The King of Black Fog

From the watchtower, Prague resembled the most dazzling piece of coal amidst the flames.

Bi's blonde hair danced in the breeze, firelight flickered across her delicate features, as she watched the scene before her, mesmerized and horrified.

She had never seen such a sight, pure, mysterious, vast, magnificent—the most beautiful pigments in the world paled in comparison to even a fraction of it.

Coming back to her senses, she remembered something.

"The fire is impressive, but how do you find players?" She had already forgotten that Li Changzhou had told her not to disturb him.

Li Changzhou, already at work, was not too distracted to reply, "Of course, by burning it bit by bit, inch by inch."

"..."

"When flames reach the face, whether they'll burn the flesh or not, I'm well aware."

"The principle? Is it built into the skill?"

"If you use fire to burn people every day, naturally, you'll know whether it will burn them, like often crashing a car into something, after crashing enough, you don't have to look to know what you've hit." Li Changzhou's eyes reflected Prague ablaze in the flames.

"...How can you be even more cruel than me!" Bi muttered softly.

She couldn't pinpoint what she was feeling in her heart—fear, trepidation, admiration, defiance...

Li Changzhou laughed, "How else to educate you without being cruel?"

The Czar Princess realized that she would now rather reason with Yang Qinglan than speak to Li Changzhou, who appeared to be a good person but was in reality cold and ruthless.

She asked Yang Qinglan, "Did you know he was this cruel?"

"I didn't know," Yang Qinglan answered.

After a pause, she added with a smile, "I only know that he's very cruel to himself."

◇

Gas stations, chemical plants, gas pipelines, factory workshops... one explosion after another.

The flames gained tremendous energy from them, turning into an uncontrollable tyrant.

They ran, tumbled, and roared, whipping up heatwave hurricanes and fire tsunamis, flattening everything in their path!

Li Qianxia flew through the flames; in a world molten like lava, there was always a flight path cleared just for her.

There was a hollow up ahead. Li Qianxia flew out and announced, "Hand over your Identity... oh, it's you guys."

Before her were Yafeiluna, the Polar Bear Woman, and a squirrel clutching the tips of the Polar Bear Woman's hair.

They had run out of the apartment where they were previously, not even knowing where they were now; all of Prague was engulfed in flames, the only thing visible to the eye was the great fire.

"Lady Qian Xia!" Yafeiluna breathed a sigh of relief as if she had found her pillar of strength.

The despair of being surrounded by a sea of fire was more than ordinary people could imagine or bear.

"Don't worry, this fire was started by my brother. As long as you don't move around recklessly, you'll be safe." Having explained, Li Qianxia flapped her wings and flew into a new flight path.

Her claws gripped a pot lid, and behind it, two card boxes were tied to her legs.

In one of the card boxes was a thick stack of Identity Cards, mostly black, with a few white ones interspersed among them.

"The fire was started by Lord Black Mist?" Yafeiluna looked at the endless flames, and her despair and loathing instantly turned into fondness and reverence.

Black Mist had already shown enough strength along the way.

Invincible power, unbeatable speed, sharp weapons, miraculous teleportation, precious Healing Blood Pearls... and of course, a handsome and clear-cut charming appearance, a noble character that honored promises, and a kind, compassionate heart.

And those still weren't all.

He could start a fire that burned the whole of Prague!

This fire also ignited the admiration Yafeiluna had in her heart for Li Changzhou.

The Polar Bear Woman was born in the Arctic, a silent, white world of extreme cold. Now, faced with a violent, orange world of flames, the shock in her heart turned her worldview upside down.

So, there were powers in this world comparable to the Arctic.

◇

The flames roared, like a mighty gale of orange-red.

The Zombie Worms controlling soldiers, initially ready to lay siege with anti-aircraft guns, sent tracer rounds tracing bright ellipses in the night sky, now nothing but sparks from the sea of fire.

Drones hung high in the air, helpless, like fishermen who had lost their boats and nets.

They not only couldn't catch any fish, but occasionally whipped by fire waves, they were pulled into the sea of flames.

◇

Ant swarms covered the exteriors of buildings, turning the red-roofed, white-walled European architecture entirely black.

The people inside the building, terrified, watched as ants entered the rooms through doors, windows, and any crack they could find, a black sea of ants seeping in from all sides.

"Ah!!!"

The crowd fired guns, looted or scavenged.

Each bullet was large for an ant, but far too small for a sea of them.

As the black river was about to fill the room and drown the people, a "whoosh" of wind swept through.

The black river became oil, and flames rolled along the black river, like a living liquid, devouring every life within the black river.

As the flames reached the faces of the people, they stopped amidst terrified screams, like a venomous snake staring at them.

"Hand over your Identity Card!" A Snowy Owl flew in.

Some crouched on the ground, shivering; others lost control, firing their guns wildly.

The Snowy Owl raised the pot lid; the bullets striking it made a "pang pang pang" sound, like rubber bullets from a toy gun.

The impact was akin to rubber bullets indeed — not a mark was left on the pot lid, let alone a hole.

Li Qianxia's sharp gaze swept over the crowd, which at a glance appeared to be ordinary people, and fixed on a dark-skinned, stoic Indian player.

As their eyes met for an instant, the void shattered, and Death God, cloaked in black and wielding a Bone Scythe, flashed in behind the Snowy Owl.

"Ah!" Before Death God could strike, the Indian player shrieked horribly.

Flames seared into his every pore, and even embers began to burst from his eyes and ears.

The Indian player roared, commanding the Death God to attack with tenacious will.

