura is far beyond our initial estimates... It has already touched the absolute pinnacle of the Upper Warrior class!”
Gu Ling panted heavily, her chest heaving in violent spasms. As an elite disciple of the second-year Water Faculty, she had always held supreme confidence in her hydrokinetic mastery and defensive wards. Yet when brought face to face with a deep-sea behemoth boasting an overwhelming physical mass—and enjoying absolute territorial advantage replenished by an inexhaustible subterranean reservoir—all her defensive spells were as flimsy as gossamer silk before a howling hurricane.
Behind her, deep in the narrow cavern corridor, Ye Qingwan, Gu Xiaowei, and Xie Zhaoyuan remained hopelessly pinioned by a rear guard of hundreds of low-tier sea monsters. They could not break through to provide reinforcements in time.
Here on the precarious ledge, only she and Lin Feng remained.
Yet Lin Feng was merely a first-year freshman who had enrolled less than a single semester ago! More critically, his most celebrated and widely rumored specialty across the academy was the Fire element!
“Lin Feng, fall back!” Gu Ling screamed, her voice hoarse and raspy from the stifling air. “In an underground cavern flooded with frigid deep-sea rime, Fire magic will be snuffed out the instant it touches the water! Use your Shadow element to retreat toward the cavern mouth and regroup with the others! I’ll hold it off with Rushing Wave!”
The instant the words left her mouth, the subterranean lake exploded into a geyser exceeding ten meters in height.
ROAAAAR——!
The Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid seemed to catch the scent of its prey’s utter exhaustion. Its turbid, spherical eyes—each the size of a giant winnowing basket—flared with a crimson bloodlust. Four barbed tentacles lashed out simultaneously, piercing the humid mist like four meaty ballista spears, hurtling directly toward the stone shelf where Lin Feng stood with terrifying velocity.
A whirlwind carrying a gut-churning stench lashed directly at his face.
Yet confronted with this lethal, sky-blotting onslaught, the youth standing beside Gu Ling did not budge so much as half a step.
Lin Feng stood firmly planted atop the slick subterranean rock. The sea gale laced with piercing chill whipped the hem of his black battle duster, outlining a tall, slender silhouette that remained grounded like an immovable monolith. His pitch-black eyes were placid as an unruffled mirror amid the howling tempest, forming a surreal contrast to the frantic chaos erupting all around him.
Water extinguishes fire?
Indeed, that was an iron law of nature—an immutable truth etched into the introductory spellcraft primers that every magical apprentice memorized by heart.
Yet that truth... applied only to ordinary, mundane fire!
“My fire was never born of dry twigs or rotten grass.”
Lin Feng murmured softly, his low voice cutting cleanly through the roaring waves.
At the exact millisecond the four spearing tentacles closed within five paces of his chest, Lin Feng’s right fist snapped shut.
BOOM!
An invisible surge of pressure, resembling a dormant undersea volcano awakening from the abyss, violently detonated from deep within his veins!
Within the boundless expanse of his Sea of Consciousness, the tempestuous Fire Nebula suddenly roared with cataclysmic fury. Under Lin Feng’s microscopic orchestration—precise to the thousandth of a second—forty-nine radiant golden Star Particles took flight, weaving together at a speed far beyond what the mortal naked eye could track. Seven blazing Star Orbits undulated like miniature fire dragons, intersecting into a flawless matrix in the span of a single heartbeat, manifesting a blazing magical Star Pattern directly beneath his heels!
This was not the mundane dark-crimson hue of mortal flame.
It was an incandescent, majestic imperial gold, radiating a searing heat that condensed the primal, violent fury of molten magma forged ten thousand fathoms beneath the ocean trenches—the top-tier Spirit Seed: Scarlet Flowing Flame!
This flame had been born in the deepest oceanic abysses, where thousand-degree lava snarled ceaselessly against the crushing weight of millions of tons of salt brine. Its destructive potency was two-point-five times that of ordinary flame, and above all else, it harbored no fear of water—for it was an ancient sovereign that had conquered the ocean since the dawn of creation!
“Fiery Burst——”
Lin Feng let out a low roar, his right arm cocking back like a fully drawn divine warbow, sinews rippling with immense power. The imperial gold fire cascading from the Star Pattern beneath his boots surged onto his forearm like a molten deluge, enveloping his fist and condensing into the roaring, regal visage of a draconic titan!
