Lava licked at the twisted rock walls, hissing a dying sigh. Iansan, a Natlan partisan captain, wiped the crust of sweat blinding her eyes. Through the shimmering heat waves, the crimson pupils of an Abyss Order "Black-Fire Vanguard" loomed in and out of view like an evil spirit peering from hell. Caught in a pincer attack, their retreat blocked by a collapsing, smoking stone bridge, they had only a lake of roiling, dark red bubbling lava beneath their feet.
"Blazing magma crystals! Throw them!" Iansan's hoarse roar pierced the scorching air. Several crimson crystals left behind by Lumine were flung hard, striking the jagged rock pillars and instantly bursting into thick, choking clouds of smoke that temporarily blinded the pursuers. "Keep up! Step on the floating reefs, don't stop!" She leaped first onto a chunk of obsidian floating at the edge of the magma, barely large enough to land on, as the scalding airflow nearly scorched her lungs.
The team members behind her gritted their teeth, making desperate leaps between the crumbling stone bridge and the floating reefs. One fighter's foot slipped, and half a boot was instantly swallowed by the lava with an acrid, burning stench, before his comrades yanked him back desperately. Out of the corner of her eye, Iansan swept the churning magma lake below, mentally calculating its rhythmic, beast-like breathing pulse. "Turn left! Draw them into the 'Boiling Point Area'!" She pointed toward a zone that looked calm on the surface but…
Chapter 125