Chapter 213: Heart of the Lava
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The temperature appeared to be increasing.
Another hundred meters in, Grimm’s sharp senses picked up the rapidly increasing temperature in the caves. It seemed like there was a source of extreme heat at the end of the cave.
Suddenly, the Water Crystal Turtle, which had turned into a shimmering droplet within Grimm’s ear frantically exclaimed, “Yes, yes! Master, this is the breath of an ancient lava giant! This familiar ripple, there’s no mistaking it!”
The soul of the Water Crystal Turtle couldn’t leave Grimm’s ear due to the extreme heat outside. It could only hide inside.
Lava Giant?
Grimm was in shock and felt slight disbelief. Didn’t the Amonros defeat the Lava Giants in ancient times? But Grimm didn’t think too much about it since Grimm’s sensory breaths did not detect any ripples of large lifeform inside.
Moments later.
A huge cavern appeared in front of Grimm. The surrounding rocks were in an ember color after being baked all year round. A few stalactites stood irregularly within the cavern. They were narrow in the middle and wide around the top and bottom. They looked slightly crystallized.
Poof…
All of a sudden, a puff of flame ignited beside Grimm. The flame died out quickly. Although the heat wasn’t that high, the frenzied scenario made Grimm slightly surprised. He tried casting a fireball spell.
The searing fireball had no abnormalities at first. The highly compressed flame was moving in a regular pattern, in accordance with the principle of leverage in multiples of five. This was the foundation of all hexagram magic arrays of spells; the most basic fulcrum principle that sorcerers grasped hold of.
But after a few moments, a mysterious pattern that appeared like the pulse of a beating heart flashed across. Poof! Grimm’s fireball on his hand turned into an erratic pile of fire.
This…
Grimm expressed his shock beneath his Mask of Truth!
From a fireball into a random pile of fire. Did that mean the sorcerer’s wisdom of leveraging the fire element principles was negated by some kind of fire-mastery energy at that moment?
“Master, that direction, I can smell the Lava Giant coming from there.” The Water Crystal Turtle whispered.
After taking a deep breath, Grimm looked behind to see the Greedy Flame Giant, which was a little confused. He suppressed his astonishment and continued to strut toward the place where the Water Crystal Turtle pointed.
Perhaps, the suppression of energy principles was only limited to some places on low-level spells.
‘This…’
A lava fall, emerged from a crevice among the cave wall came into view. The lava flowed into a deep lava lake where an islet sits in the middle. Bright red fruits were thriving on top of the islet. They grew abundantly across the islet that was on top of the lava lake.
These bright fruits were as big as a toddler’s head. The fruits were engulfed in flames in a natural manner, like a bunch of fireballs. Grimm noticed that the beating pulse pattern of the flames that interfered with the low-level fireball fulcrum principle originated from these small fruits.
Grimm asked in a gentle voice, “These fruits? Are these the Lava Giants?”
“They’re the offsprings of the Lava Giant. The small island on top of the lava lake, that is the Lava Giant!” The Water Crystal Turtle emerged from Grimm’s ear momentarily into the heat to explain as it frantically pointed at the small island on top of the lava lake.
Roar!
The Greedy Flame Giant behind Grimm suddenly let out a roar. The wailing large mouth at its back abruptly turned into lamentations. This was the natural instinct of Greedy Flame Giants to express themselves when they felt attraction, possessiveness, or desire.
Through spiritual telepathy, Grimm understood the strange desires within the Greedy Flame Giant. He sternly observed the surroundings for a moment before flying the giant and dropping it on the islet on top of the deep lava pool. The boiling heat had almost reached Grimm’s limits.
The islet was about twenty over meters in length and width. The burning fires on the sharp-edged stones on the island carried a hint of green in its flame. Overhead, the lava falls landed directly on top of a round crystal stone. The stone was sitting on top of a small hole from which the lava flowed outward.
