Chapter 71: Ember Elixir, the Shield Warrior Who Fights for His Life

Bang! The shield warrior smashed the ground with a single punch, placed the priestess’s corpse into the pit, and covered it up with ease.

He stood, pulling out a vial of liquid as red as blood.

“Dong, no! Don’t!”

“You can’t drink the Ashen Combustion Potion! Even if it kills the enemy, you’ll be dead for sure!”

The warrior and paladin nearby seemed to recognize the potion, reaching out to stop him. But the shield warrior showed no hesitation. He uncorked the bottle and downed it in one gulp.

Within seconds, the potion’s effects began to manifest. Steam poured from his body; his skin flushed red, like a boiled prawn.

Thud!

A deep, drum-like sound rumbled from within his chest—his heartbeat. With each thud, his muscles shuddered violently, his entire frame swelling a little more each time. Already impressively built, in less than half a minute, he had grown to the size of a small giant.

“I sensed a fluctuation in space just now. That summoner didn’t use a teleportation skill, but a spatial one. And since Zhang Wei was pulled in as well, it can’t be an escape skill.”

“Skills that drag enemies into another space generally reappear where they vanished.”

“We’ll wait for him right here!”

He picked up his shield. The massive shield that once covered him from head to toe now only reached his waist.

The warrior and paladin exchanged a glance, then sighed, standing silently by the shield warrior’s side.

A few minutes later...

Splat!

The headless corpse of the ranger and Song Qi’s trio reappeared. Having used Soul Link and activated Recklessness, Song Qi’s five thousand points to all attributes utterly overwhelmed the ranger. He couldn’t use Seven Deadly Sins to stun him directly, which cost him a few extra minutes.

But the moment he reemerged, a furious gale greeted him!

Turning his head, he found a colossal shield already inches from his face. And behind it, the shield warrior’s face, twisted with rage.

“Die, you bastard!”

The next moment...

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!...

A barrage of thunderous impacts rang out like beans in a frying pan. Layers of protective incantations shimmered around Song Qi, only to be shattered one after another!

Bang!!!

At last, every incantation was smashed to pieces, and Song Qi was sent flying by that savage, unstoppable force!

Rumble!

He was launched backward at such breakneck speed that he broke the sound barrier, crashing into a snowy mountain hundreds of meters away! The mountain didn’t even have time to trigger an avalanche—he smashed it clean in half!

“Lord!”

“How dare you, cur!”

Lu Bu’s eyes blazed with fury as he charged forward, watching his lord struck down before his very eyes. Rage threatened to consume him entirely.

A surge of wrath and battle spirit exploded from him.

“Face your death!”

A demonic apparition loomed behind him, more solid than ever.

Boom!!!

The giant shield clashed once more with the Sky Piercer halberd. Centered on the two, a shockwave swept out, gouging a massive crater in the earth and scouring kilometers of snow from the landscape.

Before this terrifying collision of strength, neither the warrior, the paladin, nor even Ying Zheng could do more than barely hold their ground.

Such was the force of the blow!

But the shield warrior still held, though his face flushed red—he had truly withstood Lu Bu’s attack!

Ying Zheng glanced behind him. Song Qi had been ambushed, and his expression darkened.

“If you’ve touched my advisor, there’s nothing more to say.”

He drew his sword and made a gesture.

Clatter!

Four terracotta warriors materialized beside him. Ying Zheng himself joined the fray, charging toward the enemy warrior and paladin.

In an instant, battle was rekindled.

...

Meanwhile, amid the shattered rocks of the distant snow mountain...

“Cough!”

Song Qi lay sprawled in the rubble, coughing up blood. His chest burned with pain; his internal organs had taken a severe blow, the agony stabbing at his mind. He suspected several ribs were broken.

“Damn, even with fifty defensive incantations plastered on me, I couldn’t block that?”

These weren’t ordinary spells but defensive incantations cast by an eighty-level Wordmaster—fifty of them! Yet all were crushed by a single blow from that shield?

The thought left him shaken.

Fortunately, he still maintained Soul Link and Recklessness. With five thousand constitution, he had barely survived that strike.

“Incantation: Heal.”

He opened his storage ring, pulled out several healing incantations, and pressed them to his body. It took a while before he recovered enough to make his way back to the battlefield’s edge, surveying the chaos.

Ying Zheng, though fighting two at once, still held his own capably, aided by his four terracotta warriors.

Lu Bu, however, seemed to be in trouble.

Even with all his attributes surpassing eight thousand, he was still barely holding on! The shield warrior had switched from wielding one shield to two—one gold, one black. Each swing howled like a hurricane, the force staggering. Even Lu Bu had to avoid their brunt.

Song Qi estimated that the man’s strength now likely exceeded ten thousand!

Yet something seemed off.

“His state isn’t right. If I’m not mistaken, he was about Lu Bu’s height before, but now he’s two heads taller!”

“Lu Bu’s over two meters tall. That shield warrior must be at least three meters now.”

“And those muscles—beyond monstrous!”

The shield warrior’s physique had always been burly, but now his muscles bulged as if ready to explode, biceps thicker than his head, and his skin was splitting in places from the strain.

Clearly, his muscles had grown so rapidly that even his skin couldn’t contain them.

“So, it must be some kind of berserk state. But how long can it last, and what are the side effects?”

After a moment’s thought, Song Qi sighed, pulling out the ring Elder Liu had given him.

“No—I can’t drag this out anymore. Lu Bu’s Recklessness only lasts ten minutes, and at least five or six have already passed. Once it’s over, I’ll have no chance at all.”

“Shame—I was hoping to sell these.”

With that, Song Qi drew out five talismans at once.

Unlike the previous incantations, these were inscribed on golden talisman paper, the script a blazing crimson, pulsing with supernatural power.

Each talisman embodied the life’s work of Liu Renfu. Each one’s power equaled a full-force strike from an eighty-level Wordmaster!

There were fewer than fifty of these in the entire storage ring—priceless beyond compare!