Evil Fire Phoenix Ma Hongjun

The fatty raised his head, his equally filthy face etched with the relief of having survived a brush with death.

But when he saw the scene before him, he froze completely.

Oscar, whom he had been chasing the entire way, was currently hugging the leg of a youth dressed like a strange hunter, crying earth-shatteringly loud.

Surrounding them, people lay scattered in every direction.

It was none other than the Flying Divine Pig Group that had been hunting them down.

Each of them was twitching on the ground, foaming at the mouth, having completely lost their ability to fight.

"Th-this... what is going on?"

The fatty's mind went blank.

Hearing his voice, Oscar jerked his head up, pointing at Li Hao through a mess of snot and tears.

"Ma Hongjun! Quick! Come and pay respects to Big Brother!"

"It was Big Brother who saved us! Big Brother is a god descended to earth!"

The fatty called Hongjun was none other than Ma Hongjun.

He stared blankly at Li Hao, who wore an expression of utter disgust while desperately trying to pull his leg free.

Then he looked at the wiped-out enemies on the ground.

An incredible thought took shape in his mind.

"Could it be..."

"Could this youth, who looks even younger than me, have taken out the entire Flying Divine Pig Group by himself?"

This was a team consisting of a Soul Elder and several Soul Grand Masters!

Ma Hongjun was no fool.

He immediately grasped the crux of the matter.

The person before him was definitely an peerless expert playing the pig to eat the tiger!

He and Oscar, these two brothers in misfortune, had been driven to a dead end while being hunted.

Oscar was doing it for his Martial Soul.

As for him, it was for the damned Evil Fire within his own body.

Because the backlash of the Evil Fire was becoming increasingly severe, he had been driven out of his village by the people there, who treated him like a monster.

He had thought he was a dead man.

Now, hope had appeared!

Thump!

Ma Hongjun did not hesitate in the slightest; mimicking Oscar, he knelt directly on the other side of Li Hao.

His form was even more textbook than Oscar's.

"Big Brother! No! Grandfather! Ancestor!"

"I beg you, please save me too!"

His voice was even louder than Oscar's, and his wailing was even more miserable.

Li Hao's body went completely rigid.

He hadn't even shaken off one piece of chewing gum, and now another had arrived?

And an extra-large, extra-thick version at that?

His social anxiety alarm wasn't just ringing anymore.

It had triggered a full-blown air-raid siren, shrill enough to pierce his eardrums.

"You two... get off me!"

Li Hao squeezed the words through his teeth.

He tried to pull his leg away, but the two guys were hugging it for dear life, as if they had been welded to him.

The crowd watching the spectacle pointed at them, whispering and gossiping.

Every gaze felt like a needle pricking Li Hao's back.

He wanted to die.

He wanted to die right now.

Just then, a strange and nauseating odor drifted over from Ma Hongjun.

It wasn't just the smell of sweat.

It was a charred stench mixed with desire, mania, and the scent of life force being burned abnormally.

It was the aura of the Evil Fire.

Li Hao's stomach churned violently.

He felt an instinctive, extreme disgust toward this filthy, impure power.

"I can't save you! Get lost!" he barked without a shred of politeness.

"Big Brother, you must have a way!"

Ma Hongjun wailed, "This Evil Fire is about to take my life! If this keeps up, I'll either explode and die or turn into a madman who only knows how to vent! Please, have mercy!"

"I said, get lost!"

Li Hao was truly getting annoyed.

He just wanted to quietly obtain a spirit ring and then go home to live a lazy life with his daughter and the Queen.

Why did he always run into such troublesome matters?

He prepared to channel his spirit power to forcibly blast these two guys away.

However, the very moment he was about to activate his spirit power, the Karma Rod in his hand, disguised as a fire poker, suddenly grew slightly warm.

That heat was extremely faint, flashing and vanishing in an instant.

But Li Hao felt it clearly.

This divine artifact, which never showed any reaction other than when fishing or fighting, was actually reacting to this fatty?

He paused his movements.

[Ding!]

The system's notification sound rang in his mind at the perfect moment.

[Special bloodline source detected.]

[The target's body contains a trace of True Phoenix Fire bloodline that is extremely thin, yet incomparably pure.]

[This bloodline is being severely polluted and suppressed by an acquired 'Evil Fire'. If the Evil Fire continues to grow, the Phoenix bloodline will be completely devoured, and the target will become a slave to the Evil Fire.]

[If the Evil Fire can be purged and the bloodline purified, this Martial Soul has immense potential and the hope of ancestral reversion, evolving into a true top-tier beast Martial Soul--Fire Phoenix.]

The series of information made Li Hao's head buzz.

Evil Fire Phoenix Ma Hongjun.

So the root of his Martial Soul was a true phoenix.

It had simply been polluted.

"Purge the Evil Fire?"

An incredibly absurd thought, yet one that made his heart pound, suddenly leaped from the bottom of his heart.

