Water Mage in the Flame Realm-Chapter 335 - 323: Maneuvering

The fierce cold wind at high altitude whistled past Andrew’s ears.

Andrew took three breaths to accept the fact that he had fallen into the hands of a perverse witch who had killed her sister and husband.

Then he began to think: What to do next?

"I advise you not to get any bad ideas." Catherine’s voice rang coldly, "You are still useful to me, I won’t kill you for now, but I have plenty of ways to make you suffer until you beg me to kill you! So, don’t get any ideas, don’t make me repeat this a third time!"

"Oh, got it." Andrew tried moving and found his hands and feet temporarily immobile, but he could still speak, so he asked back, "Why did you suddenly change direction?"

If he wasn’t mistaken, Catherine was originally flying quickly to the west, seemingly heading towards the Magic Guild’s territory in the west to seek shelter from Gus and the three Earth Fire Scholars.

However, just now, Catherine suddenly turned north without warning, drastically lowering her flying altitude, from navigating through the high clouds to weaving through the continuous snowy mountains north of the Royal Court.

"What, you don’t understand why?" Catherine sneered, "During the negotiation at the Royal Court, you jumped quite a lot, didn’t you, kid?"

Andrew remained silent.

He heard Catherine continue, "Even a fool knows I would run west, but if I kept heading straight west, without reaching Gus and the others, my father would catch up with me! After being injured, my speed is no longer enough to shake him off."

Andrew "hmm"ed in response, continuing, "So you first created the illusion of fleeing west and then suddenly changed directions to completely shake off Chairman Beiru’s pursuit?"

"What else." Catherine said as she slowly descended with Andrew to the ground.

In such a short time, she had already taken Andrew deep into the snowy mountains, much deeper than where he had previously been imprisoned in the Ice Prison.

Andrew sighed inwardly, knowing that Chairman Beiru and the others were unlikely to catch up and rescue him.

After some thought, he took the initiative to speak, "You’re bleeding continuously, need help?"

He said this while looking at Catherine’s severed arm.

Catherine couldn’t help but be slightly surprised, apparently not expecting Andrew, as a captive, would offer to help her with treatment. Although her words to Andrew were filled with sarcasm, listening with eyes closed, one wouldn’t detect anything unusual, but in reality, she was severely injured to the point of possibly falling in strength tier.

"...Alright." Catherine nodded, saying flatly, "I reckon you can’t play any tricks."

She released Andrew and then sat cross-legged in the snow, using one hand to pull down her top, revealing a wound on the severed arm that "horrific" couldn’t begin to describe, and... a breathtakingly perfect upper body curve.

"Go ahead." Catherine looked at Andrew, beckoning with a finger.

Upon suddenly seeing Catherine’s completely bare upper body, Andrew’s expression shifted slightly but quickly regained his composure, stepping forward with a highly professional demeanor to begin treating Catherine’s severed arm.

Observing and experiencing Catherine up close, even at zero distance, one could see the Strange Fires "Formless Blade Fire" and "Fire of Extinguishing" simultaneously emerge on her body’s surface, fiercely repelling each other, using her body as the battlefield, a mutual slaughter.

If not for the large patches of Ice Patterns intermittently appearing beneath Catherine’s skin, greatly harmonizing the mutually repellent reaction between the two Strange Fires, Andrew would suspect that Catherine’s body might gradually collapse in the continuous clash between the two Strange Fires!

"So, is this the reason you killed your husband?"

Andrew asked casually while pouring considerable Tier Five Healing Water Magic onto Catherine’s wound, "You, as a Crimson Knight, can possess two Strange Fires due to these Ice Patterns inherited from the Royal Court and containing potent vitality sourced from the Ancient Titan tribe?"

"Your way of trying to get information is too crude."

Catherine showed a slightly amused expression, "Indeed I killed my husband for this Ice Pattern legacy, needing it to mediate between the two Strange Fires. However, the way to obtain Strange Fire has nothing to do with the Ice Patterns..."

Here, Catherine paused, turning her head slightly, squinting at Andrew, "Do you think my severed arm can be rejoined?"

Andrew didn’t answer but instead asked, "If I help reattach your arm, allowing regeneration of the severed limb, will you tell me how you actually obtained the two Strange Fires?"

Catherine, who had been indifferent to life and death, finally showed a hint of well-masked surprise and intensity upon hearing Andrew mention "regenerating the severed limb."

She nodded, calmly stating, "As long as you can reattach my arm, anything is negotiable! Just like my father, you wish to know how I obtained the two Strange Fires? Alright, I can tell you right now—

The method of acquiring Strange Fire holds no connection to my Ice Patterns. In fact, the concept of granting Warriors the Mages’ Strange Fire originally came from the Magic Guild, that’s the ’Blood Refining Plan.’ Later, my father also wanted the Crimson Knights to acquire Strange Fire, so he obtained a copy of the ’Blood Refining Plan’ archives, using it as a reference to develop the ’Dragon Awakening Potion.’ But neither the Blood Refining Plan nor the Dragon Awakening Potion is a successful project."

"So you developed a third method?" Andrew asked.

"No, I merely combined the ’Blood Refining Plan’ and ’Dragon Awakening Potion’ together, and guess what—it worked!"

Catherine laughed somewhat proudly, and a bit mischievously, "My father wants to know the secret of how I obtained the Strange Fire, which gave me the chance to escape, but in reality, there is no secret; I simply did a bit of addition. If anything is secret, it’s that in carrying out the Blood Refining Plan process, you need to amplify the intensity by more than five times."

"Are you joking?" Andrew’s hand paused for a moment.

Previously, on the airship to the Royal Court, he had personally tried the Dragon Awakening Potion and had heard from Dean Charlie some information regarding the "Dragon Awakening Potion derived from the Blood Refining Plan," so he already knew a bit about these two projects.

If he remembered correctly, the Blood Refining Plan was abandoned by the Magic Guild because the process was too bloody and brutal, the risks too high, far surpassing the rewards.

The Dragon Awakening Potion, using the Blood Refining Plan as a reference, had already significantly enhanced safety measures, yet Andrew had suffered greatly from it on the airship.

And Catherine said she used both the Blood Refining Plan and the Dragon Awakening Potion, with five times the dosage?!

"How...did you survive that?" This time, Andrew was not collecting intelligence under the pretext of healing but genuinely asking, sincerely wanting to know.