208: Chapter 207 Premature Baby [Flame Dragon Armor]

Chapter 207 Premature Baby [flame dragon armor]

According to [Wuzhiqi], this fire giant also originated from the Norse mythology Sun Po knew in his past life, named [Surtur], which in Old Norse means 'The Swarthy One'.

[Surtur] was different from [Sæhrímnir], who was merely used as a meat source; this figure had quite a prominent background in Norse mythology.

He was the prophesied destroyer of the world in Norse mythology, a key figure in Ragnarok. Born in [Muspelheim], the primordial realm of fire before the creation of the world, he was the natural ruler of [Muspelheim], a giant king born in flames.

Legend had it that his body was colossal, burning with flames, wielding a giant sword of fire, before whom mountains were as low as mounds of dirt.

He held a giant sword named 'branch of destruction', which was said to be forged from a branch of the World Tree, [Yggdrasil].

It could be said that in legend, his stature was vastly superior to that of [Sæhrímnir]. However, although the fire giant before them was large, it did not give Sun Po the overwhelming pressure described in rumors.

Sun Po felt its combat power was at best comparable to [Sæhrímnir], which clearly contradicted his understanding.

Sun Po suddenly remembered that [Wuzhiqi] had mentioned that only one monster in this secret realm possessed a complete body. Although he still didn't understand what a 'complete body' meant, he inexplicably recalled Demon Pill Nezha in his material satchel.

Back when Sun Po first leapt into the Long River of Time, he encountered Nezha, and later learned that he was Spirit Pearl Nezha.

That Nezha was not only powerful, but also seemed to be an old acquaintance of [Wuzhiqi]'s inheritance, and had even gifted the [water virtue stone of wuzhiqi] to Sun Po, helping him return to the Long River of Time once again—a great favor to Sun Po.

The Demon Pill Nezha currently in Sun Po's hands was different; he had a perverse disposition, was extremely aggressive, and had even fought fiercely with [Wuzhiqi] when the latter had just succeeded in ascending to godhood, before being pinned to death by Spirit Pearl Nezha's spear and becoming what he was now.

In Sun Po's mind, there should only be one Nezha, yet he had encountered two. Could the same be true for the other deities in the mythological legends of his past life?

Were the ones Sun Po saw now incomplete, merely a portion of their original selves, with some inheriting more of their original capabilities and others less?

Perhaps in some unknown secret realm in this world, there were other [Surtur]s and [Sæhrímnir]s?

Sun Po thought this was very likely. This world shared many similarities with the Earth from his past life. Even according to what [Zhuang Zhou] said in his dream, he had later returned to Earth and left behind some traces. There were likely other secrets hidden behind this.

The [Surtur] before him surely hadn't inherited or obtained much of his legendary abilities. Though his size was large enough, Sun Po definitely didn't believe that the massive magma pillar in his hands was the legendary 'branch of destruction'—the one said to sweep the Nine Realms with fire, trigger Ragnarok, and burn the World Tree [Yggdrasil] to ashes.

In legend, swinging that 'branch of destruction' could unleash endless flames and emit a light brighter than the sun, whereas the thing in front of him looked like nothing more than an ordinary huge pillar of magma stone.

However, whether this [Surtur] was a knockoff or how watered-down he was compared to legend, his gold-quality combat strength was genuine. Even if his aura was merely at the entry level of gold quality, he was definitely not someone high school students below Intermediate Card Maker could mess with.

Even on the real battlefields outside the domain, monsters of this quality were considered high-tier combat forces.

Yet among these high school students below Intermediate Card Maker, a few freaks had emerged this year—Li Tiance, Qin Wudao, Black Pharaoh, Black Dragon Knight Nefarian, and others were all among them.

However, if these rare geniuses were freaks, then Sun Po was a freak among freaks, a genius among geniuses; and [flame dragon armor], when facing fire-attribute monsters, was similarly a freak among freaks and a genius among geniuses.

Sun Po's knowledge was still too shallow; he had no idea how outrageous it sounded for a high school student to have a gold card—or even more than one—nor did he realize how mind-boggling it was for a single card to contend with a gold-quality monster, let alone an outer domain divine monster, at orange quality.

Yet the current reality was that in front of the endless-looking [Surtur], [flame dragon armor] charged forward fearlessly and even with delight.

