Chapter 368: 143. The Yellow Bird (4k)
Fisher carried Valentina as he jumped upward towards the location of the base, but he did not take her all the way to the entrance of the curse. Instead, he placed her behind a door and turned to Valentina, saying,
“I’ll handle the rest. Wait here. Of course, if anything changes, just act as I told you. But no matter what, don’t take off the ring I gave you, okay?”
While rushing up from the bottom platform, Fisher had already roughly calculated the possible scenarios and devised corresponding countermeasures, which was why he gave Valentina a shot of encouragement now.
Valentina sat on the ground, hugging herself tightly, then nodded. The magic ring on her ring finger flickered with a faint glow, which was precisely what protected her royal bloodline as the Moon Princess from being detected by the curse.
Fisher then took Emhart from his arms and placed him beside Valentina. He instructed Emhart,
“Emhart, stay with Valentina. If anything happens, you must help her.”
Emhart reluctantly turned to look at Fisher behind him. He had intended to follow Fisher upwards, but sensing the intense vibrations coming from above, as if a battle had begun, he hesitated for a moment and decided to obey Fisher’s words, staying by Valentina’s side,
“Alright. Just don’t die, or I’ll expose all your misdeeds.”
Fisher nodded silently, then extended the Fluid Sword and leaped towards the location of the base, leaving Valentina and Emhart staring at each other in the same place.
Valentina cautiously touched the inside of her clothing, where, unnoticeably, the shape of a knife handle was outlined.
“Screech!”
The more Fisher leapt upward, a sense of impact seemingly from the depths of the soul accompanied by a familiar cry flowed through the space within the parasol tree. In the center of this wide, cylindrical space, a large door about twenty meters high had been cracked open, and Fisher could feel Erwind and the base within.
He carefully opened another soul magic that isolated the curse’s detection and entered through the door. Behind it lay a long corridor; at the end of the corridor, there was no door, so it openly revealed a huge space.
It was a room filled with a sense of ceremony, with walls and ceilings intricately carved with various phoenix-style sculptures. In the center of the room stood a gigantic throne made of black minerals, just like the one Fisher had seen in his dreams, except this time he saw it from the front.
Upon that massive throne lay a distorted and deformed monster. Its indescribable body was covered in black irregularly shaped feathers, and on the top of that deformed body were three or four bulbous growths that may or may not have been heads, each irregularly dotted with densely packed ice-colored eyes, identical to those Fisher had seen in the curse.
Just looking at that huge and bizarre being made Fisher feel his scalp tingle because he clearly recognized that the life rank of what was on the throne was far higher than his or Erwind’s, but it lacked any intelligence, resembling a twisted and mad mass, continuously opening its many mouths and screaming incomprehensible words.
That ugly and deformed monster was the incomplete base formed by the pollution of the Phoenix Race by the existence of the Spirit Realm. At this moment, a beautifully crafted giant sword was still embedded in it—a relic, and it was of a much higher grade than the Ice Prince sword or Moon Princess sword Fisher had seen before; it appeared to be the Phoenix King’s sword.
Endless living ice was growing from the Phoenix King’s sword, rendering the base on the throne immobile, yet some of its tendrils still extended, battling Erwind, who stood before the massive throne wearing a bird-beak mask.
In the distance, in the spacious hall, Erwind was struggling to fend off the tendrils and flesh extending from the base. It seemed that even Erwind found it difficult to handle a base that had surpassed the mythical rank. However, because the base lacked any intelligence, ignoring Valentina’s factor, it had no means to effectively deal with either Erwind or itself.
Fisher silently observed Erwind and the curse’s every move from the darkness of the rear corridor. Just as he slowly approached the front hall, he suddenly felt a chill behind him, along with a calm voice that came simultaneously,
“Are you waiting for both me and the curse to weaken each other, Fisher?”
Fisher momentarily paused his movements, his eyes flickering. The battle in the hall continued, but beside him in the darkness, Erwind had already stood there with his arms crossed. The bird-beak mask embedded in his face lifted slightly, and the lens of the mask reflected Fisher’s figure.
Upon seeing Erwind, Fisher suddenly raised the Fluid Sword in his hand, for the next moment, the Erwind in front of him transformed into a devastating bolt of lightning that slammed him against the wall behind.
“Boom!”
With a loud rumble, Fisher jumped up into the air, dodging the deadly attack from Erwind. He turned to look at the hall and found that the “Erwind” there was far slower and weaker than the one before him; that was a creature of his making, a ploy.
Fisher narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the life lord standing in the smoke before him, suddenly speaking,
“When did you realize that this curse was formed after being polluted by the Spirit Realm?”
“When I was in Miya, the curse appeared during the battle between my creation and you. I felt the soul attached to my creation was also damaged, and I traced the soul’s injury back to the source, discovering that many chaotic races that should have been in their place in the Spirit Realm had disappeared. I suspected that something must have happened in the Spirit Realm to cause this. If I stubbornly relied on the Spirit Realm to enter the mythical realm, it would be foolish.”
He opened his hands and said to Fisher, which practically meant that after Miya, Erwind had shifted his target back to Fisher, or rather to the “Soul Supplement Handbook” he possessed.
“When you were in Nali, you did not carefully study the Soul Supplement Handbook. There was insufficient evidence on you, so I could not fully expose the Magic Lord’s lie that a person could only read one Handbook. But now, look, you clearly exude the aura of having read two Handbooks while still maintaining your sanity, which already demonstrates that the Magic Lord has deceived us all.”
