Chapter 74: A Junior Worth Remembering
"Ouch! Aw! FUCK! Shit—DAMN IT! OUCH—FFUUUUCK!!!"
The pain wasn't just agony—it was annihilation. Lordi Payne's mind shattered under its weight, thoughts erased as the torment unmade him from within. It clawed awake in his bones first—a searing, splintering grind, as if his skeleton were being pulverized by a thousand unseen hammers. Then it surged outward, a ravenous flood of molten anguish that devoured his flesh, seeping into his organs like liquid lava forged in some abyssal crucible. Every nerve ignited; every inch of skin wailed as the pain burrowed deeper, wider, vaster.
Oen Shinae had warned him—the Dao Flame fusion was a crucible of excruciating pain. He'd shrugged it off, her words drifting past like a faint breeze in the mire's skeletal hush.
Why heed her? He'd forged his mettle in the Bone Tempering Art, clawing to the second layer of Qi Refinement with no pills, no boosters—just sheer, ironclad will.
Picture it: shattering every bone in your body, a self-inflicted storm of fractures, all while juggling the spiritual Qi in the dantian under Bone Tempering Art to stitch yourself back together. That was pain—grueling, relentless, a trial he'd endured with gritted teeth and a defiant snarl. So how could this Dao Flame, fierce as it was, rival that? He'd survived the Bone Tempering Art's hell—nothing could break him.
Or so he'd thought.
Now, as the Ice Pith Fire ravaged him, Lordi Payne realized his arrogance had been a fool's shield. Compared to this—a torment that flayed soul and sinew alike—the Bone Tempering Art was a gentle whisper, a fleeting caress, a perverse kind of bliss.
The Bone Tempering Art had been a brutal forge—flesh torn, bones cracked—a raw, grinding pain that seared through his body at first. But it was mortal, confined to meat and marrow, and in time, he'd grown numb, his nerves dulled to its sting.
This Dao Flame Fusion? This was no mere flesh-wound agony. The Ice Pith Fire clawed from the depths of his soul, a primal, marrow-born torment that gnashed at his very essence, as if the abyss itself had sunk teeth into his being.
It struck like a lightning bolt—a chain of horrors unfurling in his gut. His stomach lurched, a scalding wave of bile surging up his throat, bitter and molten, choking him as it rose and fell. Sweat burst from his pores, drenching his face and spine—not from strain, but from the sheer, animal shock of his body unraveling. The fire beneath his skin devoured it instantly, baking the sweat to vapor in a hiss.
The world spun, tilting on a jagged edge. His vision smeared into a haze, dizziness clawing at his skull as his nerves screamed, overwhelmed by the trauma's relentless tide.