Volume Dragon: Start by obtaining the Infinity Gems

Chapter 289 Curse Fire
Basu's red robe glowed bloody under the alchemy lamp. His skinny fingers anxiously stroked the boy's collarbone, and the black runes flickered with the restlessness of the curse fire.

"Don't be afraid, little mouse," the mage said, his breath smelling of rotten sulfur, and he showed his golden teeth as he tried his best to comfort the rebellious Ulm. "Pulling out the curse fire is like pulling out a rotten tooth - it hurts, but it's worth it."

Six soul-binding chains hung from the ceiling and clasped Wuermu's limbs. The arcane matrix behind him began to rotate, and the chanting in the Cyran language pierced his eardrums. When the amethyst probe pierced the rune, something strange happened suddenly -

Curse fire suddenly gushed out from Wuermu's pupils, turning into a blue-white fire snake that attacked the probe! Black smoke rose from Basu's robe, and the crystal vessels on the experimental table exploded one after another.

"Impossible--" Basu was halfway through his words when he suddenly realized that this was the true face of the power of cursed fire-a disaster that devoured all magic power.

The red-robed wizard stumbled back, his cloudy eyeballs filled with bloodshot due to rage, "Then let's try another method - burn the living body and extract the residue!"

The bronze door of the laboratory closed heavily behind him, and Wuermu's back hit the cold stone wall. Basu's red robe was like a piece of coagulated blood, shining ominously under the alchemy lamp.

Wuermu dug his nails deep into his palms, and the curse fire runes throbbed under his skin. He thought he could finally escape the curse, and the red-robed wizard was supposed to be his savior, with a warm and gentle smile.

——Instead of the greed twisted on Basu’s face at this moment.

“Why?” the boy screamed as he rolled to avoid the acid arrows, his throat burning from the corrosive vapor. “You said you would heal me!”

The red wizard's staff burst out a second wave of ice cones, and Wuermu instinctively opened a vortex of cursed fire to swallow it. The pain of the cold current rushing into his chest reminded him of his mother's screams before she died. This should be a curse, right? Why did it turn out like this?

"Idiot." Basu's sneer pierced the icy mist, "Do you really think that a distinguished red-robed wizard would help a beggar remove his bones for free?"

As the stinking undead chains wrapped around his ankles, Wuermu suddenly remembered Nemesis' words. That day, the tip of the Tome Dragon's tail brushed across his newly-developed chilblains, and the fin-like dragon wings looked like a gilded encyclopedia in the sunset: "The Red Mage loves two things the most - the pain of others, and stolen power."

Regret surged like stomach acid. He should have listened to the dragon instead of coming here on his own. Now the curse fire became hot due to excessive consumption, every inch of skin was screaming, and Basu's spell was taking shape -

"Do you think you can escape from the Scarlet Spire?" The wizard's withered fingers slid across the skull scepter at his waist. "Cursed fire does not belong to ants like you."

The alchemical lamps were whirring overhead, Basu's red robes were moving without wind, and triple seals were lit on her skinny fingertips. Wuermu could smell the mixed smell of sulfur and rotten blood in the air - that was the prelude to death magic.

"First lesson," the red-robed wizard said, a red fireball bursting out from the tip of his staff, "cursed fire is not a shield, it's poison."

The moment the fireball whizzed towards him, the cursed fire rune on Wuermu's palm lit up in a dark blue. He instinctively spread his five fingers, and the flame was torn into threads half an inch away from the tip of his nose, and penetrated into his blood vessels along the skin texture. It was extremely painful, but accompanied by a surge of burning energy - it was a more violent feeling than swallowing boiling water.

"Give it back to you!" The boy roared and flicked his wrist. The energy transformed by the cursed fire turned into three blue flame spears and shot towards the enemy.

Basu sneered, and the second mouth on his stomach quickly chanted a spell, and negative energy jumped out of his body to form a bone shield. The blue flame blasted spider web cracks on the pale bone surface, but failed to penetrate.

"Second lesson." The wizard formed a talisman of transmutation with his left hand and pointed his right hand at the iron chain hanging from the ceiling. "The curse fire is greedy, but the container is too small." The ice cone and the electrified iron chain attacked at the same time. Wuermu rolled to avoid the chain, and the vortex of curse fire opened in front of his chest to swallow the ice cone. This time the energy was colder, like stuffing ten thousand years of black ice into his chest. He trembled and directed the cold current to his feet, and the ground instantly condensed into a layer of ice. The red-robed wizard slipped unexpectedly, and Wuermu took the opportunity to condense the remaining ice energy into a spike and shot it at the opponent's throat.

“It’s just a trifle.” Basu shattered the ice spikes with a flick of his finger, and the flying debris reassembled into a venomous snake in the air and pounced on the boy. “Feel the true art of necromancy!”

Wuermu's cursed fire had turned into a sickly dark blue. He grabbed the venomous snake with his bare hands, and the black mist was drawn away along his fingertips. His skin immediately ulcerated and healed rapidly - that magical power was constantly usurping the evil magic power of the red robe wizard and transforming it into a healing power that warmed Wuermu. But the transformed energy made his internal organs twitch and blood ooze from his nostrils.

"Lesson 3!" The red-robed wizard suddenly appeared behind the boy, his foul breath spraying in his ears, "Cursed fire is a curse, because you will never be full."

Five acid arrows pierced Wuermu's left shoulder. The curse fire activated on its own, greedily sucking in the corrosive energy. The boy turned around and punched in pain. The fist wrapped in blue light grazed the wizard's cheek and melted a scorch pit on the stone wall. Basu's cheekbone was burned by the aftermath, and he finally stopped joking.

“That’s enough.” He tore open the front of his robe, revealing the Spell Devouring Hive embedded in his chest. “I’ll show you the true meaning of hunger.”

Endless ugly swarms of bees flew out from the honeycomb-like black hole in Basu's chest. The cursed fire that burned with magic power was finally useless. The boy could only rely on the high temperature of the cursed fire to try to burn to death the bugs that wanted to get close to him.

But without the nourishment of magic power, the nascent curse fire quickly exhausted its power.

Seeing the cursed fire disappear, Basu poured out fireballs, ice blades, lightning, acid and all kinds of runaway energy torrents. The tiny blue light was like the last spark before the firewood burned out, struggling to absorb the energy, but it also led to worse consequences.

Wuermu's eyes began to bleed, and spider web-like light patterns appeared on his skin. He barely managed to condense the chaotic energy into a light cannon to counterattack, but it was refracted to various parts of the laboratory by the "rebound beam" that the red robe wizard had prepared in advance. The culture tank exploded, the ancient scroll burned, and a captive shadow demon took the opportunity to escape into the ventilation duct.

"It's pathetic." Basu stepped on the broken glass and approached. "It's like using a wine glass to catch a tsunami."

Wuermu fell to his knees, the cursefire rune dimming like dying embers. The last bit of energy was used to heal the broken ribs, and now he couldn't even lift his fingertips. The tip of the red-robed wizard's scepter lit up with the gray light of disintegration, and the breath of death stung his eyes.

"Now," the rotten fingertips pressed against the boy's trembling throat, "let's take out this beautiful curse."

"It's all my fault."

The boy murmured in a daze from the energy overload, and the exhausted spellfire could no longer protect him from the disintegration.

At the critical moment, a loud sound of bronze tearing was heard from the east wall of the laboratory.

"Warning, warning, the tower is damaged by 13.68%, and the connection between [Laboratory No. ] and [Restraint Room] has been lost." Suddenly, the huge alarm of the tower spirit sounded throughout the Mage Tower.

(End of this chapter)