In a fraction of a second, and under the crushing pressure of the gravitational domain imposed by the "Eclipse Minotaur," the color of Dex's entire body changed. It wasn't a superficial change, but a violent chemical and magical reaction occurring at the cellular level. His fair skin turned a deep crimson, like the color of iron left in a blacksmith's furnace. Beneath this scorched skin, the network of blood vessels and arteries began to glow with a brilliant golden and orange light, bulging and brimming with a pure energy that threatened to tear them apart. In that moment, Dex looked like a transparent glass statue filled with boiling magma; a human time bomb whose pulses were accelerating toward an inevitable explosion.
His mind was screaming in agony, but his will was harder than steel. He had made his decision.
"Forbidden Technique: Mana Burst - Sacrifice of the Essence!"
In the magical tradition of ancient magic academies, and in all the books discussing mana control, the first golden rule is "Channeling." A mage uses the mana pathways in their body as conduits to channel energy and shape it into external spells, fireballs, ice arrows, or shields. But what Dex was doing now was pure madness and biological suicide. He had completely abandoned the concept of "Channeling." Instead of trying to launch a concentrated fire spell at the black Minotaur, an attack the beast would simply swallow and absorb thanks to its energy-devouring fur, Dex shattered the internal valves of his own mana pathways.
He pumped every drop of the massive, primal energy of the "Phoenix Core" out of the pores of his human body all at once, in a full three hundred and sixty degrees, without any magical shape or structure. However, it wasn't a blind attack. Dex's genius, derived from his knowledge of the laws of physics in his previous world, manifested in his exploitation of the environment. He didn't direct this chaotic energy to burn the Minotaur; rather, he directed it to heat the "surrounding environment."
The Falus Forest was, by its nature, a dark tropical forest. Its floor consisted of damp mud and shallow swamps, and its air was highly saturated with water vapor accumulated over centuries. When the pure phoenix heat, exceeding thousands of degrees Celsius, burst from Dex's body and collided with this damp environment, a traditional forest fire did not occur.
A catastrophic chemical and thermal reaction took place. In a millisecond, the temperature of the surrounding air and the water-saturated muddy soil spiked to the super-boiling point. Groundwater and the moisture suspended in the air vaporized instantaneously, expanding to thousands of times their original volume.
"BOOOOOOOOOM!"
The roar of the explosion was not the result of a destructive magical detonation, but the roar of a thermochemical explosion caused by the expansion of pressurized steam. The ground beneath Dex's feet crumbled, turning into a glassy powder due to the heat, and a massive, dense, and incredibly dark cloud erupted. It wasn't just a dust cloud; it was a deadly mixture of thick black smoke, glowing volcanic ash, and superheated steam.
This infernal cloud expanded at supersonic speed, completely covering the square kilometer surrounding them in less than a second, turning the forest's already dark daylight into absolute blindness.
This smoke was not natural smoke. Every particle of ash and every drop of steam was saturated with the remnants of the chaotic and explosive "Phoenix Mana." And this was the core of Dex's plan. The chaotic mana scattered everywhere created a massive interference in the fabric of local space. This interference blinded "thermal vision," completely disabled "magical vision," and even the cosmic sense of smell the beast might possess was choked by the stench of sulfur and burning ash.
For the first time since its incarnation, the "Eclipse Minotaur" lost its absolute perceptive ability. Its colossal claw, brimming with black mana and raised in the air ready to crush them, halted mid-swing. The beast was confused for a single second, a rare and incredibly precious second, as the gravitational domain surrounding it distorted for a moment, unable to distinguish between solid prey and the volatile plasma and steam particles that lacked stable physical mass.
"Now!" Dex screamed in his mind, blood streaming from his nose and eyes due to the pressure.
In the midst of this gray hell, where visibility was near zero even for him, Dex dashed forward like a blind projectile. He couldn't see Lumia with his human eyes, but he could feel her presence. There was a hidden bond, perhaps due to the contrast of their energies, guiding him to her in this void.
He found her frozen in place. He pulled her with a force and roughness unsuited to her delicacy; there was no time for gentleness. He carried her in his scorched arms, pressing her tightly against his glowing chest as if she were the most precious and important treasure in existence, and tucked her head beneath his chin, covering her completely with what remained of his torn leather cloak to protect her from the crushing heat radiating from him.
"Phoenix Legacy: Wings of Ash!" Dex roared with a voice that tore his throat.
His clothes split from behind, and the flesh of his back tore gruesomely. From between his shoulder blades, a pair of fiery wings burst forth, or rather, "exploded." But they weren't those bright, complete, and vibrant wings befitting a legendary bird. They were hideous, corroded, and unstable wings; skeletal structures of concentrated mana bleeding liquid fire, black smoke, and erratic sparks. They looked like the wings of an angel that had just fallen into the furnace of hell. They were the result of the extreme strain and internal tearing of his mana pathways.
Dex did not direct his wings to soar high into the sky. He knew for a fact that the sky was the "absolute death zone." Flying high meant presenting himself as a clear and exposed target for the Minotaur's crushing gravitational domain, where gravity would be able to swat him like a fly and crush him in mid-air.
Instead, Dex opted for a "suicide bomber" flight style; extremely low-altitude navigation. He propelled his body and the one he carried, flying at an altitude no more than half a meter above the uneven ground. He began flying at a breakneck speed, zigzagging extremely dangerously between the protruding roots and the trunks of the giant oak trees, using the dense smoke cloud he had just created as the sole cover protecting him from the death sensors possessed by the beast behind him.