Chapter 702: Soulfire Inferno
As they passed a stretch of swamp, a Dark Elf mage’s face kept twisting, as if he could finally bear it no longer. With a frenzied scream, he hurled himself headlong into the mire, vanishing in an instant as the muck swallowed him whole.
Leon didn’t even have time to rescue him. Even casting spells on what looked like an ordinary swamp had no effect at all—the strongest magic couldn’t blast up a single clump of black mud.
They were already approaching the deepest part of Nightfall Gorge; from a distance, the farthest point of the canyon was nothing but a dead end.
The trunk of the Tree of Wisdom stood at the very end, looming like a sheer cliff.
"We’re almost there. According to our records, at the deepest point, there’s a dense forest to the left. Inside, a hidden teleportation array—that’s the only way out of Nightfall Gorge."
Elsa, a hint of joy on her face, pointed into the distance.
But as soon as she spoke, everyone managed a faint smile—one Dark Elf even opened his mouth wide and began to laugh maniacally.
Hahaha...
At first, no one thought anything was wrong. They just assumed it was relief after surviving, that the Dark Elf had cracked under the pressure and finally lost control.
But after a few seconds, then a dozen more, the Dark Elf’s laughter only grew wilder. His eyes bulged as if they might pop from their sockets, his mouth stretched grotesquely wide, and his laughter became ragged and broken, as if even breathing was becoming a struggle.
Soon, within seconds, the Dark Elf’s pale face turned a bruised purple-black. He collapsed, body convulsing, clutching his mouth as if desperately trying to stop himself from laughing.
The bizarre scene sent chills through everyone’s heart. Another Dark Elf nearby seemed petrified, standing dumbly in place, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
Bang.
Elsa reached out and knocked the laughing Dark Elf on the head, trying to knock her out. But instead of fainting, the Dark Elf sprang up from the ground, her face twisted and bizarre, hands clutching her own throat, veins bulging as if she was using every ounce of strength.
The madness and obsession in her eyes terrified everyone.
Three seconds later, the Dark Elf finally stopped laughing...
She strangled herself to death. Even with her eyes bulging from their sockets, a wild, deranged smile still lingered on her lips.
"Mer... Merlin, what the hell is going on?"
Seth’s face was ghostly pale, as if he’d just survived a serious illness. Teeth chattering, he huddled close to Leon and stammered out his question.
Leon’s face was grim, as if someone was squeezing his heart in their fist.
He hadn’t sensed what the problem was at all—there was no sign of any outside force at work. No matter how he looked at it, that Dark Elf had simply gone mad, completely lost it.
He nearly died from laughing himself breathless, and in the end, strangled himself as if facing a mortal enemy.
No one understood what had happened—the Dark Elf just snapped.
In an instant, a shadow fell over everyone’s hearts.
This place was just too bizarre...
"Let’s go. We need to get out of here, now."
Leon’s stern voice snapped Elsa out of her guilt.
After such a disturbing event, no one dared laugh—no one even dared cry. The weaker Dark Elves were on the verge of mental collapse, every nerve on edge. Fear was all they had; they didn’t dare to feel joy or sadness, terrified they might go mad themselves.
Thankfully, nothing else happened, and they made it safely to the deepest part of Nightfall Gorge. Ahead was a wide, empty plain, and a few hundred meters away, that sheer cliff rose straight up.
To the left of the path, the steep hillside was covered in dense black trees. These trees were so bizarre they hardly looked like trees at all—more like giant mushrooms.
Bare branches supported mushroom caps at their tops, mottled with stains and what seemed to be twisted faces.
Once inside Shadowwood, Elsa quickly found a tree. After blasting it open, she revealed a hollow core where a teleportation array, less than two meters across, was hidden. Unfortunately, it was damaged and needed repair before it could be used.
Naturally, Leon wouldn’t leave such a task to the Dark Elves. As a creator, fixing a slightly damaged teleportation array wasn’t difficult for him, nor would it take much time.
But just as Leon took out his repair tools, a buzzing vibration sounded in his ears.
In the blink of an eye, that faint buzzing grew into a deafening roar.
