Chapter 97: Spirit Weapon

The state of being blasted by ice and fire at once should not have felt like this. What it ought to feel like, Li Changluo did not know, but it certainly should not have been like this...

He had thrown all his strength into it, summoning a black flame around his entire body, and the flame kept burning the ice that kept bursting out from within him...

His body was cold on the inside and searing hot on the outside.

What he hated most, though, was Bai Lianhua. What kind of rotten idea was this?

Did she have even the slightest common sense?

Melting snow is colder than falling snow. Did she not know that?

A total trap. Absolutely a trap...

Li Changluo, half-frozen and half-burning, collapsed on the floor, curled up into a tight ball.

He could even feel the little girl inside his body, the one Bai Lianhua had struck with a palm, going wild...

Raging about in him without restraint...

The black flames and the ice spilling from within him were like two evenly matched armies, using Li Changluo's body as the battlefield and waging war there...

The balance of power shifted back and forth, neither side yielding...

The pathetic one was Li Changluo himself...

Lying on the floor in despair, silently enduring his own personal nightmare of ice and fire.

"Dragon-scale ice?"

Lin Dandan suddenly noticed that the ice encasing Li Changluo from head to toe was slowly taking on the shape of scales...

Those dragon-scale-like slabs of ice were gradually forming something like a suit of armor, binding Li Changluo tightly...

More and more, one could even make out its shape: chest guard, shoulder guards, arm guards, battle boots...

Bai Lianhua crouched down, resting her chin on one hand as she looked at Li Changluo, now curled into a ball, her brows tightly knit.

"That’s bad. It looks like I can’t force it out anymore. They’ve fused."

Bai Lianhua shook her head, sounding troubled.

"No way to fix it?"

Lin Dandan adjusted his glasses and made a slashing gesture toward Bai Lianhua.

Though Li Changluo was in unbearable pain, he was still conscious. The moment he saw Lin Dandan's hand signal...

He sprang up from the floor as if nothing had happened.

"I’m fine. I’m okay."

"We can’t give up so easily..."

"Look, I..."

Li Changluo's face was deathly pale, his whole body steaming, black flames still licking at the ice and hissing incessantly.

But halfway through his words, he cried out and collapsed again in agony...

He lay on the floor, twitching all over.

Even Lin Dandan was stunned. This little monster's will to survive was just too strong...

"There is one more way: use a spirit weapon to draw it out."

Bai Lianhua suddenly had an epiphany and clapped her hands. She truly did not want to watch Li Changluo die like this, after all...

This little monster still had one very important thing left to do.

"Whose spirit weapon?"

Lin Dandan asked.

"Not ours, of course. Go through his things. He must have one. Every demon who comes to this world has a spirit weapon of its own."

Bai Lianhua motioned for Lin Dandan to search Li Changluo.

Lin Dandan sighed and crouched down helplessly, rummaging through Li Changluo's bag in search of his spirit weapon.

But the instant his hand touched the dragon-scale ice armor on Li Changluo's body, a burst of cold air coiled up his arm like a snake.

In an instant, Lin Dandan's entire arm was frozen solid.

He cried out and quickly tried to pull his hand back, but it was too late. Half of his arm had already turned into an ice sculpture...

Crack!

Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Dandan grabbed the still-unfrozen part of his arm with his other hand and yanked hard.

That half-frozen arm snapped off at once and fell to the ground.

Then, from the severed stump, a mass of cords slowly emerged, reshaping itself into a new arm...

...

When hunters set traps for prey, they usually rely on steel snares. A great many creatures get caught in them: wild boars, rabbits, even bears. But wolves, oddly enough, are rarely caught...

It is not that wolves never step into the trap. It is that, the moment they are caught, they will either bite off their own limb, or let a companion tear off their paw so they can escape...

Even if the end result is still death, that is the difference in spirit.

Lying on the floor, Li Changluo suddenly felt that this quiet little schoolboy actually had a wolf's ferocity in him. He was ruthless. Frighteningly so...

Seeing this scene even made him forget the cold gnawing at his body...

"No choice. Whatever is inside him is too fierce."

Lin Dandan rose to his feet, still shaken, and unconsciously stepped farther away from Li Changluo.

"Did you not..."

Bai Lianhua was about to ask Li Changluo about his spirit weapon when she stopped dead in surprise...

Li Changluo was trembling as he held up a...

fruit knife.

Other people's spirit weapons were all several feet long, or Wolverine-like claws, or at the very least missiles, cars, and things like that...

And this was what he had?

Before she could even finish lamenting it, Bai Lianhua raised her hand again and struck the dragon-scale ice armor on Li Changluo's body.

Unlike Lin Dandan, her palm touched the ice armor and elicited no reaction at all...

"Come out!!!"

Bai Lianhua gasped sharply. On the palm pressed against Li Changluo's ice armor, a burst of white radiance suddenly flared to life...

The entire corridor was lit up as bright as day.

In the next instant, black flames, ice spilling cold as death, and white radiance intertwined. A powerful current of air swept through the hall, forcing Lin Dandan to summon a long rope, lash it around a wooden pillar, and brace himself just to stay standing.

At last, the chaos came to a halt.

The dragon-scale ice armor on Li Changluo's body and the black flames surrounding him vanished completely. Though his face was still pale, the agony from moments ago was gone.

"At last. Success."

Seeing that Li Changluo was safe, Bai Lianhua smiled in relief and looked at him with concern in her eyes.

Li Changluo moved his body around and even reached back to touch his spine. That chill crawling down his back seemed to truly be gone...

"Thank you, shopkeeper. You're so good to me..."

Li Changluo was overjoyed...

Who wouldn't be? There was a little girl living inside his body, watching him pee every day.

With the problem in his urinary system solved in one shot,

"Being happy is fine, but can you stay a little farther away from the shopkeeper?"

Lin Dandan stepped in front of Li Changluo and stopped him from opening his arms to give the shopkeeper Bai Lianhua a big hug.

"It's all right. He didn't mean it. Dandan, don't be so formal."

Bai Lianhua kindly spoke up for Li Changluo. A white stream of light twined lazily around her fingertips, pointing straight at Li Changluo with a glint of frost...

As if to say: if you come over and hug me again, just try it.

"Have some shame."

A cute child's voice sounded by Li Changluo's ear.

He tensed at once...

What the hell...

Who are you insulting?

But then, on second thought, something felt wrong. That voice... wasn't that Bi Luo?

"Did any of you hear that?"

Li Changluo hurriedly looked around, searching for the source of the voice...

"No, no one heard anything..."

Bai Lianhua's gaze fell on the fruit knife at Li Changluo's waist, her expression growing grave.

"What is it?"