Chapter 230: Chapter 226: All Cards Played, End of the Line

Ghostly green flames burned upon Wang Yu’s body, the intense heat distorting the faint light in the surrounding air.

Driving this peculiar power without reservation, Wang Yu manipulated the fire, frantically incinerating every ounce of matter within him.

The cursed flames indiscriminately consumed everything flammable—blood, bone, muscle, the swarms of rotting flies, the feeble incantations, and even the corrosive energy that the arcane space had forced into his flesh.

"Ah... that feels much better."

His expressionless face twisted into a savage grin. Wrapped in the roaring inferno, his already battered body and visage made him appear like a demon crawled up from the depths of hell.

The cursed fire, driven to its limit, had nearly slipped from his control—or rather, Wang Yu had never intended to restrain it. The invaders within him were cast into the flames as fuel, their inevitable destruction only serving to make the fire burn more fiercely.

The artifact, the Banner of Triumph, shimmered in the void above his head, converting the incinerated invaders into life force that poured back into Wang Yu, only to be cast into the cursed fire once more.

He had already retracted the blood-construct from his back; the cursed fire was consuming his vitality at an accelerating rate, and his ruined body could no longer sustain such a drain once the invaders were purged.

"Whew... thank goodness for the Past-Breaker Potion. The power of a dragon is truly astonishing."

He exhaled, and a scorching flame trailed from his long breath for over a meter. The temperature of his skin had reached an absurd level; even steel would have turned red and buckled in this fire that burned life without limit.

Wang Yu could feel the effects of the Past-Breaker Potion beginning to wane. The half of the potion that should have remained was ignited by the cursed fire along with the invaders.

As the flames consumed the potion, its components underwent a strange transformation—a reaction akin to sublimation. The pale golden liquid turned into an invisible energy, piercing his blood vessels and spreading throughout his entire being.

His body autonomously absorbed this energy, consuming the remaining half of the potion’s potency in a single, fleeting moment. An unimaginable surge of power roiled within him.

The golden hue, similar to a dragon’s pupil, slowly faded from Wang Yu’s eyes, signaling the end of the potion’s effect.

Once this source of power vanished, he would either be burned dry by the cursed fire or his body would collapse, unable to sustain the fight.

Therefore, he had to end this quickly.

"Hum..."

A subtle ripple appeared in the air, suddenly expanding from Wang Yu’s body. It extended far beyond two meters, sweeping across the entire arcane space and locking directly onto the wizard Sifla, who was attempting to cloak her presence with void energy.

"Found you."

The boiling power within him caused a change in his ripples that he himself could not articulate. The range grew, the speed outside his body increased, and even without using Material Sword-Forming, these ripples could subtly alter the world around him...

"Boom!"

His flaming figure pulled a trail of afterimages; the crater that exploded from the ground behind him only appeared after his fist had already slammed into Sifla’s chest.

Sifla’s pupils shrank to pinpricks; she had no time to react.

As the scorching fire incinerated the bandages binding her body and burned away her skin in an instant, her iron-hard fist easily pierced her sternum, shattering her heart, lungs, and cervical vertebrae before her brain could even register the blow.

"Whoosh!"

A black vortex appeared on Wang Yu’s arm, and he watched as the wizard’s body, which he had just punched through, vanished into the sudden rift.

The ripples covering the arcane space detected a spatial crack opening elsewhere, and Sifla, clutching her chest, tumbled out.

"Snap..."

The wooden doll tied into her white hair shattered into useless debris, and cold sweat finally began to bead on Sifla’s forehead.

Sixth-circle spell: Life-Substitution Doll. The only life-saving artifact she had found in years of exploring ruins had been consumed in that single instant, buying her life.

Too fast. What was wrong with this guy? That speed had already surpassed a high-tier formal knight—a Grand Knight? How could a mid-tier formal knight erupt with such speed? She could not comprehend it.

Her heart tightened as she realized that the moment she reappeared, Wang Yu’s gaze had locked onto her. Her Void Cloak spell had failed to hide her in the slightest.

"Clang!"

Wang Yu ripped a fragment of metal from his light armor and, in less than a breath, the intense flames heated the shard until it glowed red.

He swung his arm, the air exploding with a sonic boom, and the high-speed metal fragment pierced her heart again before she could react.

"Hmm?"

Wang Yu frowned. The ripples still could not penetrate the wizard’s body, meaning she was not yet dead. Wizardry was truly bizarre; she had used some method to ignore his attack.

Breathing nervously, Sifla felt the delayed sensation of her body being pierced. Her heart skipped a beat, and she had to be thankful that Wang Yu was a knight; as long as her void energy did not run out, he could not truly harm her.

Fourth-circle spell: Void Walk. The void recorded the state of a wizard’s body, and whenever it underwent a certain degree of change, the void energy would distort the material world, reverting the wizard’s body to its state from half a second prior.

For a mage, a defensive spell like Void Walk could be countered by a simple firestorm, but against a knight, as long as Sifla had the time to escape a fatal blow, there was little they could do.

"That is the Cursed Fire. I never expected this Druidic art to be used this way. Hold on; this guy named Wang Yu cannot last long. The fire only temporarily purged the arcane influence; once he can no longer sustain the consumption, he will die."

Sifla quickly calmed down. Her combat experience allowed her to force herself into a fighting state even when facing Wang Yu’s sudden, unimaginable burst of power.

She had to admit that these three professionals who had come to surround and kill Wang Yu were the most tenacious opponents with the strongest combat instincts she had ever encountered.

