Chapter 2167 Fire Butterfly <TOC> Chapter 2169 Lava Lake
Translator: SumTLMan
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle——
In front of Angel, a huge fireball emerged, looking somewhat unstable, expanding and contracting intermittently while continuously emitting a sizzling sound.
This fireball was not an elemental lifeform, but merely an apparition of a 0 level trick, Candle Fire Spell.
In the outside world, the Candle Fire Spell is just a small flame at the fingertip, generally used for lighting waste paper or oil lamps. However, the Candle Fire Spell that Angel summoned here turned into an unstable, huge fireball.
Angel observed the internal structure of the fireball. It indeed followed the principles of the Candle Fire Spell, but due to the enhancement by the extremely dense fire elemental energy from the outside, it took on its current form.
The structure of the Candle Fire Spell itself could only handle the volume of a small flame. Now that it had expanded so many times, it naturally became unstable.
But precisely because of its instability, once this fireball exploded, its attack power would definitely exceed the standard of a second level spell.
Angel waved his hand, and the fireball in front of him turned into pure fire elemental energy, merging into the surrounding environment.
Watching the sparks scatter farther and farther, Angel fell into contemplation: He summoned the Candle Fire Spell purely to verify the concentration of the fire elemental power around him.
Along the way, he had used the Candle Fire Spell no less than four times. In previous instances, the 0 level spell was elevated to the level of a first level spell, but this time, it had been raised to the height of a second level spell, indicating that the fire elemental power here was obviously more intense than before.
This also indicated that he was gradually approaching the center of this fiery region.
“It seems that the area where the Flame Bird lingered earlier is the region with the highest level of flame energy?” Angel mused to himself, continuing to move forward.
About ten minutes later, Angel encountered a group of fish made of black flames in the midst of greyish-black smoke. These fish of black flame treated the billowing smoke as a “pond” for swimming and roamed freely in mid-air.
Angel glanced at them and could tell that these fish of black flame were elemental sprites.
However, Angel had little interest in these black flame fish. Burning with black flames and sustaining themselves on smoke, they were naturally special fire elementals. Such fire elementals, more suitable for fire wizards with corresponding abilities, were not what Angel himself desired. He preferred fire elementals of the mainstream flame or those that could assist in alchemy.
Indeed, the fire butterfly he encountered earlier was more suitable for him than these fish of black flame.
For this reason, Angel gave the black flame fish a glance but did not disturb them. He even deliberately took a detour. ——Although these were only weak fire elementals, their sheer number was overwhelming. If they behaved as stubbornly as the previous fire butterfly, even if each one only spat a fireball bubble at him, it could cause this pure fire realm to boil.
Before discovering useful information, it was best to keep a low profile.
Bypassing the thick smoke pool where the black flame fish lived, Angel continued towards the destination where the Flame Bird had circled. He estimated his pace; he should be very close to the destination, probably arriving in no more than half an hour.
After another quarter of an hour of traveling, Angel found the path began to slope upwards, seemingly entering a highland.
However, this upward slope was only about several dozen meters. Soon, Angel arrived at a cliff.
Dozens of meters opposite him was just dense smoke, seemingly no path ahead. Instead, below the cliff, Angel saw the scorched earth and fissures that he had been following.
Angel guessed that he might have just reached a small hill. If he had taken a detour during the earlier slope, he probably could have reached the area below as well.
Angel stood at the cliff’s edge, not immediately jumping down.
This location is very close to the target; in the outside world, one would already be able to see the general situation of the destination. However, here, the vision is obscured by dense smoke.
To be cautious, he plans to release scouting puppets first to investigate the situation at the target site.
Angel takes out twenty scouting puppets from his bracelet, still fashioned as metallic eyes with wings. However, these are not the original scouting puppets from the Cloud Conch, but ones he bought in Sky Mechanical City, capable of longer-range scouting, stronger concealment, and sturdier defense. He bought a set of over four hundred of these red-painted scouting puppets, designed to adapt to high-temperature environments.
