As the black vines burned to ashes, the raging flames filling the sky did not dissipate. Instead, as though seized tight by an invisible hand, they suddenly condensed into a single point.
The terrifying heat surged severalfold. Crackling explosions rang out through the void, and in the blink of an eye, a colossal golden bird a thousand zhang tall spread its wings and burst forth from the sea of fire. Brilliant flames wreathed its entire body, turning half the night sky into daylight.
Even the void twisted, faint black fissures splitting open within it, as if this patch of heaven and earth could not bear such terrifying heat.
The strange man's face darkened, and the visage covered in twisted faces grew ever more sinister.
His body, woven from black vines, sizzled beneath the scorching heatwave. Its surface began to dry up and curl, like dead branches roasting over a blazing fire.
"Interesting," he said softly, his shrill voice enough to make one's hair stand on end.
Before his words had faded, the giant golden bird suddenly dove, carrying a towering heatwave as it shot forward like an arrow ripping through the air, so fast not even an afterimage could remain.
In virtually an instant, its enormous beak was already before the strange man. Blazing firelight illuminated every twisted face on his own.
The flames reached his robes first. That dark robe ignited almost instantly, tongues of fire rapidly spreading over his arms and chest, even climbing up his neck. The man was swallowed by firelight, every face screaming madly amid the flames, as though he would turn to dust and scatter the next second.
Yet he showed not the slightest panic.
He did not even take half a step back.
Just as the giant golden bird was about to swallow