Sizzle sizzle sizzle——
A giant fireball appeared in front of Angel. The fireball looked sowhat unstable, expanding and contracting at tis, producing a continuous sizzling sound in the process.
This fireball was not an elental creature, just the manifestation of a 0-level cantrip, the Candlefire Technique.
In the outside world, the Candlefire Technique is rely a small fla at the fingertips, generally only used to ignite waste paper or light oil lamps. But the Candlefire Technique summoned by Angel here had directly turned into an unstable giant fireball.
Angel observed the internal structure of the fireball. It was indeed the essence of the Candlefire Technique, but due to the extre concentration of external fire energy augntation, it had transford into its current form.
The structure of the Candlefire Technique was originally only able to accommodate the volu of a small fla, but now, having expanded many tis over, it naturally beca unstable.
But precisely because of its instability, once this fireball exploded, its attack energy level would definitely surpass the standard of a 2-level cantrip.
Angel waved his hand, and the fireball before him turned into pure fire energy, rging with the surrounding environnt.
Watching the sparks slowly disperse further away, Angel fell into contemplation: he had summoned the Candlefire Technique solely to verify the concentration of fire elental power around him.
All along the way, he had used the Candlefire Technique no less than four tis. The previous tis, it had only elevated the 0-level cantrip to the extent of a 1-level cantrip, but this ti, it had propelled the 0-level cantrip to the heights of a 2-level cantrip. The fire elental power here was clearly much denser than before.
This also indicated one thing: he was gradually getting closer to the center of this Region of Fire.
"It seems the area where the Fla Sparrows lingered is the region with the highest fire energy level?" Angel speculated silently in his heart as he continued forward.
About ten minutes later, Angel encountered a group of fish constructed from dark flas in the black-gray smoke. These Darkfla Fish entirely treated the steaming smoke as their "pond," wandering in mid-air.
Angel glanced at them and could tell that these Darkfla Fish were elental sprites.
However, Angel had no particular interest in these Darkfla Fish. They burned with black flas and lived off smoke, which certainly made them special fire elentals. This type of fire elental might be more suitable for fire wizards with corresponding abilities.
The fire companions Angel himself desired leaned more towards mainstream fire or flas that could assist in alchemy.
Even the Fire Butterfly earlier was more suitable for him than the Darkfla Fish.
For this reason, Angel only cast a glance at the Darkfla Fish and did not disturb them, even taking a detour from afar. Although these were only weak fire elentals, there were simply too many of them. If they, like the earlier Fire Butterfly, acted mischievously, even if each only blew a fireball bubble at him, they could make this pure fire domain boil over.
Until useful information had been scouted, it was best to keep a low profile.
Circumventing the dense smoke where the Darkfla Fish lived, Angel continued towards the area where the Fla Sparrows circled. He calculated his pace and reckoned he was very close to the destination; at most, half an hour should suffice to reach it.
After another fifteen minutes, Angel noticed the terrain starting to slope upwards, seemingly entering a highland.
However, this upward slope was only about a few dozen ters long, and soon, Angel arrived at a cliffside.
A few dozen ters across was a vast expanse of thick smoke, with seemingly no path ahead. Instead, beneath the cliff, Angel saw a path he had traveled through scorched earth and fissures.
Angel estimated that he had happened to walk to a small hill. If he had taken a detour when he was on the earlier slope, he might have reached the area below.
Standing before the cliff, Angel did not imdiately jump down.
Being so close to his target, if they were outside, he would already see the general situation of the destination; however, here, there was too much thick smoke, blocking his sight.
Just to be safe, he planned to release a scouting puppet first to probe the target area.
Angel retrieved twenty scouting puppets from his bracelet. They still had a tal eye shape with wings. However, these scouting puppets were not the ones from the Cloud Conch but bought when he was in the Sky chanical City; they had a longer scouting range, stronger stealth capabilities, and harder self-defense. At that ti, he bought a set of over four hundred, and these red-coated scouting puppets were suited for exploration in high-temperature environnts.
Angel left spiritual power marks on all twenty scouting puppets and then placed several Nightmare Illusion Nodes on the tallic skins of half of them.
