Crystal Palace from Infinite Anime

Lin Zhiyu did not escape and no longer tried to scrape Aegkis with the flaming arrows. Instead, he clenched the hilt of the sword in his hands with both hands, then roared, and the muscles on his arms bulged slightly, swinging the flaming sword.

Ghost slaying!

"Boom!"

Almost at the same time when Lin Zhiyu swung his sword to perform the ghost slash, Aegis fell to the ground like a falling meteorite, causing an earthquake and stirring up a large amount of smoke and dust, and instantly obscuring Lin Zhiyu's figure, which was so tiny compared to it.

"Cough, cough, cough, cough!"

Laura, who was not far away, had her vision obscured by the smoke and dust and coughed a few times.

She looked at the looming figure of Feilong in the smoke and dust with a look of shock. She didn't think that Lin Zhiyu could survive, and her mood was extremely heavy.

Why……

It was obvious that she and Lin Zhiyu were only acquaintances who knew each other by name, so why did Lin Zhiyu choose to save her and risk his life to participate in this deadly situation?

Just as horrified as Laura were Bertolos and Orson, who were observing the situation from afar outside the ruins of the inn, as well as some other soldiers and minions who came outside the ruins to watch after hearing the noise.

The two knights didn't think that Lin Zhiyu could survive the attack of the flying dragon. Orson was still hesitating whether to shoot at Aegkiss. Seeing that Lin Zhiyu seemed to be killed in an instant, he wanted to tell Bertolos to quickly lead his troops to retreat to Gale Fortress.

However, before Orson could speak.

"Roar!"

As the smoke and dust slowly dissipated, Aegkis's complete body was revealed again. He suddenly roared loudly again, and he roared with his head down to the ground, as if something was bothering him from under him.

...It’s Lin Zhiyu!

“Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!”

Right under Aegkis's belly, at this moment, Lin Zhiyu, who was covered in dust and blood, was constantly waving the fire-enchanted sword in his hand and slashing at Aegkis's hind legs!

Although the flying dragon had decayed, its hide remained incredibly tough. Lin Zhiyu's sword slashed against the dragon's legs, producing a sound like a blade scraping against rock.

However, Lin Zhiyu's attack was not without effect. After all, he made cuts on Aegkis's hind legs, releasing a lot of foul-smelling dragon blood.

The pain in his leg made Eggis realize that Lin Zhiyu was still alive and was still attacking him, so he raised his injured hind leg and stomped it hard on the ground.

"boom!"

A hole was instantly created on the ground.

A powerful shock wave spread in a small area as Aegis stepped on the ground.

But the moment Agkis raised his leg, Lin Zhiyu quickly got to the back, near Agkis's tail, and was not affected by the ground at all.

Eggis seemed to realize that Lin Zhiyu ran behind him, so he waved his tail again and did a "dragon tail swing".

Swish! As the dragon's tail swept, a large amount of smoke and dust was stirred up again.

The moment the dragon's tail swept towards him, Lin Zhiyu bent slightly, burst out with all his strength, jumped high, and jumped forward to the tail vertebrae of Aegkiss.

"Blow his head off!" Lin Zhiyu made up his mind, stepped on Eggkis's back and ran quickly towards Eggkis's head.

Aegis felt Lin Zhiyu on his back, so he flapped his wings and took off, swinging his body in the air.

Lin Zhiyu gritted his teeth, intending to stab the dragon's back with his sword to steady himself. However, due to Aegis's frantic movements, Lin Zhiyu lost his balance on the dragon's back before he could stab it, falling at least twenty meters from the ground.

Flapping its wings and hovering in the air, Aegis watched Lin Zhiyu fall to the ground. Regardless of whether Lin Zhiyu died or not, it immediately opened its bloody mouth and spit out a large amount of crimson poisonous mist towards the area where Lin Zhiyu fell.

"Oh no! It's the breath of corruption! Even if that kid hasn't died from the fall, he'll probably be infected with scarlet corruption!" Outside the ruins of the inn in the distance, Bertolos clenched his fists, and his face, whose expression was hidden by the helmet, was full of regret.

Orson, who was standing next to him, held a large bow in his hand and said nothing, his eyes fixed on the deep red poisonous fog that symbolized scarlet corruption, as if he was expecting Lin Zhiyu to stand up and walk out of the poisonous fog.

"Roar!!!"

Aegis, hovering in the air with its wings flapping, slowly stopped breathing, then looked up to the sky and howled, as if roaring in victory.

Laura didn't know what the red poisonous mist that Aegis spewed out meant, but her heartbeat stopped for a moment because of Aegis's victorious roar.

Lin Zhiyu...

Can he still stand up?

Chapter 14: Corruption

"Cough, cough, cough, cough!"

