44: Chapter 44 Despair

In the swamp, Lei Yu was so carried away that he slapped the thick ice sculpture in front of him. He turned to look at Lin Qinghan, who was half-kneeling on the ground, his face full of fawning: "You rest first. I'll go break this ice and extract its heart blood for you."

As he spoke, a flash of lightning surged in Lei Yu's palm, and he prepared to strike the ice sculpture.

"Don't touch it!" Lin Qinghan, who had been panting heavily, saw her expression change drastically in an instant.

The moment Lei Yu approached the ice sculpture, Lin Qinghan clearly felt that the power of the Frost Law she had left inside the mysterious ice not only failed to completely freeze the giant beast's vitality but was instead being crazily devoured by an extremely violent and domineering scorching energy!

That feeling was like pouring a ladle of cold water into a boiling pot of oil!

"Retreat! Retreat immediately! It's not dead!" Ignoring the churning blood in her body, Lin Qinghan abruptly pushed herself up and shouted hoarsely at Lei Yu.

"Not dead?" Lei Yu's hand, raised in mid-air, froze. He looked back at Lin Qinghan, a trace of a smile still lingering on his face: "Captain, what kind of joke are you playing? This is your trump card; it doesn't even have a heartbeat..."

"Crack." An extremely faint, yet incredibly clear cracking sound abruptly rang in Lei Yu's ears. Lei Yu's voice came to an abrupt halt.

He stiffly turned his head to look at the ice sculpture in front of him. The mysterious ice, which had been crystal clear and exuding biting cold, was now emitting a blindingly bright dark red light from within!

This red light grew stronger and stronger, as if a miniature sun was awakening inside the ice layer. At the same time, a suffocating, terrifying high temperature radiated crazily through the half-meter-thick ice!

The surrounding swamp, which had just been frozen, instantly began to rise with large swathes of scorching white steam.

"W-what is this..." Lei Yu was so scared that he fell on his butt into the mud and scrambled backward.

"BOOM—!!!" There was no time for anyone to react. Accompanied by a terrifying, earth-shaking roar, the huge, half-meter-thick mysterious ice sculpture shattered from the inside!

Under the stimulation of the extreme cold and the threat of death, the abyss artifact inside the Mutated Wild Boar completely activated that "Extreme Yang Lava Blood." Its body temperature soared to over a hundred degrees in a tenth of a second!

The crazy collision between extreme cold and extreme heat created a terrifying explosion. Countless chunks of ice the size of human heads, mixed with scorching steam and abyssal red light, splattered in all directions like hundreds of cannonballs leaving their chambers!

"Ah!" Lei Yu couldn't dodge in time; his back was struck hard by a piece of scorching ice, and he screamed as he fell into the muddy water. "Shield!" Lin Qinghan gritted her teeth and barely managed to erect a thin ice wall in front of her.

But the shockwave of the explosion was too strong; the ice wall was instantly smashed to pieces by the ice fragments. Lin Qinghan was blasted backward by the violent airwave, tumbling several times in mid-air before falling heavily into the ruins in the distance. Her throat tasted sweet, and another mouthful of blood surged out.

In the sky filled with white, high-temperature steam, a terrifying giant beast, even larger and more ferocious than before, slowly stepped out of the wreckage of the shattered ice. The Iron-Armored Steel-Bristled Beast that had broken through the ice entered a truly complete berserk state.

Its five-meter-long body had actually expanded by another full circle under the stimulation of the Extreme Yang Blood! From the gaps in its dark red metallic scales, scorching hot steam was constantly being spewed out. The mud under its hooves was instantly baked dry and carbonized the moment it made contact.

A pair of inverted triangular eyes had completely turned into burning blood-red. "ROAR—!!!" The Mutated Wild Boar raised its head and let out a wild roar that pierced the clouds.

It didn't immediately launch a savage charge as before, but stood where it was, its massive body, like an armored vehicle, suddenly shaking violently! "Hum!" A teeth-aching, strange sound rang out in the air.

Immediately after, a scene that made all the Prodigies feel despair occurred. The dark red steel spikes on the giant beast's back, each half a meter long and gleaming with a cold light, actually detached from its flesh all at once at this moment!

Driven by the violent abyssal energy within its body, hundreds of heavy, sharp steel bristles transformed into hundreds of precise armor-piercing missiles, carrying ear-piercing screeches that tore through the air, and launched an indiscriminate, frenzied volley in all directions!

"Not good! It's an area-of-effect attack! Find cover!" Lin Qinghan had just climbed up from the ground and, seeing the red rain of death shooting across the sky, her eyes nearly split open in fury.

In this open swamp, where was there any cover? The only cover was the alloy heavy shield of the main tank, Captain Zhang Meng, which had been knocked away and deformed, but Captain Zhang Meng was currently unconscious in a mud pit dozens of meters away.

The speed of the steel bristle missiles was simply too fast, so fast that these usually pampered Prodigies couldn't react at all. "Squelch!" "Ah—!!!" A scream of extreme misery tore through the Mist Forest.

S-rank fire-element Prodigy Wang Hao had just barely managed to stand up when a whistling dark red steel bristle directly pierced through his right thigh! The half-meter-long steel spike, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, pierced right through his thigh bone and then plunged into the mud behind him with unabated force.

Wang Hao was pinned firmly into the swamp, blood spurting out like a fountain. The pain was so intense that he clawed at the mud with both hands, letting out a wail that didn't sound human.

