Chapter 121: The Judgment of Fire

As the fiery red potion flowed into his body, Li Ren felt an immediate surge of power, the intense agony he had just endured suppressed by the concoction’s potent effect.

It was, admittedly, a rather comical sight: a skeleton with nothing inside him holding a crimson potion bottle and gulping it down. Yet, remarkably, not a single drop was spilled or wasted. This was a remedy the Clan Leader of the East had insisted he take before his departure. At first, Li Ren had harbored the same doubts; the thought of a skeleton drinking a potion only for it to leak straight through his ribcage was absurd. However, the Clan Leader had sworn on his life that it wouldn't happen, and so, half-skeptical, Li Ren had brought it along. To his surprise, it had truly come in handy, and just as the Clan Leader promised, the liquid hadn't leaked out at all. It was a strange, minor miracle.

At a time like this, worrying about the "how" would have been foolish, and Li Ren was not one to dwell on such trivialities. If it worked, who cared where the potion went once consumed? Especially under these circumstances.

Mao Mao let out a thunderous roar, colliding head-on with the Iron-Saw Centipede. The impact sent a massive cloud of dust billowing into the air. Li Ren followed closely behind, seizing the moment while Mao Mao held the creature's full attention. This was his time to perform. With Five-Star Strikes, the Green Dragon’s Five Flurries, and a variety of other bizarre abilities at his disposal, the Iron-Saw Centipede was left with no room to counter. With its external support gone, its demise was only a matter of time.

As Li Ren delivered the final blow, plunging his Purple Gold Winged God spear deep into the centipede’s skull, the massive creature let out a dying whimper before crashing heavily to the ground.

Mao Mao shook its colossal dragon head; going toe-to-toe with a Level 140 Lord-tier boss had been taxing. Even though its body was made entirely of bone, a close inspection revealed fine cracks spreading across its frame, and in some areas, the joints were beginning to show signs of separation. Thankfully, the battle was finally over.

Mao Mao opened its jaws wide and took a deep, forceful breath toward the massive Iron-Saw Centipede—a creature twice its own size. The centipede’s body was drawn inward, pulled toward Mao Mao’s gullet. Even though Li Ren had witnessed this countless times, he still couldn't suppress his curiosity, staring intently at the dragon's maw and the monster's carcass. Yet, to his disappointment, Mao Mao’s mouth acted like a black hole; the enormous corpse vanished without leaving a trace or even a ripple.

Beyond the sudden, overwhelming surge of experience and attribute points flooding into his own body, nothing remained. Mao Mao let out a satisfied burp, and its cracked frame began to rapidly mend after consuming the beast. Li Ren checked the experience gain, shocked to find that it was substantial enough to level them both up three times. As for the attribute points, a Lord-tier boss’s inherent stats were beyond any player’s imagination. Li Ren didn't know what kind of probability he had triggered, but he had absorbed nearly 8,000 points in total attributes from the centipede in one go. The rapid influx of power and the resulting surge in strength left him exhilarated. He raised his right hand, looked at his palm glowing with a purple light, and clenched it into a fist. Li Ren smiled.

He gathered the loot dropped by the centipede. Aside from some equipment, the only thing that caught his eye was a scroll shimmering with a red luster. Li Ren opened it: *Judgment of Fire*.

*Judgment of Fire: Summons a powerful Fire Spirit to empower a weapon, adding 80% of the character’s current attack power as bonus damage. Consumes 300 magic points per second. (The higher the flame level, the greater the bonus damage.)*

Seeing the skill’s effect, Li Ren nodded. A skill that provided an 80% damage boost was truly monstrous. For anyone, activating this skill meant every strike hit with double the previous intensity—it was the sensation of landing a critical hit with every blow. Who wouldn't understand the value of that? However, the consumption of 300 magic points per second was steep; even for a Level 140 mage, that drain would be quite rapid. If a mage struggled with that, it was even worse for a class like a warrior, which lacked intelligence.

A typical warrior might manage to keep this skill active for ten seconds at most—and that would be considered incredible. After all, ten seconds meant 3,000 magic points. Intelligence was the most useless attribute for a warrior, so their mana pools were naturally small. Even maintaining it for ten seconds would require them to chug blue potions frantically.

But for Li Ren, this skill posed no such pressure. As a boss with Lord-tier potential, his health and magic reserves were levels that players couldn't even dare to dream of. If his current stats were placed on any player, that individual would effectively be invincible in the player world—provided they were fighting one-on-one, of course. If they were surrounded by too many players, they would simply be treated like a boss themselves.

Li Ren activated *Judgment of Fire*. The scroll transformed into a streak of crimson light, vanishing into his palm and flowing directly into his body. A new skill appeared in his interface. He summoned the *Judgment of Fire*, silently guiding his internal energy according to the activation method. In the void, he felt his consciousness connect to another world—a world entirely ablaze in red. In that realm, a cluster of red flames responded to his intent. At that very instant, a wave of immense power surged out, pulling the flame into reality. The Purple Gold Winged God spear in his hand morphed into a colossal blade, and the fire swathed it, forming a perfect, crimson-hot membrane over the weapon.

Li Ren looked at the blade encased in the fiery film and swung it toward a nearby stone wall. The rock cleaved open instantly, a massive gap appearing in the center without the slightest resistance. Li Ren praised it inwardly; it was worthy of the name "Judgment," living up to the nearly twofold increase in power.