Angel leaves a mental mark in each of the twenty scouting puppets and then places several Nightmare Illusion nodes on the metal skin of half of the scouting puppets.
Although the scouting puppets already have a camouflage mode, Angel also wants to use them to probe whether the elemental creatures here can truly see through Nightmare Illusions.
After all this, Angel commands the scouting puppets to activate their camouflage mode and explore the target point from multiple directions.
Once all the scouting puppets have disappeared from sight, Angel takes Toby out of his bracelet.
When he was getting the scouting puppets, he noticed Toby had awakened. Sensing Angel’s mental power, Toby immediately expressed a desire to come out.
Angel doesn’t refuse. Toby’s strength is sufficient, and in terms of escape capability, he is even stronger than Angel. In case of any danger, Angel could still hitch a ride.
As soon as Toby comes out, he snuggles into the pocket on Angel’s chest, only poking his little head out to peek around.
He isn’t afraid of fire but is simply concerned because he is wearing a snow velvet mini tulle dress and a snow velvet hat with dangling pompoms, bought from Sea Moon City. Such material is highly susceptible to high temperatures; getting burned by the outside flames would be a significant loss.
After hiding in the pocket, Toby curiously surveys its surroundings: Weren’t we in a big city before? How did we suddenly get here? Where is this?
Toby wants to ask Angel but knows he is currently observing through the scouting puppets and doesn’t want to disturb him at such a moment, so it suppresses its curiosity.
Angel’s vision is indeed through the scouting puppets.
As extensions of the Wizard Eye, the scouting puppets clearly share their visual feed with Angel in real-time.
Initially, in the first few hundred meters of the scouting puppets’ journey, Angel doesn’t notice any problems, just scorched earth and underground flames, not even elemental creatures.
However, after traveling a mile, the puppets part the dense smoke, revealing a large lava lake glowing with bright orange light, much larger than any Angel had encountered before.
It resembles a sea of burning magma. Even though the scouting puppets scatter in different directions, they cannot find its edges.
The destination Angel seeks lies deep within this lava lake.
Through the puppets’ perspective, Angel observes the unusual calmness of the lake. Despite constantly churning thick magma and emitting fumes, it is significantly more tranquil than the previously encountered lava lakes, with fiery eruptions and serpentine flames.
Still, tranquility doesn’t equate to safety.
Angel has a feeling that this peaceful lava lake is not as simple as it seems.
Despite this, he still needs to scout. Angel directs eighteen of the scouting puppets toward the lava lake, half flying low, half high, to avoid potential dangers as much as possible.
The remaining two scouting puppets are left on the shore.
Angel leaves them there to test an elemental creature.
When Angel previously explored the edge of the lava lake, he noticed a creature standing and walking on the shore of the lava lake.
This was a fire elemental creature in the form of a werewolf with spinal bone spines. Its entire body was burning with black and purple dark flames, resembling neatly combed fur. Its arms were very long, even reaching its knees, and its back was always bent, moving slowly when it walked.
However, Angel was well aware that this slow movement was just a facade.
The evolved form of an elemental sprite couldn’t possibly have such a glaring weakness. The Dark Flame Werewolf appeared slow, but Angel believed that once it went on all fours, its speed would be considerable.
The fire elemental creature Angel wanted to test was this Dark Flame Werewolf.
Angel controlled two scouting puppets, approaching the creature from completely different directions.
One of these scouting puppets was purely in camouflage mode, while the other was obscured by Angel using Nightmare Illusion.
The one that flew slightly faster was the puppet in camouflage mode.
In camouflage mode, its energy fluctuations were minimized, blending into the surrounding environment, making it difficult to detect unless scrutinized very closely.
This scouting puppet quickly approached the vicinity of the Dark Flame Werewolf.
When it got within a hundred meters, Angel noticed the Dark Flame Werewolf glancing in the direction of the puppet.
Since Angel’s perspective was aligned with that of the scouting puppet, he was effectively making eye contact with the Dark Flame Werewolf.
