Chapter 725: Experiment and Rescue
As the pale, multi-armed bone guard swarmed out from underground, instantly forming an airtight cage of death to trap Hishiyama Fuen, Kazumi’s playful smile widened beneath her hood. She didn’t rush to follow up with an attack, but instead took a leisurely step back, like an observer standing apart from the fray, calmly assessing the practical effectiveness of her newly acquired [Bone Prison Technique].
Within the bone prison, Hishiyama Fuen was shocked and enraged. A fierce burst of flames erupted around him, a crimson tide of fire sweeping outwards from his center, desperately attempting to incinerate the malevolent bony structure with its most violent heat.
“Boom! Rumble!”
The scorching flames impacted the pale bone walls, emitting deafening roars. The intense heat rapidly charred and carbonized the surface of the bones, with some areas even showing signs of melting. However, the unique traits of these bone prison guards were fully showcased at this moment. Their bone material was abnormally hard, far exceeding that of ordinary skeletons, and they seemed to possess considerable resistance to energy attacks, especially elemental damage.
Even more troublesome was that their structure wasn’t fixed!
Whenever a section of the bone wall became brittle from the flames and was about to collapse, the surrounding bone guards would immediately squirm. Their excess, agile pale arms would reach out like living snakes, swiftly dismantling and reassembling the damaged parts. New, intact bones were continuously summoned from underground, ensuring that even as the entire bone prison groaned under the heat and emitted rolling black smoke, it stubbornly maintained its basic containment form, like a living prison with self-repair capabilities.
“Damn it! This thing… why is it so troublesome!” Veins bulged on Hishiyama Fuen’s forehead, the sweat that beaded from his skin evaporating instantly from the intense heat.
He could feel that the bone prison wasn’t just physically restricting his movement; it was also constantly emitting a chilling aura of death, like invisible tentacles, penetrating his defenses and corroding his stamina and flame energy. If he stayed trapped inside for too long, even if he wasn’t killed, he’d be worn down to death!
He had to break free!
With his thoughts racing, Hishiyama Fuen changed his strategy. He stopped trying to use area-of-effect flames to blast the entire bone prison. Instead, he highly compressed and condensed the flames, forming a dazzling, white-hot greatsword of fire! He poured all his strength into the tip of the spear, aiming at what appeared to be the weakest connected node on the bone prison walls. With a roar, he thrust forward fiercely!
“Break!”
The white-hot flame spear, imbued with a resolute aura, pierced fiercely into the pale bone wall! This time, the extreme heat and penetrating power had an effect! With a loud “Bang!”, the targeted section of bone wall finally blasted open with a sizable gap, sending bone fragments flying! Although the surrounding bone walls immediately squirmed to repair the breach, Hishiyama Fuen seized the fleeting opportunity the moment the gap appeared!
His body moved like lightning, propelled by the flames enveloping him, transforming into a crimson streak of light as he squeezed forcefully through the gap, barely escaping! The price was his combat suit’s edge being torn by sharp bone shards, and his skin bearing several scorched marks with a chilling icy aura. His aura also appeared somewhat disordered due to this full-power burst.
He succeeded, but the process was far more difficult than he had anticipated.
Standing beyond the bone army, Kazumi watched the slightly disheveled Hishiyama Fuen. She nodded slightly, murmuring as if recording experimental data, “Energy resistance, especially against sustained area-of-effect elemental attacks like flames, performed excellently. The self-repair mechanism effectively delayed the time it took to forcefully break through. It seems that for opponents lacking instantaneous high-intensity point-breaking abilities, or those not skilled in close-quarters rapid dismantling, this move’s containment effect is indeed quite practical.”
Her tone was calm and even, as if the person she had just trapped wasn’t a Professional Hero, but merely a practice dummy for testing.
Hishiyama Fuen had only just managed to catch his breath, not yet having had time to calm his surging qi and blood or contemplate his next move, when his pupils suddenly contracted! Directly in front of him, less than three meters away, a ghostly, dark green portal opened without warning, like the eye of a ghoul! The interior was deep and dark, exuding an ominous aura. Immediately following, a black, elongated object was violently thrown from within the portal, hurtling towards the ground before him!
It was a corpse! A corpse wearing the standard black combat suit of an Dark Organization! The wounds on the body clearly indicated they were inflicted by the combat style of the Heroes Association!
“What?!” Hishiyama Fuen’s internal alarm bells blared. Although he didn’t understand how, a strong sense of crisis made him retreat almost instinctively!
However, it was still a moment too late.
Just before the corpse touched the ground, practically in mid-air, it suddenly imploded silently like a bomb that had just been detonated, and then— “BOOM!!!”
A colossal explosion, far more muffled than the burning of the bone army, yet carrying the unique viscosity of flesh and blood, suddenly erupted! A terrifying shockwave, carrying shattered corpse fragments, scorched bone dust, foul-smelling decaying organs, and dark, black blood, splattered wildly in all directions like a blooming death flower from hell!
The force of the explosion far exceeded ordinary gunpowder. The ground was blasted into an irregular, blackened pit, and an area several meters around it was instantly covered in a rain of filthy flesh and blood. The air immediately filled with a foul stench, a mixture of scorched smell, putridness, and an indescribable odor of decay. Some dark green, highly toxic mist even slowly rose from the center of the explosion.
Although Hishiyama Fuen reacted extremely quickly and avoided the core impact of the explosion, the range and speed of the flying filth and flesh were too great. His left arm experienced a sudden, intense sting of pain and paralysis. He looked down to see a piece of flesh, tinged with dark green, embedded in his forearm like a leech! The skin around the wound rapidly turned an unnatural blue-black, accompanied by waves of numbness and stinging pain, clearly indicating a potent toxin. His left arm immediately felt heavy and stiff, slowing his movements.