“You don’t have a perfect chance to defeat me, who has a higher rank than you, by trying to use the polluted curse against me; conversely, I cannot guarantee that I can avoid the death runes gifted to you by that demon, right?”
Fisher quietly touched a short dagger-shaped item hidden in his clothing. The two stood in the corridor facing off until Erwind turned to look at the twisted base sealed on the throne by the Phoenix King’s sword, then he abruptly spoke,
“Then, let’s stake everything on this curse. I can feel that this thing’s rank is above the mythical level, yet it is incomplete. Let me guess, this is the reason for the demise of the phoenixes; it must still be searching for the last lost phoenix bloodline in an attempt to become complete, and you just happened to bring the phoenix’s bloodline with you.”
Erwind was not only extremely intelligent, but he had also possessed the Supplement Handbook for a long time, giving him far more experience regarding matters in this world than Fisher, who had not yet reached thirty. It was no wonder that the demons locked in the abyss sent people to hunt him down, and that even equipped with death runes, he repeatedly managed to escape, which sufficiently indicated how troublesome Erwind was.
Just like now, he didn’t even converse with the Moon Princess but merely deduced, breaking through the situation here and Fisher’s calculations. To deal with this enemy, Fisher had to muster an unprecedented focus.
“Erwind, the beings in the Spirit Realm are beyond what you and I can imagine. Once this thing becomes complete, it will descend here. At that point, even if you defeat me and take the Soul Supplement Handbook, you won’t be able to leave the Parasol Tree.”
“Oh, is that so? Then, let’s both make an effort before this bottom line. Let’s see who can achieve their goals first.”
Erwind stood up, seemingly having no second thoughts, and lightly clapped his hands. Simultaneously, a creation that resembled him leapt up suddenly, pulling the long sword stuck in the throne. Along the gap created by that sword, an icy wind colder than the entire Northern Region surged from within the base, blowing towards the two at the door.
“Screech!”
However, as the cold wind intensified, the ice covering the base became thinner and thinner; it seemed to instinctively sense that the restraints confining it were being undone, and thus it thrashed violently, shaking the entire parasol tree with its terrifying struggle, allowing one to feel its ceaseless great power at the mythical rank.
Countless gales mixed with ear-splitting shrieks echoed from the center of the hall, and Fisher plunged the Fluid Sword into the ground to avoid being blown away, while Erwind simply stood quietly amid the cold wind, staring at the direction of the corridor’s door ahead. Then he turned his head and pointed at Fisher’s chest, where the shape of a short dagger was strikingly apparent.
“Fisher, funny thing, that whale folk subhuman had a close relationship with you in Nali, and now has become that incomplete girl with the phoenix bloodline. Although I don’t mean to judge your personal life, you’ve kept giving me leverage, making me feel rather embarrassed. Let’s make a mutually beneficial deal.”
“The phoenix bloodline is something the curse desires, and I’m also somewhat interested in your leverage; it seems that the curse aligns with my goals at the moment. However, if you kill the curse with the death rune, I’ll give up searching for the phoenix bloodline and confronting you, and after your death, I will ensure her safe exit from the Parasol Tree. What do you think?”
Fisher smirked mockingly, raising the Fluid Sword and the magic-glowing ring, asking Erwind,
“Then, why don’t I just give you the Soul Supplement Handbook along with another Handbook? Then you’ll let us both go?”
“Regrettably, the Handbook can only change hands when the master is on the verge of death; otherwise, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, right?”
But as Erwind spoke, he noticed something amiss. In the hall behind Fisher, the terrifying curse with numerous eyes was not searching for the lost phoenix bloodline but was flailing around in the hall like a headless fly, its immense power making even the imposing parasol tree seem somewhat precarious.
Erwind clapped his hands and praised,
“The prodigy of magic truly is both admirable and vexing, much like the former Magic Lord, with an array of bizarre means that are hard to guard against. It seems I’ll have to personally check the location of the phoenix bloodline.”
“Give it a try.”
Fisher charged towards Erwind while he was vigilant about whether Fisher might draw the death rune to attack him; however, Fisher suddenly threw out a lightning spell towards the back, then decisively rushed beyond Erwind’s range of attack toward the outside.
“Screech!”
The curse struck by the magic howled again into the sky. It turned its head to look and saw an elegant bird-beak gentleman standing in the corridor. As the curse shrieked, it quickly crawled towards the door, leaving Erwind momentarily stunned before he placed his gentleman’s hat upon his head,
“Playing hide and seek?”
Then, he vanished from the spot, speeding towards the outside space.
Meanwhile, the mindless base, upon seeing the two vanish before it, let out another incomprehensible scream. It charged recklessly towards the narrow corridor ahead, easily shattering the black mineral corridor that had sustained no damage during the earlier battle between Erwind and Fisher, and wherever it passed, flesh and feather-like materials, as if alive, began to grow, marking the path it had taken.
“Screech!”
Its hundreds of irregularly moving eyes gazed in various directions, yet it could never pinpoint a direction to advance, merely foolishly shaking its fleshy wings, stirring a wind comparable to a tornado, trying to retrieve some missing thing.
“At last. The last phoenix’s screech!”
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(End of Chapter)
