26: Chapter 26 Ash Fire Collapses the City

The moment the ritual staff was raised, the Return Fire Well sank slightly.

The black fragment in Lu Jin's chest suddenly contracted inward, and his Sea of Consciousness felt as if it were being hooked by fire. A metallic, fishy sweetness surged into his throat, and he raised his hand to press against the rim of the well, a line of blood seeping between his fingers.

Grey Pupil stood in the center of the black stone circle, the end of the staff nailed into the ground, and the grey fire fungus filaments grew wildly along the edge of the well. The swarm of rats kneeling all around bowed their heads in unison, pressing charred claw skin, broken tail tips, enemy blood scraped from the cart tracks, and retrieved wind needles into the fire basins one by one.

"Return Fire."

"Return Bone."

"Return Path."

Grey Pupil's voice was hoarse, like a knife grinding against a cave wall.

"Establish patterns with enemy blood."

"Open the gate with the charred skin of our kin."

"Ask the master to press the furnace."

The dark red in the well rolled, biting directly back into Lu Jin's Sea of Consciousness along the line of faith. The throat bones of the seven Fire Oil Throwers kneeling closest simultaneously bulged, and grey fire erupted from their mouths and noses, burning through their heads in the blink of an eye. They didn't even make a sound; their bodies flopped into the fire basins by the well, and the fire in the basins burned even more intensely.

Lu Jin wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his five fingers digging inch by inch into the soil.

"Let it bite."

"The people haven't lined up yet."

In the main tunnel ahead, the firelight pressed closer and closer.

The Scale-Spear Lizard Soldiers reported their positions as they stuck their spears into the ground, the fire patterns on the spear tips illuminating the cave walls in a deep red.

"Thirty zhang ahead, a large cavity!"

"The hottest point is right in front!"

The Red-Armored Girl slowly advanced, pushing the fire-pouring cart, the copper pipes pressed against the ground while the fire slurry bubbled and rolled within the belly of the pipes. The Wind-Cable Youth led the Cable Hunters to guard the upper level, nailing shut every side crevice. Lu Jingyao walked at the very end, his long spear held level, the fire pattern on the spear tip aimed directly at the deepest darkness.

"Pour it in."

"Force him out from beside the furnace."

Outside the surveillance mirrors, several academy teachers stood up simultaneously.

On the walls of the main tunnel, grey-red thin lines had lit up at some point, crawling deeper along the cart tracks, blood spots, and the tails of the wind needles. These were not natural fire patterns; it was as if the entire stratum had suddenly grown a living ritual map.

"Is this a battlefield ritual?"

"He's using the entire cave network as a sacrificial altar?"

The black-robed inspector's eyes turned cold, and the mirror board snapped open with a crack.

"Keep an eye on the fluctuations in Lu Jin's main Sea of Consciousness."

"If it goes out of control, seal the field immediately."

At the bottom of the cave, Grey Pupil had already raised the ritual staff above its head.

The feather bones on the head of the staff trembled, the black stone circle around the well rim glowed red in unison, the enemy blood carvings on all the bone-wheel carts shone simultaneously, and even the lamp-bone fuses buried in the three fire storage areas were ignited in one breath.

Lu Jin listened to the footsteps ahead, counting from one to seven.

As the seventh breath fell, he suddenly raised his eyes.

"Initiate the ritual."

"First storage returns fire, second storage splits the earth, third storage seals the opening."

Grey Pupil slammed the staff down. Boom!

The first thing to explode wasn't the tunnel entrance, but the fire-pouring cart at the Red-Armored Girl's feet.

The fire storage buried in the echo layer beneath the cart was jolted by the ritual pattern, and the grey-red fire oil surged back along the copper pipe. The entire long fire-pouring pipe instantly bloated, and in the next moment, it exploded in mid-air. Boiling fire slurry, mixed with grey fire fungus powder, sprayed across half the tunnel. The six Red-Armored soldiers in the front row didn't even finish their screams before they were stuck in the fire. The Red-Armored Girl raised her arm to block it, but her arm armor was melted through on the spot, and she was knocked into the cave wall, spitting blood.

