After silently muttering to himself twice, Zhou Ziwei's heart suddenly began to pound rapidly.
Wind... This natural phenomenon caused by the movement of air in nature can actually be considered a form of energy, strictly speaking.
Although the formation of this energy is somewhat complex, unlike the simple and direct nature of thermal energy, since it is energy, it can also be transformed using pure, attribute-free energy.
Since I can convert attributeless energy into heat, why can't I convert it into nothingness? And if I can create wind at will... then combined with this floating state, wouldn't that be no different from mastering real flight skills?
Zhou Ziwei was overjoyed at the thought, but when he looked at the swarm of insects that seemed to be approaching him, he frowned. It was a pity that he hadn't thought of this direction sooner, wasting a lot of time. Otherwise, he would probably have already flown away on a gust of wind. And now... could he master the secret of converting wind energy before being eaten by the insects?
Shaking his head slightly, Zhou Ziwei decided to make one last effort no matter what. He quickly said to the two women, "I think I have an idea. Don't bother me... Maybe we can still survive."
Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang were both taken aback upon hearing this, but their faces showed little joy. Clearly, they had lost much hope of survival. Since Zhou Ziwei had said so, they naturally wouldn't cause him any trouble. They could only hold him tightly and wait quietly. Wang Xuewei, however, had already made up her mind: if she were to die, she would… she would… at least give her first kiss to Zhou Ziwei…
Once you grasp the tricks of energy transformation, it may seem very simple, but if you don't understand the mysteries, it can feel incredibly difficult, even unbelievable.
Zhou Ziwei had already mastered the method of converting attributeless energy into heat energy, so he had some experience. Otherwise, if he were to study it out of thin air, he would not have held any hope at all.
Right now, he... or perhaps he just needs a sudden epiphany to instantly learn this skill, but such an epiphany is not so easy to achieve.
The swarm of insects was still slowly rising, and Zhou Ziwei's toes were less than an inch away from the topmost insect.
However, Zhou Ziwei had no time to care about these things at this moment. He simply closed his eyes and kept experimenting with the conversion of wind energy in his mind and on his body... However, even when an ugly black beetle finally crawled onto his foot, he still had no clue whatsoever...
Volume 2: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 390: Flames of Death
Zhou Ziwei still hadn't made any breakthrough progress in how to convert attributeless energy into wind energy, but at this moment, a sharp, piercing pain in his foot suddenly jolted him out of his reverie.
Looking down, he saw that more than a dozen black, hard-shelled beetles had crawled onto his left foot. His military-made combat boots, supposedly impenetrable even by armor-piercing bullets, were being torn open without any doubt by the vicious beetles' fangs. Blood gushed out instantly, turning the area beneath his feet into a terrifying crimson color...
Those damn bugs want to eat me... not so easy.
Zhou Ziwei was currently controlling his body with liquid soul power, so he was naturally extremely sensitive to pain. When his feet were bitten a few times, he gasped in pain and shook his feet violently, kicking them back and forth until he finally managed to kick away the insects that were biting his feet.
Zhou Ziwei slightly pulled his feet back to prevent the black, hard-shelled insects from crawling onto his feet for a short time. Then, he gritted his teeth and roared fiercely, "Damn insects, die!"
Zhou Ziwei was not one to easily admit defeat. Although he knew that the three of them might end up buried in the bellies of these insects, the fact that his feet were bleeding profusely from being bitten by more than a dozen black hard-shelled insects still made his blood boil.
He couldn't possibly kill all those billions of black, hard-shelled insects, but he could easily take down the dozen or so that had just bitten him.
Since death is inevitable sooner or later, let's kill! Killing one is enough to break even, killing two is a bonus... No, how can my life be equated with these ugly little insects? Let alone one, even if a hundred or a thousand insects were exchanged for my life, it wouldn't be enough... So I'll kill a hundred thousand, a million, a million damned insects!
Taking advantage of the fact that Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang were both tightly holding him, Zhou Ziwei temporarily freed his hands and casually flipped them over, releasing a ball of red light from his palm...
