c2170: 2171: Clash of Ice and Fire

The massive aftermath of the explosion, the only advantage, perhaps, is that it temporarily dispersed the thick smoke, allowing Angel to clearly see the situation of the Lava Lake from the cliff several miles away.

The Lava Lake reacted at the very beginning of the explosion.

Magma continuously surged, occasionally bursting open, spewing a large number of fire columns like a fountain.

Moreover, as time progressed, the number of fire columns increased. The energy of the Lava Lake itself was already quite unstable, and now it presents a chaotic scene.

The situation began to develop in the direction he most didn’t want to see.

Angel rubbed his temples wearily. He just wanted to probe the current intelligence of the Tidal World, but who would have thought that he would fail at the outset.

"Chirp chirp." Toby poked its little head out of the chest pocket, its crimson eyes reflecting the dance of the flames, and around it, fire element energy unconsciously gathered.

Angel noticed Toby absorbing fire energy, but didn’t restrain it. Toby inherently had a fire form, so absorbing fire energy was normal.

What he cared most about now was the future development of the Lava Lake: "If it continues to develop towards disaster, I might have to leave temporarily."

Though he said this, Angel was still waiting for unexpected changes.

There were so many elemental creatures in the Lava Lake; surely, they wouldn’t let the Lava Lake suffer a disaster without intervening, right? Of course, he also knew that no matter how much the Lava Lake changes, it is still the domain of fire, and probably wouldn’t pose any life threats to fire creatures.

But, if the place they live in changes, the inhabitants should react, right?

Another half-minute passed, the boiling of the Lava Lake became more evident, the fire columns had turned into fiery tornadoes, no longer simply erupting but raging in all directions.

It seemed that a fire disaster was about to descend.

Just then, in the energy vision, numerous sprouts began to ascend into the sky, reaching a height of hundreds of meters, then began interweaving with each other, resembling a dense net.

When the "net" was woven, it began to slowly press downward.

All the spewing fiery serpents and agitated energy, upon touching the net, seemed to have their souls extracted, gradually calming from the chaos.

When the net fully descended, the boiling Lava Lake began to gradually cool.

Seeing this, Angel let out a long sigh of relief. Thankfully, the indigenous people of the Lava Lake didn’t let the disaster worsen.

Moreover, although there was a big commotion this time, it wasn’t completely without gain. Judging by the current situation of the Lava Lake, it confirmed some of his speculations.

The sprouts interwoven into a net were so delicately operated that it was hard for multiple elemental creatures to accomplish; only one elemental creature might have done it.

In other words, his guess was correct; the sprouts covering the Lava Lake actually came from one elemental creature.

However, there is another possibility, which is group intelligence. This is a unique behavior mode of ants, bees, and other creatures, with a distributed control, and self-organizing groups, allowing them to weave such a perfect net. But this is a very exceptional case, at least among elemental creatures it has never been heard of, so Angel temporarily disregarded it.

Confirming this information is very important for Angel’s future exploration. Because the existence that can easily quell this disaster must not be underestimated, if he wants to continue exploring the center of the Region of Fire, it’s best to avoid it.

With the calm of the Lava Lake, the surrounding energy also began to restore to normal, and everything seemed to be developing positively.

The only pity is that communicative and intelligent elemental sprite.

Unfortunately, it has a bit of a problem in its head, jumping to extreme actions without clarifying anything.

While lamenting this, Angel was unaware that on the unseen shore of the Lava Lake, amidst the steaming sea of fire, a small fireball silently fell into the Lava Lake...

"Although the foolish fluffy creature died quickly, it did reveal some information." Angel lightly muttered several names.

Frost Iser, the name that fluffy creature mentioned initially. Although its identity is unknown, having "Frost" as a prefix suggests it might be an ice-type life.

Coincidentally, Earl Mi had previously used the Power of Ice to freeze the fluffy creature, which makes this speculation reasonable.

And for the fluffy creature to mention the true name directly, Frost Iser might be a top-level ice-type powerful entity, perhaps even an ice-type Monarch?

Angel recalled that on the Tide World Map, there indeed was an image of an ice-type being, an anthropomorphic elemental creature with an ice-cold cape and a Colored Glaze crown, covered in white fur— the Snow Queen.

Frost Iser is very likely the Snow Queen.

Recalling the map, the region of the Snow Queen and the current Region of Fire are quite far apart, with several other territories in between.

If translated into human civilization, it would mean several countries in between, yet the farthest countries end up being adversaries? Starting a war in such a situation would be difficult indeed.

Surely, even if the ice was to sweep the land, wouldn’t the countries in between have grievances?

As expected, the fluffy creature was indeed foolish.

Besides Frost Iser, Angel’s attention was drawn to another name mentioned by the fluffy creature: Midir the Magicfire.

The fluffy creature seemed not fond of this Midir the Magicfire, but it intended to report its espionage to him, due to his status— the New King.

New King, could it be the fire monarch of this region?

Could it be the black fire monkey depicted on the map? If so, what is its level of power?

Angel was concerned about this Midir the Magicfire because after the fluffy creature expressed its intention to convey a message, it decisively self-destructed.

Although elemental self-destruction leads to the complete disappearance of the elemental creature’s spirit intelligence, the fluffy creature was obviously confident that by self-destructing, it had a way to relay the information.

If the message truly reaches Midir the Magicfire, staying here might soon lead to a confrontation with this New King.

Now, Angel was conflicted about whether to temporarily retreat.

The alleged espionage matter was purely a misunderstanding. He could indeed explain it, but he wasn’t sure about this New King’s personality; if it’s another foolish one...

Being foolish is one thing, but if Midir the Magicfire is also powerful, then it would be quite a suffering.

His concealment skill failed here once again.

Angel pondered for a moment and decided to retreat for the time being. He would leave some scouting puppets behind to figure out Midir’s fiery condition first.