“RAGING DRAGON BURST: NINE DRAKES INCINERATE THE OCEAN!!”
He punched forward!
Lin Feng’s fist hammered into empty air, but his target was not the four impaling tentacles hurtling toward him. It was the pitch-black subterranean reservoir churning beneath the monster’s colossal belly!
BOOOOOM——!!
A titanic pillar of golden flame over ten meters in diameter, shaped like a roaring celestial fire dragon, plummeted straight down into the reservoir. The apocalyptic thermal energy radiated in that fraction of a second warped the surrounding air into shimmering mirages. Ancient stalactites suspended from the cavern vault melted on the spot, raining down like liquid slag.
The four tentacles that arrived first barely brushed against the outer perimeter of that searing thermal aura when sickening crackles exploded from their hide. The protective layer of viscous mucus was vaporized in half an eye-blink. The thick, keratinous hide instantly split apart, shriveling and bursting into furious combustion!
HISSSS—— CRASH!!
The moment the blazing draconic maw slammed into the subterranean lake, a catastrophic detonation unlike anything ever heard reverberated throughout the subterranean cavern network of Blood Wave Bay!
It was the roar of thousands of tons of sea water flash-boiling at several thousand degrees Celsius!
The entire cavern lake resembled a colossal cauldron of oil into which an incandescent bar of forged iron had been plunged. The surging waves had no time to churn; they instantly boiled into a frothing tempest. Thousands of cubic meters of subterranean brine were violently flash-vaporized by the cataclysmic heat of the Scarlet Flowing Flame in a matter of mere seconds!
Blinding white steam detonated under astronomical pressure, blasting across the surrounding granite walls and shattering entire geologic strata. Standing behind him, Gu Ling was nearly suffocated by the blistering heatwave and the rapid evacuation of oxygen. Her eyes widened into saucers, completely unable to process the apocalyptic spectacle unfolding before her.
The flames... The flames hadn’t been extinguished at all!
Deep within the subterranean reservoir steeped in frigid maritime chill, Lin Feng’s golden fire had not only resisted being snuffed out—it raged with even greater ferocity. It latched onto the viscous mucus coating the Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid’s hide, using that rich organic slime as prime fuel to combust with untamed madness!
SKREEEEEECH—— ROAAAR!!
A shrill, ear-splitting shriek of absolute agony tore from the colossal squid’s maw.
Its entire hill-sized frame had been transformed into an enormous sphere of raging golden flame. The slick, mucous-covered hide that had once served as the sea beast’s impenetrable armor had become its irrevocable death sentence. Wherever the flames caught, flesh and sinew were charred to cinders, billowing clouds of suffocating, roasted stench.
At that moment, the most terrifying innate property of the Scarlet Flowing Flame was fully unleashed:
“Mana-Burning Star-Incineration!”
The fire did not merely scorch the external carapace. Strands of golden flame, moving as if possessed by sentient malice, burrowed into the fissure-riddled wounds of the beast, piercing directly into the colossal squid’s magical meridians. They ravenously devoured and incinerated the water-element mana the creature had cultivated over hundreds of years!
Deprived of its sustaining mana, the colossal squid’s terrifying regenerative ability—which could regrow severed limbs in minutes—was entirely paralyzed!
The scorched, blackened tentacles fractured and dropped into the emptying cavern floor. The charred wounds were instantly cauterized into brittle black crusts, incapable of sprouting so much as a single sliver of new flesh!
The Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid thrashed in mad desperation within the sea of fire. Its massive bulk hammered against the rapidly receding lakebed, attempting to burrow into the subterranean silt to smother the inferno. Yet the golden flames clung to its core like maggots burrowing through rotting bone—the more violently it thrashed, the more ferociously the fire consumed it!
“This... How can this be...” Gu Ling stood frozen to the spot, her lips trembling uncontrollably, her pupils contracting into needle points.
As a high-tier Water mage, she understood the absolute environmental suppression of an underground water body better than anyone. Even if a third-year Tier-3 Intermediate Fire mage were standing here, faced with this deep subterranean reservoir, they would have had no choice but to sigh in defeat and switch to an auxiliary element.
Yet Lin Feng... a first-year freshman, had used Fire magic to boil an entire subterranean lake dry, roasting an Upper Warrior-class apex beast alive inside its own watery domain!
What kind of reincarnated monster was he?!
