Lou Gao was curled up inside a narrow rock crevice barely half a person deep, his back pressed tightly against scorching, bone-searing stone. His entire body felt as if it were frozen solid by invisible ice, yet at the same time as if he had been thrown into a boiling vat of oil, trembling violently under the simultaneous assault of extreme cold and searing heat.
All the sweat on his body had long since evaporated, his skin cracked and scorched, yet he was completely unaware of it.
Every one of his senses, every shred of his will, had been seized and crushed by the colossal bird-shaped phantom formed of pure light and heat within the core region of the mineral vein.
It was a kind of pressure… beyond description!
Lou Gao was not someone who had never seen the world.
He forged divine weapons and dealt regularly with the strongest figures under heaven. He had personally experienced, at close range, the vast soul power and imposing presence of Titled Douluo–level existences.
But that kind of power was an accumulation of quantity, a vastness of strength—terrifying, yes, yet still something that could be understood within the scope of mortals.
But the phantom before him…
What it radiated belonged to an entirely different dimension!
It was a suppression originating from the most fundamental level of life itself!
Like ants gazing up at the galaxy.
Like mayflies facing the boundless sea.
Its very existence was the embodiment of rules themselves, the incarnation of fire's primordial origin.
When those eyes, formed of eternally burning golden flames cast an indifferent glance his way, Lou Gao felt his very soul wailing and shrinking. He did not even have time to feel "fear"; all that remained was a complete, humble emptiness, an instinctive desire to vanish on the spot.
An ancient colossal fiend!
A god!
These two words leapt unbidden into Lou Gao's utterly blank mind.
Only gods, or ferocious beasts of this level, could possess such horrifying might—where merely the gaze of a phantom was enough to make a Soul Saint–level powerhouse lose all will to resist and have their soul scatter in terror!
The phantom of the fire giant bird hovered at the core of the ancient formation. Its gaze pierced through the collapsed mine tunnel, pierced through the chaotic battlefield, and finally locked firmly onto those two tiny yet extraordinarily "tenacious" figures—
Lin Xia and Larvitar.
Even at the instant when the descent of that vast will forcibly froze everything, Lin Xia's crimson-gold arm bones—already once more covered in molten, lava-like muscle were still dug tightly into the mineral vein flowing with liquid golden light.
Deep within Larvitar's crimson-gold flame-filled pupils, the instinctive flame of devouring had not completely extinguished either; it was merely being temporarily suppressed by a higher-level power.
The giant bird phantom seemed to be examining them.
Time passed within the suffocating silence.
Lou Gao could even hear his own heart pounding wildly within his chest, like the struggle of something on the brink of death—each beat tugging painfully at nerves crushed by overwhelming pressure.
Those remaining ten-thousand-year soul beasts, their courage long since shattered, were already prostrated on the ground. They did not dare to let out even a whimper, like the most insignificant motes of dust.
At last, the fire giant bird phantom seemed to have made some kind of decision.
A sigh—extremely faint, yet as if it echoed directly within the depths of one's soul—spread outward.
The emotions contained within that sigh were complex and difficult to discern: the embers of towering fury forcibly restrained, the helplessness of something under its protection being stolen, and even… an exceedingly faint, almost imperceptible trace of… recognition after scrutiny?
Or perhaps, a kind of fate-bound compromise?
The sigh fell.
The gigantic bird phantom, formed of pure light and heat, gently swept its flame-forged wings—wings that seemed capable of incinerating entire starfields.
There was no earth-shattering explosion of energy.
Only two streams of golden-red radiance, condensed to the absolute extremly pure as liquid suns, exuding indescribable vitality and primordial power, flowed out from the tips of its wings.
These two streams of light ignored spatial distance, ignored the high-temperature force fields surrounding Lin Xia and Larvitar that were capable of incinerating all things. Like weary birds returning to their nests, they precisely and gently sank into the core of Lin Xia's chest and the central core region of Larvitar's head.
Where those two stubbornly burning golden flames, representing their life imprints, resided!
"Weng—!"
An eerie resonance instantly rang throughout the entire mine tunnel!
At the moment the light streams entered them, Lin Xia and Larvitar's bodies erupted with an unprecedented, gentle yet incomparably profound crimson-gold radiance!
The transformation had begun!
First—the bones!
Lin Xia's crimson-gold bones, forged like divine metal, and Larvitar's lava-transformed armored skeletal frame, were nourished by the golden-red light streams. The ancient patterns upon their surfaces were instantly illuminated, activated, and began to spread, intertwine, and reorganize at a frenzied pace.
The patterns grew ever more intricate and profound, as if branding upon them the secrets of fire's birth.
The bones themselves became more restrained and refined, yet at the same time contained an explosive sense of power.
Streaks of crimson-gold energy pathways—like molten lava veins, began to clearly emerge and interconnect within the bones!
Immediately afterward came the reshaping of flesh!
Chi—chi—chi—
A sound that made one's scalp tingle, yet brimmed with the miracle of life, rang out.
Upon the bones shimmering with crimson-gold runes, countless fine, vivid-red buds of flesh—radiating dense vitality and pure fire elemental energy, sprouted wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye, spreading like bamboo shoots after a spring rain!
Blood vessels, nerves, fascia… these fundamental tissues that constitute life, under the guidance of the golden-red light streams and the supply of residual energy from the Sun Essence, were constructed and woven at an unprecedented level of efficiency and perfection, rapidly taking shape along the contours of the bones!
Lou Gao stared in utter shock, nearly forgetting the terrifying pressure altogether.
This was nothing short of a creator's divine miracle unfolding right before his eyes!
The charred, carbonized scars on Lin Xia's body were completely replaced and covered by rapidly growing, vivid-red muscle tissue.
Those muscle lines were smooth yet brimming with explosive power, their surfaces faintly flowing with a crimson-gold radiance, as though they were not flesh and blood at all, but a fusion of condensed magma and the essence of life.
A layer of flexible yet incomparably tough fascia covered them.
Larvitar's transformation was equally astonishing.
The semi-transparent lava armor on its body did not disappear; instead, after merging with the golden-red light streams, it became even more profound and restrained, like the cooled and solidified core of a star.
Beneath the armor, there was no longer emptiness nor mere molten energy. Instead, energy pathways resembling muscle tissue—formed of pure fire elemental power and life essence—also grew into existence, clearly visible between the armor's seams, like flowing magma rivers, complementing the even more brilliantly glowing runes upon the armor.
Then came the regeneration of organs!
Within Lin Xia's newly formed chest cavity, a powerful heart was the first to condense into shape!
It was not an ordinary flesh-and-blood heart, but a "Heart of Flame" wrapped in crimson-gold runes, with a cluster of eternal golden flames leaping at its core!
With every single beat, it drew the surrounding violent fire elements into resonance. What it pumped forth was no longer blood, but a crimson-gold "liquid flame" formed from the fusion of pure life energy and flame power, surging through his entire body along a newly born circulatory system likewise composed of energy pathways!
The brain, lungs, liver… all vital organs, under the guidance of the golden-red light streams and the energy supply of the Heart of Flame, were rapidly reshaped—using crimson-gold bones as the foundation, newborn flesh-energy networks as the framework, and pure fire elemental power as the core!
These organs were no longer fragile; they themselves were powerful energy nodes, radiating surging vitality and the might of flame.
A layer of resilient, smooth skin like the finest jade, quickly covered Lin Xia's newly reborn body, presenting a healthy wheat-colored tone, yet faintly revealing an inner crimson-gold glow.
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