Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

The icy water carried the smell of blood from the cracks in the rocks, and every stirring felt like sandpaper coated in ice scraping across a wound. Chang Baishan lay slumped in the cramped stone cave, the entrance blocked by corpses, and every labored rise and fall of his chest spurted out dark purple blood foam.

The high fever and the coldness sawed apart in the joints of the bones, and the consciousness was like a kite in a storm. Every time it fell, it was awakened by the sharp pain of the bone spur deep in the root of the tongue, the dull pain of the tearing shoulders and back, or the cold edges of the rusty iron in its arms.

Cold! The rusty iron, through the soaked coarse linen, gnawed at the edge of the wound on his chest. Every weak heartbeat caused it to rub against the festering wound, a subtle, persistent scraping sensation that penetrated deep into his bones. Like a silent saw, it sliced ​​through the nerves of the dying.

He suddenly opened his eyes! His cloudy vision darted towards the water. Amidst the charred bones of the half-rotted corpse at the cave entrance above, a drop of dark green liquid was condensing into a plump, poisonous bead! The dripping path clearly pointed towards his convulsing, open jaw!

There is no way to avoid it!

At the very moment the poison bead fell, the faint green phosphorescence deep within the corpse's chest cavity flickered violently! Like a final signal! Chang Baishan's pupils shrank sharply! Toru Khan! Corpse trap! His final thought exploded! In desperation, his body unleashed a final burst of brute force! Not turning to the side! Not retreating! Instead, he used all his remaining strength to slam his head against the rust block in his arms!

Boom!

A dull thud! The back of the head hit the cold, rough iron surface!

Severe pain! Dizziness! But even faster than the pain was the movement—the head that had crashed down suddenly pressed against his arms! His jaw was firmly stuck on the sharp broken edge of the rusty iron block!

"Tsk-!"

A sticky tearing sound! Flesh and skin tore apart! Rusty debris mixed with dirty blood and icy moisture instantly seeped into the wound! A new, sharper sting instantly suppressed the pain at the root of the tongue and in the shoulders and back!

But he succeeded!

The moment he lowered his head and pressed against the rust, that drop of deadly dark green corrupt fluid came out.

"Clap!"

Failed!

The venom brushed against the ends of his drooping, blood-stained hair and fell into the muddy torrent below the crevice, creating a small circle of dark green ripples!

However, victory came at a terrible price. His jaw was deeply lodged in the broken edge of the rusted iron, and every trembling breath brought a new wave of grinding pain. The rust fragments, like millions of poisonous stingers, squeezed deep into the flesh of his jaw, causing a constant mixture of burning and itching.

What's worse is that the surface of the rusty iron block in his arms, where the pus from Changbai Mountain's wound and ice water were mixed before, had peeled off several black and red rust fragments with extremely sharp edges due to the intense friction just now!

puff!

A mouthful of dark purple blood, spurting out from the intense pain in his jaw and the burning in his internal organs, mixed with a few grains of ice and splattered onto the surface of the rusted iron block in his arms! In the bloody mist, the few pieces of rust that had just broken free from their matrix, enveloped in the blood and icy water, bounced off the metal surface like miniature blades!

Two of the tiniest pieces of rusty red iron filings with extremely sharp edges spun strangely under the tension of the blood - as if pulled by an invisible air current, they flew towards his mouth, which was forced to remain half open and gasping for breath due to the severe pain!

Fast! Vicious! No way to dodge!

Chang Baishan felt a pungent, rusty smell burst forth from his lips and teeth! The previously torn wound on the inside of his lower lip was cut again by sharp rust fragments! There was also an even smaller fragment, like the tip of a poisoned needle, coated in ice water and dirty blood, mixed with the sickening smell of rust.

It rushed deep into the throat in an instant!

"Uh! Ho... Gulp..."

The excruciating pain of a sharp foreign object slicing through his throat! The pungent smell of rust mixed with the decay of blood was like red-hot gravel forcing its way into his trachea! The intense feeling of suffocation and the instinctive coughing made him twitch wildly! His body desperately thrust forward in the cracks of the stone, his head tilted back, and he crashed into the stone wall!

The force of this collision was unprecedentedly fierce!

boom! !

The back of his head slammed hard against the cold rock! It was as dull as the beating of a drum! His entire skull was buzzing!

Almost at the same moment the skull hit the stone wall!

On the surface of the rusty iron block that he held tightly in his arms, there was an extremely fine, yet deep, groove with twisted animal-shaped patterns that almost penetrated the metal itself. Due to the violent shock and impact, a small grain of dark red crystal sand, finer than a sesame seed, that had been sealed in dust for who knows how many years was stuck deep in the groove.

A mixture of very ancient mineral crystals and iron sulfide.

Loose in an instant!

catapult!

laugh!

Like a poisoned hidden weapon! Shooting straight in!

Chang Baishan's mouth, which had been choking and coughing, opened wide, gushing blood and ice, and was instantly sucked into the turbulent flow of churning blood and cold air!

Fishy! Rusty! Burnt! Sulfur.

An indescribable strange smell, a mixture of raw minerals, solidified blood, extreme iron smell and burnt sulfur, exploded violently deep in the fragile throat of Changbai Mountain like a detonated dust bomb!

“Ughhhhhhhhh!!!”

Inhuman howls! This smell brought more than just suffocation and burning pain! It was a violent, instinctive rejection of the intruder! The lining of the throat felt like it had been washed with strong acid! The muscles spasmed and convulsed, as if ripping the entire esophagus apart and vomiting it out!

Dizziness! His vision was completely filled with alternating flashes of black and red and dense snowflakes! The hallucinations brought on by the high fever overlapped with reality! He seemed to see countless black beasts burning with sulfur flames, madly rushing into his body through his throat!

And in this soul-tearing sensory storm, a strange message was forcibly engraved into consciousness with a clarity beyond pain.

The cold metal fragments that sank deep into his throat! The explosive smell of sulphur and iron! It carried a certain... a savage, deathly aura that seemed to exist only at the end of endless fire and blood... a savage, deathly aura like that of an ancient battlefield!

Like boiling magma, the red tooth ore burned through Liu Yueli's last remaining barrier of consciousness! She collapsed in the charred, scorching ashes, her body twitching violently intermittently. Each twitch tore at the wound on her right shoulder, which was coated in a highly toxic and foul mixture. Pus, blood, and foul-smelling black smoke hissed out from there.

Deathly silence and scorching heat enveloped her. The black arrow piercing her calf brought the cold, sharp pain of cold iron. The green paralyzing poison stained by the arrow's feathers surged through her blood, colliding with the agonizing pain of the burning bone and flesh in her shoulder, colliding, offsetting, and straining against her internal organs! Her senses were ground between the grinding wheels of ice and fire, leaving only a painful blankness.

Just as my consciousness was about to sink into eternal darkness—

choke!

An extremely slight sound, but as sharp as jade shattering and ice cracking, clearly penetrated the hellish buzzing flames and heavy gasps of death!

It was the half of the broken arrow shaft stained with dark gold blood that she unconsciously held tightly in her palm - her body convulsed violently again, and her five fingers instinctively clenched tightly under the huge force!

From the previously fractured fracture, it broke apart!

A shard of charred arrow wood, about an inch long, with a sharp edge like a thin knife, carried with it the charred residue and dark, blood-red wood fibers from the broken edge of the arrow shaft, as well as a needle-tip-sized speck of dark golden-red stuck deep within the wood fibers, gleaming tenaciously. Like a poisoned hidden arrow, it flew out under the immense force of the grip!