The eyes of the Dark Flame Werewolf were ink green, but as an elemental life form without actual organs, these so-called green eyes were actually burning emerald flames.
Angel found it hard to read emotions from the emerald flames. However, the fact that the only——Dark Flame Werewolf, which had been looking down all along, raised its head for the first time to look specifically at the puppet, was a clear signal that it might have sensed the puppet.
After some thought, Angel decided to continue to let the scouting puppet approach.
The Dark Flame Werewolf did not pay attention to the puppet again until it got within fifty meters. At that point, its gaze fixated sharply on it.
Now, whether Angel controlled the puppet to move forward or backward, the werewolf’s gaze remained locked on it.
Without a doubt, it wasn’t just “possibly detected” anymore; it was definitely being watched.
Just as Angel decided to continue approaching since it was already discovered, a dark shadow suddenly appeared in front of the puppet.
The next scene, which was also the last one transmitted back by this puppet, showed a pair of claws engulfed in black and purple dark flames reaching towards the puppet.
Then came a cracking sound.
The scouting puppet was crushed.
Angel had prepared for the possibility of the puppet being damaged, so he wasn’t upset over its loss. His thoughts were now focused on the speed of the Dark Flame Werewolf.
What seemed to be fifty meters away just a second ago, the next second, in a flash of shadow, the werewolf appeared right beside the puppet. This terrifying speed was truly shocking.
“I see, the slow walking was just a facade.”
After reflecting, Angel began to control the second scouting puppet to approach the Dark Flame Werewolf.
His expectations for this puppet were higher than before since it was concealed using Nightmare Illusion. This would be a good test to see if fire elemental creatures could detect the power of Nightmare Illusion.
While Angel was pondering, an unexpected event suddenly occurred.
A dark purple ghostly flame suddenly rose from the ground, directly attacking the scouting puppet.
Fortunately, it was Angel controlling it, and his reaction speed was very quick. The moment the ghostly flame attacked, he slightly shifted the puppet, narrowly avoiding the hit.
However, it was a close escape. The dark purple ghostly flame still slightly touched the puppet’s wing.
Just this touch caused both the high-temperature resistant skin material and the most heat-resistant metal wing skeleton to show signs of melting, and it couldn’t be stopped.
Then, a second ghostly flame rose from the ground, again targeting the scouting puppet.
With one wing already inoperable, even with Angel’s quick reactions, the hardware limitations meant an inevitable demise.
Fortunately, before the brave sacrifice of the scouting puppet, Angel saw the perpetrator of the ghostly flames——
Two hundred meters away, the hands of a Dark Flame Werewolf merged into the scorched earth. Its head raised, eyes staring directly at the distant scouting puppet.
The screen went black as the scouting puppet was rendered inoperable under the impact of the ghostly flame.
Angel stood at the edge of a cliff, his eyebrows tightly furrowed.
The result was now obvious, without a doubt, the Dark Flame Werewolf had discovered the scouting puppet hidden by the Nightmare Illusion.
Whether it was the earlier fire butterfly or this Dark Flame Werewolf, both could penetrate the cover of the Nightmare Illusion. Angel didn’t believe in such a coincidence, that he just happened to encounter these two creatures with penetrating abilities.
It seemed the only possibility was that the elemental creatures here indeed weren’t affected by the illusionary cover.
This meant that the elemental creatures he had encountered before, like the Six-tailed Fox and Fire Salamander, had indeed discovered him.
Angel now felt a headache. His most proficient method of concealment was illusion, and now that illusions were ineffective and optical stealth was proven to be detectable by the Dark Flame Werewolf, stealthy scouting seemed impossible.
Angel sighed helplessly and refocused his attention on the vision of the scouting puppet. As for the Dark Flame Werewolf, he decided to put it aside for the time being.
After reconnecting to the scouting puppet’s vision, Angel immediately noticed that the vision from two of the puppets was completely red.
Both of these scouting puppets had been arranged to fly at low altitudes.
While Angel was wondering what had happened, the redness in the vision disappeared, followed by a ‘gurgling’ sound, and the screen turned pitch black.