Although the huge magma stone pillar in [Surtur]'s hands was most likely not the legendary 'branch of destruction', when actually swung, its power was still astonishing.

Li Tiance had already quickly stowed away [Xuanwu Gate] and moved far away from the battle ground between [flame dragon armor] and [Surtur] along with Sun Po.

Even several thousand meters away, the two could still feel the terrifying heatwave and the horrifying clash of fire.

[Surtur] raised the huge magma stone pillar high in his hands. The stone crust on its surface cracked open, flowing with scalding, bright magma. It looked as if he held an erupting volcano in his hands; then, the magma stone pillar slammed down with a crash.

The terrifying force and the brightness of the bursting flames made this scene look as if an entire giant, burning volcano had turned into a meteor, pressing down toward the ground.

Seeing this terrifying display, Li Tiance mentally calculated how many hits his [Xuanwu Gate], boosted by eight hundred Door Gods, could withstand.

One? Three? Five?

And this was merely an opening move casually swung by that terrifying monster, possessing such power. What if it used a skill?

Li Tiance could only marvel that this monster truly lived up to its gold quality.

But who was this person wearing a red armor so similar in style to Sun Po's, that Sun Po could send him out to fight such a monster without the slightest worry?

Li Tiance had made many guesses; he wondered if it was a new card, a new [true name card], or even if the person inside the red armor was Liu Jianren—after all, the [Black Rhino Armor]...

...had always appeared as armor on Sun Po. So if Sun Po made another set of red armor from the same series, it wasn't impossible for Liu Jianren to wear it.

Even if Li Tiance racked his brain, he probably couldn't guess that this thing was just a suit of armor, and there was no human inside—only a fire spirit possessing Sun Po's bloodline.

Li Tiance and Sun Po quickly backed away, while [flame dragon armor] had already charged right up to [Surtur]

in front of him.

Moreover, as it charged forward, faint red flames burned around its body, vaguely tinged with five colors, like a firefly emitting a five-colored glowing light crashing into a massive volcano—and an erupting volcano at that.

Under this terrifying disparity in size, it actually gave people a tragic sense of a mayfly trying to shake a giant tree, or a moth flying into a flame.

The downward smashing speed of that magma stone pillar was not particularly fast, but its range was enormous, making it difficult to dodge.

Yet it was clear that [flame dragon armor] had no intention of dodging either; Sun Po could sense [flame dragon armor]'s emotions at any moment.

This guy merely had the intellect of an infant and possessed extreme curiosity toward everything. Though it had the naturally fiery and aggressive temperament of a fire spirit with high fighting spirit, it clearly didn't understand how to fight.

Normally, when dealing with attacks from a giant, slow-moving monster, [flame dragon armor] should fully leverage its advantage of being small, keeping itself outside the monster's attack range as much as possible, and relying mainly on ranged attacks to wear it down before closing in for a decisive fight when it was weakened.

Sun Po had seen [flame dragon armor]'s panel; the balance and completeness of its skills were considered pinnacle-tier even in the original work.

In Sun Po's view, [flame dragon armor] could easily start by throwing a [Flame Dart] to reduce the opponent's fire resistance.

After all, the opponent was covered in flames and magma, so its fire resistance was bound to be ridiculously high.

Furthermore, after the [Flame Dart] was used, it could fly automatically in the air, absorbing fire elements along its flight path to accelerate and boost its power.

In this secret realm's current environment, surrounded by rivers of magma, the power of [Flame Dart] would certainly be maximized.

And while the [Flame Dart] was in flight, [flame dragon armor] could also condense the Flame Bow and use [Hundred Flame Arrows], enhancing them with fire to increase power and wear down [Surtur].

When [Surtur] got close, it could then use its small size to climb onto his body for melee attacks.

After all, Sun Po had been a game MOD designer in his past life and was extremely familiar with all kinds of games; many large monsters in games were fought this way.

Although real combat was different from games, the core tactic of playing to strengths while avoiding weaknesses, using small size against a large target, wasn't necessarily useless.

However, as an entity with the intelligence of an infant, [flame dragon armor] naturally lacked such operational awareness.

Instead of reacting to the enemy's moves, it rushed straight forward, giving up the advantages of its small size and agility, and seemingly forgetting completely about its ranged skills as it charged mindlessly toward the massive [Surtur], stepping straight into the opponent's attack range.