Everyone looked up to see a massive, seven- or eight-meter-wide dark green fireball plummeting from the sky.
The giant fireball, trailing a long tail, crashed down, roaring through the air with an ear-shattering boom.
"Dodge!"
A shout rang out, and everyone immediately scrambled, using whatever means they had to evade.
Leon instantly cast Fire Elemental Avatar, then followed up with a hundred-meter-long Wall of Flames. Using Flame Blink, he escaped a hundred meters away. Seth reacted just as quickly, casting Fire Elemental Avatar and using Flame Blink to get out of there.
Hubert leapt into the air, soaring more than ten meters high before arcing down several dozen meters away. As soon as he landed, he broke into a full sprint.
Whether it was Reina or the Alchemical Golem, each had their own spells to escape instantly.
But not every Dark Elf had that kind of skill...
They were agile, but in just a second or two, only a handful could make it a hundred meters away.
The massive emerald fireball finally struck, and the shockwave swept out visibly. Within fifty meters, every tree was shredded to splinters. Even the earth—normally impervious to magical attacks—was split by deep, jagged cracks.
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A few Dark Elves who only managed to run fifty meters were tossed like leaves by the shockwave, sent flying through the air. Blood spurted from their mouths before they even hit the ground.
The emerald flames swept out behind the shockwave. One injured Dark Elf, a little slower than the rest, was grazed by a lick of green fire on her left leg.
In an instant, the Dark Elf seemed to ignite—emerald flames engulfed her entire body, wrapping her in fire.
A wretched scream rang out as the Dark Elf staggered forward, reaching out as if begging for help from her companions.
But her face aged before their eyes, the despair in her gaze vanishing swiftly, leaving nothing but emptiness.
Thud...
She collapsed, the emerald flames dissipating. Her body—and even her clothes—were untouched by the fire, but her face was now ancient, her black hair turned stark white, her skin wrinkled and dry.
Not a trace of magic or soul remained in her body. Her eyes were utterly vacant, just like the undead they’d encountered before.
Leon’s scalp tingled as if his pores had exploded all at once, his hair standing on end.
"Damn it, Hellfire Elemental..."
Sure enough, where the fireball had landed, it didn’t disappear—instead, it began to split apart. Chunks of burning emerald rock quickly assembled into a towering, ten-meter-tall rock giant.
Emerald flames covered the elemental’s rocky surface, yet the roaring fire gave off no heat at all.
As the elemental giant lifted its head, a terrifying aura spread out like a storm.
"Hellfire Elemental! My god, who—who summoned a Hellfire Elemental? Damn it, Merlin, kill that thing!"
Anderson’s face twisted in terror. He manipulated the Arcane Wheel, hiding behind Leon like a mouse confronted by a cat.
Hellfire Elementals are unique abyssal creatures that dwell in places of endless flames. To them, ordinary fire is as harmless as air; almost no flame can hurt a Hellfire Elemental.
They burn with Soulfire—the life flame of the Hellfire Elemental—so terrifying that even abyssal creatures fear it.
Any living being touched by Soulfire will have their magic ignited and their soul consumed, burned to nothing. The fire won’t go out until all magic and soul are gone.
Only a handful of spells or items can extinguish Soulfire.
One is the Water of Life, said to revive even the newly dead. The other is the Frost Dragon’s trump card: Absolute Zero Breath.
But the latter is hardly an option—being hit directly by Absolute Zero Breath is just as fatal as Soulfire. One burns your soul to nothing; the other freezes your body instantly.
This terrifying force is the nemesis of every mage and spirit creature. Anyone with magic will be ignited by Soulfire.
No spirit creature has ever appeared where a Hellfire Elemental has been. In the Abyss, any plane with Hellfire Elementals is utterly devoid of spirits.
In the age of magical supremacy, conquering new planes meant facing all sorts of worlds. There was once a ghost plane filled with wraiths, even some Sky Rank ghosts.
A team of mages stumbled in and suffered heavy losses. Later, an Orc warlock came, summoned a level-39 Hellfire Elemental, and left. A year later, he returned with a large team to claim the plane.