80: Chapter 80 One punch to destroy your roots

The Earth Vein Chains dug painfully into Chen Fan's ankles, the sharp sting of the compressed rock blood vessels shooting up his calves. Yet, he dared not look down—Su Shuang was still leaning against the rock wall behind him, her forehead smeared with blood, her eyelashes trembling faintly from weakness.

He could feel her body heat seeping through his back, hotter than magma, yet lighter than cotton batting.

"This stele... is crying," Su Shuang's voice was like crumpled paper. She raised her hand, the bean-sized Fox Fire flickering on her fingertips, catching the red mole at the corner of her eye in a series of flashes. "There's dampness in the grooves of the inscription."

Chen Fan's Adam's apple bobbed.

Three days ago at the Teahouse, Su Shuang could still conjure a Fox Fire barrier covering half the street; now, she had to bite her lip just to maintain this tiny flame on her fingertip.

The muscles in his back tensed like iron wires, pulling her tighter against the rock wall. The chains ground purple bruises onto his ankles, but he merely laughed: "Crying is good. If it cries itself soft, it'll be easier to beat."

Su Shuang didn't reply. Biting her pale lips, she directed the Fox Fire toward the deepest groove of the inscription.

"Sss—"

The moment the flame touched the stone surface, the entire colossal stele suddenly trembled.

Chen Fan's vision blurred as countless golden motes of light surged out from the inscription, condensing in mid-air into an illusory projection: the Starry Sky hung low, and a hundred people of different races held hands. There was a girl with fox ears—the insignia of Su Shuang's clan flashed silver at her neck; there was an elder draped in a starlight robe, the patterns on his hem perfectly overlapping with the vague memory of 'Star Speaker' on the system panel; there was even a giant with stone skin, bearing a seventy percent resemblance to Xuan Yan's features.

"Covenant Oath: Life Fires burn together, none shall survive alone."

The sound of a broken zither floated up from beneath the earth.

Chen Fan turned his head and saw the ancient zither, snapped in two, suspended above the lava. Its strings sounded mournful and plaintive on their own, and the scorch marks on its body were glowing.

He recognized this zither—three days ago, in the lava fissure, it was this zither music that led him to the Earth Fire Corridor.

"Stop! This memory... will attract calamity!"

A roar like crashing thunder shook stones loose from the cliff face.

Xuan Yan's lava eyes churned violently. Cracks like a spiderweb spread across his stone arms, revealing the dark red magma core within.

He waved his hand, and twelve Earth Spirits shot out from the Earth Veins. Each Earth Spirit had glowing chains wrapped around its feet, forming an equilateral triangle known as the 'Earth Vein Lock Formation.' The chest of every Earth Spirit shone with a red light synchronized with the giant stele.

Chen Fan stared at the Earth Vein fluctuations flowing within the formation and suddenly laughed.

He remembered how Smoke Slave had drawn the formation diagram with charcoal on the cave wall yesterday—the Earth Vein Lock Formation, a resonant attack where hitting one meant hitting them all.

"You sealed it for three hundred years, and the calamity still came?" He flexed his numb wrists, and his left fist suddenly condensed with crimson-gold flames, preparing to smash toward the Earth Spirit at the formation's core.

Xuan Yan's lava pupils contracted sharply.

But Chen Fan's fist veered three inches off target just before touching the Earth Spirit.

"Bang!"

The punch wind of a normal attack struck the Earth Spirit's stone armor, only splashing a few sparks.

The Earth Spirit didn't budge, but the recoil vibrated up, making Chen Fan's hand numb. He staggered back three steps, and the chains around his ankles tightened opportunistically, nearly dragging him toward the earth's core.

"Idiot!" Xuan Yan's voice carried a sneer. "The core of the Earth Vein Lock Formation is alive—"

Before the words finished, a gray mist rose from beside Chen Fan's feet.

Smoke Slave was squatting by the edge of the lava, the hem of his gray cloth shirt already burned with several holes, revealing his bandaged arms underneath.

He kept his eyes closed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, his breathing rhythm like a drumbeat: "Hoo—Breathe in—Hoo—Breathe out—" Every exhalation released a wisp of gray mist that precisely drilled into the Earth Vein Chains beneath the Earth Spirits' feet.

Chen Fan's breath suddenly hitched.

He could feel the Earth Vein fluctuations in the air becoming chaotic—the originally orderly resonant frequency was shredded into a mess by the gray mist, like steel rebar bundles pulled apart by a child on a construction site.

He immediately held his breath and stared at the charging Critical Hit gauge in his mind: the red progress bar was climbing at a visible rate: 3, 2, 1—

"Hah!"

His right fist, wrapped in crimson-gold flames, smashed toward the knee of the Earth Spirit on the left. The system notification exploded in his ear: [Attribute Plunder Triggered! Target Stamina -7!] The Earth Spirit's knee buckled with a 'crack,' and the light of the entire formation immediately dimmed by twenty percent.

Chen Fan advanced instead of retreating.

