Chapter Sixty-Four: Rift

Lu Qingyu was never a man who would deliberately look down upon others. He considered himself to possess absolute rationality and had always regarded rationality as the primary guiding principle of his actions.

In this world, anything could be deceptive; even oneself might fall victim to self-deception. Only absolute matter and absolute rationality were worthy of one's trust.

If all his deductions at the final step pointed to the conclusion that Lu Qingyu would die, then he would accept his destiny without a moment's hesitation. He had struggled, fought, and given his absolute all, leaving no room for regret.

Conversely, once he discovered a glimmer of survival—no matter how infinitesimal the probability—he would give everything to seize it.

Rationality was Lu Qingyu's greatest weapon and the sole driving force behind his continuous struggle until now.

At this very moment, it was no exception.

When Lu Qingyu caught sight of those foamy undulations on the bone armor, infinitesimal though they were, he resolved to grasp that single, fragile opportunity to turn the tables. Before meeting his own defeat, Lu Qingyu would never surrender easily.

He knew those foamy undulations were simply cavities left on the surface as air was expelled.

The only reason the enemy had managed to survive beneath his ultra-high temperature was precisely because of those cavities.

The principle was actually quite simple, yet to conceive of this strategy in such a brief span of time and adapt so swiftly compelled Lu Qingyu to look upon his opponent with newfound respect.

The truth had been hidden within the countless bubbles that emerged from the enemy at the very beginning.

No matter how thick the walls of the bone sphere might be, when confronted with temperatures capable of melting steel—temperatures comparable to molten lava—they would rapidly collapse, leaving death as an inevitability within mere moments.

Therefore, the enemy had altered his initial strategy in a split second, transforming the bone sphere into a more agile bone armor that enveloped his entire body. Yet, by turning the sphere into armor, the thickness was reduced, making it easier for the heat to penetrate inward. Coupled with the skin-tight structure of the armor, shouldn't the person inside be boiled even faster, logically speaking?

To think along those lines was to fall into a cognitive trap. Lu Qingyu had initially reasoned this way, completely intimidated by the appearance of the bone armor while forgetting another crucial characteristic.

That was the bubbles that had initially escaped from the enemy's body.

As his thought processes accelerated to an extreme degree, the time available for Lu Qingyu to reflect increased exponentially, finally allowing him to uncover the trap the enemy had laid.

Why had those bubbles formed? Because the enemy had forcibly expelled the internal air.

To deliberately vent the air from inside one's protective gear while underwater was, logically speaking, seeking one's own doom. Since prolonged underwater activity relied entirely on stored air, wasn't this tantamount to suicide?

In reality, the exact opposite was true!

The enemy was well aware that before he suffocated to death, the extreme heat generated by Lu Qingyu would utterly destroy him. Thus, expelling the air was not a reckless gamble, but rather a miraculous lifeline.

The surging rush of air momentarily pushed away the surrounding boiling water, creating a transient space resembling a gaseous spacesuit.

However, if that were all, this protective film of air would quickly float upward due to the buoyancy of the water, and its protective function would not last long. Hence, the next step became necessary.

As the air surged out from within the bone armor in the form of bubbles, it simultaneously wedged countless hollows between the layers of the bone armor. This effectively transformed the armor into a dual-layered structure: the outer layer consisted of foamy cavities, while the inner layer adhered closely to the skin.

This was the enemy's true objective. When the ultra-high-temperature boiling water unleashed by Lu Qingyu scalded the bone armor, the heat would first be transmitted to the outermost layer. Meanwhile, with the foamy cavities separating the outer and inner layers of armor, the heat would merely linger on the exterior without penetrating inward.

Consequently, while this suit of bone armor could not provide complete insulation, it allowed the person inside to remain active under high-temperature conditions for a short period. For him, this brief window of time was more than enough.

Unlike the previous bone sphere, the range of motion afforded by the bone armor was significantly more flexible, allowing for effortless movement underwater while also granting the vision that the bone sphere lacked.

The enemy knew Lu Qingyu's weakness all too well; once the battlefield shifted to purely physical combat, Lu Qingyu's Nightless Monkey would be utterly vulnerable. As long as he eliminated Lu Qingyu before being burned to death, everything would be over.

For the enemy, this was remarkably straightforward. The mobility bestowed by the bone armor allowed him to easily close in on Lu Qingyu, who was already within visual range. Victory in this battle was clearly his.

Unfortunately, he had miscalculated one final thing. Lu Qingyu's Nightless Monkey possessed more than just a single ability. Once Baitian's ability was activated, the cool-headed Lu Qingyu rapidly deciphered the secret behind the enemy's defense against the high temperature.

Simultaneously, a new plan quickly took shape in Lu Qingyu's mind. Although the bone armor created by the enemy possessed greater mobility than the bone sphere, its weakness was correspondingly more fatal.

That weakness was the bone armor's tighter adhesion to the enemy's skin.

Due to its structural characteristics, the bone sphere maintained a vast range of movement between the sphere's walls and the human body encased within. The bone armor, however, was different; this layer of armor was molded almost flush against the human form.

This implied that once the joints of the bone armor were immobilized, the person trapped inside would be rendered as immobile as if confined within a narrow prison.

And this was the key for Lu Qingyu to breach the peril.

As the bone armor charged toward him, Lu Qingyu directly unleashed "Six Teas: Green," instantly enveloping the bone armor in an intensely freezing low temperature.

This time, he did not encase the entire body of the bone armor in ice; instead, he wedged the ice directly into every single joint and crevice of the armor.

In an instant, all movement of the bone armor was locked down. Unlike before, the crevices where the ice was wedged were far too narrow for the bone armor to even deploy bone spikes to carve out a path through the frozen confinement. The person inside was rendered completely motionless, as though turned to stone.

In a fraction of a second, the battle was reversed, and Lu Qingyu's strategy succeeded just as he had anticipated.

With the movements of the bone armor frozen, and given that the armor was molded tightly against the body, transformation to break the ice was impossible at this stage. Any attempt to alter its form would subject the person inside to crushing pressure, leaving him utterly paralyzed.

From an external perspective, the bone armor and Lu Qingyu were locked in a stalemate. Though the bone armor could not move, Lu Qingyu's other offensive measures also struggled to pierce this defense. Once high temperatures were applied to melt the ice, the bone armor would simply escape again.

Yet was that truly the case?

A triumphant smile surfaced on Lu Qingyu's face as he stood motionless, quietly observing the bone armor before him.

Suddenly, a rustling sound emanated from within the bone armor. In the next second, countless fractures erupted across the surface of the bone armor, and bubbles burst forth from within.