The crystal was especially round and smooth, hovering and rotating on top of the small hole. Even under the force of the lava flow, it did not drop a bit. Striking patterns on its surface looked like a network of capillaries, like a heart that was shining brilliantly. An indescribable aura was pouring from its top.
“Master, this is the Heart of the Lava! I was just wondering why there were offsprings of the giant, they multiplied using Heart of the Lava. Other than a small amount of Ancient Lava Giants that emerged naturally from the Fire Crystal Realm, most of the Lava Giants depended on the Core of the Lava to multiply. Who would’ve known that there was a Heart here.”
Roar!
The Greedy Flame Giant’s roar grew even more intense. It reached its hand into the lava fall and attempted to steal away the Heart of the Lava.
Splash! The lava falls not only pushed away the water-lightning armor on the Greedy Flame Giant’s hand, it even pushed off the dark flames within.
Grimm stopped the Greedy Flame Giant’s insentient actions. The Greedy Flame Giant, which had lost one of its arms to the fire let out a roar in dissatisfaction as it gradually vanished.
By using only one hand, Grimm tried to pull the Heart of the Lava with his gravitational powers. But to his surprise, the Heart appeared to be connected to the whole islet. There was no way to take it out, and the fire element within the space was subtly converging within the Heart.
The energy from the fire element that was gathered in the Heart of the Lava was then absorbed by the bright red fruits. They were mopped up by the offsprings of the lava giants.
Grimm plucked one of the burning bright red fruits.
The temperature of the flames that was burning on the fruit was about a hundred degrees. Its heat could not be compared to the heat that radiated from the surface layer of the lava flow. It was nothing much, at least to a proper sorcerer like Grimm.
Inside the fruit, one could faintly see a curled up fetus made out of fiery stones. The fire came from the fetus and burnt outward.
These lava giants must be advanced ‘experiments’ cultivated by the Amonros.
But the thing is, why were the Amonros cultivating these Lava Giants?
One should know, in ancient times, the Amonros and the Lava Giants were mortal enemies in the shadow world!
Perhaps, there are some secrets within?
Or was that in the shadow world today, the Lava Giants still had some powerful racial traits that were feared by the Amonros?
After contemplating for some time, Grimm stopped his guesses that were baseless. He continued to solve the problems that were ahead of him.
Unquestionably, the Heart of the Lava was something that the Greedy Flame Giant absolutely needed, probably a material that could be a catalyst to its evolution. Grimm definitely wanted to get hold of it without a doubt, even if the Greedy Flame Giant had no use for it, the Heart would have very high research value. It was definitely not a low-level being.
Then…
The only way Grimm could think of was to destroy the islet piece by piece.
Seven days later.
Grimm carried the Heart of the Lava, his eyes filled with joy. Even he was surprised deep inside.
According to Grimm’s estimates, the size of the islet would form a fifty-meter tall Lava Giant if it could stand up. One could only imagine the size of the ancient Lava Giant.
However, for a dead Lava Giant, even accounting for the environmental factors as well as its specialized resistance against fire, Grimm took a whole seven days to completely destroy the island. That gave a clue to how solid it was, and how scary it was when it was alive.
The Amonros, who could not leave the shadow cloud layers, were actually a civilization that could defeat a creature like this?
When Grimm carefully thought about it, it was really unbelievable. Were there more unknowns among all these?
At least from Grimm’s current observations on the battle strengths of the Amonros, if there weren’t a huge difference in numbers, the Amonros could never defeat a legion made up of the Lava Giants in the Crimson Sun World.
He also wasn’t sure what level the Lava Giant had before its death, but it should be a top-tiered Level 3 creature. If it were a Level 4 creature, even after its death, Grimm wouldn’t be able to damage its corpse.
After strolling around in the cave that no longer had any value, Grimm took his leave.
Ten days later, Grimm completed his mission of documenting the geographic data of the volcanic areas and left for the Void Fortress.