“There’s still a reaction time when releasing,” Kazumi tilted her head, observing the effects of the explosion and Hishiyama Fuen’s wound, murmuring to herself, “It seems even infusing a corpse with energy beforehand and then instantly teleporting it through the ghost gate still has a slight delay, not perfect? Or perhaps I misjudged the synchronization timing of the detonation and teleportation? Maybe… next time I’ll try opening the ghost gate directly in the enemy’s face just before the explosion happens?”
She completely ignored Hishiyama Fuen’s pained and angry expression due to the poisoning, as if his life or death mattered less than the optimization of her spells.
Just as Hishiyama Fuen was forcefully suppressing the numbness and agony in his arm, attempting to ignite flames to burn away the poison, “Shh!” Another corpse, this time appearing out of nowhere in the mid-air in front of and above him, plummeted directly downwards! Moreover, the moment this corpse appeared, unstable dark green light illuminated its surface, swelling much faster than the previous one!
“Again?!” Hishiyama Fuen was both shocked and enraged. This time, he was prepared. Although his left arm was injured, he forcefully swung his right arm, and the crimson flames around him rose again, forming a swirling shield of fire encircling him!
“Boom!”
The second corpse exploded violently almost upon touching the edge of the flame shield! Filthy blood and shattered flesh splattered again, but most of it was vaporized and deflected by the scorching flame shield. The powerful shockwave made Hishiyama Fuen stagger, and the flame shield flickered, but he managed to avoid direct severe injury.
“Bastard!” Attacked repeatedly in such strange and malicious ways, Hishiyama Fuen was burning with rage. He locked onto Kazumi’s location and unleashed a concentrated blast of violent flames from his right fist, striking across the distance!
A scorching pillar of fire roared towards Kazumi. However, facing this enraged attack, Kazumi didn’t even need to move much to dodge. She merely took a slight step back as if walking in a leisurely garden, and her figure vanished into the dark green [Ghost Gate], which had quietly opened behind her at some point.
The pillar of fire passed through the afterimage she left behind, violently hitting the already dilapidated wall behind, kicking up a sky full of rubble and dust.
And in the next moment, in a shadow dozens of meters away from her original position, another [Ghost Gate] silently opened, and Kazumi stepped out unharmed. The gaze beneath her hood remained calm, carrying a chilling, scrutinizing intent.
Hishiyama Fuen’s expression was extremely solemn, a chill gradually creeping into his heart. In just a short engagement, he had deeply experienced the difficulty and power of this small, black-robed enemy. Their endless supply of bizarre abilities, precise control of the battlefield’s tempo, and that… almost as if treating himself as a test subject, a careless yet lethally malicious attitude!
This was absolutely not an opponent he could defeat alone! To remain here would not only make it impossible to complete his mission but could even lead to his death!
With this thought, Hishiyama Fuen made a decisive choice. He stopped trying to attack Kazumi; instead, he stomped his foot hard and raised his hand, releasing a spreading circle of fire towards the ground beneath Kazumi’s feet!
“Whoosh—”
The flames didn’t attack directly but swept along the ground, instantly kicking up a large amount of dust and smoke, obscuring Kazumi’s vision.
Simultaneously, Hishiyama Fuen, enduring the numbness in his left arm and the dizziness caused by the poison, unhesitatingly turned around, his speed pushed to the extreme, and fled towards the direction of the main force of the hero faction. He needed to call for backup; only by gathering the strength of more heroes could they deal with this dangerous enemy!
His reaction was swift, and his decision was extremely sound. However, he had overlooked, or rather, underestimated, Kazumi’s battle calculation ability, which seemed almost prescient.
The moment he unleashed his full power and leaped forward, when his old strength was depleted and new strength was not yet gained, rendering him unable to change direction, a dark green portal, like a trap waiting for its prey, precisely and unerringly opened at his intended landing spot in front of him, with only a hair’s breadth to spare! The size of the portal was just enough for one person to pass through!
“This is bad!”
The only desperate thought in Hishiyama Fuen’s mind was this. He had no time to make any evasive moves. The entire person, as if throwing himself into an embrace, plunged headfirst into that dark green portal exuding an aura of ominosity and death!
The instant he passed through the portal, an intensely cold and corrosive pain surged through his entire body, as if countless icy needles were piercing every pore. An eerie energy, filled with a sense of dead silence and decay, flooded into his body like a tide, violently battering his life source and corroding his flame energy! He couldn’t help but let out a muffled groan, feeling as if his internal organs were freezing and tearing apart.
The surrounding scene underwent a dizzying transformation the moment he passed through the portal. After the nauseating spatial distortion disappeared, he found himself… back in the same battlefield area, not far from where he had tried to escape!
And the small, black-robed enemy, as if having anticipated all of this, stood quietly before him, less than five steps away! That eerie, grayish-white, slender arm was raised high, fingers together, fingertips extending into sharp, blade-like bone claws, carrying a chilling, deadly cold. It was already swinging towards his neck! The speed was so fast it exceeded his reaction limit after being poisoned and injured!
“Swish—”
“Clang—!”
The expected sharp pain of his neck being severed and blood spraying did not come. Hishiyama Fuen, who had instinctively closed his eyes, abruptly opened them, and the sight that greeted him stunned him instantly.
A tall, robust figure like an iron tower, with blond hair, had appeared before him at some unknown time. One hand was raised high, blocking the fatal slash precisely.
