Chapter 17: The Location of the Passage
In the sixth layer of the Gods' Cemetery, the Flame Monarch, as massive as a mountain, stood with his feet planted on the rocky ground, wielding a bloodthirsty giant axe. Flames shot from his eyes as he roared in fury, causing the rivers of magma throughout the entire sixth layer to surge and churn violently.
The ten mighty experts hovering in midair all sensed trouble.
"What do we do?" Rosalind whispered.
The others remained silent.
"We missed our best chance. Killing the Flame Monarch now will be very difficult." Tulily's gaze was fixed entirely on the distant Flame Monarch. "Rutherford, Rosalind, we'll have to try once more and see if we can succeed."
Rutherford and Rosalind both nodded slightly.
"My children," the Flame Monarch roared angrily. "Attack! Kill them all with me!" As he spoke, his body transformed into a massive red phantom, charging forward with a terrifying screech. Despite his enormous size, his speed was astonishing.
The ten experts reacted in unison.
"Retreat first. Buy Rosalind some time." Desri's voice echoed in the minds of the other nine experts.
Casting a forbidden spell, especially one of such a large scale, required a considerable amount of time. The ten experts shot backward like ten meteors, each moving at incredible speed, none slower than the Flame Monarch.
"Hmph!" The Flame Monarch's angry snort rang out.
"Roar~~~" Dense hordes of Crimson Rock Demons swarmed in from all directions.
"We can't let these Crimson Rock Demons slow us down. If our speed drops and the Flame Monarch catches up, we're finished." Fain's voice also echoed in everyone's minds. All the experts present understood this principle. Immediately, the seven outer experts unleashed their unique skills.
They protected the three in the inner circle from any interference.
"How strange." Linley flew at top speed but noticed that none of the Crimson Rock Demons dared to approach him.
"These Crimson Rock Demons won't go near Linley." Desri, Fain, and the others also noticed this. They found it both amusing and frustrating but could only continue forcing the Crimson Rock Demons back.
When fighting other magical beast experts, or Fain, Desri, and the others, the Crimson Rock Demons would at most suffer severe injuries. They could recover after resting for a while. But when fighting Linley... as soon as they were touched by his fist, they would shatter completely, dying beyond any hope of recovery.
"Linley, protect Rosalind!" Desri's voice rang in Linley's mind.
"Got it." Linley flew closer to Rosalind.
Immediately, no Crimson Rock Demon dared to attack Rosalind either. If any tried, Linley would simply move and land a punch. One touch from Linley's fist, and those Crimson Rock Demons were dead.
"Kill that female human!" The Flame Monarch's urgent roar sounded.
The Flame Monarch was well aware of Rosalind's threat. He was of the fire element, and Rosalind happened to be his natural counter... Although Desri was also a Saint-level Archmage, his threat to the Flame Monarch was far less than Rosalind's.
"Roar~~" "Roar~~" "Roar~~"
Instantly, a large number of Crimson Rock Demons gritted their teeth, ignoring Linley, and charged forward with furious roars, heading straight for Rosalind.
"Perfect timing!" Linley laughed loudly, his dark golden pupils sweeping over the many Crimson Rock Demons. Then his entire body turned into a gust of wind. Not only did his fists swing wildly, but his legs also lashed out like guillotine blades. Any Crimson Rock Demon struck by his legs was instantly reduced to dust.
"Whoosh~~"
The air temperature plummeted sharply. The surging rivers of magma instantly solidified, turning into rocky ground. Even the crimson rocks darkened to a blackish hue. Countless frost and ice fell from the sky, filling the area for several miles around the Flame Monarch.
Water-element forbidden spell — Absolute Zero!
"Roar~~" The Flame Monarch's entire body was covered in frost, yet he let out a thunderous roar. The ashen, rocky skin on his surface began to glow red again, while the frost covering him slowly melted.
Seeing this, everyone felt a sense of dread.
"His soul wasn't affected." Rosalind's expression changed. The forbidden spell 'Absolute Zero' also carried a soul attack. The first time, the Flame Monarch had been stunned by the soul impact. But this time, he was completely unaffected.
"Whoosh!"
An invisible wave emanated from Desri's body, shooting toward the Flame Monarch at an astonishing speed. It instantly invaded the Flame Monarch's body. Desri, the Light Saint-level Archmage, was highly skilled in mental attacks.
The Flame Monarch's roar abruptly stopped.
"Good!" Fain, Tulily, and the other experts' eyes lit up.
"Rutherford." Tulily shouted in a low voice.
A lightning-fast figure shot forward. Rutherford's face was somewhat ferocious, and his palms were completely enveloped in cyan light. Even if someone stood close to Rutherford, they wouldn't feel the slightest chill. Rutherford had cultivated the ice-cold power of the water-element laws to an extremely high level.
But at that moment, dozens of Crimson Rock Demons suddenly emerged from beneath the Flame Monarch, charging at Rutherford to block his path.
Like a streak of cyan lightning, Rutherford dodged most of the Crimson Rock Demons and struck two of them with his palms. The two demons were instantly frozen solid, then with two 'crack' sounds, they shattered into frozen chunks.
"Die!" Rutherford had already flown in front of the Flame Monarch, his palms about to strike.
"Whoosh!" The Flame Monarch's massive body, which had been motionless, suddenly retreated at incredible speed. At the same time, his bloodthirsty giant axe, glowing with an eerie blood-red light, traced a sinister arc and came slashing down at Rutherford's head. The speed of this axe swing was terrifying beyond belief.
The Flame Monarch's flight speed was slower than theirs, but the speed at which he swung his axe was absolutely horrifying.
