“Rise!”
At a critical moment, Solomon himself stepped forward. The four steeples created a layer of frost and fire protection, promptly halting the external crushing momentum.
The steeples trembled incessantly, looking as if they wouldn’t last much longer.
Fortunately, the crystal flower absorbed the frost flame flowers quickly—half of it disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Solomon’s preparations were undoubtedly abundant.
“The end is near,” he said, keeping his eye on the crystal flower, and sighed, “I’m sorry, under the current circumstances, I also can’t escort you out safely.”
“You’ve repaid your debt, now we each rely on our fate,” Doug said nonchalantly; clearly, he had his own means of survival.
“I have no problems here either,” Ivan did not object.
Both were prepared to flee, with the Secret Method Body Double already attached to each of them. Given the situation, it was easier and more suitable to defend and escape alone.
Anticipating this, Solomon gave each of them a small crystal ball and said no more.
Receiving it cluelessly at first, they soon discovered that it contained a simplified map of the Nine-Colored Pit, marking the various domains like fire, frost, thunder, and earth territories, which would aid in their searches.
“Haha, you really know us.”
“Thanks a lot, I’ll take a look around later.”
Their eyes sparkled with excitement. As Solomon, who had harvested the frost flame flower, would definitely not stay long in the Nine-Colored Pit, the two were happy to venture elsewhere.
Seconds later, the crystal flower had completely absorbed the frost flame flower core and fell into Solomon’s hands.
“Prepare to retreat!”
“Take care.”
“Take care.”
As their words fell, the steeples shattered, and a fierce torrent of energy broke through the frost and fire protective layer, pouring inward—it was indeed time for each to rely on his own fate.
Ivan pulled out five metal rings again.
The rings stood intersecting, forming a small spherical space barely enough to accommodate one seated person. After glancing at the others, he jumped into the sphere.
Layers of white light flashed, tightly sealing the sphere.
Thus, a protective sphere was formed. It was tightly sealed, with highly concentrated power and extremely thick protection—it was also a combination defensive tactic from the Ant King Sky Shield, though its application was not widely used.
Not far away, Doug transformed into a black and white light, the size of a fist.
Solomon changed into a streak of colorful light, directly slipping downwards, leaving only some faint afterglow.
In a moment, the energy surge crushed and submerged everything where the frost flame flower was, engulfing the two varied light clusters.
…
Above the lake of molten lava, the surface ebbed and flowed, stirring up intense waves.
To avoid catching the mad Magma Lake lord’s attention, Dila and the others kept retreating until they could turn back and watch where the frost flame flower was located. The three had regrouped.
“Solomon is definitely dead this time.”
“Don’t underestimate Solomon. Perhaps he has managed to safely take the frost flame flower out. By then, he might be disheveled.”
“Is that so? Heh.”
Witnessing the chaos, the three harbored different thoughts, not without the intention of picking up what others had lost.
The more chaotic the situation, the more one needed to remain composed.
“Guess what I found? That Sorcerer Marichadon’s pet beast, right by the lakeside.” The three did not forget to redeploy monitoring around them, and Kraft soon made a discovery.
They exchanged meaningful glances but nobody made a rash move.
After a while, under their watch, the Magma Lake lord overwhelmed the area where the frost flame flower was located with the force of raging seas—an apt description would be ‘heaven collapsing and earth sinking.’
The lava lake rumbled and tsunami roared, thunder and lightning flashing.
The sky’s force field became disordered in an instant, as if a heavenly tribulation descended upon it.
It was truly an apocalyptic scene. Even the Magma Lake lord, who was the instigator, was scared into hiding deep in the lake. Only after moving away did he dare to stick his head out, without a trace of his previous arrogance.
“Just like that, he’s dead. Lucky for you thieves.”
The Magma Lake lord’s broken limb grew back, weaker than before. After some upheaval, his rage had lessened.
In his view, the chaos in front would inevitably tear apart the thieves with their physical strength, eventually reducing them to fragments, erased amidst the turmoil.
The great vendetta was avenged, easing the fury in his heart.
However, seconds later, the Magma Lake lord sensed unusual movements in the lake—a figure was escaping rapidly from the chaos, speeding away from the depths of the magma.
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The Magma Lake lord widened his eyes; after realizing, his huge head sank back into the magma and he followed the trace.
Yet he didn’t know that just as he submerged completely, something had shot out from the chaos—a white sphere tossed by the storm headed left and landed on the lake surface.
That was close!