Amidst the swirling sea of flames and billowing curtains of superheated steam, Lin Feng remained stationed upon the elevated rock. The golden firelight reflected across the sharp contours of his face, accentuating the cold, merciless demeanor of a supreme predator.
He was acutely aware of how resilient the life force of an Upper Warrior-class beast was. Even with its hide incinerated and its mana depleted, the feral instinct of a wild beast could still drive it into a suicidal counterattack.
To kill it, he had to obliterate it down to its very roots!
Snap... crackle!
A crisp, high-voltage snap rang out through the roar of the dying inferno.
Above Lin Feng’s head, the superheated air abruptly grew heavy and viscous. Nether-violet electrical particles condensed out of the empty void, popping with volatile, perilous resonance.
Lin Feng did not pause to catch his breath for even a fraction of a second. The instant his Fire Star Pattern dispersed, his divine consciousness brushed against the deepest, darkest recess of his Sea of Consciousness—where his Lightning Nebula was snarling in wild tempest!
Seamless transition!
Switching elemental matrices without a solitary microsecond of delay!
Forty-nine nether-violet Lightning Star Particles danced in frenzied synchrony. The casting speed of this Star Pattern was even faster than the Fire spell that had preceded it, for every single one of his Lightning Star Particles had been nourished and tempered by the Primordial Dragon Pendant!
Whirrrr——!
A terrifying aura of pure, unadulterated destruction crashed down upon the cavern. A howling thunder gale stirred, blowing away the thick curtains of white steam.
“Tier-2 Intermediate Lightning Magic——”
Lin Feng’s eyes sharpened into two frigid points of light, sharp as razor blades. His arm thrust straight toward the cavern ceiling, his index and middle fingers joined like a sword-hand pointing directly at the thrashing skull of the squid at the bottom of the cavern:
“THUNDERBOLT: YAKSHA!!”
KRA-BOOOOM——!!
A cataclysmic thunderclap shook the subterranean mountain veins!
From the pitch-black stone vault, a colossal bolt of nether-violet lightning measuring nearly three meters in diameter tore through space and slammed downward. This divine thunder did not manifest as ordinary jagged lightning; it condensed into the looming, ferocious visage of a Yaksha demon deity grasping a brutal lightning javelin, plummeting with the world-shattering might to rip creation apart!
The velocity of lightning transcended all mortal limits of reflex!
The Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid had only enough time to roll its turbid, despairing eyes toward the ceiling before the nether-violet javelin impaled the exact center of its massive cranium!
SPLAT!!
The hardened cranial plate that could withstand several tons of concussive impact was as brittle as thin parchment before the Yaksha thunderbolt. The lightning javelin penetrated straight through the crown of its head, shredded its brain matter, and pinned the carcass down into the granite bedrock of the subterranean floor!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM——!!
Thousands of branching nether-violet electrical arcs detonated from the shaft of the javelin, coursing through the colossal squid’s entire massive frame. Charred chunks of roasted flesh were blasted into hundreds of thousands of smoking fragments. The viscous black blood that erupted was instantly vaporized to gray ash by the high-voltage current!
The entire cavern shook with terrifying violence as fractured stalactites rained from the ceiling like a deluge of spears.
Following that earth-shattering detonation, all chaotic sounds abruptly vanished.
Only the quiet crackle of dying embers and the faint hiss of lingering steam rose from the bone-dry lakebed.
The Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid—the undisputed tyrant of the subterranean waterways of Blood Wave Bay, an Upper Warrior-class terror that had spread nightmare across countless coastal hunters—was now nothing more than a heap of charred, motionless slag collapsed over fractured gray stone.
The vast subterranean lake, spanning thousands of square meters, had been completely boiled bone-dry beneath the combined annihilation of the Scarlet Flowing Flame and Thunderbolt: Yaksha!
A deathly stillness descended over the cavern.
A cold breeze drifted in from the outer cavern mouth, sweeping away the hazy smoke and revealing the slender youth still standing tall upon the elevated ledge. The hem of his black battle duster fluttered gently. There was not a single drop of blood upon his person, nor the faintest scratch. The mana aura circulating around him remained as grand and unyielding as an ancient peak towering above the sea of clouds.
A few paces away, Gu Ling remained frozen in place.
Her phoenix eyes were stretched wide, her pupils dazed with unmitigated shock. The hand that had been cradling her wounded shoulder had slipped down limply without her realizing it. She stared at the blackened cinder heap at the bottom of the dry lakebed, then looked up at the tall, composed back of the first-year youth before her, her heart hammering against her ribs as though it would burst from her chest.
