Chapter 161: Devoured by the Void

In another area of the Lava Sea, more than ten kilometers away from Ethan’s location, Ryan stood alone on a narrow stone platform less than twenty meters wide.

There were no companions around him, nor did any other participant dare approach.

After entering the Challenge Gate, he had deliberately separated from the group wearing black cloaks because the Void Flame inside his body was becoming increasingly unstable. Every time it erupted, black-purple cracks appeared beneath his skin, running from his chest up to his neck before spreading across both sides of his face.

Ryan had pulled his hood higher to hide them, but the fingers resting on the handle of his fishing rod still trembled slightly, while his red-purple eyes held only exhaustion and hatred that had almost become impossible to conceal.

He did not know that the moment Ethan activated Decomposition on the Giant Lava Octopus, a dark red eye had opened inside the monster’s corpse. It was not the octopus’s eye, nor was it a creature hidden inside its body.

It was merely an extremely faint mark left behind by the Void, a connection point stretching across the Lava Sea from where Ethan stood all the way to Ryan’s location. Ryan only felt his chest suddenly heat up, followed by a cold will brushing across his mind. There were no words or clear images, but he still understood the meaning it wanted to convey.

Ethan was ahead.

Ryan raised his head and looked at the blazing red Lava Sea that continued to surge. He tried to suppress the pain in his chest and hold on to the last remnants of his sanity, but the Void Flame seemed unwilling to give him any chance to calm down. A stream of black-purple fire suddenly burst through the flesh of his left arm, causing Ryan to drop to one knee immediately. His palm slammed hard against the stone, his fingers carving five deep grooves into the surface, while his breathing became so rapid that it nearly turned into a low growl.

"Enough..." Ryan gritted his teeth, his voice hoarse. "I came in here already. Ethan is here too. What else do you want?"

The Void Flame did not answer, but the temperature inside his body continued to rise. Ryan felt as though something were crawling out from inside his blood vessels, moving along each of his bones before using fire to burn away every thought of resistance. He wanted to stand up and leave this stone platform, but the moment he braced a hand against his knee, an image suddenly appeared in his mind. It was Ethan standing in the middle of the abandoned aerospace center, with Qing Lian behind him and Laira and Ruo Yan beside him. Ethan looked at him from afar, his gaze so calm that it was as though he had never considered Ryan an equal opponent.

Humiliation immediately erupted in Ryan’s mind.

"Why..." He lowered his head, his clenched hand bleeding. "Why does everything good fall into your hands?"

Ever since he was young, Ryan had always believed that he was the one with greater talent. He knew how to speak, how to make others trust him, and how to seize opportunities whenever they appeared. But after the Challenge Gate opened, Ethan seemed to become a completely different person. From someone who had possessed nothing, Ethan gradually obtained the Primordial Armor, Laira, Ruo Yan, Mumu, and then powers that made others able to do nothing but look up to him. Ryan had once told himself that Ethan was simply luckier, that as long as he had enough time, as long as the Void Flame gave him another opportunity, everything would definitely change.

Now that opportunity was right in front of him.

In exchange, something inside his body was gradually being taken away.

Ryan slowly raised his head and looked at the fishing rod in his hand. It was only an ordinary-quality fishing rod he had opened from the Fishing Rod Blind Box. It had no special abilities and could not compare to Ethan’s Boundless Fishing Rod. The empty hook swayed in the hot wind, while below lay the churning Lava Sea, where countless strange creatures swam past. Ryan had no bait, nor had he brought a durable puppet like the Undead Mage, but the Void Flame inside his body had already begun spreading outward.

A strand of black-purple fire traveled along his arm, flowed down the fishing rod, and wrapped around the hook. The originally silver-gray metal hook quickly turned black, and vein-like patterns appeared across its surface. Ryan stared at the scene, vigilance immediately rising in his heart. He wanted to pull his hand back, but the flames locked tightly around his wrist and dragged the fishing rod forward.

"You plan to use this as bait?" Ryan asked between heavy breaths, but immediately after speaking, he laughed at himself. "Do I even have a choice?"

He swung the rod.

The black hook flew out and fell into the Lava Sea. The moment the lava touched the black-purple flame, a patch of the surface immediately darkened, as though both the light and heat around it were being swallowed by the strange fire. The lava fish swimming nearby initially retreated in fear, but only a few seconds later, a fish more than three meters long, its entire body covered in dark red scales, slowly swam toward the hook.

It did not bite the bait.

It bit directly into the flame.

