Chapter 48: The Last Thirty Seconds

  This hint made the four people tense up again.

  After passing through the Blade Maze, they had already understood that anything specially hinted at on the battlefield was definitely a particularly difficult challenge. This unknown Flame Temple, although it seemed quiet for the time being, had already made them vaguely feel an extreme sense of danger.

  "Want to try and see if we can break through the stone wall and rush out?"

  Zhao Feng could no longer bear this oppression and expressed his own thoughts to Hu Siming.

  Since it was a unified exam specially prepared trap, it's definitely not possible to break through so easily. However, Hu Shiming still held onto the idea of trying his luck and launched an attack on the stone wall. The result is self-evident, the attack he made was directly bounced back by the hard stone wall, without leaving any trace.

  At this moment, the fifty-fourth grid of magic on the ground suddenly shook violently.

  It's started!

  Although it was unclear where the danger came from, the four of them simultaneously tensed up. Just as they were watching, a magic array in the center of the sealed stone room suddenly activated, bursting into a three-meter-high blaze of fierce flames. The temperature of the flames was so high that Hu Si Ming and the others, who were five or six meters away, could feel the scorching heat waves.

  The eruption lasted for about one second and then stopped again.

  "It's actually a flame trap!"

  As the four figured out the purpose of the magic circle, the second wave of eruptions came quickly. Above and to the left of the previous flame trap, each had a trap that erupted with flames again.

  "So it was!"

  Husiming suddenly understood that the fifty-four grid magic array underground could spew out fierce flames. To survive, he had to dodge such attacks.

  With a loud roar, the third wave of flame traps erupted. As the flames spread, the magic circle that was originally in the middle began to gradually expand to the edges. At the same time, the number of traps that erupted also increased exponentially from one or two to eight. The rapidly spreading flames made the Flame Temple seem like a terrifying sea of fire. No one knew where the next flame eruption would appear.

  The tense feeling of worrying that flames would erupt from under their feet made the four people's nerves as taut as a bowstring. However, they didn't have a specific target to counterattack, and could only flee in all directions, trying to get as far away as possible from the magic array with flames.

  However, in a small space, the threat of eight magic circles erupting together was too great.

  Only six rounds had passed, and Hu Shiming and Yan Shao'ou were separated by a random flame trap. Yan Shao'ou's movement was only one step slower, and he was blocked by two flame traps. Just being affected by the flames for a moment, he suffered nearly 50 points of astonishing damage!

  Zhao Feng's luck was even worse.

  As he saw the flames erupting from the trap in front of him, he involuntarily took a few steps back. As it turned out, the trap behind him also erupted at the same time, and scorching flames burst forth from under his feet, engulfing his entire body in an instant. In just one second, Zhao Feng's anguished cry was accompanied by 100 points of damage. The subsequent three seconds of residual flames added another 30 points of continuous burning damage.

  Zhao Feng's blood volume had instantly dropped to a very dangerous level!

  Having received such a fright, he hastily administered himself some treatment and used the second small bottle of ointment. However, facing the flame trap with an increasingly rapid firing frequency, his complexion still became pale and uncontrollable, and his breathing was also somewhat disordered.

  "Boom!"

  Along with the new wave of flames, the erupting flame trap rose to twelve!

  Flames suddenly erupted from both the left side and front, startling Hu Si Ming. He instinctively ran to the right, but just as his back foot left the magical array, flames burst out of the original spot. If he had been 0.5 seconds slower, he would have been engulfed in flames.

  The four of them were already somewhat flustered in response to the current impact, but the frequency of eruptions was still increasing!

  The initial flame burst, with an interval of as long as three seconds. By now, the interval between bursts has been reduced to two seconds, leaving them less and less time to react. From the moment the trap was triggered until now, only a few dozen seconds have passed, but Hu Siming's body is already drenched in sweat. He himself can't tell whether it's due to tension or being scorched by the hot air waves.

  "Help!"