Since this rod could fish for good luck and fish for karma marks.

Then...

"Could I treat the Evil Fire inside this fatty as a bad fish and forcibly fish it out?"

Once this idea appeared, it could no longer be suppressed.

It was as if the door to a new world had been opened.

Li Hao looked at Ma Hongjun, who was still wailing on the ground, and that sense of disgust faded away significantly without him realizing it.

Replacing it was a kind of... curiosity, as if he were looking at a new experimental subject.

He cleared his throat.

"Stop crying."

His voice was not loud, but the wailing of Oscar and Ma Hongjun stopped abruptly.

Both of them looked up in unison, staring at him with eyes full of hope.

"Helping you isn't impossible," Li Hao said slowly.

"Really?!" Ma Hongjun was ecstatic.

"However."

Li Hao changed his tone, "I never do business at a loss. What can you offer in exchange?"

Ma Hongjun's joy froze on his face.

He patted his body; other than a few tattered clothes, he had nothing.

"I... I don't have any money," he said, lowering his head in dejection.

Oscar, standing to the side, grew anxious: "Big Brother, I have some! I'll give you all my sausages!"

"I don't want your sausages," Li Hao refused with a look of disdain.

He looked at Ma Hongjun and pondered for a moment.

"How about this: I'll put your life on my tab for now."

"In the future, when I demand repayment, you cannot refuse."

This was essentially a deed of indenture.

But for Ma Hongjun at this moment, this was not a problem at all.

"Forget one life, I'd give you ten!"

He agreed without the slightest hesitation, terrified that Li Hao might change his mind.

"Good."

Li Hao nodded.

"You, sit still and don't move."

He pointed to the empty space in front of him.

Ma Hongjun immediately let go, scrambling over to the designated spot on his hands and knees before sitting cross-legged, looking like a primary school student waiting for a teacher to hand out candy.

Oscar also curiously leaned in, his peach-blossom eyes wide.

The surrounding Soul Masters stretched their necks even further; they wanted to see what kind of divine methods this mysterious youth would use to treat an Evil Fire problem that even a Soul Saint was helpless against.

Li Hao ignored everyone's gaze.

He stepped forward and raised that unremarkable fishing rod above Ma Hongjun's head.

"Close your eyes, empty your mind, and do not offer any resistance."

Ma Hongjun hurriedly complied.

Li Hao took a deep breath.

With a flick of his wrist, the fishing line made of light descended silently.

The hook hovered three inches above the crown of Ma Hongjun's head.

Then, Li Hao closed his eyes.

His entire focus sank into the Karma Rod.

This time, his target was not luck, nor was it karma.

It was that mass of filthy, manic, and destruction-filled... Evil Fire inside Ma Hongjun's body!

"Come... out!"

He gave a low shout in his heart and jerked his hand holding the fishing rod upward!

Hum!

Under the horrified gaze of Oscar and all the onlookers, an incredible scene unfolded.

A wisp of black-red flame, appearing as if it had a life of its own, was forcibly pulled out from the top of Ma Hongjun's head!

The flame twisted and struggled frantically on the hook, emitting silent shrieks and radiating an unsettling, evil aura.

"My god..."

"What is that thing?!"

"He... he fished a ball of fire out of his head?!"

Exclamations rose one after another.

Ma Hongjun himself shuddered violently.

He felt as though that strange, evil power which had plagued him for years—the one that caused him unbearable pain and constantly incinerated his sanity—was being rudely yanked out by an invisible giant hand!

An unprecedented sense of relief swept through his entire body!

Li Hao did not stop.

He continued to exert force with his wrist, the fishing line tightening further.

More black-red flames were continuously drawn out from Ma Hongjun's seven orifices, gathering on the hook to form a fist-sized, writhing ball of Evil Fire.

The moment the last trace of black-red flame was extracted:

Screech!

A clear, resonant phoenix cry erupted from within Ma Hongjun's body without warning!

A mass of pure, brilliant golden flame exploded from him, engulfing his entire being.

Li Hao looked at the struggling ball of Evil Fire on the hook and did not hesitate.

With a casual flick, he sealed the Evil Fire ball into a special jade bottle that Cailin had given him.

Having finished, he turned to leave.

The trouble was solved; it was time to slip away.

But just as he turned, his legs were hugged again.

This time, it was Ma Hongjun, surrounded by golden flames, and Oscar, who had been completely stunned into silence.

"Big Brother! You are my second parent!"

"Big Brother! Take us with you! We'll be your beasts of burden!"

The two of them were more agitated than the last, putting more effort into their pleas than the one before.

Veins bulged on Li Hao's forehead.

Again?

Will this never end!

"Get lost!"

Unable to endure it any longer, he kicked them both, sending the two clingy pests flying.

"Don't follow me!"

Before the words had even faded, his figure flickered, instantly transforming into a blurred afterimage as he vanished deep into the dense forest.