Chapter 631 - 343: In the Lost Flame

The added drop of Divine Blood was quickly consumed, leaving Su Chen with no choice but to take out another drop, and then another, and another.

The Fire Pillar above his head was like a crystal column shooting straight into the sky. The searing heat waves distorted the surrounding space, making it seem as though it had already risen extremely high. However, based on Su Chen’s rough estimate, it was currently only a few hundred meters tall.

"A miscalculation. I think I’m being scammed," Su Chen thought. His expression shifted slightly, his heart bleeding. Looking at this momentum, wanting it to spread all the way up to the Sun Flame would require far more than ten drops—even a hundred wouldn’t be enough.

He wondered if tossing Old Hei in would barely be enough.

But since things had come to this, he couldn’t just stop. He could only numbly take out more Divine Blood and add it in, hoping for a turning point.

However, just after he took out the ninth drop, the Fire Pillar above stopped rising. It seemed to have touched some sort of boundary. A faint CRACKLING sound echoed from the depths of the sky, as if something was disintegrating in the extreme heat.

"Hmm? A variable?" Su Chen’s heart skipped a beat. Before he could even think, his body was swept up by an irresistible force. As if violently hoisted from the bottom of the Fire Pillar by an invisible giant hand, he suddenly shot up from its lowest end straight to the very top.

The extreme speed made his cheeks ache and contort.

Immediately following this, the Fire Pillar beneath him began to shrink inward continually. Its diameter halved, appearing to gather power. The flames enveloping him grew increasingly dense until they almost resembled liquid.

Just as the Fire Pillar condensed to its absolute limit, the surroundings seemed to freeze for a split second. The originally surging tide of flame light suddenly stagnated and trembled, emitting a low HUM.

Dense, spiderweb-like purple patterns surfaced around him, silently flickering in the void.

"What is it trying to do?" Su Chen’s heart fluttered. The Energy accumulated by these purple flames right now was simply terrifying—like a core on the verge of detonation.

Until a certain moment, Su Chen’s expression abruptly changed. The purple flames violently erupted, shooting straight out.

He felt as if he had been flung by a horrifying force. His entire body shuddered violently as he advanced toward the Sun Flame at a speed barely visible to the naked eye, trailing a massive swath of purple light flames behind him.

"So it wasn’t actually trying to connect, but gathering power. Thank goodness," Su Chen breathed a sigh of relief. The surrounding scenery transformed into blurred bands of light flashing past his eyes, his ears filled with the howling wind and low humming.

He could see almost nothing in his peripheral vision; only the purple fireball covering the sky was continuously enlarging.

"Nine drops. It only consumed nine drops. Not bad." Su Chen did a quick mental calculation. It was one drop less than he had anticipated.

The Residual Fire propelling him forward was unimaginably fast. The fireball before his eyes grew larger and larger. Even when he was down below, this Sun Flame had occupied most of his field of vision. Now, it almost completely covered his entire sight, getting closer and closer.

Once the Residual Fire lingering around him thoroughly merged with the Sun Flame, Su Chen instinctively narrowed his eyes. The streams of purple fire coiled around his body like living creatures. Although the external Flame Fire and the Residual Fire were the exact same color, their specific manifestations differed slightly.

The external Flame Fire outside of the Residual Fire didn’t actually seem to be burning. Instead, it consisted of spinning, dancing patterns vibrating at an extremely high frequency. They looked as if they were being pulled by invisible threads, merely taking on the appearance of flames.

Every breath he took expelled faint wisps of white mist, which were instantly swallowed by the surging purple sea of flames around him.

Su Chen could faintly smell a strange metallic scent mixed with a charred aroma. There also seemed to be an indescribable odor—if forced to describe it, it smelled like the boiling herbal medicine from his previous life.

His eardrums buzzed as if the entire world were resonating. The Residual Fire pushed aside the external Flame Fire, continuously advancing inward. One didn’t even need to think to know that the temperature here was likely terrifyingly high.

"Without the help of this Residual Fire, I’m afraid I’d be reduced to ashes in an instant." Su Chen kept a drop of Divine Blood pinched in his hand at all times to handle any emergencies.

