Peng Hua scrambled along the edge of the lava river, racking his brain trying to figure out why lava could… hatch lizards, and why Gu Xiechen seemed to know them.

Lizards in lava. Such creatures were incredibly rare; even with his status in the Nine Nether Path, he had never heard of such bizarre things existing in the world.

He cautiously touched the lava with a fingertip, and a burst of crimson flame erupted from his hand, causing the nearby magma to churn violently. Peng Hua himself jumped back in shock. He paused for a moment, then gritted his teeth and resolutely plunged his entire right hand into the lava. Instantly, crimson flames enveloped his whole arm. A violent surge of heat poured from the magma into Peng Hua’s body, electrifying every cell and giving him an unexpected hint of vital human energy.

“So that’s it. The ancestral essence blood of the Han Kui has granted me the power to control fire!”

Soon, Peng Hua understood the mystery. He slapped the lava forcefully and pulled his hand back. Although he possessed the ability to control fire, he was not a true Han Kui; his body was still filled with sinister, gloomy corpse energy. The pure Yang energy contained within the earth’s core magma was still somewhat harmful to him.

Only through long periods of tempering, gradually absorbing this Yang energy to neutralize the corpse energy within him, could he truly transform his physique and achieve the body of a Han Kui.

He sat down heavily at the mouth of the lava cave where Gu Xiechen had entered, rolled up his trouser legs, and pulled a cigar from his sock. Lighting the cigar with the nearby lava, he took several satisfying puffs. “Being a zombie has its advantages—absolutely no athlete’s foot, no body odor. The preservation quality of these socks is better than the finest cigar humidor!”

The few Special Operations soldiers from the Bureau of Special Affairs nearby stared blankly at Peng Hua, instinctively swallowing.

Peng Hua generously pulled out over a dozen cigars from his socks, his belt, and the elastic band around his underwear, tossing them out. He laughed heartily, “Brothers, have a smoke.”

All the special forces soldiers were thrown off their game by this display. Their hands trembled as they reached for the cigars, and they “accidentally” dropped them into the river of lava.

Peng Hua’s face twitched with heartache. He forced a wry smile. “What a waste, each one of those cigars is worth ten thousand! Really, such a waste!”

With a deep sigh, Peng Hua looked up at the sky, preparing to hum a light tune, when he abruptly saw a primary-class battleship, deep crimson, leading eighteen secondary-class and thirty tertiary-class battleships, roaring down from the high atmosphere. A torrent of missiles, space torpedoes, and high-energy beams rained down like artillery fire. Eighteen of the Bureau of Special Affairs’ high-speed interceptors patrolling overhead immediately had their energy shields shattered.

This was where the elite forces of the Bureau showed their true caliber. The eighteen interceptors whose shields were destroyed began accelerating almost simultaneously upon impact, easily evading dozens of subsequent heavy torpedoes. They deployed masses of decoys to draw off nearly a hundred heavy anti-ship missiles and began executing vigorous, large-scale evasive maneuvers in the air. Dozens of high-energy beams zipped past their hulls, yet failed to scratch a single armor plate.

The remaining twelve interceptors activated their energy shields to full power and charged toward the attacking fleet at maximum speed. In a mere ten seconds, they unleashed every missile and torpedo they carried. Over four hundred heavy torpedoes and heavy missiles, trailing long plumes of fire, blackened half the sky, throwing the enemy formation into disarray.

The ten interceptors on the ground swiftly took to the air. Less than ten meters above the ground, they pushed forward almost at full speed. The ten warships split into three squads and flew thousands of meters in three different directions before banking sharply upward, ascending almost at a ninety-degree angle to the high atmosphere, securing advantageous high-altitude firing positions with astonishing efficiency. A barrage of missiles, torpedoes, and high-energy beams screamed down from these interceptors, striking almost simultaneously at the largest enemy vessel, the crimson flagship.