"Retreat the cart!" No sooner had her voice risen than a second roar bore down.

The collapse layer that Lu Jin had hollowed out in advance split open simultaneously.

The old ore crust beneath the feet of the Scale-Spear Lizard Soldiers flipped up in sheets, and just as the four Earth-Splitting Lizard Dragons were about to push up, the entire hard shell of the cave ceiling crashed down. Crushed rock, black ash, semi-melted lamp bones, and scalding iron sand pressed down on the ranks. The spine of the first Earth-Splitting Lizard Dragon was crushed on the spot, and the second one, along with three Scale-Spear Lizard Soldiers, fell into the lower cavity, the spear shafts snapping into short spikes all over the ground.

The grey tide rushed out from between those short spikes.

Ambush Rats, Tunneling Rats, and Cart-pulling Rats were all waiting for this moment.

They didn't touch the hardest armor, focusing instead on biting ankles, the backs of knees, and the wrist bones of the spear-wielders. Two bone-wheel carts rushed out from a side sandwich layer, their front black shields slamming squarely into the remnants at the edge of the collapse, and the Fire Oil Throwers on the cart boards stood in a row, raising their claws to fling.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

The grey-red fire oil spread along the slope wall, and the entire retreat path lit up instantly.

The Wind-Cable Youth's expression changed completely.

"Lu Jingyao! This fire line is connected to the whole cave!"

He was right.

The third strike of the staff had already landed.

The wind needles that had been nailed shut in the upper layer of the cave entrance vibrated simultaneously, and as the wind paths cleared, the grey fire poured back along the pre-buried fuses. The three storage positions—the north echo mine eye, the drainage channel, and the old cable channel—all lifted fire at once, and the entire main tunnel was like something turned over from underground, first bulging, then splitting, then collapsing.

Rumble!

The cave entrance collapsed.

The Cable Hunters guarding the seams on the upper level were buried in the ash, men and hooks alike. Two Green-Feather Falcons tried to flap their wings to gain altitude, but the fire sand flying up from the collapse layer had already wrapped around the roots of their feathers. One fell to the ground on the spot, and the other panicked while trying to ascend, but the Cable Hunter under its wing was struck in the back by a fire oil bladder and was dragged down from mid-air.

Fire, earth, ash, and blood were twisted together in a single tunnel.

Shenmen Plaza became completely silent.

Everyone watched that underground war zone, watching the grey-red fire patterns spread from a single main tunnel to cover the entire underground network in an instant, watching a grey-eyed rat standing by the well with its staff raised, as if conducting a funeral that had been calculated long ago.

An academy instructor's voice even changed pitch.

"That hero unit is performing the ritual sequence..."

"It's not a single soldier; it can preside over the ritual!"

The black-robed inspector stared at Grey Pupil, his eyes even deeper than before.

"Record this."

"List this thing in a separate file from now on."

"Raise the alert level for Lu Jin's ritual path by one grade."

Underground, the backlash had also reached its most vicious point.

The black fire in Lu Jin's Sea of Consciousness was almost torn apart, and his temples throbbed with pain. The outer rim of the Return Fire Well began to crack, and the swarm of rats kneeling by the well fell down in droves; some had their fur instantly burned away, and others had their entire faces licked black by the grey fire.

Grey Pupil turned its head, shouting at him sternly for the first time.

"If you can't suppress it, break the ritual!"

"If we drag it out for three more breaths, we will be the first to die!"

Lu Jin raised his hand to press against the mouth of the well, his knuckles white from the effort.

"Don't break it."

"My cave, I will collapse it."

As his words fell, the black fire in his palm was pressed entirely into the echo layer.

The entire main underground vein sank violently.

The last few supporting bone pillars he had left behind in advance snapped simultaneously, and the deepest layer of the collapse crashed to the bottom. The Scale-Spear Lizard Soldiers who were about to rush out, along with the remaining fire-pouring carts, were all pressed back, and half the tunnel closed inward like a city wall, leaving only two oblique killing exits that had been dug in advance.