In the slowly dissipating crimson poisonous fog, Lin Zhiyu struggled to get up from the ground, then covered his mouth with his hands and coughed continuously.

At this time, Lin Zhiyu clearly felt a blockage and burning sensation in his trachea and lungs.

In particular, the burning sensation quickly spread throughout Lin Zhiyu's body. From his eyes to his nose to his lips, and all over his skin, everything felt hot and painful!

If he were truly being burned by flames, the situation wouldn't be considered serious for Lin Zhiyu, who could control fire. But now he felt as if he were being burned by flames, and the torment he felt was not from the flames, but from the scarlet corruption!

"I'm infected! The scarlet corruption is rapidly destroying my body's immune system!" Lin Zhiyu's eyes were bloodshot and his mood was heavier than ever.

Because he knew that from now on, he would gradually become corrupt like the flying dragon named Aegis above his head.

But even so...

The battle is not over yet!

"kill!!!"

At this moment, as the crimson poisonous fog almost completely dissipated, Lin Zhiyu, who stood firmly on the ground, brandished the sword in his hand with a blazing fighting spirit, slashing at the Aegkiss hovering in the sky, and cut out an orange-red crescent-shaped sword energy as if he had learned it by himself.

"boom!"

The flaming sword energy flew into the air at an extremely fast speed, hitting Aegis's neck in an instant and causing an explosion.

Agkis, who thought he had dealt with Lin Zhiyu, was caught off guard. Like a plane hit by a cannonball, his body was covered in flames that burst out with the explosion, and then he fell from the sky.

Outside the ruins of the post station in the distance, Orson, who saw this scene, no longer hesitated and reached into the quiver, but the arrows had already been used up.

So he turned to look at Bertolos and said in a deep voice:

"Take the others and retreat to the fortress first. Also, lend me your spear."

Seeing Orson holding the longbow and looking like he was about to take action, Bertolos was silent for two or three seconds, then nodded, handed the broadhead gun in his hand with flames still burning on the tip to Orson, and then turned around and called on the other red lions to retreat.

After getting Bertram's flaming broadhead gun, Orson used the gun instead of an arrow, placed the flaming broadhead gun on the nearly two-meter-long bowstring of the big bow, and slowly pulled the bowstring to its full length.

It was not until the flying dragon in the distance fell to the ground with a bang that Orson released the bowstring and shot out the flaming broadhead spear.

"chua!"

In a moment, the flaming broad-headed spear, with the help of gravity magic, crossed a distance of thousands of meters and accurately hit Aegkis's eyes. Most of the more than two-meter-long spear was embedded in Aegkis's eye socket.

“Howl~!”

Aegis, who had just fallen to the ground with flames on his neck, let out a miserable roar because he had lost an eye.

“Sizzle~!”

A beam of blue light crossed an extremely long distance at an unparalleled speed and came to Aegkiss in an instant.

Agkis, who had lost an eye, was still screaming in severe pain.

On the wall of Gale Fortress, seeing the huge body of the dragon, Uehara Rin turned into lightning and rushed to help at a high speed. At this time, her whole body was electrified. She jumped onto Aegkiss's head and fiercely stabbed the pair of blue light swords in her hands.

"Qiang!"

The skin scales and skull of Agkis were much harder than Rin Uehara had imagined. The pair of blue light swords in Rin Uehara's hands only pierced the skin scales on Agkis's head, but failed to successfully penetrate the skull and insert into the brain.

Uehara Rin then snorted coldly and used his two swords as a medium to unleash the power of lightning.

The old flying dragon immediately stopped roaring.

His whole body began to tremble, and lightning flashed all over his body.

Lin Zhiyu, who was knocked to the ground by the shock wave caused by Aigkis's fall, endured the discomfort and crawled up from the ground, walking step by step to the bottom of Aigkis' neck.

"Die! Feilong!" After such a low roar, Lin Zhiyu burst out with all the strength in his body, and once again swung the flaming sword in his hand, slashing out flaming sword energy.

Rin Uehara quickly kicked off the dragon's head and landed on the tail of the flying dragon with a gorgeous backflip.

The flaming sword energy that Lin Zhiyu slashed out exploded the moment it hit Aegis.

A large amount of dragon blood was spilled in the fireworks.

A dragon head separated from its body then fell to the ground with a loud bang, landing next to Lin Zhiyu.

Lin Zhiyu then knelt down on the ground, stuck his sword into the ground, and began to retch while leaning on the sword.

"Lin Zhiyu...Lin Zhiyu! Are you okay?"

As the headless body of Aegkiss fell to the ground with a loud bang, Uehara Rin quickly ran towards Lin Zhiyu.

At this time, Lin Zhiyu raised his head with great effort, and with the veins on his neck and forehead bulging, he shouted at Uehara Rin: "Don't come near me! Don't..."