The white sphere dissipated, and Ivan leapt out from its center.
Seeing the charred metallic ring, he couldn’t help but break into a sweat for himself.
Just now had been incredibly treacherous. When the “Heaven and Earth Net” had fully detonated, he felt as if he was caught in a natural disaster. His constructed Ant King Sky Shield Sphere could only drift with the flow, inching slightly outward by riding the waves, resembling ants moving house.
The process was extremely convoluted.
Fortunately, the Ant King Sky Shield Sphere was resilient enough, and in the end, he successfully used the force of the whirlwind to fling himself out.
Ivan looked back, but didn’t see the lord of the molten lake. He didn’t dare linger, his back sprouted Combat Energy wings, and a force anti-gravity emerged on his body, half-flying and half-running towards the lake shore.
He was at least twice as fast as when he had arrived.
He hadn’t forgotten he had sliced off one of the lord’s palms. If discovered by the opponent, and considering the molten lake was his territory, Ivan would get severely injured if not killed.
He had no interest in such an exchange.
The nearer he got to the shore of the lake, the lesser the chaos on the water surface seemed.
“Sigh—-“
It wasn’t until he jumped onto the bank and set foot solidly on the ground that Ivan finally breathed a long sigh of relief.
There was no one around.
“That molten lake lord must have been distracted by Solomon, hopefully, he and Doug are okay,” he thought immediately after noticing unusual turbulence deep in the lake, suspecting Solomon might have encountered some trouble.
However, he believed Solomon could handle it and planned not to meddle.
After distancing himself a significant length, he stopped his pace beneath a low cliff.
“Everyone, come out.”
“Hehe, boss, that was tough on you.”
“Jenny, no need to hide any longer.”
“Okay.”
Instantly, Locke, Silkworm Queen, Scented Butterfly, Jenny all appeared one by one, greatly enlarging the team.
Ivan had already signaled the swamp ants to come and meet up.
“Boss, what’s up?” Locke, noticing his unusual expression, couldn’t help but ask.
“Swamp ant says someone has been trailing us,” Ivan spoke coldly.
“Let him come, see if they dare challenge us,” Locke responded indignantly when he heard this.
Of course, Ivan wouldn’t be so brash; he messaged swamp ant to use its speed to circle around, shake off the pursuer, and then come over here to meet up.
As a creature that could control gravity, swamp ant’s speed was also top-notch among Level 3 creatures, which usually Level 2 sorcerers couldn’t match.
After Ivan had rested for a while and leisurely examined the severed palm of the molten lake lord, the swamp ant finally arrived, a bit late.
“There’s a tail.”
Jenny blurted out a statement.
Hearing this, swamp ant was stunned.
It had taken a lot of effort to detour, but it had still failed to shake off the pursuer, which was really embarrassing for the swamp ant.
“No matter, let them come if they want to see who the sorcerer is with such great capabilities and patience,” Ivan waved his hand. He didn’t want to provoke anything but wasn’t scared either.
Sure enough, a sorcerer flashed to a spot not far from the low cliff, undoubtedly having tracked the swamp ant here.
“Sorcerer Marichadon, we meet again.” Kedaf appeared with a smirk, but paused when he saw the detached palm.
“Sorcerer Kedaf, you’ve got impressive tracking skills,” Ivan said casually as he resealed the palm into the scroll.
“Thanks for the compliment,” Kedaf chuckled dryly.
Someone had previously dared to sever the molten lake lord’s hand, causing him to rage, and Kedaf had just realized the person was Ivan.
Seeing Ivan’s demeanor, having escaped from the great chaos without initiating any major conflict, and noting that none of his group had any signs of injury,
this truly reflected his renowned reputation.
“Are you alone?” Ivan packed away the scroll, a hint of hostility in his gaze.
“Haha, I just came to take a look. Since Solomon isn’t here, I’ll go look elsewhere,” facing the fearsome man who had cut off the molten lake lord’s hand, Kedaf also didn’t want any trouble.
After saying that, he turned and left.
“Kedaf, you’re not pursuing?”
“Solomon isn’t here.”
“Huh?”
On their way, Kedaf even stopped the companion following him to go and search for Solomon.
If Sorcerer Marichadon could leave, Solomon likely could too. The Frostflame Flower was probably on him, and he had no companions by his side yet – they couldn’t afford to let Dira and You Lei take advantage.
In the family’s Meditation Method resource list, the Frostflame Flower was one of the top-valued items, so naturally, Kedaf wouldn’t easily give up.