The cold wind above the Ice Lake carried ice crystals, reflecting a diamond-like luster under the moonlight.
Kuang Gui twisted his neck, making a sound like popping beans, and the black tattoos moved like living things under his skin.
"Little brats, are you ready to become ice sculptures?" Kuang Gui bared his teeth, and his fists collided, emitting a metallic clang.
The accumulated snow on the ground suddenly exploded, and a two-meter-tall figure lunged at Jet with speed that surpassed visual perception.
"Godspeed: Poison Mist Barrier!" Jet stomped his heel on the ice, and a emerald green poison mist instantly solidified into a shield wall.
"Poison?" Kuang Gui sneered, but his fist penetrated the poison barrier without hesitation, and a straight punch, accompanied by a sonic boom, sent Jet flying dozens of meters, his denim jacket tearing into rags in the cold wind.
Jet continuously flipped in mid-air to disperse the force, barely managing to steady himself and land on the ice. However, the hand that blocked the enemy's fists trembled uncontrollably. He felt as if he had been hit by a magical car traveling at full speed, and his chest was a bit breathless.
"Is he the same type as Elfman?" Jet's expression was grim as he shook his hand, and an eerie green gas rose from his feet.
Kuang Gui blew away the lingering gas with a single breath. "This kind of poison gas is useless, little brat!"
"This guy is immune to Jet's poison gas?" Droy's pupils contracted sharply, and as his fingers flew, he threw out five pitch-black seeds: "Steel Thorns: Entanglement Array!"
Thorns as thick as pythons broke through the ice, their tips glowing with an eerie blue light.
These were enhanced versions of his original thorn seeds, with superior hardness and toughness.
Kuang Gui grinned, allowing the sharp thorns to wrap around his body. The metallic-looking thorns tightened quickly, and the sharp points scraped against his skin, producing faint sparks.
"Is that all you've got?" Kuang Gui sneered, suddenly exerting force. His muscles bulged, snapping the alloy-hard vines.
Amidst the scattering thorn fragments, his powerful right leg had already swung down like a battle-axe towards Droy's face.
"Ice Wall!" Droy tilted his head back, simultaneously throwing twelve ice-blue seeds in front of him. In an instant, twelve ice-blue morning glories shot up from the ground, their buds blossoming and spewing frost mist, forming a half-meter-thick ice crystal barrier in front of Droy.
Kuang Gui's leg blade cut two feet deep into the Ice Wall, and the splashing ice shards formed a brief halo under the moonlight.
Jet seized this critical opening, and emerald green magic circles lit up on the soles of his cowboy boots.
"Godspeed: Rampage!"
His airborne kicks transformed into ten afterimages, each carrying an eerie green poison mist.
This was his ultimate move, combining his kicking techniques and potent poison magic, honed over two months of rigorous training.
"Is that a tickle?" Kuang Gui allowed the poison mist to envelop his entire body, and his tattoos glowed with a dark red light.
His corroded skin regenerated at a visible rate, and the paralyzing effect of the potent poison didn't even make him blink.
Although Kuang Gui's speed couldn't match Jet's, under the continuous assault, he used his beast-like combat instincts to find an opportunity to counterattack.
"Got you, little flea!"
Pincer-like fingers pierced through the dense poison gas, suddenly clamping onto Jet's ankle, and he slammed him repeatedly onto the ice like a rag doll.
The ice surface was instantly stained red with blood.
"Jet!" Amidst the sound of cracking ice, Droy, with red eyes, threw out his treasured spiky cactus seeds.
Three-meter-tall plant guardians broke through the ice and stood up, thousands of steel-needle-like thorns shooting out from their bodies.
Kuang Gui was forced to let go and block. The cactus thorns pierced his arms, creating honeycomb-like wounds, but these were instantly pushed out by new flesh.
"My turn now." Kuang Gui's pupils narrowed into vertical slits, and the tattoos on his chest glowed like a branding iron.
The colorless shockwave generated by his colliding fists shattered the ice surface within a ten-meter radius. Amidst the loud crunch of the spiky cactus breaking in half, Droy and Jet on the ground were sent flying by the aftermath, crashing into the rock wall, blood tracing a tragic arc in the air.