Unfortunately, Sifla’s luck was truly abysmal. Wang Yu was a quick learner, and with a brilliant, erudite wizard partner like Avia, he had observed the changes in Sifla’s body through his ripples and recognized the spell Avia had once told him about.

"Void Walk, is it..."

At the same time, although Wang Yu possessed no spellcasting ability, the Weaver’s Book created by the girl did.

Communicating with the Weaver’s Book through his spirit, he squeezed the last of the mana from the magic crystals within, injecting it into the array: Dual-Core Activation, Double Casting.

Third-tier spell: Panic Hurricane; Second-tier spell: Basalt Torrent.

A violent tornado began to howl through the arcane space, its wind speed and force increasing, sweeping everything into a frenzied rotation.

This included the massive rock shards and blades shaped by the earth element from the Basalt Torrent. The two spells combined, unleashing a terrifying destruction across the entire space: Combo Spell, Shard Gale.

The rock blades were carried by the storm, flying and spinning at high speeds, attacking everything in the space indiscriminately, dragging both Wang Yu and Sifla into the vortex.

"Slash!"

A high-speed rock fragment grazed Sifla’s neck, cleanly severing the fragile flesh. Void Walk activated, and the wound healed, but Sifla’s complexion had turned ghastly; she was finished.

Several fragments struck Sifla simultaneously. Void Walk activated successfully, but it only repaired the wounds caused by the first few fragments.

A massive wound tore through her frail, thin body, exposing bone. The attack frequency of the Shard Gale exceeded the recovery speed of Void Walk.

Giving Sifla no time to find a way out, the moment his ripples detected the wound on her body, Wang Yu moved.

A trail of fire flashed through the dark space, and his scorching, flame-wreathed fist struck her face. The irresistible power smashed the high-tier formal wizard’s head into a pile of burning fragments.

The wizard died, the arcane energy collapsed, and the space began to eject Wang Yu. At that moment, the flames on his body ceased for a heartbeat, only to reignite the next, burning even more fiercely than before.

Half a second after killing Sifla, the vitality Wang Yu had been using to fuel the Cursed Fire was exhausted. If he continued, he would rapidly approach death, but the life force poured into him by the Banner of Triumph after a brief delay reignited the flames.

The Banner of Triumph did not judge the life force provided by the holder’s kill based on the target’s constitution, but on their "power."

Wang Yu had killed Sifla, a high-tier formal wizard; the life force gained was effectively the same as killing a high-tier formal knight.

One-tenth of a high-tier formal knight’s vitality was a powerful force. The Cursed Fire, already burning and pushed to a critical point, broke through its limits as this energy was injected during the reignition process.

The Banner of Triumph was truly a mediocre artifact; if one had the ability to kill a high-tier formal knight, one-tenth of their life force seemed useless. Yet, it was this very mediocrity that gave Wang Yu the final push.

The life force poured into him, pushing the Cursed Fire to the next level while simultaneously igniting the last remnants of the Past-Breaker Potion, flooding his shell with its power...

Outside the space, the mage was using healing spells to stabilize and repair the high-tier formal knight’s injuries while monitoring the fluctuations in the surrounding space.

The search party was getting closer; he had to use a teleportation spell to whisk them away the moment the wizard brought Wang Yu’s soul out of the arcane space.

A faint ripple of void energy. The mage raised his hand; the spatial spell was ready.

Then, his spirit captured a burning figure rushing out of the vortex created by the arcane space at an unimaginable speed.

"Boom!"

The flame-coated fist struck the high-tier formal knight standing in front of the mage first. Armor and the powerful physique of a knight meant nothing before Wang Yu’s current strength. Explosion—it was pure explosion; the high-tier formal knight’s entire upper body was blasted apart by that single punch, turning into a shower of burning ash and debris.

The bones of Wang Yu’s entire right hand were pulverized in that collision, a force so immense he could not withstand it, leaving the limb twisted and broken into a grotesque shape.

The mage had no time to react; the burning body spun in a circle, the air whipped into two razor-sharp currents by the extreme velocity, carving deep fissures into the brickwork of the nearby wall.

"Screech!"

A rigid shield manifested upon the mage’s skin; though the man himself was caught off guard, his array of defensive magitech trinkets proved just a fraction faster than Wang Yu.

Four overlapping shields, each equivalent to a third-tier physical defense spell, interposed themselves before Wang Yu’s sweeping leg.

Like a hot knife through butter—that was the sensation. The cursed fire, having breached a certain threshold, had shifted from green to crimson; it no longer merely consumed Wang Yu’s vitality, but devoured everything it touched, including the very mana that composed the protective barriers.

The scarlet flames pierced through all four layers of the shield before Wang Yu’s leg even made contact, and his sweep tore clean across the mage’s shoulder.

The mage’s corpse ignited and collapsed, everything from the chest upward vanished as if it had been utterly erased from existence.

"Thud."

The flames on Wang Yu’s body extinguished the moment the mage died; the power of the cursed fire and the effects of the Shattered Helm Potion faded, and Wang Yu slumped directly to the ground.

An unimaginable void consumed him; forget battle aura, he could not even twitch a muscle. It was a miracle he was still breathing.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

Footsteps reached Wang Yu’s ears. His ripples, unaffected by his exhaustion, reached out toward the source of the sound, touching the newcomer’s frame and reflecting back a surge of battle aura—a Grand Knight...

"Fuck you."

Wang Yu tried to move his arms, only to find he could not command those two shattered appendages at all.

He managed to use his ripples to bypass his nerves and twitch a single finger.

Uttering a profanity that no one in this world could comprehend, he raised his middle finger at someone he could not even see.

All cards played, the end of the road.