What's more, this guy grew even more excited as it charged; especially when that volcano-like magma pillar smashed down above its head, there was no instinctual fear at all. Instead, the emotion transmitted to Sun Po was one of increasing excitement.

And so, as expected, [flame dragon armor] was smashed directly into the ground like a five-colored firefly by that mountain-like magma stone pillar.

Sun Po and Li Tiance continued to retreat while watching the distant battle. They saw the magma rivers across the entire small world fly hundreds of feet high, almost obscuring the sky.

The magma ground burst open violently with a crash. Sun Po quickly summoned the [Cold Jade Black Ice Shield] to block the shockwave, while Li Tiance also summoned [Xuanwu Gate] again, along with his Nine Flame Fire Shield, barely blocking the residual impact of the attack.

Li Tiance looked at Sun Po in some bewilderment and asked, "Brother Sun, are you alright?"

Clearly, Li Tiance asked this assuming that [flame dragon armor] was a newly created card by Sun Po.

After all, when a card dies, it returns to the Card Maker's spiritual space to recover, but a card's death also causes damage to the Card Maker's own spiritual space.

Manifested on the Card Maker, it results in symptoms such as headaches and weakness.

In Li Tiance's eyes, after a strike from that mountain-like magma stone pillar, no armor could withstand it.

Although the attack method of smashing with a giant magma pillar seemed primitive, the magma and flames on its surface didn't appear to be ordinary fire; Li Tiance clearly detected a trace of destruction aura in that attack just now.

Even if he previously thought he could take a few hits, that was only under the condition of summoning [Xuanwu Gate], having [Qin Qiong] and [Yuchi Yigde] transform into Door God forms, replicating eight hundred of them, and applying eight hundred Door God empowerments to [Xuanwu Gate]—only then might he stand a chance at blocking such a terrifying attack head-on.

Yet [flame dragon armor] had crashed straight into that giant magma stone pillar and was blasted directly into the magma.

In Li Tiance's eyes, this wasn't a narrow escape; it was practically a guaranteed death.

Sun Po, however, kept a cold face and said calmly, "I'm fine. It's not over yet."

Sun Po could sense [flame dragon armor]'s emotional fluctuations at all times, so he naturally knew that the guy only looked battered on the outside, but was actually fine. In fact, judging from the emotions being sent back, it was even more excited.

Sun Po held his forehead, feeling somewhat helpless.

To a certain extent, [Wuzhiqi] was right: [flame dragon armor]'s talent was indeed terrifying.

Normally, if an [Orange 9-Star] card took such a hit head-on, far from being unharmed and lively, it would have long returned to the spiritual space.

Even [Wuzhiqi], who was also gold quality, taking a hit like this without any defensive state would probably not feel good.

Yet [flame dragon armor] was like a masochistic child—getting hit made it even happier. This was already a visible talent, and as [Wuzhiqi] said, it possessed the amazing potential for an [Orange 9-Star] to contend with gold-quality monsters.

However, this guy's battle IQ was equally astonishing—taking a giant club straight to the face right off the bat was truly hard to watch.

Of course, the spectators outside the venue found it even harder to watch, especially [Vermilion Bird] Jiang Yan, who provided the [chaos fire seed].

[Vermilion Bird] Jiang Yan guarded the domain border between the Yanhuang Ancient Country and the Northern Ice Bear Kingdom year-round. Aside from dealing with monsters, she also had to deal with probes from the Northern Ice Bear Kingdom, leaving her with virtually no free time.

She had specifically halted her training today just to see what kind of creature the person she chose would hatch.

In a sense, if Sun Po was the father of [flame dragon armor], then [Vermilion Bird] Jiang Yan was [flame dragon armor]'s birth mother.

Therefore, when she saw [flame dragon armor], she recognized at a glance that it was transformed from the [chaos fire seed] and was the fire spirit she had handed to Sun Po to hatch.

Although it was completely different from what she had imagined, its potential appeared extremely formidable.

At orange quality, it showed no fear facing a gold-quality monster, even daring to charge proactively, so its melee capability was likely extraordinary.

And then, under [Vermilion Bird] Jiang Yan's expectant gaze, [flame dragon armor] was smashed directly into the ground.

Jiang Yan fell silent for a long time without speaking.

After a long while, she quietly muttered to herself, "It seems a premature baby's brain really didn't develop fully..."

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