Chapter 1028: Genius
Dense golden patterns appeared on the metallic staff, and the orange flame burning at its tip suddenly swelled. Waves of orange fire swirled around Dida La, and the dark red Burning Soul Robe he wore erupted with a terrifying aura of flame.
Dida La strode forward three steps, his body enveloped in orange flames. The fire dragon embroidered on his robe flew out, transformed into a phantom, and merged into the flames surrounding him.
In an instant, Dida La's aura surged wildly. The orange flames burning on his body rapidly condensed, and in less than a second, they formed a creature of fire.
The fiery creature stood seven or eight meters tall, its body wreathed in a layer of orange flame. It had the head of a fire dragon, a human torso, arms turned into dragon claws, and legs transformed into massive dragon hind feet. Wherever it stepped, flaming footprints were left on the ground.
Leon glanced at Dida La with a hint of surprise. Fusing with a magic item and its avatar, combining one's own power to become a half-human, half-dragon, half-elemental being—this greatly enhances control over fire spells, speeding up casting, reducing mana consumption, and massively boosting spell power. The strength of this avatar far surpasses that of ordinary fire elementals.
According to people of this era, the power of a fire elemental avatar is fixed, and its amplification is also fixed. Dida La's method of fusing a magic item with its avatar is indeed incredibly strong.
Dida La already has one foot in the Sky Rank, and the other is about to step in as well. Now, having fused with the Burning Soul Robe, he can truly unleash Sky Rank strength—far beyond what newly advanced Sky Rank mages can achieve.
This guy is definitely a powerhouse. His mastery of fire spells is the strongest I've seen since my reincarnation. It's a pity he never valued the fire elemental avatar...
If only he had valued the fire elemental avatar, constantly casting it and devoting effort to understanding it, he could have raised its hidden rank. The power boost would far exceed the fixed amplification of an ordinary fire elemental avatar.
If he fused with the Burning Soul Robe then, his power would be enough to take down the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox alone.
Leon secretly shook his head, ignoring the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox and instead focused on observing the surroundings.
Dida La was the first to charge forward. As his staff swept through the air, clusters of blue flames condensed midair—dozens of Detonation spells rained down.
Amid the thunderous explosions, the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox let out a furious roar. The frost aura on the other side surged, and an ice dragon made of crystalline ice burst out from the flames, roaring.
Just the head of the ice dragon alone was over twenty meters tall. The massive beast tore through the flames and lunged at Dida La, jaws wide open to bite.
Flames around Dida La rapidly condensed, forming a fire shield over ten meters wide in an instant. On its surface, flames took shape as a snarling, roaring fire dragon's head.
The ice dragon collided with the shield, sending waves of shock out from the impact. A second later, three Spears of Vulcan, each seven or eight meters long, shot out from the side in three successive strikes, shredding the ice dragon.
After the strike, Dida La kept charging at the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox. Orange fire dragons appeared at his side, gathering into a swarm of raging dragons that surged toward the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox.
Dida La's ferocious assault actually started to suppress the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox. Even Leon in the rear couldn't help but shift his gaze from the environment to glance at Dida La.
This fighting style has a hint of what Northend's mages were like at their peak—utterly ferocious in battle. Especially fire mages, whose explosive power suits this approach best: overwhelming the opponent with sheer force is the most efficient way.
If you stand at a distance and cast spells bit by bit, the mana cost is huge, and the results are nowhere near as good.
The Nine-Tailed Ice Fox, caught off guard—or maybe just unfamiliar with this kind of mage combat—was suddenly pushed onto the defensive. Its nine snow-white tails flickered, unleashing waves of frost spells that looked like an avalanche from afar, sweeping toward Dida La with overwhelming force.
Dida La's avatar, the fire creature, let out a furious roar. A massive fire vortex, over ten meters wide, appeared before him. The orange flames grew darker, but their heat soared, warping the air all around.
In an instant, endless fire spells erupted from the vortex, each one altered from its original form.
Even the simplest Fireball spell had shifted from its usual crimson to a deep orange. The spell structure remained unchanged, but its very essence had transformed—this was no longer a mere Tier-2 Fireball; its rank was at least Tier-5!
And those Detonations, Flame Spears, Flame Impacts, Blastfires...
