Chapter 122: Fire and Ice

Chapter 122: Fire and Ice Carlos continued: "That’s good. For the next while, let Purple Vortex keep you company temporarily. I need to handle some business." "???" Diliya was floored—what did this mean? Then she watched as the masked person waved his hand and all the skeleton monsters vanished. His wings beat hard, storms swirled, and Carlos became a streak of light that disappeared on the horizon... A breeze blew, snapping Diliya out of her daze. She suddenly realized that in this entire area, besides herself, there was only that monster that had the hots for her perfect nails!!! Shadow quietly wrapped around her. Diliya mechanically turned her gaze. The monster named Purple Vortex stood in front of her, way too close for comfort. She could even smell the thick bloody stench of death coming off this monster. Purple Vortex’s gaze was greedy, its eyeballs constantly rolling around. Carlos’s command floated through its mind—the master said to watch this woman like a hawk and not let her slip away. As long as she didn’t throw the first punch, it couldn’t take the initiative to attack her. But how could it get those gorgeous nails? Suddenly inspiration hit. It couldn’t take them, but couldn’t this human hand them over willingly? Purple Vortex immediately gave a friendly greeting: "Roar!" The horrifying smile reappeared. "Hello, Lord Purple Vortex." Diliya was in a real panic now. She could sense this monster’s creepy enthusiasm. One person and one monster began their harmonious coexistence... ... High in the sky, seeing Purple Vortex and Diliya’s friendly interaction, Carlos confidently handed off the guard duty to it. He continued flying toward the deepest part of White Poplar Desert... ..... "Red poplar grove!" Below Carlos appeared a strange red poplar forest that stuck out like a sore thumb among all the white poplar trees. Touching down, Carlos entered the heart of the red poplar forest. Here grew a peculiar red poplar tree. Its height was similar to other red poplars, but its color was incredibly deep and its girth was ten times that of its cousins. With thick branches and leaves, the fiery red leaves seemed to be burning, showing off vigorous life. "Who would think that around this red poplar tree would be buried one of the Sun Emperor’s Sword’s companion spirit flames—the ’Dawn Flame.’" This was Carlos’s whole reason for coming to White Poplar Desert. He began carefully checking out the base of this strange red poplar tree. Suddenly, barely visible red veins caught his eye. Carlos crouched down and began digging downward following the direction of these red veins. Soon, a tiny part of the red poplar’s roots was exposed, with one red vein being most prominent. Carlos summoned the Shield Guards: "Follow this tree root and dig carefully!" Several Shield Guards continued digging deeper following these roots... ... The deeper they went, the hotter it got. Carlos’s mouth curved up—this meant they were digging in the right direction. The closer to the Dawn Flame, naturally the hotter it would be. ... Time crawled by until with a bang, sand and gravel fell. At the very bottom of the pit, they’d actually broken through a large hole, with scorching hot air rushing out. Looking into the hole revealed a scene of fiery red. "Finally struck gold!" Joy flashed in Carlos’s eyes as he immediately had several Shield Guards jump down. Several minutes later, the Shield Guards sent back safe soul waves, and only then did Carlos confidently fly down. "Hot as blazes!" Entering the fiery red cave against the hot air, Carlos felt incredible heat constantly roasting his body. In just a few seconds, he was sweating buckets. He quickly downed a bottle of flame resistance alchemical potion to fight off this incredible heat. After drinking it, cool energy spread throughout his body. Carlos continued flying forward. The temperature around him kept climbing. He continued downing several more flame resistance alchemical potions as he kept pushing forward... Suddenly, a dazzling red dot appeared in his vision. Carlos’s speed immediately picked up as he flew rapidly toward the red dot... "This... this is the Dawn Flame?" Before him was an incredibly dazzling crimson flame. Fiery red radiance surrounded it, like a rising sun, giving off extremely terrifying light and heat. The cold iron armor Carlos had specially changed into actually showed signs of turning red and melting, showing how awful this heat was. However, while Carlos’s body felt the scorching heat, it also had a sense of life coming back. "The Dawn Flame symbolizes the revival of all things and contains rich life force." Related information about the Dawn Flame flashed through Carlos’s mind. He held back his inner desire. Absorbing the Dawn Flame required extreme care—the slightest slip-up could put his life on the line. "First step: use an extreme cold sealing array to suppress the Dawn Flame’s terrifying high temperature and lock it down!" Carlos began placing several prepared extreme ice pillars around the Dawn Flame according to a specific pattern. Extreme ice pillars were actually a rare ice-attribute mineral with excellent cold conductivity, often used as foundation pillars for ice-type secret arrays. The moment the extreme ice pillars appeared, they immediately hit the hot air and made intense sizzling sounds. The outermost layer actually began melting... Seeing this, Carlos’s hands rapidly shot several streams of psionic energy toward the extreme ice pillars, firing up the spirit patterns on them. At the same time, he began unknown whispered words, occasionally throwing in praise vocabulary. "Boom!" All the extreme ice pillars seemed to get some power and burst out with incredible cold air. The temperature in the cave suddenly dropped. The extreme cold sealing array wrapped around everything, and the fiery red light was immediately rapidly beaten down. Cold air spread, about to touch the Dawn Flame’s core. Just then, the Dawn Flame seemed to finally wake up. Something was challenging it! It immediately blazed with great light as terrifying flames burst forth. The previously unstoppable cold air was immediately stopped cold and rapidly pushed back by the crimson flames, losing ground fast. Carlos looked worried. What was happening? This was an extreme cold sealing array that could borrow the great power of ’Sea’! Carlos prepared for sealing failure as the Crimson-Gold Feathered Serpent Wings quietly spread behind him. Just as the crimson flames were about to burst out of the extreme cold seal, suddenly: "Boom!" An even more powerful force came down. The extreme ice pillars burst out with deep blue radiance as cold air went wild. The entire cave actually began visibly freezing. This deep blue cold air got into a terrible fight with the crimson flames. The temperature in the cave switched back and forth between terrifyingly hot and shockingly cold. ... Time ticked by without determining a winner. Just when Carlos thought he’d need to wait longer, the extreme ice pillars suddenly shattered one by one, and the cold air’s power shot up several levels! The Dawn Flame got caught with its pants down by this sudden burst. Before it could react, it was instantly beaten down into an extremely small area. Deep blue ice crystals gradually formed in the air of this area until it was completely packed.