"To think that undergoing Body Refining assisted by this kind of flame is necessary to evolve into the True Radiance Talent. Isn’t that a bit too insane?" Su Chen secretly clicked his tongue as he recalled the requirements of the Purifier. "Can I even withstand it?"

The surrounding scenery barely changed at all. If he couldn’t still feel himself charging forward, he would have thought he was stuck completely motionless in place.

After an unknown amount of time, Su Chen vaguely heard a soft POP. Instantly, his vision brightened. His pupils shrank as he arrived in the internal space of the Sun Flame.

The first thing to catch his eye was a metallic palace complex so magnificent that it covered more than half the space. It was spliced together from countless interwoven alloy trusses and streamlined domes. Though silvery-white, it reflected a purple halo. Layer upon layer, the entire structure converged toward the center in a pyramid shape.

Squinting, he faintly caught a few blurred silhouettes in the shadows of those towering arched structures. They were humanoid figures clad in dark composite armor, standing completely motionless.

"Is this the palace Qin Yun spoke of? He actually wasn’t lying. It seems there are even guards." Su Chen looked around and found himself high in the air. Behind him was the extremely dense external Flame Fire, yet it was held back by an invisible barrier.

At the same time, he felt that the Sun Residual Fire lingering around him seemed to have grown a bit more vigorous. It appeared to be undergoing Absorption, using some pervasive power in the space as fuel without needing him to provide Energy.

With a flicker of thought, Su Chen’s fingertips trembled. A drop of blood seeped from his palm, rich and crystalline like amber.

He flicked his middle finger slightly, and the blood droplet shot out like an arrow from a bowstring. The moment it crossed the boundary of the Sun Residual Fire and touched the outside world, it instantly evaporated—not even leaving behind a puff of vapor.

Su Chen’s heart chilled. "The temperature here hasn’t weakened at all; in fact, it’s even more terrifying."

With his current Life Level, the quality of his blood was extremely high. Yet it could still be evaporated instantly. The normal ambient temperature of this outside area had likely reached an unimaginable degree. Without the protection of the Residual Fire, he wouldn’t even have the qualifications to survive here.

Before his thoughts could settle, Su Chen noticed the Residual Fire wrapping around him once again, gently pulling him forward.

"Where is it taking me?"

Su Chen frowned slightly. His eyes suddenly trembled as he looked up into the distance.

"That is..." At the very peak of the palace complex, what had been a blurred area suddenly erupted with a violently rising pillar of deep purple light.

It didn’t shoot straight up but wound its way upward through the void. Wherever it passed, the canopy of the sky contorted. Thunderclaps exploded across the horizon, bursting forth in overlapping halos of light.

BOOM!

The palace complex trembled unceasingly. The pupils of the scattered guards simultaneously lit up with deep purple halos. Meanwhile, a blurred figure in Concealment beneath a certain palace looked up in astonishment.

This blurred figure stood in the shadows of the palace. His form was hazy, his silhouette appearing soaked in mist—sometimes clear, sometimes obscure. Wrapped around him was a massive net woven from pitch-black chains. Its surface gleamed with a cold, eerie luster, absorbing all light and seemingly isolating him from the external heat.

Yet at this moment, as the purple pillar of light pierced the heavens, the great net of black chains emitted a teeth-grinding SIZZLE. The symbols on it lit up one after another. Each one trembled relentlessly like a living creature before subsequently developing cracks.

"After that damn Qin Yun escaped, the Spirit of Sun fell into a deep slumber. Why did it suddenly awaken again?"

Filled with dread, he hurriedly gripped the sizzling chain net. Smoke curled up from his blurred palms as waves of agonizing pain caused him to let out muffled groans. This place wasn’t simply hot; it also harbored an intensely terrifying corrosive power.

"That damn Qin Yun..." Feeling a portion of his sparse remaining strength pour out to barely stabilize the chain net in the shadows, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. Yet he couldn’t help but think of the insidiously vicious Qin Yun.

He thought, "Listening to the words of that Residual Spirit and getting everyone else killed... He truly deserves death! If I ever get the chance to leave, I will definitely grind your bones to dust!"

ROAR!

A resounding dragon’s roar echoed out. He looked up again, and though he had seen it once before, shock and fervent heat still inevitably surfaced in his eyes.