All had turned that same deep orange. Their original rank topped out at Tier-5, but now, every spell packed the punch of a Limit Spell—some low-level spells even surpassed Limit Spells in power!
The raging torrent of spells tore a bloody path through the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox's avalanche of frost magic. Blazing impacts struck the fox, leaving charred patches on its snowy fur.
In the rear, Anderson couldn't help but mutter.
"This guy's a real genius. He's using higher-grade elemental fire instead of regular fire elementals, forcibly boosting spell rank and power. And the spell structure hasn't collapsed—every spell is on the verge of breaking, making them even more violent and destructive, but the mana cost isn't that high."
Leon saw it immediately—the secret was Dida La's strange staff, crafted from Crimsonfire Mithril sourced from the Fire Elemental Plane.
In the Fire Elemental Plane, this material is the most hotly contested. Even Fire Elemental Lords go to war over newly discovered Crimsonfire Mithril veins.
Its only real use is to raise the rank of fire itself. In the Fire Elemental Plane, Fire Elemental Lords use it to build their fortresses.
Crimsonfire Mithril can elevate the most basic elemental fire—from ordinary crimson up to orange, with higher temperature and greater lethality.
A staff forged from Crimsonfire Mithril is all about amplifying its power. That's why all the elemental fire Dida La summons is orange—his spells are naturally more potent than anyone else's.
But forging a staff from Crimsonfire Mithril costs a fortune. Anyone who does it is sure to make an enemy of a Fire Elemental Lord.
Leon had been eyeing this stuff for ages, planning to look for some in a low-powered Fire Elemental Plane after reaching Sky Rank. He never expected to see it here.
Dida La led the charge, rushing to the front and even temporarily suppressing the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox. This gave the humans a major advantage.
But once Dida La's burst slows and the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox recovers, regaining this advantage will be tough.
In just a dozen seconds, Dida La's team followed his lead and joined the fight.
The leader of Dunespire Tower was named Lord Daugtu. Everyone had assumed that in such an environment, his abilities would be severely hampered—there wasn’t a grain of sand to be found, nor any soil, and the ground beneath their feet was paved with ashen stone, making it impossible for him to unleash his full power.
Lord Daugtu removed his massive hat, revealing a dark face covered in tattoos. As his incantation rang out, vast swathes of yellow sand materialized out of thin air. In just three or four seconds, a sand wave over ten meters wide surged forth like a giant yellow serpent, racing toward the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox.
The sand moved as if alive, swiftly spreading behind the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox and transforming into dozens of giant sand hands that grabbed hold of all nine of its tails.
Those nine tails were the very source of the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox’s power. By channeling spells through its tails, the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox could cast magic like a nine-headed hydra—essentially wielding the strength of nine mages at once. It was tremendously formidable.
With its tails seized, the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox erupted in fury. Its icy aura surged wildly, freezing and shattering the sand hands that held its tails one after another.
Yet Lord Daugtu remained expressionless. Suddenly, the tattoos on his cheeks began to glow, converging on his forehead to form the shape of an eye.
A beam of yellow-brown light shot out from the eye, instantly striking the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox’s tails.
“Petrify!”
The moment the beam struck the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox’s tails, Lord Daugtu uttered the final two incantations in ancient Kunaiser script.
In an instant, the sand that had been shattered and drifting in midair clung to the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox’s tails, turning all nine of them a yellow-brown hue. A layer of sand coated each tail, and those once-flexible, swaying appendages suddenly stiffened, frozen in their original positions, unable to move.
With the aid of his tattooed magic sigils and the sand, this guy had actually managed to cast a spell mimicking Medusa’s petrification magic. Though far less powerful than the real thing, it was still leagues ahead of any ordinary petrification spell.
With all nine tails temporarily disabled, the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox’s spellcasting ability was drastically weakened.
At that moment, Rafael of Skyhold Fortress personally piloted a small floating fortress, unleashing a barrage of flame rays that rained down on the Nine-Tailed Ice Fox.
The floating fortress of Skyhold was like a magical amplifier—a spell amplifier. When a mage channeled their own mana through it, their spells’ power multiplied several times over. If it were a larger fortress, with hundreds of mages operating in concert, the force it could unleash would rival that of a two- or three-thousand-strong mage army.