"I can't beat it, I'm out of here."
The Bloodflame Demon Dog had the urge to flee, and its figure gradually became translucent, its consciousness melting into the dark red void of space.
It was trying its best to hide its existence.
Among gods, this gesture usually signified a surrender; unless it was a fight to the death between righteous gods and evil gods, as long as one side signaled such a retreat, the other god generally wouldn't push too hard.
But suddenly, its consciousness froze.
"How strange, I feel an itch in my brain, like there's something there."
It spoke to itself.
The sensation was subtle; it wasn't that something was physically in its brain, but rather that its divinity had been branded by something that could not be removed, existing as one with its very essence.
Within the vast, dark red space, a long, long silence suddenly fell.
Only after a long time did it speak in a tone of extreme confusion:
"What does 'Bird Wallpaper' mean?"
...
Lu Xun grabbed the more than half-empty bottle of Coke from the table, and the slight sensation of the carbonated water bursting on his tongue gave his spirit a momentary jolt of excitement, though his brow remained furrowed as his eyes stayed glued to the list on his computer desktop—
There were a whole bunch of mysterious programs that had suddenly popped up, along with a sea of advertisements in the bottom right corner:
"Hot-blooded Jianghu: One Dream Legend, Skeleton Gold-Farming Server..."
Lu Xun fell into a long silence.
Was it worth paying such a high price just to solve a tiny game virus?
It really wasn't.
"Sometimes I really think there's something wrong with my head, actually being so stubborn with a virus." Lu Xun shook his head and, after closing the ad windows in the corner, returned to the game.
Seeing that the game had finally returned to normal, he let out a long sigh and said, "Alright, stop thinking about those annoying things. Life has to go on regardless."
"I've paid such a heavy price, don't you dare disappoint me."
...
Antru's consciousness stared in horror at his own body from the corner of his eye.
He had lost control of his body!
At this moment, he was like a third-party observer, only able to helplessly watch his own flesh being controlled by another consciousness that had suddenly appeared within him.
What exactly had happened?
His head suddenly hurt intensely as he tried his best to recall everything that had just occurred.
He only remembered himself and Bruce crossing Frostspine Ridge, his consciousness already fading under the low temperatures, his body gradually growing stiff under the freezing currents.
He felt like he was about to die.
Bruce had been carrying him on his back, constantly talking in his ear.
"Hold on, Antru!"
"Don't fall asleep, Antru!"
"We... we're almost there, Antru!"
In the raging blizzard, with every step Bruce took, the snow would reach past his knees, making every footstep incredibly difficult; the snow covered his eyes, and he could only grope forward in the darkness.
"Bru... Bruce..." Antru's eyelashes were nearly frozen into ice, and his lips were incredibly pale and bloodless, looking just like a dead person's.
"Drop me. If you carry me, you won't make it to the Bloodflame Forbidden Sea." His voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, sounding as if he might stop breathing at any moment.
"You are the youngest warrior of the tribe; the patriarch and the others all have high hopes for you. Your survival is what's most important."
"I'm just a useless waste who can't do anything. Even if I die, no one will care." Antru moved his fingers, which were as stiff as iron, and gripped Bruce's shoulder.
The sensation of cold and pain traveled through his shoulder into his nerves, and Bruce gritted his teeth.
"Drop me, and you still have a chance," Antru said.
In the howling wind and snow, his voice was completely swallowed, making it impossible to hear what he was saying.
"Shut up, you just waiting quietly is more important than anything else." Bruce clenched his teeth and hoisted Antru up a bit higher. "Antru, don't always think so poorly of yourself. You're actually amazing; it's just that those people in the tribe don't know what they're looking at."
Antru smiled bitterly. "Lies are meaningless, Bruce."
Bruce stopped his steps, panting heavily, and every puff of white mist he exhaled instantly turned into ice crystals.
He looked back, glancing at Antru, whose consciousness had nearly vanished and who was operating on nothing but instinct. "I'm not lying, Antru. Even if you can't do anything right now, I've always believed you can become an outstanding werewolf warrior."
"And don't forget, a god has always been watching you. Do you really want to disappoint the god?"
He paused, as if using the opportunity to speak to rest for a moment, and then continued, "Antru, if you die, I will be very sad."
The person on his back didn't respond for a long time, as if his breathing had completely stopped, turning him into a frozen corpse.
"Antru?"
Bruce called out softly.
And this time, the person on his back gave a slight response.
"Bruce, I feel so hot."
Bruce froze. Feeling hot in this extreme cold?
This was not good news; on the contrary, it was news so bad it couldn't get any worse.
The elders in the tribe often said in their stories that those who froze to death in the snow were often found naked, having stripped off all their clothes until not a single piece remained, often with a faint smile on their faces that looked extremely eerie.
According to those elders, it was because before those people froze to death, they didn't feel the cold but instead felt an abnormal warmth in their bodies.
They would feel hotter and hotter, so they would take off their clothes piece by piece.
So in Bruce's ears, Antru's sentence "I feel so hot" was not good news at all, but rather a sign that Antru was about to freeze to death!
He hurriedly used all the strength in his body to shout, "Antru, that's an illusion, wake up!"
"No, it shouldn't be an illusion. I'm really... really so hot!"
Antru let out a somewhat strange cry.
And Bruce also suddenly felt the heat coming from his back; this heat dispersed all the chill, leaving him stunned in place.
This heat was coming from Antru's body!
And it was constantly rising; Antru's body was like a small heat source, reaching a scorching level in just a few seconds, forcing Bruce to let go of him.
"Antru!" Bruce roared at him, and while Antru struggled in pain, the nearby snow constantly turned into rising steam, filling the air with white mist.
In the next second, Bruce witnessed a scene that nearly shattered his worldview.
The snowy ground beneath their feet began to melt at an incredibly fast rate.
First it was just a point, but in the next second, it turned into a massive pit!
They fell straight down, and what greeted them was no longer the cold wind and snow; in the blink of an eye, the surrounding scenery transformed into a dark-red landscape of lava hell!
Rate on N.U.
