Chapter 111: The Power of Flames

In the silence, grain upon grain of crimson-red light points began to slowly diffuse out from this fire bat's body.

In an instant, they fluttered about within this narrow space.

For a time, white mist, waves of heat, slowly fading electric arcs, and brilliantly bright crimson-red light points made this place seem like a dream.

After a few breaths, these light points seemed to have found their target.

They began to slowly fly toward Baichuan, passing through his hard, dense scales and sinking into his body.

For a time, Baichuan only felt that his own heat was no longer pouring out wildly like a funnel, but was constantly being absorbed and stored by those crimson-red light points.

As the heat was absorbed and stored, large amounts of warm light points began to appear throughout his body, firmly occupying the newly born tissues spread across his entire body.

At this, the peculiar tissue newly born on his body because of Gong Sheng LV2 (Heat Storage) also slowly began to operate.

Right, this time those light points could no longer move about freely like the Frost Light Points, but were fixed and spread throughout every part of his body.

What was born because of Symbiosis (Heat Storage) was no longer an organ appearing at the neck like the Ice Yuan Pouch.

Instead, it appeared at various positions across the entire body, not manifesting as a single organ, but divided into two parts.

The first was a web-like network of thread-like channels, connecting the skin surface of the entire body, that is, beneath the scales.

It was separated from his Electric Generation muscles by a layer of snake skin and fat; the Electric Generation muscles were beneath the snake skin, wrapped by fat.

These heat-storage tissues, like threads, clung to the surface layer of his snake skin, forming a great net that wrapped around his body.

The second was a tissue structure resembling small air sacs.

This structure generally appeared at the intersections where those thread-like tissues met.

That was precisely where those crimson-red light points resided.

As for their operating process.

First, the web-like tissues spread across the entire body absorbed the heat continuously gushing out from the whole body, preventing it from leaking freely, avoiding meaningless waste, thereby keeping the body surface temperature at a normal level.

Next, this heat was transported through the interior of the thread-like tissues—that is, the pipe-like structures—to the small air sac tissue structures.

There, it was absorbed and stored by the crimson-red light points dwelling within the small air sac tissues.

At the same time, because they were connected by channels among themselves, he could both release these terrifying amounts of heat from all over his body to create scorching wind waves.

And gather them to gush forth from his mouth, transforming into a powerful blast of hot wind.

From today onward, his fire attribute would surpass his other powers; this should count as a kind of power imbalance.

Baichuan silently thought.

Afterward, he looked at the fire bat's corpse on the ground.

After considering it for a moment, he decided to build a grave for it.

This was a life worthy of respect; without it, he would not have obtained this terrifying ability.

Ten minutes later, having settled everything, he formally walked out slowly from that open-and-aboveboard exit of Yingu.

And at this moment, the rain also stopped at just the right time; a beam of bright golden sunlight shot down from the clouds.

And happened to shine not far in front of Baichuan.

For a time, the fragrance of earth filled the air, the bright sunlight was right before his eyes, and wisps of warm breeze brushed against his face.

It gave one a wonderful feeling.

Unfortunately, at such a beautiful moment, he once again had no choice but to carry out that act of killing.

One second ago, Baichuan still wore a gentle expression; the next second, his gaze instantly turned cold.

He slowly turned his head to look not far away, at the very place he had come from earlier via Jianghe Ruhaikou.

At this moment, nearly three kilometers from there, a group of people carrying various goods slowly approached.

Their figures and attire were exactly the same as those people he had first seen in Yingu.

These were not well-intentioned visitors; the well-intentioned do not come.

They came neither early nor late, but precisely when he was about to leave after slaughtering everyone in Yingu.

This was heaven itself finding his tail-cleaning insufficient.

And so, the trouble arrived at his doorstep right at this moment.

In that case, then he would use them to test his newly born flames.

At this moment, in Baichuan's sharp eyes, a blazing, inextinguishable flame seemed to slowly kindle.

Whoosh—!

His massive wings spread open with a whoosh, and then the slender, enormous flood-dragon snake leaped up.

