Chapter Twenty-Nine: Resurrection!

Li Yao thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He hesitated, then leaned in closer, trying to get a better look. But in the next instant, without any warning, that tiny flame suddenly erupted in a violent blaze!

It burned straight through the corpse’s eye sockets.

Before Li Yao could react, the corpse, long dead, suddenly moved!

Its hand shot out and seized Li Yao’s ankle.

“What the hell is this?!”

Li Yao was terrified. Instinctively, he tried to leap back.

But the corpse’s icy hand gripped him like an iron shackle, containing a strength so monstrous that even when he strained with all his might, he couldn't break free.

His expression changed drastically. Without another thought, he drew the long blade from his back and slashed down at the hand gripping his ankle.

A sharp sound rang out as blade met flesh.

But the result he expected—a clean severing—didn’t happen. Instead, it felt as though he’d struck a piece of withered, unyielding wood; his sword was stuck fast.

Li Yao was stunned.

His blade was a Type D alloy saber, forged by ancient methods through countless hammerings, even tougher than ordinary Type D alloys. It could cut through a steel rod the thickness of a man’s arm with a single stroke.

Yet now, just a single arm, and he couldn’t slice through it? Worse, his blade was wedged in place?

How was this possible?

He could hardly believe it.

At that moment, he suddenly noticed black flames spreading from the spot where his blade was embedded.

With the appearance of the black fire, his Type D alloy saber began to melt.

“What?!”

Li Yao was utterly dumbfounded.

Type D alloy had a melting point of five thousand degrees Celsius!

A saber forged from it would have an even higher threshold.

And now, it was melting before his eyes?!

He was completely at a loss.

Before he could recover, the corpse’s grip tightened.

A surge of irresistible power crashed over him, flinging him to the ground.

His head struck the earth with a sickening thud, his vision bursting with stars.

Then a chilling sensation crept from his ankle, spreading upward.

When he looked down, he saw black flames licking at his ankle.

Panic seized him, and he screamed, “Let go! Let go!”

He kicked and struggled desperately, trying to break free.

He didn’t know what this black fire was, but it had just melted his Type D alloy saber!

If it burned him, how could he survive?

“Berserk!”

Li Yao, frantic, unleashed his gene combat skill. Berserk could instantly double his strength.

It was useless.

That hand was like cast iron, its power terrifying beyond imagining. He simply couldn’t get loose.

The black flames began to spread over his body.

But the scene he feared—being burned to ashes—did not occur.

Instead, something far stranger and more dreadful began to happen.

As the black fire spread, his body began to numb, as if freezing over.

His thoughts slowed, his mind growing dull.

“No, it shouldn’t be like this… Who… who are you…?”

His head lolled, the black fire already creeping over his lower body, which had lost all sensation.

If one looked closely, it was clear—the flesh covered by the flames withered visibly.

As if the fire’s fuel was his very flesh and blood!

The flames grew denser, the burning area wider.

When they reached his chest, he lost the ability to move entirely. His eyes opened wide in helplessness, his body twitching as the fire engulfed everything from his chest down. He could no longer breathe.

When the black fire reached his throat—

He drew his final breath.

His eyes stared blankly at the starry sky, then faded.

At last, the black flames enveloped him completely.

The inferno raged for more than half an hour before finally abating.

It receded like the tide, flowing from Li Yao’s corpse through the hand gripping his ankle, into Fang Mu’s body.

Then, black flames began to burn on Fang Mu.

But only on his wounds did the black fire appear.

The process varied in length.

The wound where Li Yao’s saber had struck his right hand burned for a long time. When the flames died down, the wound had utterly vanished.

The scrapes obtained tumbling down the slope—those flames vanished quickly, and the wounds disappeared with them.

The last place to stop burning was his chest.

There, the flames burned for more than an hour before finally flickering out.

The world fell utterly silent. Only the distant howls of battlefield beasts echoed from the mountains.

No one knew how much time passed.

Thump!

A faint sound came from Fang Mu’s body.

A heartbeat.

Fang Mu’s heart, silent for nearly two hours, beat again.

Thump, thump, thump!

With the first beat, his heart seemed to return instantly to life—

…

Fang Mu could not describe the world after death. When his consciousness sank into darkness, he felt he’d lost everything.

But this did not last long. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of his own existence. He felt suffocated.

Gasp!

He jerked upright, chest heaving as he drew in a lungful of cold air. Fresh oxygen rushed into his lungs, and he gasped for breath, exhilarated as never before.

He opened his eyes wide.

The world came into focus.

But he was still a little dazed.

Thump, thump, thump…

He could feel his strong, powerful heartbeat.

Fang Mu froze.

Then, a surge of joy flooded his heart.

“I’m not dead?! Was it all just a dream?!”

He leapt to his feet. His body was completely uninjured; not even the gaping hole in his chest remained.

The joy made him dizzy.

But in the next instant, he stopped short, then stiffened in horror, looking down at his feet.

There lay a man.

When the faint starlight revealed the man’s features, Fang Mu drew in a sharp breath—

It was a desiccated corpse!