The moment its mouth full of sharp teeth closed, the Challenge Fishing Rod in Ryan’s hands shook violently. The sudden pulling force threw him off balance, nearly causing him to fall from the stone platform. Ryan immediately gripped the rod tightly with both hands, the muscles in his arms bulging clearly, but the lava fish below did not seem to want to escape. It merely bit tightly onto the black-purple flame, then allowed the Void Flame to gradually spread into its mouth, pass through its throat, and crawl throughout its entire body.

Ryan watched the fish’s scales change color.

From blazing red to black-purple.

From glossy to cracked.

Black-purple crystal fragments began growing along the fish’s back, each one radiating an aura so familiar that Ryan felt afraid. This was not energy from the Lava Sea, nor was it energy that belonged to an ordinary creature. It was exactly like the Void Flame inside Ryan’s body, except what was now clinging to the fish seemed even more insane, hungrier, and completely devoid of any consciousness beyond the desire to devour everything it touched.

"Stop." Ryan unconsciously stepped backward. "I said stop!"

This time, the Void Flame actually responded.

A burst of fire suddenly erupted from the fishing hook, pierced through the surface of the Lava Sea, and wrapped around Ryan’s ankle. Before he could struggle, he was dragged forward, half his body slamming hard against the stone. Ryan clawed at the scorching surface, desperately trying to hold on to the edge of the rock, but the black-purple flames wrapped around his leg continued pulling him downward. The lava fish below also opened its eyes wide, its enormous body shooting out of the sea as though being dragged by an invisible thread.

Ryan only had time to see its mouth full of sharp teeth.

Then he was pulled straight inside.

Pain appeared the instant his flesh touched the blazing scales. It did not feel like being burned by fire from the outside, but as though his entire body were being crushed into pieces and stuffed into a living corpse. Ryan screamed miserably, both hands desperately trying to push the fish’s body away, but the moment his fingers touched its scales, they were covered by the Void Flame. The skin on the backs of his hands split open, and his blood was swallowed by the black-purple flames before it could even flow out.

He saw his own face reflected in a crystal growing from the fish’s back.

That face was deathly pale and twisted with pain. His red-purple eyes were opened wide, while black cracks had spread all the way to his temples. Ryan wanted to scream and escape from the monster’s body, but the Void Flame only continued forcing him deeper. When his head was pulled through the fish’s scales, an icy sensation immediately flooded his consciousness. He could no longer clearly feel his hands, legs, or body. What he could feel was the temperature of the Lava Sea, the scorching current flowing beneath his belly, and the hundreds of small creatures swimming within several kilometers.

And hunger.

Ryan opened his eyes.

But this time, the eyes that opened were not on his own face.

On the body of the Lava Fish, directly beneath the layer of black-purple crystals, a human face slowly emerged. It was Ryan’s face, except his skin had fused with the red-black scales, while his neck had stretched into purple veins that wound deep into the fish’s body. His mouth opened, trying to speak, but the only thing that came out was a hoarse sound mixed with the hiss of a monster.

"Ethan..."

The Void Flame still had not stopped.

From beneath the fish’s body, small legs resembling shrimp legs began growing out. At first there were only a few, thin and trembling, but they quickly multiplied into dozens, supporting the fish’s entire body as it climbed completely out of the lava. Both sides of its body also swelled, the scales splitting apart before transforming into two enormous crab claws covered in black-purple crystals.

The Lava Fish opened its mouth, but instead of fire, countless dark red tentacles burst from inside, each one carrying tiny strands of Void Flame that continued burning without pause.

Ryan felt his consciousness being torn into two parts. One part still knew that he was Ryan, still remembered Ethan, still remembered everything that had happened, and still wanted to kill the person who had taken everything away from him. The other part only wanted to rush toward the strongest life force, tear it apart, and swallow it.

The two wills collided inside the monster’s body, causing the face embedded in the fish’s scales to twitch continuously. He wanted to control the tail, but the shrimp-like legs pulled the body forward on their own. He wanted to turn back, but the two giant crab claws dug deeply into the stone and pushed the entire monster forward.

"Stop..." Ryan roared with the small amount of sanity he had left. "I said stop!"

The fish did not listen.

Or more precisely, the Void did not listen.

A thin black-purple tear opened behind the monster. It was not large, only enough for streams of cold black smoke to flow out, but the instant the tear appeared, the Lava Fish’s body trembled. Ryan’s face on the scales slowly turned in one direction, his red-purple eyes locking onto a distant point somewhere across the Lava Sea.

Ethan was there.

The Mutated Lava Fish released a deep growl before charging straight forward. Dozens of shrimp legs slammed against the stone at the same time, its two enormous crab claws dragging through the lava and carving deep trenches, while the tentacles spilling from its mouth writhed continuously, leaving behind a long trail of black-purple fire.

Ryan was still conscious.

He simply no longer had the right to decide where his body would go.