novelraw Chapter 360: Life for Life!
Chapter 360: Life for Life!
Su Zhan’s hand shot for the resplendent Reforge Fruit that shimmered with streaming light.
In Frostgnawer’s ice-blue eyes, Su Zhan’s resolute silhouette reflected clearly.
It seemed truly enraged by this insect’s relentless provocations. Cold energy boiled around its body, driving the temperature of the entire Crystal Forest into a frantic freefall.
An even more terrifying attack was brewing.
But…
Su Zhan’s hand reached the Reforge Fruit almost instantly.
He foresaw every subtle motion of Frostgnawer—the raising of its arm, the ice condensing, the strike—and preemptively moved to dodge.
However, seeing it didn’t mean he could get away!
The gap in strength was an abyss.
Frostgnawer punched out simply and directly.Su Zhan’s Future Vision activated like crazy, but no matter where he tried to dodge, the punch changed its path and would hit!
Before the fist arrived, the cold had already made Su Zhan’s Flame of Destruction wildly flicker across his body.
“Boom—!!!”
Su Zhan crossed his arms to shield his chest, congealing the Flame of Destruction into a protective barrier.
Fist met shield!
The dark-red fire shield Su Zhan formed shattered inch by inch.
That irresistible force, accompanied by bone-deep frigidness, slammed into his arms.
“Crack!”
Arm bones splintered.
Spitting blood, Su Zhan was blasted backward. He crashed through several massive, colored crystal pillars before barely coming to a stop.
His arms hung limp, the covering scales shattered on a large scale. The wounds didn’t bleed, but were coated in hard ice, and that frigid aura was furiously invading his meridians, attempting to freeze every spark of his life.
His recovery ability was almost nullified.
Frostgnawer’s cold naturally countered regeneration. In the face of that power, his formidable self-healing slowed to an almost negligible crawl.
Su Zhan could clearly feel the struck areas, his meridians being frozen by that strange cold toxin.
This was trending toward permanent damage.
Su Zhan struggled to rise.
Frostgnawer was already hovering above him.
Looking down, its ice-blue eyes showed no emotion.
Its long fingers came together, forming a palm blade that lightly slashed toward Su Zhan’s skull.
A razor-thin ice blade fell.
Where it passed, the space split with minute fissures.
There was nowhere to hide!
“Roar—!”
Madness burned in Su Zhan’s eyes.
He didn’t retreat; he surged forward, springing off the ground toward that ice blade.
Ignoring the injuries to his arms, he forcibly drove the Flame of Destruction to his forehead.
He intended to headbutt and brute-force through that palm blade!
“Sss—!”
The ice blade sliced into the Flame of Destruction.
The dark-red flames were fiercely consumed but ultimately failed to fully block it.
The residual force of the ice blade struck Su Zhan’s forehead hard.
Scales burst, and a crack formed in his skull. Frost instantly surged into his brain, nearly freezing his consciousness.
But using the momentum of the impact,
Su Zhan somehow forced himself once more toward the small white-jade sapling.
Frostgnawer seemed completely enraged.
It flashed and appeared directly before Su Zhan, its fist covered in profound ice, unleashing a barrage aimed at every vital point of Su Zhan’s body.
“Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!”
Each punch landed solidly.
The dull thuds echoed without pause.
Su Zhan was pummeled into powerlessness, barely able to guard his vitals with Future Vision while using his body to absorb the blows.
His sternum caved, ribs shattered, internal organs injured. Countless wounds were sealed over by hard ice, the cold running rampant inside him, destroying everything.
His breath rapidly withered; his consciousness began to blur.
This won’t do… If this continues, he’ll truly die!
The shadow of death had never been so dense.
Yet it was precisely in this abyssal moment
that the madness in Su Zhan’s eyes did not diminish.
A way out?
There had long been none!
If he could grab the Reforge Fruit, all these injuries would mean nothing!
Even near-death wounds could be instantly healed!
“Ahhhhh—!”
Su Zhan let out a tearing, soul-rending roar, abandoning all defense and pouring in every remaining ounce of power—
the Flame of Destruction, his flesh-and-blood qi and blood, even the burning core of his life…
All channeled into one final charge!
He stopped dodging Frostgnawer’s fatal punch aimed for his heart.
At the instant the enemy struck and its guard opened, he used his last strength to lunge for the Reforge Fruit now within reach.
Life for life!
He would pay the price of receiving a mortal blow to snatch that sliver of hope!
A ripple crossed Frostgnawer’s cold eyes.
It seemed not to expect such madness from this ant.
Its fist slammed squarely into Su Zhan’s back heart.
And Su Zhan’s bloodstained hand finally, at last, clutched tight around the Reforge Fruit, its seven-colored radiance streaming.
“Boom—!!!”
Frostgnawer’s millennia-frozen fist detonated against Su Zhan’s back heart.
Terrifying power erupted, accompanied by extreme cold, pouring into Su Zhan without reservation.
His chest visibly caved in; the scales and flesh at the impact site instantly turned into ice-crystal dust.
His heart felt as if a giant cold hand had gripped and crushed it, its beat ceasing!
All the blood in his body seemed to congeal.
Consciousness, like a candle struggling in the wind, was blasted apart by that annihilating chill. Darkness swallowed his sight entirely.
Su Zhan was hurled through the air, spraying blood spangled with ice shards, and crashed down a kilometer away, tumbling countless times before stopping, collapsed and motionless.
Frostgnawer slowly withdrew its fist. Its ice-blue eyes swept indifferently toward the white-jade sapling.
On the tree, there was nothing.
The Reforge Fruit it had guarded for untold ages was gone.
A hairline crack appeared across its millennia-unchanging ice-sculpted face. The surrounding air temperature dropped once more.
It turned slowly, locking onto that distant, nearly extinguished speck of life.
And in the final instant when consciousness sank into boundless darkness,
Su Zhan’s nearly dissipated will, clinging to that bone-deep obsession, made one last movement.
He shoved the Reforge Fruit, which he had been clutching in his left palm, into his mouth.
Using his last shred of strength.
The fruit melted the moment it touched his tongue, no swallowing needed.
Inside him, it erupted like a warm sun.
Boundless vitality surged and smashed through the raging cold.
It flooded his limbs and bones, into every cell on the brink of death.
His heart jolted violently.
A strong beat thundered back to life.
It pumped the newborn, seven-colored blood through his body!
The frozen meridians, brushed by the seven-colored radiance, repaired and reformed, becoming sturdier and broader.
His caved-in sternum reset itself.
The horrid hole in his back’s flesh writhed frantically and closed.
Fractured arm bones snapped back together instantly.
The deep, bone-revealing wound on his forehead healed as if it had never been.
The Frostgnawer cold toxin inside his body was rapidly cleansed by this gentle yet irresistible tide of life force.