With a dull explosion, the crimson battleship’s energy shield shattered. Two heavy torpedoes punched a hole several meters wide in its flank. The torpedoes detonated, scattering fragments of pulverized hull, and the resulting fireball engulfed more than half the ship’s body. The crimson battleship let out a piercing, strange shriek and plunged downward with a trail of thick black smoke, nearly crashing into the volcano’s caldera. Several secondary-class warships nearby rushed over, deploying tractor energy beams and straining to drag the flagship, which had instantly lost most of its propulsion, back up.

The eighteen interceptors that were attacked first had already recovered over half their energy shields. They swooped back from the distant high altitude, unleashing torpedoes, missiles, and high-energy beams at the fastest possible rate, setting the enemy fleet ablaze and causing explosions. In the blink of an eye, seven secondary-class and fifteen tertiary-class warships were destroyed.

Massive debris rained down from the sky, causing Peng Hua to duck and scramble, terrified of being crushed by one of the ten-thousand-ton components falling from such a height.

A long, piercing cry echoed from the distance, soaring straight into the clouds. A tall, statuesque youth with long hair, wielding a bizarrely shaped broadsword, led thousands of figures charging out of a deep ravine nearby.

The youth stood nearly two meters tall, strikingly handsome and upright like a poplar tree. He wore a light pink kimono robe sprinkled with cherry blossom petals. He held a Yong blade nearly three meters long; the hilt was only one and a half meters, meaning the blade itself accounted for the other meter and a half. The blade, silver-white with rippling, water-like patterns, was thin as paper, only three fingers wide. It was less a sword than a long, crescent-curved greatsword!

A hazy black smoke coiled around the Yong blade. Even from a distance, that dark energy and the light of the blade felt like the frozen chill of a nightmare, bringing a bone-deep cold.

“Ha! All killed!” the youth roared. He tapped the toe of his foot on a piece of volcanic rock and instantly traversed nearly a hundred meters, arriving at the three special forces soldiers posted as sentries on another rock almost instantaneously. A flash of the blade, and the three sentries were severed into six pieces. The blade’s aura was sharp, sweeping the three men’s six body segments dozens of meters apart. Only then did their hot blood spray out, showing how incredibly sharp and fast the strike had been.

“I am Ichi-Nyo of the Jizo-ji Temple! You will all die!” the youth laughed wildly. He weaved through the Bureau of Special Affairs’ ranks like a phantom, slashing. Streaks of cold light several dozen meters long shot through the air. Wherever they passed, no soldier could withstand a single blow; in an instant, two hundred special forces soldiers were cleaved in two.

Behind him, thousands of dark figures dressed like ninjas rushed forward, shouting fiercely, “The vassal clan of the Three Witches Sect, the Jizo-ji lineage, is here!”

Nearly a thousand ninjas simultaneously drew the large-caliber, man-portable heavy anti-ship missiles strapped to their backs. Almost a thousand 30cm short-range anti-ship missiles shot skyward with long trails of smoke, accurately targeting the Bureau of Special Affairs’ interceptors hovering above.

The interceptors were at most ten kilometers above the ground, and these anti-ship missiles reached speeds of up to ten times the speed of sound. The interceptor fleet commander, realizing his ships were locked by the missiles’ self-guiding radar net, immediately ordered evasive maneuvers and released all the decoys carried by the ships. However, there were too many incoming missiles. Seventeen interceptors were hit simultaneously by a massive barrage; their shields shattered, and enormous, transparent holes burst open in their hulls. Violent explosions erupted inside the ships, which then triggered the catastrophic failure of their plasma engines.

Seventeen interceptors detonated high in the sky. Firelight and shockwaves blasted nearby vessels far away, and the air pressure even knocked the people on the ground off their feet.

Among everyone, only Peng Hua and Jizo-ji Ichi-Nyo remained standing steadily amidst the violent shockwave.

Intermission reminder

Ziyue No. 1 Sixth Explosion

Where are the monthly tickets? (To be continued)