Intense waves of heat rolled upward, lifting this flood-dragon snake, allowing it to take flight more easily than ever before.

In less than a few minutes, Baichuan covered the short distance of barely three kilometers, sweeping past and heading toward the group.

……

Daze Zhidi, on the ground.

A large group of people, carrying various goods, chatted and laughed as they hurried along the road.

Suddenly, one of them opened his mouth and laughed: "Big brother, after we sell off this batch of 'goods' this time, can I stay a bit longer?"

The leader, hearing this, immediately frowned and said:

"You rascal, has that habit of yours flared up again? Want to seduce someone from the Flying Heaven Sect?"

"I've told you several times: in our line of work, we must be careful, careful, and more careful!"

"We absolutely cannot stay too long in one place, and try not to clash with the local powers. Look at you last time—didn't you offend a Young Master Li over a woman?"

"It's one thing if you provoke people elsewhere, but the Flying Heaven Sect people, we can't afford to offend."

"You absolutely cannot cause trouble this time. On this trip, we still need to ask them for a favor—to exchange for a Martial Stone for your fifth brother."

That big fellow had only wanted to ask a question, but the moment he opened his mouth he got another scolding from his own big brother, and was about to speak in dissatisfaction.

Who knew the leader would suddenly pause, his brows tightly furrowed, raising his right hand to signal everyone to stop and be on guard.

Only then did he cock his ear to listen, and his ears immediately grew visibly larger, as though they had become a giant receiver.

At that moment, one thunderous roar after another began to grow gradually clearer.

The burly man in the lead was first stunned, then came back to his senses.

He had heard this kind of sound countless times among the upper echelons of the Flying Heaven Sect, and just as he was about to relax, he suddenly realized something.

No! Something's wrong!

Though this sound was like something the upper echelons of the Flying Heaven Sect would produce, it had never caused such a tremendous commotion before.

The moment he realized it, he was about to shout: Enemy attack!

But it was too late.

A massive, long Flood Dragon serpent came flying over, its enormous wings fully spread.

The beating of its wings stirred up a massive airflow, which, combined with its now scorching body temperature,

truly lived up to the saying: the serpent had yet to arrive, but the heat wave reached first.

In an instant, a rolling heat wave hot enough to make withered branches spontaneously combust swept over them.

In the blink of an eye, it curled everyone's hair.

Then the Flood Dragon serpent opened its dragon mouth, and what seemed like an endless stream of scorching airflow gushed out from within.

The airflow faintly glowed a crimson red, and blew across the still-unreactive crowd.

In an instant their clothes self-ignited; their originally tender, moist flesh instantly turned into old cured meat dried for years, and they collapsed to the ground one after another with stiff "thud thud" sounds.

The whole process took less than a minute, and this group of people who had just been laughing and chatting turned into a field of dry corpses.

Such speed, such power.

Even the perpetrator, Baichuan, was somewhat astonished.

This power had to be said—absolutely overpowered!

But he also knew that such a terrifying heat blast, he probably couldn't unleash a second time in a short while.

Because this heat blast now was the terrifying heat accumulated over a long time by the previous-generation host of those Light Points, that Fire Bat.

It had all been squeezed dry by him in one breath; from now on, if he wanted such a terrifying heat blast, he would need to accumulate it himself.

In other words, that move he just used was a limited-time experience card—a one-time super ultimate!

It seemed that from now on, unless it was urgent, he should use this flame power as little as possible.

At the very least, he had to set aside half of the heat to store up.

Because according to the current mechanism, this ability was a typical late-game skill.

The longer it accumulated, the more terrifying the power; if he used it often, then unable to build up a stockpile, he could only treat this power as a small basic attack.

Realizing this, Baichuan was for a moment somewhat caught between laughter and tears.

He hadn't expected that an ability he had only just obtained would, because of its potential, need to be hidden and used sparingly—truly, the affairs of the world are hard to predict.

But his Ice Frost power now could be considered fully unlocked.

He could unleash it at will, no longer needing to worry about excessive consumption that would prevent him from maintaining his own purity.

What does this count as?

Old ability fully unlocked, new ability half-unlocked?

(End of chapter)