Just then, both of them, lying on the ground, simultaneously heard Lucy's piercing scream.
"Levy!!!"
Levy, who was fighting Shadow Ghost in another direction, barely dodged the enemy's fatal blow, but the shockwave from the dark energy cannon still sent the girl flying.
The slender body of the blue-haired girl, like a broken doll, slid across the ice, leaving a thirty-meter-long bloodstain, finally crashing into a crevice in the ice rock.
Jet and Droy, witnessing this scene, were filled with rage.
"Levy!!" Both of them exclaimed simultaneously, their eyes bloodshot.
Jet completely disregarded his injuries, coughing up blood as he crawled out of the icy water, his right hand trembling as he reached into his pocket.
Seven emerald-green potions glowed with a dangerous luster under the moonlight, and the label "Lizard Regeneration 3.0" on the vial was cracking.
These were recovery potions he had replicated by studying alchemy books with Granny Poluchka. The original version was called Lizardman Potion. While it could quickly help one recover from injuries, there was a chance of mutating into a lizard monster.
Jet and Granny Poluchka had researched for a long time to improve it into a powerful recovery agent, making it one of the best among conventional recovery potions. However, it still had unavoidable side effects: after consumption, the skin would temporarily grow lizard scales, which would fade on their own within a day or two.
Granny Poluchka had warned him that if he used a large amount of this potion in a short period, while it would provide powerful regenerative abilities, he might turn into a lizard monster.
Jet was aware of the potion's risks, but he desperately needed the side effects of the lizard potion now.
"Levy, I'm coming to help you!" Jet's eyes were resolute as he raised his hand and simultaneously injected all seven emerald-green potions into his neck. His blood vessels instantly bulged with a spiderweb-like green pattern.
But just then, a burly figure suddenly appeared in front of Jet.
"Do you still have time to worry about others?"
"Cannon fodder should know their place." Kuang Gui stepped on Jet's blood-stained chest, and magic power condensed into a colorless orb in his palm. "Let's start with you—"
The sudden sound of breaking glass rang out. Kuang Gui caught sight of fragments of several potions on the ground out of the corner of his eye, along with strange-smelling green liquid residue.
The next second, Kuang Gui felt a powerful force emanating from the brat he was stepping on. A nearly invisible green blur whipped into his chest, and with intense pain, he was sent flying backward.
Jet swayed as he got up from the ground. His eyeballs had turned into vertical slits, his skin was covered in dark green scales, and a lizard-like bone tail protruded from his coccyx, segment by segment. His body had directly swelled to two meters tall.
Jet let out a beast-like growl, his four limbs on the ground. Green venom seeped from the scale gaps, corroding the ice surface and leaving scorch marks, a sign of his magic power running wild.
Jet's mutated toes and claws dug into the ice, his spine arched into an exaggerated curve.
His lizard-like vertical pupils locked onto Kuang Gui dozens of meters away, and the low growl rumbling in his throat shook ice stalactites from the rock wall.
When the first drop of dark green venom fell onto the ice, the corroded hole became the starting gun—
"Screech!"
His bone tail shattered the ice, and his mutated body transformed into an emerald afterimage.
Kuang Gui couldn't see Jet's movements with his naked eye. He instinctively raised his hands to protect his vitals, but blood bloomed on his crossed arms, and five bone-deep claw marks glowed with a phosphorescent green light.
Along Jet's crawling path, melted ice water mixed with venom steamed into a highly poisonous mist.
"Die, little brat!" Kuang Gui's tattoos glowed like a branding iron, but his palm, as large as a fan, grabbed Jet's face and slammed him onto the ice the moment Jet attacked.
The instant the ice cracked radially, Jet's bone tail, like a sharp point, pierced into Kuang Gui's axillary nerve plexus. Driven by magic, the gas turned into venom and injected into Kuang Gui's body.
Even with Kuang Gui's resistance to poison, such a potent toxin still affected him, and his arm instantly lost all sensation.