He ducked under the stone fist of another Earth Spirit, grabbed its wrist with his free hand, and smashed his second punch into its shoulder socket: "[Strength -5]!" The Earth Spirit's arm instantly dropped off.

The third punch aimed directly for its brow: "[Agility -6]!" The Earth Spirit's movements suddenly became clumsy, and its stone fist smashed into one of its companions, leaving a large dent.

"Enough!" Xuan Yan roared, magma streaming from his eye sockets. He raised his hand and grabbed; the Earth Vein Chains around Chen Fan's feet suddenly surged out like a living giant python, wrapping around his waist and hoisting him off the ground.

Chen Fan was hung upside down in mid-air, Su Shuang's gasp torn apart by the wind.

He looked down at Su Shuang stumbling as she tried to rush over and shouted anxiously, "Don't come over! Protect that zither—"

Before he finished speaking, the broken zither suddenly let out a clear, resonant chime.

More memory fragments surfaced from the lava: when the system first descended, the sky was not the current grayish-blue, but blood-red.

Star Speakers stood atop the highest city wall, raising glowing stone disks and shouting: "They are coming to harvest our Life Fires! Remember who you are—"

The scene suddenly twisted. Countless golden blades of light split down from the sky. The Star Speaker's stone disk shattered into dust, the Fox Clan girl's fox tail was severed, and the Stone Skin Giant's chest was pierced with a transparent hole.

The young face of Xuan Yan appeared at the edge of the scene. He held half the corpse of a Star Speaker, his throat moved, but no sound emerged.

"So... we didn't fail... we were forgotten." Xuan Yan's lava eyes suddenly went dark.

He looked at the memory fragments floating in the void, his stone fingers slowly clenching. Magma seeped out between his fingers. "I should have shouted this out three hundred years ago..."

Chen Fan was flung against the rock wall by the chains but used the impact to break free from half of the restraint.

He looked at Xuan Yan's hunched back and suddenly thought of Old Zhang, whose wages were withheld at the construction site—he had the right on his side, but was so scared he only dared to squat in a corner smoking gloomily.

"Old man," he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Crimson-gold patterns spread from the back of his neck to his arm, forming flowing flame totems beneath his skin. "You were afraid they'd remember; I'm going to make sure—I'll beat them awake!"

He stared at the Critical Hit charging gauge in his mind, which was now completely full across five segments, recalling when his master taught him to carry a ten-ton steel beam when he first started working: "Hold that breath in, don't let it leak, only then can all your strength be brought to bear on the blade."

Chen Fan took a deep breath, compressing all the critical energy into his fist.

"Boom!"

The punch wind from the triple-plunder critical hit stirred up a blast wave, slamming directly into Xuan Yan's chest.

The system prompts flashed wildly: [Strength -10] [Agility -8] [Stamina -12]! Xuan Yan's stone body cracked apart like a shattered clay pot, crumbling inch by inch amidst the 'crackling' sounds.

"Go... don't awaken... the 'Star Speakers'... they... are still..."

His last words were torn to shreds by the wind.

Xuan Yan took one last look at the covenant projection in the void. Stone dust trickled down through his fingers and vanished completely in an instant.

The broken zither suddenly went 'zheng' as one string snapped.

Chen Fan fell to the ground, and the chains clattered open.

He immediately scrambled up and rushed to Su Shuang's side.

She was cradling the broken zither, her fingertips stained with the pale golden liquid that seeped out when the string broke—it looked like blood, yet like stardust.

"The stele... is shaking," Su Shuang looked up, the cracks spreading across the giant stele reflected in her eyes.

Chen Fan followed her gaze.

The giant stele, just moments ago covered in runes of suppression, was now fracturing from the bottom up, shattered stones falling like a torrential downpour.

Amidst the deafening crash of the stele collapsing, he vaguely saw a bronze door revealed behind it. Carved on the door were the same starlight patterns as the Star Speaker's robe in the covenant projection.

"Brother Fan..." Su Shuang clutched his wrist, her voice light as a sigh. "That door..."

Chen Fan didn't speak.

He looked at the silhouette of the bronze door, faintly visible in the dust, and his Adam's apple bobbed.

The system panel suddenly popped up a notification: [Earth Fire Corridor Hidden Quest Complete] [Obtained Star Speaker Fragment x 1] [Critical Hit Triggered! Star Speaker Fragment x 3]

But he didn't look at those.

He looked at the red mole at the corner of Su Shuang's eye, now smudged with rock dust, and suddenly smiled: "Scared?"

Su Shuang smiled back, and the Fox Fire on her fingertips reignited, three points brighter than before: "With you here, what is there to fear?"

In the dust clouds of the collapsing stele, the outline of the bronze door became clearer and clearer.

Faint zither music drifted from behind the door, as if responding to the remaining strings of the broken zither.

Chen Fan bent down, picked up a piece of rubble, and drew an arrow on the rock wall—pointing toward that door.

"Let's go," he reached out and pulled Su Shuang up, crimson-gold flames dancing in his fist. "Time for the next stop."