“What’s that?” asked Liu Dashao.
“Didn’t I just tell you? They’re going to freeze us to death!” As Zhang the Clay Molder finished speaking, six deep-blue Ranyi fish suddenly burst from the water. Compared to before, they were clearly different—larger in size and darker in color.
Nan Pazi was quick to react. Squinting his eyes, he fired a shot. The bullet pierced straight through one of the Ranyi fish, but it did nothing to stop its gliding speed.
When the fish were just a meter away, all six opened their mouths simultaneously. A bone-chilling coldness instantly spread throughout the chamber.
“Step back! Further back! Watch your footing!” Zhang the Clay Molder roared, “Freezing—they’ve begun their final assault!”
Crack…
Before Nan Pazi could fire a second shot, he felt his left leg rapidly stiffening. He couldn’t lift it at all. By the time he realized what was happening, the nerves in his entire thigh had been completely frozen. If one looked closely, they would have seen a thin layer of frost forming on the surface of his pants. The frost climbed at an astonishing speed. Within moments, Nan Pazi was entirely encased in ice. Soon after, the lifeless body of Nan Pazi crashed to the ground, his limbs shattering like broken ice—like being torn apart by wild horses.
It was horrifying—there wasn’t even a trace of blood from the cut…
“This is the real killing move of the Ranyi fish!” Zhang the Clay Molder shut his eyes in fear.
“What do we do now!” Liu Dashao shouted loudly.
“The rest of you, cover us with gunfire! Big Master, you and I will activate the talismans we set earlier!” Zhang the Clay Molder decided immediately.
“How long will it take?” asked Old Diao.
“Just hold on for twenty seconds!” After saying this, Zhang rolled forward in a somersault and swiftly moved away. Liu Dashao followed closely behind.
“Cover them, lads!” Old Diao nodded, raising his gun and firing. The tomb raiders all shouted in agreement. Perhaps frightened by Nan Pazi’s death, they now shot with unusual ferocity. The bullets rained down like a storm, finally tearing the six Ranyi fish into pieces. After all, although these creatures were tough, they were still flesh and blood. Though they could withstand a bullet or two, how could they survive such a hail of gunfire?
However, more and more evolved Ranyi fish began leaping from the water.
Gradually, Old Diao and the others began to struggle to hold their ground. Gasping for breath, Old Diao shouted, “Big Master, how are you doing? If things keep going like this, we’ll have to blow the explosives and take these bastards with us!”
“Don’t light the explosives yet! We’re done, we’re done!” Liu Dashao, lying on the ground, exhaled deeply, his forehead drenched in sweat. It was clear he hadn’t been idle but had worked hard just now.
On the ground were numerous strange symbols and names scrawled in messy lines, connected with Tai Chi and the Eight Trigrams, all written in bright red. The final talisman required for activating the formation had been written by Liu Dashao using his own blood after biting his finger—there was no cinnabar left.
“Activate the formation!” Zhang the Clay Molder plunged the Jade Yang Spike into the ground. Instantly, those chaotic lines began glowing red, gradually moving and swirling around the coffin. Soon, pillars of fire erupted from the center of each vortex, engulfing the tomb chamber in intense heat.
“Wow! Truly a raging inferno!” Zhang exclaimed in awe.
“Of course! Half a bag of cinnabar and half a tube of blood—if that didn’t work, I’d go bang my head against a wall!” Liu Dashao smirked.
“What spell is this?” Zhang asked. In the distance, countless Ranyi fish spewed freezing breath, but fire was naturally the enemy of water. With the entire golden coffin surrounded by flames, the moisture in the air quickly evaporated, rendering the Ranyi fish’s freezing attack completely useless.
“Self-invented. No name.”
“Oh, impressive.”
“Heh, if you really want a name, you can call it the ‘Awesome Formation!'”
“Erm…” Zhang coughed twice, at a loss for words toward this eccentric character.
“By the way, what do we do next?” Liu Dashao asked.
“Sit back, wait for the fire to die down, and enjoy some grilled fish.”
“You think these things are edible?” Liu Dashao wrinkled his nose in disgust, “Forget it, I’m not into that.”
Inside the blazing formation, the Ranyi fish were nearly wiped out. In truth, if they had just stayed quietly at the bottom of the inner coffin, it would have been difficult for anyone to deal with them. But for some unknown reason, each Ranyi fish, as if their eyes had turned red with fury, rushed headlong into the fire, one after another, dying bravely. A continuous stench of burning filled the air.
The frost that had accumulated on the golden coffin had completely melted, and beside Nan Pazi’s corpse, small puddles of water and blood slowly gathered.
After a few more minutes, the formation’s power finally reached its limit. One by one, the fire pillars extinguished, and the symbols on the ground simultaneously vanished.
“It’s over!”
“Yeah, just one more inner formation to go,” Zhang the Clay Molder said, crushing a monster fish’s remains under his shoe.
“More?!” Liu Dashao nearly shivered in shock.
“I just want to take what I came for. I’ll handle the last part myself,” Zhang said calmly, glancing toward the tomb raiders, “If I’m not mistaken, beneath the inner coffin lies another small chamber. The burial treasures inside should be quite valuable—you won’t have come here for nothing.”
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