Although Zhou Ziwei only successfully performed this attack method of thermal energy conversion once, he had already undergone a long period of energy circulation training before. Therefore, he was extremely skilled at condensing the attributeless energy in his body into his palm. Almost instantly, a stream of attributeless energy was mobilized to the Laogong acupoint in his palm, and with the arrival of this energy, the energy attribute conversion naturally began.
However, just as the red ball of light condensed to the point where it was about to materialize again and form a fireball, Zhou Ziwei suddenly remembered the astonishing power that the fireball had caused when it was thrown earlier.
At that time, Zhou Ziwei was still six or seven meters away from the explosion point of the fireball, but he was still beaten up by the rubble. If he were to throw the fireball directly at the group of insects under his feet... then all three of them might be blown to pieces.
Upon realizing this, Zhou Ziwei was startled and quickly flicked his hand, throwing away the ball of thermal energy that was just one step away from materializing.
With a muffled "thump," the red ball of light crashed into a pile of black, hard-shelled insects, instantly releasing a scorching heat.
More and more heat was forming below, and soon the air in the surrounding area was affected. Just when Zhou Ziwei and his two companions were about to be bitten on the toes by the black, hard-shelled insects below, their bodies began to float and rise into the sky...
"We're flying... It seems like we're flying higher and higher!" Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang exclaimed excitedly upon seeing this.
Zhou Ziwei clicked his tongue lightly, thinking to himself that he was really too confused... How could he have forgotten the principle of a hot air balloon? If he had thrown a red hot air ball like this down below earlier, wouldn't the three of them have been lifted up very high by the rising hot air?
The reason those insects were able to spot the three of them was probably because they were so close to the ground. Unless their eyesight was extremely poor, they could probably see them directly. Furthermore, due to the distance, their scent would also have been easily detected by the endless swarm of black, hard-shelled insects. If the three of them had used the principle of thermal ascent from the beginning to fly up to a height of several hundred meters, those damned insects would have lost their target and might not have chased them all the way here...
As the three of them floated and swayed upwards for more than ten meters in the air with the rising air currents, the energy sphere on the ground, which had been radiating scorching heat, finally exploded completely.
However, because this ball of light has not yet completed the process of materializing its energy, the massive potential for violent activity contained within it is still somewhat lacking. Even though all the energy was released in an instant, it did not trigger the terrifying explosive force caused by the fireball that Zhou Ziwei had previously unleashed.
However, the high temperature released at that moment still killed hundreds or thousands of black hard-shelled insects instantly. Even worse, some of the black hard-shelled insects that were close to the red energy orb were simply burned up under the scorching heat.
"Ah...it's on fire, that's great...those little bugs are burning."
Upon seeing this, Wang Xuewei exclaimed excitedly, "It would be best if a fire could burn all these insects to death, then we would be saved!"
However, contrary to expectations, the hard shells of those black hard-shelled insects were clearly not flammable or explosive. Although so many insects were piled up on top of each other, apart from the first hundred or so insects that were instantly ignited by the high temperature of the red energy ball, the surrounding black hard-shelled insects were at most burned to death by the high temperature. But the fire did not show any tendency to spread. Soon... after most of the first hundred or so insects that caught fire turned to ashes, the flames slowly dimmed and disappeared completely in a short while among the constantly wriggling swarm of insects.
"What a pity... these insects don't seem to be afraid of fire at all!" Chu Qiutang sighed upon seeing this, saying, "It seems that even the powerful fireball you released earlier, Director Zhou, probably wouldn't be able to do much damage to these insects... Sigh... If only there really were some legendary Samadhi True Fire that could burn all the insects to death at once, that would be so wonderful..."
“Yes… I also want to burn all these damned bugs to ashes, but unfortunately I don’t have that ability… What Samadhi Fire? That’s just something made up by novelists… Oh, wait, who says I don’t have that ability, haha… Watch me… We’re saved now, Miss Chu, thank you for waking me up with your words… Hahaha…” Zhou Ziwei, who was originally looking dejected, suddenly became excited as if he had taken an aphrodisiac after hearing Chu Qiutang’s words.
