Lin Xia was completely dumbfounded.
His last memory was of himself and Larvitar about to be burned to ashes by the Sun Essence. Yet after merely "opening his eyes," not only was he perfectly alive, with his physical body fully restored but Larvitar had even changed color?
The sense of power within him was fuller than ever before, yet the changes to his body felt utterly unfamiliar!
However, after staring at the red armor covering its body for a long while, Larvitar's thoughts shifted. With a subtle movement of will, the red coloration rapidly faded, flowing into the phoenix emblem on its small claw, restoring its appearance to its original state.
Seeing this, Lin Xia was just about to say something when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a burly figure seated cross-legged at the mine entrance, sitting as stiff as a stone statue, watching him with a mix of tension and relief.
"Teacher!"
An overwhelming surge of joy and relief flooded his heart!
Lin Xia no longer cared to examine himself. He scooped up the still-dazed Larvitar in one motion, his figure flashing forward!
Whoosh!
Without using any Soul Power at all—relying purely on the explosive strength of his newly reborn body, Lin Xia crossed dozens of meters in an instant, like teleportation. A wave of scorching air trailed behind him as he landed firmly before Lou Gao!
The speed was so fast that even Lou Gao, a Soul Sage, almost failed to react in time.
"Teacher! You're all right! That's wonderful!"
Lin Xia's voice trembled with excitement and lingering fear. He set Larvitar down and tightly grasped Lou Gao's rough, calloused hand. Feeling the real warmth and pulse beneath his fingers, the massive weight in his heart finally eased.
Lou Gao looked at his disciple—completely unharmed, yet with an aura as deep and unfathomable as an abyss and then at Larvitar beside him, its armored shell imposing and its presence already beginning to manifest. His eyes instantly reddened. He grabbed Lin Xia's wrist in return, his voice choked with emotion.
"You little brat! You finally woke up! You scared the hell out of me! As long as you're fine, so long as you're fine!"
As the excitement of surviving the ordeal gradually subsided, the countless questions crowding Lin Xia's mind immediately erupted.
Pointing at himself, then at Larvitar, Lin Xia asked anxiously, "Teacher! What exactly happened? Why am I completely fine? I remember… I remember swallowing that piece of Sun Essence—I felt like my whole body was about to be burned away! Even my bones… I felt like they were turning to ash! But now… now I'm not only fine, I even feel…"
He swung his arm, the sharp whistling sound of displaced air clearly audible.
"…like my body is overflowing with endless strength? And Larvitar—why did it turn into this? This mine… these traces of battle… what on earth happened? How long have we been here?"
His questions burst forth like a barrage of cannon fire, every one of them pointing toward those blank, terrifying, and miraculous ten-plus days.
Lou Gao took a deep breath, steadying his emotions. Looking at his disciple's dark-gold eyes, filled with confusion and a thirst for answers, his expression was one of lingering dread, mixed with overwhelming shock and incomprehension.
"Fine?"
Lou Gao let out a bitter chuckle, his voice low and slow, as if digging that nightmare out from the depths of his memory.
"You call this 'fine'? Do you have any idea—just over ten days ago, in my eyes, you were nothing but a charred skeleton! Burned down to the bone! Even Larvitar was nearly blasted apart!"
Lin Xia's pupils contracted sharply.
"Wh… what?!"
Lou Gao began to recount the events, his voice filled with reverence and lingering fear, as though he were narrating a myth.
"The energy of the Sun Essence was far too terrifying… the moment you swallowed it, your entire body… instantly carbonized! Flesh scorched and peeled away, leaving only… a skeleton! A glowing, red-gold skeleton!"
"Then… those volcanic soul beasts went mad! They were summoned by some terrifying voice from deep underground and charged in without hesitation, determined to tear you apart!"
"Ten-thousand-year soul beasts! Self-destruction! The entire mine nearly collapsed! You and Larvitar were blown apart—your bones scattered everywhere!"
"I thought… it was all over…"
Lou Gao's voice trembled.
"But… at that moment… a miracle—no, a divine miracle—occurred!"
His gaze became incomparably complex, filled with awe.
"A colossal phoenix phantom, formed entirely of pure flames, rose up from deep within the mineral vein!"
"In its presence, I didn't even dare lift my head! That was… that was absolute suppression at the level of life itself! The aura of an ancient ferocious entity!"
Lin Xia felt a chill run through his entire body. He subconsciously touched his arms and chest, unable to imagine that he had once been nothing more than a skeletal frame.
"It… it seemed furious that you were devouring the mineral vein… but it also seemed… unable to stop you? Or perhaps… unwilling to completely destroy you?"
Lou Gao struggled to recall that incomprehensible scene.
"It… it stayed silent for a long time. In the end… it seemed to sigh?"
"Then it waved its wings once. Two beams of flame-filled light entered your body and Larvitar's…"
Lou Gao's tone was filled with disbelief.
"And then… with my own eyes… I witnessed a divine miracle descend!"
"New flesh grew upon your bones! Blood vessels, nerves, a heart… a heart of flames beating within your chest cavity! Every organ… layer by layer, regenerated anew! It was as if… as if the earth itself were reshaping a life!"
"Larvitar was the same. Its armor became even stronger, and something new grew within it as well… and then your skin… in the end, you both became what you are now! Completely unharmed! Even… stronger than before!"
Lou Gao pointed at Lin Xia's left forearm.
"Look! And this too! Before that flame phoenix disappeared, this appeared on both of you!"
Lin Xia abruptly raised his left hand, his gaze locking tightly onto the lifelike crimson-gold phoenix imprint on the inner side of his forearm.
He could clearly sense that this imprint was forming a mysterious and intimate connection—with the scorching energy flowing through his blood, and even with Larvitar beside him.
Larvitar also raised its left forelimb, revealing the phoenix imprint on its armored shell to Lin Xia, letting out a low, puzzled growl tinged with the same confusion.
"It… it took away all the Soul Beast corpses in the end… and then it disappeared…"
Lou Gao let out a long breath, as if finally laying down a burden weighing thousands of jin.
"After that… the two of you acted as if nothing had happened, continuing to gnaw on the mineral vein… gnawing away at it for more than ten days, devouring nearly half of it… before finally stopping and waking up."
Silence fell over the mine tunnel, broken only by the slow flow of golden light within the remnants of the mineral vein.
Lin Xia lowered his head, looking at his newly reborn hands—hands brimming with terrifying power, then at the mysterious phoenix imprint on his arm, and finally at Larvitar beside him, whose form had clearly undergone tremendous change.
Every word Lou Gao had spoken struck his heart like a heavy hammer.
From near-complete carbonization and bones scattered apart…to the descent of the flame phoenix, the reshaping of flesh and body, the acquisition of the phoenix imprint and then devouring an immense quantity of Sun Essence without suffering the slightest harm…
What, exactly, had he experienced during those ten-plus days?
"Suppression at the level of life… ancient ferocious entity… phoenix imprint… reshaping the flesh…"
Lin Xia murmured softly. In his dark-gold eyes, confusion gradually gave way to a deep urge to explore and a faint, instinctive reverence.
He clenched his fist, feeling the unfamiliar yet vast flame power surging within his body.
"Teacher…"
Lin Xia lifted his head, his voice carrying a trace of dryness.
"We… seem to have been dragged into something… truly extraordinary."
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