But a moment of agony created a gap, allowing Li Qianxia to flash into the flames, followed by the Death God's flash, as the eerie and beautiful Bone Scythe disregarded the flames and slashed downward.

Li Qianxia raised the pot lid, issuing a Thunder Roar at the same time.

When the Death God's scythe touched the pot lid, it disintegrated like ashes, Li Qianxia watched in shaken relief.

The Indian player had become a pillar of fire, and with a crisp sound, his eyeballs, turned to puss by the burning, fell from their sockets, hanging on his face like a piece of rotten flesh.

Atop the watchtower, Li Changzhou, having triggered "Concentration," looked down on Prague with an indifferent expression, as if through the raging fire, he could see the burnt corpse of the Indian player.

He couldn't see, and he didn't know it was the Crocodile God Sobek, as comprehension about the flames poured endlessly into his mind.

All that was destroyed in Prague was being refined into intangible yet precious knowledge, which he absorbed.

On the white Identity Card, the three blue characters for "Flame Wave" intensified in brightness until they shone white, a sign of 'comprehension.'

Now, even if Li Changzhou were to replace it, he could still cast "Flame Wave."

And with this subtle change on the Identity Card, the flames engulfing Prague grew even more frenzied and rampant, driving back the night sky and lighting it up.

◇

Li Qianxia picked up Sobek's white Identity Card and pursued the ant black river.

She remembered Qing Lan saying that ants were called "superindividuals"—not because each ant was incredibly strong, but because each ant was just a "cell" of the ant colony, the superindividual.

For the colony, any ant could sacrifice itself, its social behavior far surpassing that of humans.

In the midst of the sea of fire at that moment, the qualities of a "superindividual" were vividly displayed.

The ants gathered together, rolling out many black spheres, the smallest of which were the size of a soccer ball.

The black spheres rolled like tumbleweeds set ablaze!

Large ants, too, were covered with small ants, forming a thick fireproof suit with their bodies.

The large ants charged forward like moving fireballs!

In the flames below, the outer ants emitted green smoke, filling the air with a pungent burnt stench.

The ants scorched and roasted on the surface kept falling off, leaving behind fiery specks on the ground, like wax dripping from a candle.

As the outer layer burned to death and charred, a fresh layer of ants replaced it, and both the ant spheres and the giant ants determinedly shuffled through the sea of fire.

Midway, some of the spheres stopped rolling and collapsed in the sea of fire, while others persisted and reached the nest.

At the nest, the charred outer layer of the spheres halted, their burnt crust cracking open, the spheres dissolving into swarms of ants which blanketed the queen, enveloping her.

Stray flames followed, spreading inside, but the lack of oxygen underground, combined with some of the ants bearing the fire and blocking the entrance, quickly extinguished the flames.

In the face of this group, fearlessly indifferent to death, even the flames were helpless.

Apart from the ants, some players took refuge in the water, relying on their underwater breathing or strong breath-holding abilities to stay away from the sea of flames.

But many more, those who tried to resist with their flesh and blood, still danced in the flames, letting out horrible screams and emitting the smell of cooking meat.

It wasn't just the fire.

Lack of oxygen, thick smoke, and high temperatures, more terrifying than the flames themselves, surged through every tight, non-flammable crack in the doors.

A cluster of fire burst into the university laboratory, the explosive heat of thermite enough to melt steel, was transported away to some troublesome spots.

The fire burned long and hard.

When the flames finally died, as the sun lifted the black shroud covering the earth, and a sliver of heavenly light broke through the horizon, Prague, the famous tourist city at the heart of the European Continent, was left with just flames, corpses, blood stains, and the exposed steel frames of buildings...

A wasteland.

"Don't you all think... this is insane?" Bi stated numbly after a sleepless night, with horror and fascination in her eyes.

"This is inherently a mad world," Li Changzhou stood up, taking a deep breath of the morning air filled with the smell of burning.

[Game Over]

[Current Arena Surviving Lives: 499]

Yang Qinglan looked at Bi and said, "You've also memorized our phone number. If there's something real-world related, you can come find us."

"Hmph! The same goes for you!" the Czar Princess crossed her arms, "If you can't make it in Xia Country, you can come to me, to be my maids and manservants."

Li Qianxia flew back from the horizon, returned to human form, handed the pot lid back to Bi, and handed over two boxes full of Identity Cards to Li Changzhou.

He took out a white card, and in an instant, all the Points from the two boxes of Identity Cards were absorbed.

[The exchange list for this event has now been made available to all participating players, with a time limit of one day]

[Players Returning]

[Temporary Scene "Prague" Commencing Recall]

Li Changzhou opened his eyes to find a familiar scene before him - a desk, a microphone, and a woman in a work apron with a curvaceous figure named Xiaoyue.

It was a cramped little room, with a large screen opposite, displaying some information.

[Full Moon Event Champion Interview Live Broadcast]

[Champion: Choose your real name or nickname]

[Entry Fee (Game Coin): Choose the amount—1/100/200/300/400/500]

[Willing to reveal appearance: Yes/No]

[Willing to reveal original voice: Yes/No]

[Willing to reveal body shape: Yes/No]

[Host: Xiaoyue]

"Hello, Champion, first of all, congratulations, and then please fill out the form, and we'll get started immediately... Huh? Have you considered getting married? No, wait, why does your scent remind me so much of Wenzi (thinking mosquito is wenzi)? Siblings?"

"Wow! Have you ever thought about creating a tale of siblings sharing one wife?!"

Xiaoyue's bright, sparkling eyes were fixed intently on Li Changzhou.