Before Chu Qiutang and Wang Xuewei could ask, Zhou Ziwei hurriedly pulled out a small wine pot that looked like a tin box from his pocket.
While trying to maintain his balance while suspended in the air, Zhou Ziwei told the two women not to move around, and then carefully unscrewed the lid of the tin wine pot little by little.
Seeing Zhou Ziwei take out this thing, Wang Xuewei gasped slightly. She clearly remembered that the reason she was able to greatly improve her physical strength in just one day was because she drank three drops of the milky white liquid mixed with tea poured out of this bottle.
In Wang Xuewei's opinion, what was contained in this small tin wine pot was probably comparable to the holy water in the legendary jade bottle of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and must be both magical and precious.
Now, Zhou Ziwei inexplicably pulled out the bottle again under these circumstances, which left Wang Xuewei completely baffled.
Zhou Ziwei had just told the two of them not to talk or move around, so Wang Xuewei naturally didn't dare to disobey him. Therefore, no matter how curious she was, she didn't ask any more questions. However, her heart was inexplicably agitated, as if being scratched by a cat.
As for Zhou Ziwei… although he had already noticed Wang Xuewei's surprised look, he had no time to pay attention to her. He simply held the small wine pot with the lid open, stretched his arm out a little as far as possible, and then… suddenly tilted the small wine pot in his hand… Instantly, a milky white stream of water, like a string of pearls, fell from the sky and poured down into the sea of insects that made one's scalp crawl…
"Ah, Ziwei, are you...are you crazy?" Wang Xuewei, who had been obedient and hadn't dared to utter a sound, finally couldn't hold back any longer when she saw Zhou Ziwei, this spendthrift, who had stingily given her only three drops of this strange substance, now pouring out so much precious milky white liquid to feed the insects. She raised her voice and loudly questioned, "Are you out of your mind? This...you're using this stuff to feed insects? Aren't you afraid of raising a few insect demons?!"
Zhou Ziwei smiled faintly, feeling that more than half of the milky white liquid in the bottle had been poured out, which he estimated should be enough.
He straightened the bottle, gazing at the white line falling through the air, and softly replied, "You understand the principle of reversal when things reach their extreme, right? This thing in my hand can achieve amazing beneficial effects when used in moderation, but if used in excess... then it will immediately turn from a miraculous cure into a deadly poison."
As Zhou Ziwei finished speaking, the milky white liquid that had fallen from it finally dripped and flowed into the dense swarm of insects.
With a "whoosh," the insect struck by the first drop of milky white liquid seemed to swell considerably in an instant. However, as the second and third drops of milky white liquid landed on the insect's body—whether it was lucky or unlucky—the black hard-shelled insect's body, which had just grown several times its original size, suddenly erupted with a strangely powerful life energy. But then... in an instant, the black hard-shelled insect, which seemed to have grown even larger, suddenly transformed into a ball of flame... a ball of milky white flame, the same color as the liquid.
After most of the bottle of Reincarnation Water was poured onto this group of damned insects, within five seconds, a strange and ferocious white flame suddenly rose from the sea of insects below.
The black, hard-shelled insects that seemed to be highly fire-resistant were instantly swallowed up by the milky-white flames, like withered leaves thrown into a furnace, without any struggle. They became fuel for the flames, which then spread wildly around the sea of insects.
Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang were completely stunned by what was happening below. Flames... It turned out that there really were such terrifying flames in this world. Just a few dozen drops of liquid, casually poured down, could form such a catastrophic fire in a short time.
Just moments ago, Wang Xuewei was inwardly criticizing Zhou Ziwei's behavior and even felt sorry for the "waste" of the Reincarnation Water, wishing she could drink it herself. But now, she not only obediently shut her mouth, but also avoided the small bottle containing the remaining Reincarnation Water in Zhou Ziwei's hand like the plague, feeling a chill run down her spine just by looking at it.