"Withdraw."

The bone clacker slammed down.

The swarms of rats on both sides opened like a sluice gate of a black tide.

The North-line Trailer Team pressed forward with black shields, specifically crashing into and scattering the Red-Armored soldiers who were buried and incapacitated; the South-line Fire Oil Throwers spread fire along the collapse slope, burning every patch of ground where one could still stand into slippery mud; the most vicious part was the second-layer killing path, where dozens of Ambush Rats climbed onto people along broken spears, broken cables, and the gaps in the Lizard Dragon scales, biting open neck guards, dragging and snapping leg tendons, and then dragging people into deeper darkness.

Lu Jingyao swept his spear to crush two grey rats that lunged at him, but half of his shoulder armor had long since been cracked by falling rocks. He looked up to see the collapse layer completely sealed, and a trace of genuine shock and anger finally flashed in the depths of his eyes.

"Withdraw!"

No one could retreat in an orderly fashion anymore.

Of the six fire-pouring carts brought by the Red-Armored Girl, three were shattered on the spot, two flipped into the collapse cavity, and only one remained, which she forcibly dragged to the outer layer with two wounded soldiers; only three people remained by the Wind-Cable Youth's side, and before the hook cables could be swung steadily, the grey fire had already burned along the rigging to their hands; Lu Jingyao's own Scale-Spear team was the most miserable, with the front row almost entirely buried, leaving only a dozen wounded soldiers desperately protecting him as they squeezed toward the crack in the side wall.

Grey Pupil leaped out, the ritual staff nailing directly into the chest of a Scale-Spear Lizard Soldier, the ramming horn piercing the body, the feather bones trailing fire. It gave a flick, tossing the half-side flame-scale battle flag into the ash, and the surrounding swarms of rats immediately lunged forward to grab it like madmen.

With this scramble, the point-count light pillar exploded.

[Lu Jin: Points surging]

The numbers jumped three times in a row on the surveillance mirror, forcibly surpassing Lu Jingyao and heading straight for the top of the leaderboard.

On Shenmen Plaza, countless people stood up subconsciously.

"He swallowed three squads in one bite!"

"The people in that cave are still falling!"

"Is this a Unified Exam, or burying a city?"

In the underground firelight, the Transport Rats had already begun to drag away the spoils of war.

Semi-melted fire-pouring copper pipes, broken wind needles, broken scale-spear shafts, Lizard Dragon claws, and Red-Armored fragments were dragged one by one toward the rear storage of the Return Fire Well. Several Fire Oil Throwers that had just rolled out of the fire were covered in charred black on their backs, yet they were still guarding the carts, baring their teeth at anyone who touched the axles. The remaining swarm of rats by the well lowered their heads, and their gazes toward Grey Pupil were no longer just awe; they almost carried a sense of instinctive worship.

Grey Pupil stood in the firelight with its staff raised, no warmth at all in its grey eyes, only cold, hard order.

Lu Jin saw this scene, and the string in his heart sank slightly.

This thing was no longer just a hero embryo.

It was establishing the rules of the priesthood for this swarm of rats.

A bolt of thunderous white light suddenly exploded in the collapse layer ahead.

All the grey fire flickered under the pressure of that light.

A Thunder-wing Griffin dove through the clouds, the wild wind kicked up by its wings blowing away the grey smoke piled up outside the cave entrance. The high-altitude surveillance mirrors were tilted backward by the wind pressure, and countless people on the plaza looked up, their pupils constricting in unison.

Higher up, dozens of cyan-white electric arcs spread out at the base of the clouds, like a net pressing down over the war zone.

Ji Mingxiao stood on the back of the Griffin, his gaze passing over the collapse pit, the fire lines, and the broken flags scattered on the ground, landing accurately on Lu Jin.

His voice pressed down from high above, not heavy, yet it caused the entire battlefield to fall silent for a moment.

"This underground trickery ends here."