Chapter 288: Red Robe Mage Stronghold

Lao Akebar pointed his rag‑wrapped finger toward the horizon, the dunes warping in the heat into flickering ghostly silhouettes. "Do you see those black spikes?" the old guide's throat emitted a sandpaper‑like laugh. "Those are the road signs the Red Robe mongrels stuck into the bodies of sand bandits."

Wu Ermu hid his blood‑seeping right hand beneath his cloak, blue‑white currents of energy slipping between his fingers. Since three days ago, when flames in the desert almost burned him to death, those star‑like fire scars have never left his dreams. The boy lowered his head to watch his own shadow on the sand—the spot where he should have stood now roiled with ice‑crystal cold flame, and he could no longer tell reality from dream.

"You are fearing your own shadow." Naimi Xisi spoke suddenly, the humanoid's violet‑streaked vertical pupils reflecting the boy's pallid face. A soft glow praising Selennye flowed across his silver cloak, and whenever the desert night wind blew, star charts shimmered on the fabric's surface.

The camel's bell suddenly emitted a harsh tremor. Wu Ermu, terrified, saw frost‑flower‑like energy runes crawling over the bronze bell's surface, and the dagger at his waist wailed within its sheath. Lao Akebar's aged camel spewed white foam and knelt, its clouded eyes reflecting the boy's uncontrolled blue fire.

"Control your breathing." Naimi Xisi's finger pressed against Wu Ermu's brow, a silver chain of manifested protective spell weaving around the boy, "It is an extension of your soul, not a parasitic beast."

But memory bit at Wu Ermu's sanity like a poisonous snake. He saw his mother's golden hair melt in the cold flame, saw a white‑haired, aged shaman's flesh turned to charred bone under blue‑white tongues of fire, and the harrowing screams mingled with the sizzle of burning flesh exploded at every nerve ending.

"Stop!" The boy clutched his head and curled on the scorching sand, a cocoon of starlight flame enveloping him. Lao Akebar's wooden talisman suddenly burst into flame, and the old guide shrieked, slapping his robe, only to find the fire devouring his treasured thirty‑year‑old healing Divine Spell Scroll.

Naimi Xisi sighed, "Do not resist it, accept it, embrace it. You'll find it won't hurt—"

"It is a disaster star that brings destruction!" Wu Ermu roared, cutting her off, as the blue‑white cocoon suddenly swelled. Sand within a hundred feet began to levitate, forming a stormy vortex around the boy. Lao Akebar clutched the camel's neck tightly, watching blue sparks erupt from the tips of his own graying beard.

Naimi Xisi rode a towering phantom steed, and Wu Ermu could only see, in the backlit silhouette, a pair of violet‑hued eyes staring coldly at him, while the silver‑patterned cloak behind rustled in the turbulent energy.

"If that's the case, then be it." The voice carried a cold metallic timbre. "Red Robe Mage, is that so? Very well, let those greedy maggots tell you whether they can lift this 'curse'."

Naimi Xisi watched coldly as the boy gradually calmed from his pain, the blue flame vanishing. A rare hint of frustrated hatred flickered in his mind.

Who is he?

He is Juan Ce Long, a being whose magical talent ranks among the highest even across the Multiverse.

He is born with high‑level magical knowledge that ordinary people dare not even dream of. Even the oldest Artifact‑crafting methods can be glimpsed in his inherited memories.

If those mages learned his identity, they would gladly throw piles of gold at him, hoping to draw even a drop of magical knowledge from his fingertips.

He would tell the boy that his strange flame is not a curse, but a treasure bestowed by the cosmos.

And yet he doesn't believe?

How utterly foolish, wandering a treasure mountain empty‑handed without realizing. And still hoping a pack of hyena‑like knowledge‑hunting Red Robe Mages will help him lift the 'curse'?

Naimi Xisi recalled the events of the past few days and felt a choking frustration.

After that day, he instantly sensed that the boy harbored an extremely terrifying power, its nature highly refined, perhaps even comparable to his own Twisted Eye.

In other words, it could be a power that skirts the edge of Authority.

Yet the human child seemed unaware of what was wrong with his mind; even though he feared for his life, he stubbornly rejected his words, calling it a demon's flame, a vile curse. Even more laughable, his older brother had originally planned to take him to the Red Robe Mage stronghold in the eastern Eno'ok Desert — the Crimson Spire — pleading with those Red Robe Mages to lift the curse.

Heaven knows how huge the mocking voice sounded when Naimi Xisi heard that.

Do these desert savages think the Red Robe Mages are philanthropists? Likely the boy, once discovered by those hyenas, will be lying on an operating table, gutted, the next second.

But that's fine; letting the naive child get a head full of blood will make him realize he should pray to something other than a band of mediocre human mages.

Naimi Xisi saw tremendous potential in his power and refused to let the boy waste the gift bestowed by heaven.

The Red Robe Mage's blood will be the finest offering to make the boy confront reality's cruelty.

The three rested in the desert for a night.

The next day, as the silhouette of the Crimson Spire pierced the twilight, Wu Ermu finally grasped the meaning of the "Blood‑Flesh Demon Tower" in the ancient texts. The entire structure's outer wall was made of translucent blood‑colored crystal, countless twisted humanoids sealed deep within the crystal wall.

"Thirty‑seven living furnaces." Naimi Xisi stared at the dark‑red cloud churning atop the tower. "Every thirty sunrises and a full‑moon night, the Red Robe Mages use fresh sacrifices to charge the barrier." He suddenly turned his gaze to the trembling boy. "It's still not too late to turn back."

Wu Ermu bit his lip, the scent of blood and the burning in his palm keeping him alert. "I want to become an ordinary person." The boy's voice was hoarse. "Even if it means sacrificing my soul."

The ever‑faithful Lao Akebar, upon seeing the towering blood‑colored High Tower within the fortress, became agitated and suddenly seized Juan Ce Long's arm. "You could have forcibly taken him away!" The old guide's clouded eyes were streaked with blood. "My grandson is inside those crystal walls!"

!

Naimi Xisi's left hand glowed with fiery red light, and Lao Akebar recoiled as if burned.

"Every choice has a price." The silver‑haired, violet‑eyed man walked toward the bronze gate of the stronghold, "and wisdom is the decision made after seeing all the costs."

The stitched beast guarding the gate emitted a muffled low growl; a rotating eye was set into its left shoulder, while its right arm was covered in spiked scorpion claws. When Wu Ermu stepped into the alert zone, the three energy‑storage gems in the monster's chest exploded simultaneously—blue‑white flames instinctively devouring the defensive array's energy.

The gate slammed open, and a line of fully‑armed black‑armored knights poured out, meeting the three with cruel eyes and icy swords.

"Guest, please put away your pet." A sharp voice echoed from within the tower as a mage cloaked in a crimson robe floated out. Ba Su Alaser's pallid face was veined with purple vessels, which began to writhe the moment he saw Wu Ermu.

(End of Chapter)