Before he could finish his words, Lin Zhiyu felt dizzy and fainted.

-------------------------------------

That night.

Gaelic Fortress, in a separate room.

"...So, contracting the Crimson Corruption means certain death? Is there no way to cure the Crimson Corruption?!"

Lara Croft stood beside an old single bed, gazing at the three Knights of the Red Lion who had taken off their helmets in the room with sorrow and anticipation.

Lin Zhiyu, who was stained with scarlet corruption, lay unconscious on the bed. Although he was still breathing, his condition looked very bad. His face was so pale that he looked like a dead person.

Besides the three Red Lion Knights and Laura, Uehara Rin, Li Meifeng, and Theresa were also in the room. No one was quite sure what the Crimson Corruption was, so Bertolos had just described its horror, almost saying, "If you contract it, you're doomed."

"It'll be okay... This guy didn't die after falling from a high altitude. With his physique, he will definitely survive!" Looking at Lin Zhiyu who was unconscious on the bed, Uehara Rin hugged Theresa, whose eyes were already red from crying, and spoke in an extremely low voice.

Bertolos looked at Rin Uehara, shook his head and said helplessly:

"It's useless. No matter how powerful one's body is, it cannot withstand the Crimson Corruption. The essence of the Crimson Corruption is the power to disintegrate all life. Not even dragons or demigods can withstand the Crimson Corruption."

At the end of his words, he seemed to think of Latarn, Bertolos and the other two Red Lion Knights, and they all sighed silently.

The three of them later left the room, leaving it to Lin Zhiyu's "female relatives".

"I'm sorry, it's all my fault. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't be like this now."

After the three Red Lion Knights left, Laura walked to the wall, leaned against it and sat down weakly on the ground, speaking to the other people in the room with a sense of self-blame.

She didn't know what the relationship was between Uehara Rin and Li Meifeng and Lin Zhiyu, but she guessed that these two beautiful women must have a close relationship with Lin Zhiyu!

Uehara Rin didn't even know Laura, let alone why Lin Zhiyu saved her. She looked at Laura with a complicated expression, wanting to say something to comfort her, but she didn't know how to start. She was also in a bad mood at the moment, which she shouldn't be like this.

After all, she really didn't have much affection for Lin Zhiyu, and she stayed with Lin Zhiyu only because she was bound by the contract.

But Lin Zhiyu's fearless display today, in order to save someone, completely changed her original opinion of him. Now that Lin Zhiyu was unconscious and Theresa was curled up in her arms like a lost soul, her heart naturally became extremely heavy.

"Sister Lin..."

Suddenly, Theresa spoke softly in Uehara Rin's arms.

Rin Uehara lowered her head and looked at Theresa, whose eyes were red and swollen. Theresa then asked Rin Uehara when her brother Lin Zhiyu would wake up?

Being stared at closely by Theresa, Uehara Rin was silent for a moment and was about to force a smile to tell Theresa that Lin Zhiyu would wake up soon.

"Cough cough..."

At this moment, Lin Zhiyu, who was lying on the bed, suddenly coughed and slowly opened his eyes.

The women in the room immediately focused their attention on Lin Zhiyu.

When Laura found that Lin Zhiyu had opened his eyes and woke up, she was exhausted and got up from the ground. Li Meifeng and Uehara Rin, who was holding Theresa, also walked to the bedside immediately.

"Brother! Brother, you're awake!" Theresa called out to Lin Zhiyu, and struggled in Uehara Rin's arms, wanting to go to the bed and hug Lin Zhiyu.

Rin Uehara was worried that Theresa would also be infected with the scarlet corruption, so he hugged Theresa tightly and did not let go.

Lin Zhiyu also smiled and told Theresa that his brother was sick and could not contact others. Theresa should not be angry because she could not hug her brother.

Theresa rested her head on Uehara Rin's soft chest and said with a pout:

"Theresa will never be angry with her brother. Theresa will always be with her brother."

As she spoke, little pearls fell from the little girl's eye sockets.

Lin Zhiyu couldn't bear to see Theresa cry, and wanted to help Theresa wipe away her tears, but he was worried about infecting Theresa with the scarlet corruption.

While hesitating, Lin Zhiyu also saw Laura with a guilty look on her face, so he smiled and said to her, "Are you okay? That's great, otherwise I would have fought this fight in vain."

"Thank you." Laura whispered to Lin Zhiyu, and then asked Lin Zhiyu the question she wanted to ask the most, "Why... Can you tell me why you saved me?"

Looking at Laura, Lin Zhiyu at this moment seemed to see not Laura's beautiful eyes, but the turbid eyes of the dead Red Lion soldier when he just came to this world. He also remembered the passerby he met before, who was stained with scarlet corruption and shared his food before dying.