Chapter 445: A World of Ice and Fire

Ye Feng was utterly stunned by the beauty before his eyes. The Crimson Flame Ice Lotus was simply breathtaking, and the surrounding environment only served to highlight its uniqueness further.

Just as Ye Feng stood there in awe, that mischievous, mood-spoiling voice sounded again, “Ye Feng, I have to tell you some bad news. You need to eat this Crimson Flame Ice Lotus immediately!”

“What? Weren't you going to take it back to study? I don't dare eat it! What if I can't handle it and end up dead?” Ye Feng exclaimed.

“I didn't look closely at first. When I scanned it, I urged you to come quickly. But just now, I scanned it again and found its energy is gradually dissipating. Looks like it's been here too long and is about to wither on its own. So you'd better eat it right now, or it'll be useless,” the voice explained.

“Can't you just find something to preserve it? In movies, treasures like this are kept in ice boxes,” Ye Feng replied naively.

“You've really watched too many movies. The Crimson Flame Ice Lotus is both fire and ice—nothing can contain it. The only way is to eat it!” came the disdainful retort.

“Didn't you say it contains immense energy? Are you sure I'll be okay if I eat it?” Ye Feng still felt uneasy.

“Its energy is dissipating fast. I don't know when it started, but it won’t last long. In the time we've been talking, it has already dropped by three percent. I think you should be fine. Anyway, this is the situation. If you want to eat it, eat it. If not, just admire it for a while. It’ll wither soon enough,” the voice said carelessly.

After the voice finished, Ye Feng began to hesitate.

About a minute passed before Ye Feng finally reached out, grabbed the Crimson Flame Ice Lotus, and said, “If anything happens to me, help me contact Amy and the others.”

With that, Ye Feng shoved the lotus into his mouth, chewed fiercely a few times, and swallowed.

The clash between ice and fire began—the battlefield was Ye Feng’s body. They ravaged him, paying no heed to his ability to endure.

Ye Feng struggled to stay conscious, but it was clear he couldn’t. He lasted only five seconds before he completely lost consciousness.

The mischievous voice stared in astonishment at the battle raging within Ye Feng’s body. The ferocity was unbelievable—it was hard to imagine how such powers could be fused within a single plant.

Fortunately, Ye Feng had spent some time cultivating the Heavenly Dragon Internal Arts, and the meridians Dragon Xuan had repaired were already somewhat strengthened. Otherwise, Ye Feng would have been in real trouble this time—even Dragon Xuan might not have been able to save him.

The meridians of the Heavenly Dragon clan possess strong self-repairing abilities, and Dragon Xuan had incorporated this trait when restoring Ye Feng’s meridians. So what the mischievous voice saw now was Ye Feng’s meridians cracking and healing, cracking again and healing again, in an endless cycle.

In truth, the mischievous voice had miscalculated. Wild Crimson Flame Ice Lotus cannot be eaten raw; it must be refined and consumed in portions, or it can easily cause the body to explode and die. This time, Ye Feng faced serious danger. Luckily, the lotus had already lost sixty percent of its energy, and Ye Feng’s meridians had been modified by Dragon Xuan. Otherwise, the instant Ye Feng ate it, he would have died from internal rupture.

Ye Feng, unconscious, was not faring well. The ordeal of ice and fire tormented not only his body but also his mind.

He felt himself caught between ice and fire—half his body cold as death, the other half burning with terrifying heat. It was utter torment.

The mischievous voice grew anxious, for Ye Feng’s heart had ceased beating and he was no longer breathing. All signs pointed to Ye Feng being dead, yet the only faint hope was that his brainwaves were still active.

…

On the surface, after Angus and his men labored for fifteen days, the entire ocean was finally emptied. The results were tremendous, but the price paid was horrific. Five hundred million space rings were clearly insufficient for Angus’s plan to relocate the sea, so he worked overtime, consuming eighty percent of the world’s resources to rush production and finally managed to make a billion space rings.

To speed things up, Angus dispatched everyone above the earth rank to the task of moving the sea. Working endlessly, countless lives were lost—over forty million people died during the operation, with nearly all the initial personnel perishing.

The land suffered even worse. The ocean was much larger and deeper than the land, and relocating all its water onto land destroyed three-quarters of the earth’s surface. Even with the sea water gone, those areas couldn’t be inhabited for some time, forcing the remaining humans to squeeze into less than a quarter of the land, and most of that was inhospitable mountain regions.

Of course, the worst off was Angus. This schemer had calculated everything except the fact that the Heavenly Dragon’s inner core was already in Ye Feng’s possession. Thus, his dream of enslaving the Chi Dragon was indefinitely postponed.

Unable to find the Heavenly Dragon’s inner core, Chi Fire was furious. He had long coveted it.

The Chi Dragon’s life force was similar to that of the Heavenly Dragon; all their energy was contained within the inner core. The only difference was that their souls resided within their bodies—when they died, they simply left behind some fragments of soul, preserving a few memories. The Chi Dragon’s inner core, due to excessive impurities, lacked sufficient energy, so their lifespan was much shorter than that of the Heavenly Dragon. That was why they desired the Heavenly Dragon’s core so desperately.

A typical Chi Dragon could live for five hundred years; at the peak of cultivation, a thousand years. But if they found other sources of energy, they could live even longer. Once, a Chi Dragon leader obtained a Heavenly Dragon inner core and lived for five thousand years, becoming a legend in the Chi Dragon clan’s history.

“Useless! What do you have to say for yourself?” Chi Fire spoke coldly to Angus, barely restraining his anger, ready to erupt at any moment.

The tone alone told Angus trouble was brewing. He knelt immediately. “Chief Chi Fire, please let me explain. I searched all the deep and shallow seas for the Heavenly Dragon inner core as you instructed, but it’s nowhere to be found. Perhaps it’s no longer on Earth?”

“That’s impossible! You’re just making excuses!” Chi Fire retorted.

“Elder Chi Fire, your people have seen that I never left their sight. I truly didn’t find the inner core. If I had, you would’ve brought me here straight away,” Angus replied weakly.

Chi Fire understood, too. His two confidants had monitored Angus closely, and indeed, they had seen no sign of the Heavenly Dragon inner core.

“Is there anywhere on Earth we haven’t searched?” Chi Fire asked coldly.

“There’s only one place left,” Angus replied.

“Where?” Chi Fire demanded urgently.

“In the space rings of Ye Feng and his companions. But we have no idea where they’ve gone. Even after draining the sea, we couldn’t find them,” Angus answered in a low voice.

“Then what are you waiting for? Go find them! Don’t come back until you do!” Chi Fire roared, kicking Angus out of the room.