Chapter 448: Moth to the Flame

All around were the twisted faces of malevolent entities, their hateful gazes wishing they could pierce Wu Xian through.

But Wu Xian's heart was accelerating with excitement.

"This is it!"

"Let it burn!"

Wu Xian leveled his palm, aimed it forward, and unleashed a Fire-Spreading Incantation with the Expansion Method effect! Accompanied by the familiar visual of a blooming inferno, a large swath of inverted corpses let out wails, many catching fire, and two rotting coffins were also ignited.

With this.

Wu Xian's Fire-Spreading Incantation, Expansion Method, and his first Temperature-Raising Method were all exhausted. A random talisman fell into Wu Xian's deck, but he had no time to check it.

The flames of the Fire-Spreading Incantation could not burn the inverted corpses to death, nor could they ignite the entire Inverted Corpse Forest. The coffins were spaced too far apart; even with the Expansion Method, the fire could not spread.

But Wu Xian had already thought of a solution while offering to the gods.

Another playing card popped out.

The Moth-to-the-Flame Technique was activated! Moth-to-the-Flame Technique: Can provide a blessing to existing flames, granting them an "attraction" effect, causing targets to automatically throw themselves into the fire; can be used twice!

This attraction effect worked better on smaller creatures and worse on larger ones, so in reality, only small creatures could be drawn in.

But Wu Xian didn't care about size; he only cared about quantity!

One had to know that the one thing this underground labyrinth did not lack was small creatures!

Whoosh! An invisible power spread out for an unknown distance.

The entire Inverted Corpse Forest and its surrounding area became restless. From the soil, stone crevices, and water, small creatures of various types rushed toward the fire.

There were insects, bats, strange birds, and some things that couldn't even be described.

Flying, running, teleporting—they all went mad and charged into the flames.

Under normal circumstances.

These ordinary small creatures would be burned to death instantly upon charging into the fire.

But the Inverted Corpse Forest at this moment.

The fire was from the Fire-Spreading Incantation, which had low lethality.

The small creatures were mutated by the power of malevolent entities and possessed extremely high vitality.

Coincidentally, the fire had been augmented with the Expansion Method, making it easy to ignite anything it touched...

When these small creatures rushed into the fire, they immediately caught flame. But the fire didn't kill them instantly; stimulated by the pain, they broke free from the Moth-to-the-Flame Technique's influence and flew in all directions.

In an instant.

Throughout the entire Inverted Corpse Forest, countless small creatures could be seen on fire. Squinting to look, it was as if countless sky lanterns had been released into the night sky.

Wherever these small creatures collided, flames would ignite, and those burning spots would in turn attract new small creatures to dive in...

And so.

A chain reaction occurred! The fire expanded outward at an abstract speed. Coffins, living corpses, malevolent entities—everything in the space that could burn was swallowed by the inferno.

Even Wu Xian's clothes and Pang Hu's fur were ignited.

Wu Xian hurriedly formed a seal with one hand, pinching the left side of the third joint of his left third finger, and activated the Fire-Avoidance Technique. An invisible barrier expanded from his gesture, stopping at a diameter of three meters. The flames on him and Pang Hu were extinguished instantly, and all external flames were blocked outside.

Wu Xian had wanted to open a separate Fire-Avoidance Technique for Pang Hu, but this technique was an area-of-effect ability. Pang Hu only needed to curl up its body to hide safely within the range, so this use of the technique was saved.

Wu Xian was safe and sound, but outside was a living hell.

Blazing flames, high temperatures, bright light, thick smoke...

This was outside the Great Cavern, and the Fire Virtue Star Lord still held influence. Once the fire reached a certain scale, the expansion speed accelerated sharply, and the temperature rose to unreasonable levels.

The entire Inverted Corpse Forest instantly transformed into a giant furnace.

One malevolent entity after another struggled in agony within the flames, their wails echoing from who knows how far away.

A large number of inverted corpses had no resistance against the scorching flames; those that caught fire simply ran around blindly, expanding the burning area.

The fat malevolent entity with many mouths on its head screamed and ran toward the outer edge, but it was choked unconscious by the thick smoke before long. Then the flames spread over, and it turned into a human-shaped fireball, its body fat burning rapidly.

That giant centipede attempted to drill into a rock crevice to hide from the fire, but the crevice could only avoid the flames, not the high temperature and thick smoke. It was roasted to death inside the rock crevice, its juices baked out and flowing onto the rock wall, sizzling as they vaporized in the blink of an eye.

That strange wooden puppet was burned to ashes in the first instance, leaving only a small hammer on the ground.

Among all the malevolent entities affected by the fire, the smartest was the woman who crawled with reversed joints. Seeing Wu Xian cast the Fire-Avoidance Technique, she concluded that only the area around Wu Xian was safe.

So she ran desperately toward Wu Xian.

Wu Xian was also startled and urged Pang Hu to block her outside.

But before Pang Hu could act, the reversed-joint female entity ran with increasing despair.

She was relatively far from Wu Xian and surrounded by chaotic malevolent entities, so even if she ran for her life, it would take time to reach him.

During this time, the situation around Wu Xian had changed again.

The effect of the Fire-Avoidance Technique was to isolate all damage from the flames outside the barrier—not just the fire, but the high temperature, the thick smoke, and even the oxygen deprivation caused by the combustion would not affect those protected by the technique.

Note: it only isolated them, it did not make the flames disappear!

Therefore, all the flames blocked by the technique gathered outside the barrier. As the fire outside grew, more and more gathered. By the time the reversed-joint female entity crawled to Wu Xian, he was wrapped in a giant fireball four meters in diameter, and the temperature of this fireball was even higher than elsewhere!

At this point, the reversed-joint female entity had no other choice.

The smile on the giant mouth on her face turned into terror. Closing her eyes, she leaped toward Wu Xian in a moth-to-the-flame state.

Whoosh! A charred head broke through the flames and entered Wu Xian's field of vision.

Wu Xian was startled and immediately moved to swing his Mantis Arm Blade to knock her back, but he soon realized that the head was just holding that posture and advancing no further.

After a while.

The head fell to the ground, with half a meter of charred spine trailing behind it.

It turned out she had been burned to death halfway through her charge; her body had been incinerated by the high heat outside the Fire-Avoidance barrier, and what fell into the barrier was all that remained of her!

She was not the only malevolent entity that had tried to rush Wu Xian, but she was the closest.

From then on, no other malevolent entity could get near Wu Xian.

The plan to burn the Inverted Corpse Forest had succeeded! (End of chapter)