"Watch out!" Linley, Desri, Fain, and the others tensed up.
"Ah!" Rutherford looked up at the hundred-meter-long, icy-cold axe blade descending upon him. His heart trembled with fear. He had no time to dodge, so he roared in fury, his cyan-light-enshrouded palms striking upward to block.
Two palms against a bloodthirsty giant axe!
The difference in scale was absurd.
"Clang!" A sound like metal colliding rang out. Rutherford was sent flying backward like a meteor. The Flame Monarch, however, didn't immediately pursue. Instead, he stood there laughing smugly.
"Rutherford!" Tulily and the others rushed forward to catch him.
Rutherford's face was deathly pale. His hands, from the elbows down, had completely vanished in a bizarre manner. His shoulders were torn open, and blood soaked his clothes.
"Don't touch that axe. It's strange and terrifying." Rutherford said, his entire body trembling.
Desri immediately extended his hand. A dreamlike light, like starlight, descended, covering Rutherford's entire body. Rutherford's injuries healed at an astonishing rate, and even his missing hands visibly regrew.
"Haha, interesting, very interesting." The Flame Monarch laughed heartily instead.
"This Flame Monarch is toying with us." Desri frowned.
Linley glanced at the distant Flame Monarch. The Flame Monarch was indeed playing with them. Perhaps even his earlier furious pursuit had been a pretense.
Linley was certain of one thing: "The Flame Monarch wasn't really hit by Desri's soul attack earlier. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so coincidental that he attacked Rutherford at the most critical moment, catching him so perfectly that Rutherford couldn't even dodge."
"Haha..." The Flame Monarch's thunderous voice echoed through the sixth layer. "Interesting, truly interesting. Surprised, aren't you?"
"Indeed, your first attack had a chance to kill me. But that was because I was careless." The Flame Monarch looked at the tiny humans floating in the distance. "Soul attacks? My soul is incredibly powerful. And I have 'Bloodthirst'."
The Flame Monarch looked at the giant axe in his hand. "This is a true divine artifact. With 'Bloodthirst', I can enter my current bloodthirsty state. In this state, your pathetic soul attacks can't harm me."
Desri, Linley, and the others exchanged glances.
"This is bad." Everyone felt a sense of dread.
"Originally, I might have spared one or two of you. But now..." An eerie red light flickered across the Flame Monarch's body. "All of you will die." As he spoke, cracking sounds came from his body.
The Flame Monarch's size began to shrink!
The Flame Monarch, originally hundreds of meters tall, was now wreathed in flames, with red light surging. In just a moment...
He shrank from hundreds of meters to just a few dozen meters tall.
Now, the Flame Monarch's entire body seemed covered in a layer of red light, and his aura had become terrifying.
"It's been a long time since I entered my battle form." The bloodthirsty giant axe in the Flame Monarch's hand had also shrunk significantly. Truly a divine artifact.
"Everyone be careful." The ten experts all sensed the gravity of the situation and didn't know how to deal with the Flame Monarch.
"Swish!"
The Flame Monarch moved. A flash of eerie red light shot into the air, moving as fast as Fain. Among the ten experts, the fastest were Bebe, Fain, and Desri. The other seven were slightly slower.
The eerie red light enveloped Tulily.
Tulily couldn't escape in time.
"Break!" Tulily roared in fury, his expression ferocious, and slammed his fists forward.
"Clang!"
Tulily's arms exploded, and his body was sent flying backward like a meteor struck by a massive rock, blood spraying everywhere. Tulily, the strongest attacker among the five Saint-level limits, was now in critical condition after a single exchange.
By then, Linley and the other eight experts had already fled far away.
Desri turned his body into a beam of light, moving at incredible speed. He noticed Higginson and the others not far away. "Have you found the passage?" Higginson and the other twenty-plus experts had been searching for the passage to the seventh layer.
"We can't find it." Higginson replied, frustrated and helpless.
"The passage? Haha..." A phantom axe blade swept past Desri and the large group. Desri grabbed Higginson and dodged immediately.
Blood sprayed through the air. A magical beast expert and two Saint-level experts from the second group were instantly sliced in half. Their corpses fell from midair. The magical beast's body landed on the rocks, while the other two fell into the magma river.
Fain's expression changed. "Sixth junior apprentice brother."
"You won't find the passage." The Flame Monarch, enveloped in red light, hovered in midair, laughing. "The passage to the seventh layer is actually at the center of the sixth layer. But my thousand-plus children have been staying there, completely blocking it. If you want to enter the seventh layer through the passage, you'll have to kill all of my thousand-plus children."
Linley and the other experts felt a chill in their hearts.
"Over a thousand." Linley and Bebe exchanged glances.
"Boss, even if we charged in, we'd probably only kill ten before the Flame Monarch reached the passage." Bebe also sensed the danger.
Now, the Flame Monarch's speed matched Bebe's and Fain's, and his attacks... even the strongest, Tulily, was no match for him. If this continued, none of the experts present would survive.
"Why are there so many Crimson Rock Demons?" Linley looked at Desri.
According to Desri, there had only been about a thousand Crimson Rock Demons in the sixth layer. Desri glanced at Linley. "Linley, three thousand years ago, we only entered the sixth layer briefly before being driven out. The estimate of over a thousand was just a guess."
Linley had nothing to say.
"Desri, help me out." Linley suddenly took a deep breath and whispered to Desri.
"Hmm?" Desri looked at Linley in surprise.
"This is my strongest move. If this doesn't work... we'll have to find a way to retreat to the fifth layer." Linley flipped his hand, and the Black Heavy Sword appeared in his grasp.