"What...what is this thing...how...how can it burn on its own when it's clearly a liquid? And...oh my god...look at that? Rocks...the rocks seem to be burning too...how is this possible? How can rocks burn!" Chu Qiutang glanced down and saw that the thick layer of black, hard-shelled insects below had been burned to death and turned into nothingness in an instant, while a piece of exposed rock was also quickly burned to ashes under the white flames. She was so shocked that her voice trembled.
Although it seems that the flames Zhou Ziwei planted this time will surely burn most of the terrifying black hard-shelled beetles to death here, thus greatly increasing their chances of escaping.
However... when Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang saw that the flames could burn almost anything, they couldn't help but turn pale with horror.
They even had the illusion that if this white flame were allowed to continue spreading, it might burn the entire world to ruins in one go.
Zhou Ziwei carefully capped the remaining half-bottle of Reincarnation Water and put it into his pocket. Then, he hugged the two trembling women tightly again and whispered, "This is Reincarnation Water, hehe... It's a wondrous mineral spring that I discovered by chance. It possesses both life and death properties. A small amount of this spring water can activate the potential energy generation of living organisms, but once the amount exceeds a certain level, it will form a death flame that can incinerate almost everything..."
"Death Flames...it really is death flames!" Chu Qiutang exclaimed. "If these flames can truly burn everything, then wouldn't that mean...everything in my world would be burned to ashes by this fire?"
Zhou Ziwei shook his head and said, "That's unlikely... because although this kind of flame can burn almost everything, it will slowly extinguish when it comes into contact with soil. So... even if this fire really does burn down a world, it will at least leave behind a barren land!"
The white flames of death spread faster than a wildfire. Although the frightened black-shelled insects had begun to flee desperately under the threat of death, their usually swift speed seemed clumsy and ineffective under the merciless flames. In less than half an hour, this terrifying insect swarm that had ravaged this land for who knows how long was completely wiped out by the milky white flames.
The desolate Gobi Desert was originally covered with stones of all sizes, with hardly an inch of soil. But now, after being burned by this deadly fire, all the stones have disappeared, replaced by an endless expanse of gray-black mud.
Although the white flames underground had gradually died down, the three, still shaken, dared not rashly descend to the ground. Otherwise, if they were to accidentally touch a wisp of the still-burning white flame, their doom would likely be sealed.
Because the wildfire caused a huge difference in air temperature between near and far, it led to strong air convection.
The three people, who had already been suspended more than a hundred meters in the air, immediately took advantage of the strong air current to experience the feeling of traveling thousands of miles in an instant. By the time the death flames below had been almost completely extinguished, the three of them had already been blown far away by the wind during that time.
However, although the feeling of drifting with the wind was very enjoyable, the continuous consumption of liquid soul power in his body was also making Zhou Ziwei feel quite pained. Only when he was sure that the white flames below had been completely absorbed by the exposed soil did Zhou Ziwei prepare to immediately carry the two beautiful women down and land.
Otherwise, if he continues to consume his energy like this, he'll probably become a vegetable soon because his soul power will be completely depleted.
However, at this moment, a small fruit fly that Zhou Ziwei had secretly sent out to scout ahead suddenly brought back a message... a large river would appear not far to the left, and there seemed to be signs of human life on the other side of the river.
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziwei's spirits immediately lifted...
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 391: Whirlwind
Signs of human life were discovered.
This should be considered a momentous event for Zhou Ziwei and his group. They had come all the way from the caves in Kashgar to this place, all to explore the secrets of this spacetime. Although they were still unsure whether this place was a parallel universe or a distant alien planet, it certainly couldn't be on Earth.
The exploration of an extraterrestrial planet always requires a variety of specimens and data for verification. However, so far, they have only collected two samples: one is a red vine that catches fire when touched, and the other is the giant eight-legged water monster.
Besides, they had also encountered the terrifying black hard-shelled beetle, but now they had no chance to take samples. A deadly fire had probably burned all of these beetles to death.
However, it's better that such a dangerous thing is dead, so that if a few samples were actually taken and they were allowed to reproduce successfully, it could cause an unimaginable disaster. If Zhou Ziwei and his group were to bring this disaster back to Earth, they would be sinners for all time.