Seizing the moment Kuang Gui's right arm was paralyzed, Jet's mutated right leg, like a battering ram, slammed into his ribs.
"Crack!"
The crisp sound of three broken ribs was masked by the whoosh of the bone tail.
Jet, hanging upside down, coiled his coccyx around Kuang Gui's neck. The green venom, transformed by magic, corroded the contact point, producing sizzling white smoke.
The two, like giant pythons in a death grip, rolled and smashed through ice hills, leaving behind venom-bubbling furrows in the ice wherever they went.
When Kuang Gui finally tore off the bone tail and broke free, his left shoulder was exposed, revealing stark white bone.
Jet was curled up in an ice pit twenty meters away, his broken coccyx regenerating at a visible rate—the newly formed bone segments glowed with a sickly, eerie green.
"Godspeed..." A hoarse roar squeezed from Jet's chest, and his mutated right leg suddenly swelled.
Emerald magic flowed through the gaps in his scales, condensing into venom-constructed spiked combat boots.
...Ascension!"
Accompanied by a roar like a beast's fury, Jet's figure vanished from his original spot.
The next second, almost as if teleporting, Jet appeared in front of Kuang Gui, delivering an upward kick, a skyward stomp, with his right foot, directly hitting Kuang Gui's chin.
The powerful leg strength, entwined with dense green poison, directly kicked Kuang Gui's body off the ground.
This was just the beginning.
Jet's lizard-like body defied physics, doubling back in mid-air. Each stomp left an emerald afterimage in the frozen mist.
A seven-kick combo sent Kuang Gui ten meters into the air. On the thirteenth stomp, an ice crystal halo exploded beneath his feet, and a staircase of condensed poison mist propelled him skyward.
"Die!" Amidst a completely bestial roar, the final inverted hook kick struck Kuang Gui's spine.
Dark green poisonous gas erupted from Kuang Gui's body, painting a blooming poison lotus in the air.
Just then, Droy shakily stood up, his blood-stained right hand clutching a chili pepper as red as lava.
"Explosive Chili!"
Droy threw the lava-colored chili pepper in his hand towards Kuang Gui in the air, almost using all his strength.
Kuang Gui, severely wounded by the poisonous smoke and kicks, had no time to dodge. Droy's chili pepper hit him squarely in the chest.
With just a slight impact, the lava-colored chili pepper instantly glowed with an intense red light, and a deafening explosion echoed through the heavens and earth, lighting up a second sun above the Ice Lake.
An eight-meter-diameter lava fireball engulfed Kuang Gui in the air, and the extreme high temperature instantly vaporized the ice layer.
The shockwave from the explosion generated ice waves that slammed Droy against the rock wall.
An inhuman shriek came from the center of the fireball.
The volcanic eruption-like roar shattered all ice stalactites within ten miles.
A mushroom cloud, carrying melted ice water, rose into the sky, and the scorching steam turned the battlefield into a sauna hell.
When the smoke cleared, in a thirty-meter-diameter charred pit, Kuang Gui's sole remaining left hand was still in a punching posture, and his carbonized skin was peeling off in flakes.
Jet fell heavily into the melted ice water. The Explosive Chili's explosion had also enveloped him. Thanks to the explosion and the burning flames, his body was injured and then rapidly healed under the lizard potion's recovery effect. The excessive dosage was quickly consumed, and the mutated state began to recede.
Steam rose from the exposed muscles where scales had peeled off. Every burn seeped yellowish-green pus, but also rapidly healed and regenerated with the help of the lizard potion.
He struggled to raise his bloody right hand towards Droy, giving a thumbs-up, and then was about to get up and rush in the direction of Levy and Lucy to help.
But just as he got up, he saw Levy and Lucy, who was holding a silver key, running towards him with worried expressions.
From his eyes, where the vertical pupils had not completely faded, a line of tears mixed with poisonous blood flowed. Jet and Droy, in the distance, collapsed to the ground with a sigh of relief.
-------------------------------
I've already uploaded 40 chapters of this story on Patreon!
If you enjoy it, come check out the latest chapters in advance.
[patreon.com/TripleCrown07]
Thank you so much for your support!!!
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"