"Wang Hao!" Agility-type assassin Chen Fei's eyes were bloodshot. He had just been kicked away by the wild boar and was struggling to get up when he saw his teammate pinned to the ground; he gritted his teeth and wanted to rush over to save him. But he had only run two steps. "Swish! Swish!" Two steel bristles locked his movement in a cross pattern. Chen Fei twisted his body with all his might, avoiding a fatal hit to his heart, but one of the steel bristles still ruthlessly pierced through his left shoulder.

"Bang!" The huge impact force carried Chen Fei in a half-turn in mid-air, pinning him hard onto a broken dead tree trunk. His entire left arm instantly lost sensation, and blood dripped down the tree trunk, drip by drip.

"Help! Captain, help!" Lei Yu lay in the mud, hugging his head, scared out of his wits, not even having the courage to take a look.

The dense rain of steel bristles covered almost every corner where the team was located. Watching one teammate after another fall in pools of blood, their status unknown, and watching those deadly steel spikes continue to pour down like a storm. In Lin Qinghan's cold, frosty eyes, a trace of deep despair and determination flashed.

"Get behind me!" She did not choose to escape alone. As the captain of Kyoto First Military Academy and the eldest daughter of the Lin family, her pride did not allow her to abandon her teammates.

Lin Qinghan desperately bit her lips, forcibly squeezing her already exhausted Meridians. She even began to burn her own heart blood, which was already on the verge of collapse.

"Frost Law: Triple Ice Barrier!" Lin Qinghan thrust the long sword in her hand, which was already covered in notches, firmly into the ground.

Pale, cold air surged crazily from her body. In front of her, three huge, thick ice shields, shimmering with a deep blue light, rose from the ground one after another like three city walls, protecting her and Lei Yu, Wang Hao, and the others behind her. This was an absolute defense bought with her exhausted life force!

Just the second after the three layers of ice shields were formed. "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" Dozens of dark red steel bristle missiles, like a dense meteor shower, smashed hard into the first layer of the ice shield!

The violent Extreme Yang power collided tragically with the Absolute Zero ice shield. Blinding white smoke rose into the air. "Crack—BANG!" The first layer of the ice shield, in which Lin Qinghan had placed high hopes, lasted less than two seconds. In front of those steel bristles carrying abyssal kinetic energy, it was like fragile glass, shattering into a sky full of ice shards!

"Hold on for me!" Lin Qinghan pressed her hands firmly onto the sword hilt, blood seeping from her fingernails, desperately injecting power of the Law into the remaining two layers of ice shields. But it was useless.

The destructive power of the steel bristles in a berserk state was simply too terrifying. Not only were these spikes sharp, but they also carried extremely high-temperature lava blood, which was the absolute nemesis of frost.

"Bang!" The second layer of the ice shield was struck by five or six steel bristles simultaneously, emitting a groan of being unable to bear the load, and instantly collapsed. The last line of defense was exposed to the rain of death.

"Crack... crack crack..." On the third, and thickest, layer of the ice shield, dense spiderweb-like cracks began to appear. One, two, three dark red spikes pierced through the ice layer, their sharp tips less than ten centimeters from Lin Qinghan's eyes!

"I can't block it..." Lin Qinghan gritted her teeth, watching the ice wall that was about to completely collapse. She felt that the Frost Law within her had completely lost control. The extreme cold energy that should have been neutralized began to crazily backfire within her internal organs due to the burning of her heart blood and the violent external impact.

"BOOM—!!!" Accompanied by the final deafening explosion. The third layer of the ice shield, under the concentrated volley of a dozen steel bristles, finally shattered completely!

Having lost all barriers, the huge recoil force, mixed with the violent airwave, struck Lin Qinghan without reservation. "WAA—!" Lin Qinghan could no longer suppress her internal injuries; her throat tasted sweet, and she sprayed a large mouthful of tragic, bright blood toward the sky.

Her originally beautiful face was now pale as paper, without a hint of color. Her whole body was like a falling leaf drifting in a gale, staggering seven or eight steps backward, and finally, she weakly half-knelt in the cold, murky mud. She could only rely on her hands to firmly prop herself up with that broken, dilapidated long sword, barely managing not to collapse.

They had lost. A complete and utter defeat. A moment ago, the Kyoto Prodigy team was high and mighty, full of disdain for the wilderness beasts. At this moment. The main tank, Captain Zhang Meng, was unconscious, status unknown. The magic-user Wang Hao had his thigh pierced through, blood flowing all over the ground. The assassin Chen Fei was hung on a tree, having lost combat capability. The captain, Lin Qinghan, had overdrawn her life force, suffered Law backlash, and was severely injured and vomiting blood. The entire front had collapsed, with no power to fight back.

In the swamp of the Mist Forest, the smell of blood and scorched flesh, which caused despair, permeated the air. "ROAR—!" The Mutated Wild Boar, having finished one round of steel bristle volley, although its back had become bare, its eyes were becoming increasingly scarlet.

It took heavy steps, treading on the ice shards and muddy water covering the ground, walking out of the white steam step by step. That massive metallic body, in the eyes of the few survivors, was like an invincible Shinigami. A cruel low growl emanated from the wild boar's throat. It didn't bother with the prey that had already been pinned to the ground and unable to move, but instead locked its eyes, filled with brutality, onto Lei Yu, who was sitting limp in the mud, the only one who hadn't been injured yet.

Being stared at by those blood-red eyes. Lei Yu shuddered violently. Looking at the approaching shadow of death, the last line of psychological defense of this S-rank Genius completely collapsed.