Though the scouting puppets themselves had disguise modes, Angel also wanted to leverage the scouting puppets to probe whether the elental creatures here could really see through the Nightmare Illusion effect.
Having done all this, Angel commanded the scouting puppets to activate disguise mode and explore the target point from multiple directions.
Once all the scouting puppets disappeared from sight, Angel retrieved Toby from his bracelet.
While taking out the scouting puppets earlier, he noticed that Toby had already awakened and imdiately expressed a desire to co out upon sensing Angel’s spiritual power.
Angel did not refuse; Toby’s strength was sufficient, and in terms of escape ability, it was even stronger than Angel. If they really encountered a dangerous situation, Angel could hitch a ride.
Once Toby erged, it imdiately nestled into the pocket on Angel’s chest, only leaving a small head peeking out.
It wasn’t afraid of the fire, purely because it was wearing a small snow-velvet dress and a snow-velvet hat with dangling yarn balls, purchased in Sea Moon City. This material was highly susceptible to high temperatures, so if it got caught by the external fire, it would be a huge loss.
Nesting into the pocket, Toby curiously surveyed the surroundings: weren’t we in a big city earlier? How did we suddenly get here? Where is this?
Toby really wanted to ask Angel, but seeing Angel with his eyes tightly closed, Toby knew he was observing through the scouting puppets, not wanting to disturb him at such a ti, so it had to suppress its curiosity.
Angel’s vision was indeed in the scouting puppets.
As an extension of the wizard’s eyes, the scouting puppet could clearly relay the images it saw, sharing them in real-ti with Angel.
Initially, in the first few hundred ters of the scouting puppet’s journey, Angel found no issues, encountering only scorched earth and ground flas without seeing any elental creatures.
However, after the scouting puppet advanced a mile and pushed through the dense smoke, Angel saw a lava lake glowing with bright orange light.
This lava lake was many tis larger than any Angel had encountered before.
It resembled a vast sea of burning magma; even though the scouting puppets traveled in different directions, they could not see its edge.
The destination Angel sought was deep within this lava lake.
From the perspective of the scouting puppets, Angel could see that this lava lake was remarkably tranquil. Although it continuously surged with thick magma and exuded gaseous flas, compared to previous lava lakes where ground flas clashed and fire serpents spewed, this place was truly serene.
However, tranquility does not an safety.
Angel had a feeling that this tranquil lava lake was anything but simple.
Nonetheless, exploration was necessary, and Angel directed eighteen of the scouting puppets to head toward the lava lake; half flew at low altitudes, while the other half soared high. Angel did this to avoid any potential dangers.
anwhile, two scouting puppets were left on the shore.
The reason Angel left them was to test an elental creature.
Earlier, when scouting the edge of the Lava Lake, Angel noticed a creature walking upright at one of the shores of the Lava Lake.
This was a werewolf-shaped Fire Elent creature with bony spines along its back, its entire body burning with black and purple dark flas like well-grood hair. Its hands were extrely long, reaching down to its knees, and its back was hunched as it walked slowly.
However, Angel knew very well that this slow walking was just a façade.
The evolved form of an Elental Sprite couldn’t afford such a large flaw. The Darkfla Werewolf seed sluggish, but Angel believed that once it was on all fours, it would definitely be fast.
The Fire Elent creature Angel wanted to test was this Darkfla Werewolf.
Angel maneuvered the Scouting Puppets to approach it slowly from two completely different directions.
One of these Scouting Puppets was solely operating in stealth mode, while the other was concealed by Angel using a Nightmare Illusion Shield.
The one flying slightly faster was the Scouting Puppet simply in stealth mode.
In stealth mode, its energy fluctuations were minimized and blended with the environnt, making it hard to detect without very keen observation.
This Scouting Puppet soon arrived near the Darkfla Werewolf.
When it was within a hundred ters, Angel noticed the Darkfla Werewolf glance in the direction of the Scouting Puppet.
At that mont, Angel’s perspective was aligned with the Scouting Puppet, so in Angel’s view, he and the Darkfla Werewolf engaged in direct eye contact.
The Darkfla Werewolf’s eyes were dark green; however, it was just an Elental Life form with no actual organ structure—the so-called green eyes were actually burning ghostly green flas.