  Liu Feng's miserable cry echoed in the hall immediately after.

  Due to the sudden acceleration of the flame trap's eruption frequency, she reacted a beat too slow and failed to escape to an empty space in time. This one misstep allowed her to be engulfed by flames, with her health already below 30%!

  In a short time, the team was already in a precarious situation, and one misstep would lead to their annihilation. This danger made Hu Shiming extremely anxious. As he desperately ran towards an empty space far away from the flame trap, he began to think frantically: "The eruption of flames must have some kind of pattern!"

  The college entrance examination cannot create such an unsolvable and completely luck-based deadly mechanism.

  There must be some kind of rule!

  However, the simultaneous eruption of twelve flame traps made the already small Flame Temple look extremely chaotic. It was really too difficult to find a pattern in such a situation. He barely managed to dodge into the lower left corner during the brief interval between eruptions, only to see the flames spreading towards him, almost cutting off his retreat.

  "Terrible!"

  At that moment, Hu Siming was deeply regretful in his heart and shouldn't have run to such a dead end. But at this moment, the three flame traps in front of him had all burst out. The triple-layered scorching heat waves made Hu Siming stick his body tightly to the stone wall, not daring to move at all. At this time, he could only pray.

  Flames must not erupt under one's own feet!

  Perhaps the principal heard his prayer, and in the next eruption, the flame trap surprisingly expanded outward again. Hu Shiming was lucky enough to escape this time. What excited him even more was that during his close observation earlier, he clearly saw that the re-expanded flame trap was directly connected to the original trap. To be precise, the next eruption of the flame trap would only occur at one of the four points up, down, left, or right of the previous trap!

  After a new round of trap verification, Hu Siming immediately pulled out his throat and roared.

  This reminder saved the team!

  Zhao Feng and Yan Shao'ou, who were already on the verge of being forced into a desperate situation, suddenly learned about the law of flame ejection. The two glanced at the surrounding flame traps and immediately made targeted adjustments. Liu Feng, who was still running wildly without any rules, also stopped in his tracks and stood between two clusters of flames.

  With a loud rumble, the twelve flame traps erupted once again.

  However, it was found that all four people who knew the rule successfully avoided it and none of them were burned again!

  "It's saved..."

  Liu Feng, who was already injured, looked at the flames in front of her with a relieved expression. That location was originally where she wanted to escape to. If it wasn't for Hu Si Ming's timely reminder, she would have lost her life in the sea of fire by now!

  Zhao Feng's state was no better than Liu Feng's. With less than 100 health points, he would have been killed instantly if he had been engulfed by a wave of flames. Hu Si Ming's reminder saved him again. In the next three waves, Zhao Feng narrowly escaped death and couldn't help but shed tears: "Hu brother, you are indeed the guiding lighthouse in my heart, awesome beyond explanation!"

  "Don't be careless, it's not over yet!"

  Although he had grasped the eruption law, Hu Siming's heart did not have a trace of relaxation. He always felt that the Flame Temple, which erupted according to the law, could not be just at its current level. In the Knife Blade Maze, they had already lost one teammate, and it was impossible for this even more difficult level to allow everyone to pass through unscathed?

  As if to prove his conjecture, the battlefield prompt descended once again.

  Thirty seconds until Flame Temple's reserve energy is depleted!

  This reassuring hint has not yet ended, and the traps in the Flame Temple Hall are like a violent eruption, with the frequency of eruptions doubling, from two seconds to one second. Moreover, the original twelve flame traps fired simultaneously, suddenly increasing to fourteen, sixteen!

  A frequency of one second, sixteen flame traps burst out at once!

  That stunning scene made Hu Siming feel as if he was standing at the mouth of a volcanic eruption. Under his feet were waves of scorching hot lava, which could erupt into flames that would incinerate everything at any moment. The raging sea of fire inside the hall, accompanied by the thunderous rumbling and roaring sounds, quickly pushed the four to the brink of despair.