Soloing... an Upper Warrior-class beast?
And achieving an absolute, crushing curb-stomp within the monster’s own native watery domain?!
Was this truly the combat prowess of a freshman who had been at the academy for less than a single semester? Even the apex champions reigning over the third- and fourth-year Battle Rankings of Shenzhou Archmage Academy would never have been able to resolve such a lethal crisis with such decisive, merciless, and spine-chilling dominance!
A surge of fervent, overwhelming reverence welled up from the depths of her soul, leaving Gu Ling trembling. Her lips parted several times, but she could barely string together a coherent sentence:
“Lin... Junior Brother Lin...”
Lin Feng did not hear Gu Ling’s whispered murmur. At that moment, his entire focus was fixed upon his chest.
Thump-thump... Thump-thump!
Beneath his thin inner tunic, the Primordial Dragon Pendant pressed against his skin suddenly radiated an unparalleled, soothing warmth. It vibrated violently, resembling a starving primeval predator awakening from a thousand-year slumber that had just caught the scent of the most exquisite delicacy under heaven!
Whoosh——!
Within the realm of sight visible to Lin Feng alone, a brilliant, deep-azure fluorescent radiance abruptly soared into the air from the charred carcass of the Scarlet-Tentacled Colossal Squid.
This was no faint, amorphous fragment of an ordinary Soul Remnant!
It was a perfectly rounded orb of luminescent energy, condensing the intact, undulating miniature silhouette of a colossal squid, emitting soul ripples so pure and vast that the surrounding space faintly trembled!
An Upper Warrior-class Soul Essence!
The probability of an intact Soul Essence dropping from slaying an ordinary Warrior-class beast was less than one percent. Yet here, an immaculate, flawless Upper Warrior-class Soul Essence—worth hundreds of millions of gold coins on the black market—hovered directly before his eyes!
Lin Feng lightly curled his fingers, his intent shifting.
The Primordial Dragon Pendant around his neck unleashed a terrifying, invisible suction force. That gravitational pull resembled a miniature subterranean vortex, locking with pinpoint precision onto the deep-azure orb of light and reeling it straight toward his chest!
Swish—— zip!
Before the Upper Warrior-class Soul Essence could muster any resistance, it was swallowed whole by the dragon pendant, drawn into its ancient internal space.
The instant it consumed the Soul Essence, the coiling dragon engravings upon the pendant’s surface flared with an ancient golden luminescence. A stream of supremely pure spiritual energy surged back into Lin Feng’s body like a crystal-clear spring, flooding through his limbs and meridians. Within his Sea of Consciousness, all forty-nine Lightning and Fire Star Particles cheered in unison, greedily absorbing the nourishing energy to reinforce and temper his cultivation realm.
An intoxicating sensation of boundless vitality washed over his entire being, coaxing a long, deeply satisfied breath from Lin Feng’s lips.
With this Upper Warrior-class Soul Essence alone, this expedition to Blood Wave Bay had already yielded returns far beyond his wildest expectations!
Yet just as Lin Feng prepared to retract his mana aura and turn to inspect Gu Ling’s injuries, an abrupt anomaly occurred.
Now that the subterranean lake had been boiled dry, the deepest geological foundation of the abyss was completely exposed. Where the colossal squid’s carcass had crashed down, the ancient layer of mud had been baked and vitrified into cracked ceramic plates.
And right in the center of that gaping, subterranean fissure, something bizarre began to glow.
They were ancient jade-blue runic inscriptions, etched deep into a crescent-shaped megalith buried in the bedrock. The geometric patterns carried the crude, majestic architectural style of the primordial era, bearing no resemblance to modern magical civilization.
Strangest of all, the winding, serpentine contours of the runes carved into that stone slab... bore an uncanny, shocking resemblance to the dragon-scale engravings etched upon the surface of the Primordial Dragon Pendant!
Rumble... rumble...
From deep within the chasm beneath the crescent megalith, an ancient, frigid, yet supremely majestic aura faintly stirred, resembling a primordial sigh echoing across tens of thousands of years of forgotten history to whisper directly into Lin Feng’s ear.
This subterranean lakebed... had never been a mere den for a Warrior-class sea monster!
Buried here was a secret ten thousand times more earth-shattering!