It was hard for Angel to read emotions from the ghostly green flas, but the Darkfla Werewolf, which had been keeping its head down, looked up for the first ti and gazed in the direction of the Scouting Puppet. This was indeed a signal indicating it might have sensed the Scouting Puppet.
Angel thought for a mont and decided to let the Scouting Puppet continue approaching.
The Darkfla Werewolf didn’t pay further attention to the Scouting Puppet until it ca within fifty ters, at which point its eyes locked onto it.
At this point, whether Angel moved the Scouting Puppet forward or backward, the Darkfla Werewolf’s gaze remained fixed on it.
Without a doubt, this was not just about "possibly being detected," but really being locked onto.
Angel thought that since it had been detected, he might as well continue approaching. But just as this thought crossed his mind, a dark shadow suddenly appeared in front of the Scouting Puppet.
The next scene, also the final one transmitted by the Scouting Puppet, was a pair of claws enveloped in black and purple dark flas reaching towards it.
Then ca a cracking sound.
The Scouting Puppet was crushed.
Angel had prepared for the possibility that the Scouting Puppet might be damaged, so he wasn’t upset about its demise. All his thoughts were now focused on the speed of the Darkfla Werewolf.
Clearly, it had been fifty ters away just a second ago, but in the blink of an eye—not even a second later—the Darkfla Werewolf appeared beside the Scouting Puppet. Such terrifying speed was truly frightening.
"As expected, the slow walking was just an appearance."
After expressing his awe, Angel began maneuvering the second Scouting Puppet to approach the Darkfla Werewolf.
Angel had higher expectations for this Scouting Puppet, as it employed the Nightmare Illusion for concealnt. This was a chance to test whether the Fire Elent creature could detect the power of the Nightmare Illusion.
As Angel was contemplating this, an unexpected event occurred.
A dark purple ghostly fla suddenly rose from the ground, striking directly at the Scouting Puppet.
Thanks to Angel’s quick reflexes in control, he managed to slightly shift its position at the mont the ghostly fla struck, dodging the attack.
However, it was just barely dodged, and the dark purple ghostly fla still slightly touched the wing of the Scouting Puppet.
Just with that touch, signs of lting appeared whether it was the heat-resistant skin or the most heat-resistant tal wing structure, and it was unstoppable.
Then, a second ghostly fla rose from the ground, again targeting the Scouting Puppet.
With one wing already damaged, even with Angel’s rapid reactions, the hardware limitations ant sacrificing itself was inevitable.
Fortunately, before the Scouting Puppet valiantly sacrificed, Angel spotted the culprit behind the ghostly flas—
Two hundred ters away, the Darkfla Werewolf’s long arms had rged into the Scorched Earth, and its head was raised, eyes straight on the distant Scouting Puppet.
The screen went black as the Scouting Puppet was scrapped under the impact of the ghostly flas.
Angel stood on the edge of the cliff, frowning tightly.
The outco was now clear; the Darkfla Werewolf undoubtedly detected the Scouting Puppet shielded by Nightmare Illusion.
Both the Fire Butterfly before and this Darkfla Werewolf were able to see through the concealnt of the Nightmare Illusion. Angel didn’t believe it was such a coincidence that these two creatures had insight abilities.
There seed to be only one possibility: elental creatures here were not affected by illusion concealnt.
This ans that the elental creatures he encountered before, like the Six-Tailed Fox and the Fire Salamander, had indeed detected him.
Angel now felt a headache; his best concealnt thod was the illusion technique, and now that it was ineffective, even the optical stealth was proven detectable by the Darkfla Werewolf.
It seed that trying to stealthily gather intelligence was unlikely to work.
Angel sighed in resignation and refocused his attention on the Scouting Puppets’ perspective. As for the Darkfla Werewolf, Angel decided to temporarily leave it aside.
Reconnecting to the Scouting Puppets’ perspective, Angel imdiately noticed two of the Scouting Puppets’ screens filled with a crimson hue.
These two Scouting Puppets were set to fly at low altitudes.
Just as Angel was pondering what had happened, the crimson in the perspective disappeared, and with a gurgling sound, the screen turned pitch black.
User Comments
0 comments from readers