Now that signs of human life, or that of a human-like intelligent species, have been discovered, they naturally have to rush to see it. From here to the river discovered by the fruit fly, they still have to cross at least a hundred kilometers. This distance might not be much for Zhou Ziwei, but for Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, it might take them a whole day to get there. Moreover, Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang are already visibly exhausted from the high temperature and sun exposure, and it's possible that they might collapse halfway there.
So Zhou Ziwei decided that the three of them should just fly over by air. If the wind was favorable, the 100-kilometer distance would only take a short while to cover.
What annoyed Zhou Ziwei was that the wind had originally been blowing in that direction, albeit slightly off, but not by much. However, now, due to some subtle change in the air currents, it suddenly reversed direction and began to blow backward. If Zhou Ziwei continued to let the three of them drift with the wind, they would only drift further and further away from the river.
Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth and did not immediately descend from the sky with the two women. Instead, he simply closed his eyes and focused on feeling the strong winds passing by.
Wind energy... wind energy... why can't he directly convert attribute-less energy into wind energy? What secrets does wind energy hold?
The howling wind made Zhou Ziwei's skin tremble slightly. The wind at high altitudes was always very strong. Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang had already put on their masks to protect their faces from the wind, but Zhou Ziwei was not afraid of it. After being exposed to the wind for a while, he suddenly had a vague and inexplicable feeling...
Wind is actually caused by the movement of air. To create wind and to completely control this invisible and intangible thing, we must fundamentally understand the properties of air.
To convert attribute-less energy into wind energy, Zhou Ziwei had been working on this conversion process within his own body, but he still hadn't made any progress. The problem was, where in his body could he find air to manipulate? Since there was no air, there was no airflow, and without airflow, where would the wind come from? This was fundamentally a directional error…
Zhou Ziwei's eyes lit up at this thought. Perhaps energy conversion doesn't have to be confined to the body? He could release attribute-less energy outside the body. However, if he carefully wrapped this energy with his soul power to prevent it from quickly dissipating into the air, he could then subtly control this external energy through his soul consciousness, right?
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei's expression immediately changed, and with a wave of his hand, he sprayed out a ball of pure, attribute-free energy from his palm.
However, under the deliberate control of the power of the soul, this energy lingered around Zhou Ziwei for a long time.
As this energy dispersed, the surrounding air was quickly affected by it, and a strange vortex began to form around it.
Zhou Ziwei sensed the formation of this vortex and his heart stirred slightly. He closed his eyes again and focused intently on sensing it for a while. Suddenly, he opened his eyes, and a ray of light burst forth from them. Then, the attribute-less energy that Zhou Ziwei had been controlling around him suddenly spread out rapidly, instantly enveloping the air within a space of dozens of meters around him...
Wind... is the movement of air, and to control the wind, you must first control the air. Once you can manipulate the air around you as easily as you control your own limbs, you will naturally control the power of the wind...
The diffused, attribute-free energy quickly merged completely with the surrounding air, becoming indistinguishable from one another. These energy particles, already imprinted with Zhou Ziwei's soul mark, maintained a subtle connection with Zhou Ziwei himself under his deliberate control. At this moment, Zhou Ziwei's thoughts stirred once more, and suddenly, a whirlwind began to spin rapidly in front of him.
Immediately afterward, wherever Zhou Ziwei's gaze fell, one after another vortex the size of a washbasin appeared around him. Each vortex was like a mischievous pet, swirling around Zhou Ziwei incessantly. Each vortex intersected and chased after the others, but if Zhou Ziwei did not wish for it, even two vortices that were completely overlapping could not be completely merged into one. As long as he had a thought, the two vortices that had already overlapped would quickly fly away to the sides.
One, two... sixteen, seventeen, eighteen...
After Zhou Ziwei created eighteen cyclones around himself in one breath, he finally felt powerless.
It seems that, at least for the time being, these eighteen cyclones are probably the limit of what he can control.