"Holy shit, it’s on fire!"
"That move is so cool—"
A slight stir could be heard from the audience again, but it quickly subsided as Jiang Shu on stage began to speak.
"Besides that, I found that I can control it as I wish." Jiang Shu flicked his hand, and the flame in his hand instantly disappeared. Between his two hands, a small fireball appeared out of thin air. He continued, "My skill is not good enough yet. Right now, I can only flexibly control a little bit of the flame."
Immediately after, the fireball floated freely in the air under his control.
"Just like this..." he murmured, as the fire in the air danced about nimbly at his manipulation.
"But," suddenly, Jiang Shu clapped his hands together and the small fireball extinguished, "I suddenly found that such a flame is not as simple as I imagined."
"They... have a strange ability," he continued, his voice ethereal as if coming from afar, "They are soul fires, so... they can communicate with the spirits of the yin and yang worlds."
"I can still control them." Jiang Shu’s hands hovered above the table about thirty centimeters apart, slowly descending along with a ring of blue flame until it landed on the table, turning into a very faint flame.
The fire suddenly disappeared and then re-emerged forcefully.
Manifesting as a ghoulish face in the air, it maintained its form for a mere instant, yet everyone present saw it.
"Holy shit, what the hell was that!"
"Did you see that just now?"
"I saw it! A ghostly face!"
The exclamations and discussions of the audience could not be contained, and the live broadcast studio started to lose control slightly.
"Don’t panic." Jiang Shu pressed down with his palm, a mysterious smile on his face, "Because the ghostly face just now was merely formed from a bit of overflow of yin energy, not worth mentioning."
"Now, I will use my flame to open the gates to Hell and capture a real demon."
"Open Hell?"
"A demon?"
"Is what he’s saying... true?"
Jiang Shu’s words stirred up a commotion again, but he ignored it, moving to the half-human-height altar. With a wave of his hand, blue flames ignited within the altar.
A massive cluster of flames, emitting blue light, appeared deeply terrifying.
"Wait, to attract a monster, a black flame is needed; they are much more powerful. Hmm, and a special... soul lamp is also required." He suddenly took out three bizarrely designed lamps, their extremely retro design making one question their age.
The lamps had intricate patterns on them, which seemed like characters, but were completely unreadable, leaving people feeling both ignorant and impressed.
Jiang Shu placed the lamps around the candle, then he blew out the candle.
"Black flame?"
"Black fire?"
The audience below was puzzled, what was a black flame? Could fire even be black???
Immediately afterward, Jiang Shu turned on the lamp, and its light was a bright yellow. Then, his hand brushed slightly over the three candles.
The candles lit...
Black flames, burning quietly, ghostlike.
"Fire... black!" an audience member tugged at the person next to them.
"I... I saw it." The person next to them swallowed hard, black flames...
Completely unheard of!
In such an atmosphere, the black flames seemed extremely strange, dim and indistinct, but amidst the surrounding bright yellow light, one could see that there was indeed something burning on the candle heads...
Meanwhile, Su Xiaoou, member of the Atmosphere Team One, ran into the control room and turned on the air conditioning in the live broadcast room, with the cold air spreading immediately.
Shen Xuwan, member of the Atmosphere Team Two, stood at the back of the audience seats, half hidden in the darkness. Her black hair cascaded over her shoulders, covering her right ear, while on her left earlobe dangled a slightly reflective bell earring.
On the stage, amidst the sandy earth of the altar, a claw suddenly extended, followed by another claw.
Black and craggy with deep furrows, the claws looked hideous. The mere sight of these two appendages struck the audience below with immense impact and shock.
The audience could only feel a chilling aura stealthily pervading the livestream room, an aura that hadn’t been there before, which now wound up around their legs and gradually seized their hearts, rendering them immobile.
With a mere exertion of force, the monster’s head emerged from the altar, a greyish skull that was extremely hideous. It was so hard for the audience to discern whether they were looking at tentacles or the monster’s head.
Beyond its black, bulbous, tumor-like head and claws, the monster’s body was serpent-like and slender. It slowly moved toward Jiang Shu on the stage, slithering across the ground.
"You, don’t move at all. I can handle it, really," Jiang Shu said as he slowly backed away, maintaining a constant distance from the monster—showcasing expert kiting skills.
Harsh roars faintly emerged, and for some unknown reason, the monster’s screams seemed to shatter the very air and resonate directly in their ears, like the whispered curses of a demon.
Goosebumps sprang up, but no one dared to defy the man on the stage for fear of attracting the monster’s notice by fleeing.
It was like sitting on pins and needles, yet they had no choice but to remain seated.
It was only when the creature extended to a length of seven or eight meters that it finally stopped, confirming the audience’s guess.
With its size, there was no way the monster could have been hiding inside the small altar before. It must have come from that blaze of fire!
From Hell itself!
But suddenly, Jiang Shu reached out with his left hand and placed it on the monster’s head, causing the creature to immediately halt.
"Now, I will extract this monster’s Soul Fire and store it in this bottle," Jiang Shu said as he took out a small bottle with one hand, while his left hand seemed to grab something from inside the monster’s brain and toss it into the bottle.
A flame ignited within the bottle, a deep blue blaze.
He capped the bottle, then slapped his hand down on the monster’s head. Instantly, the monster shattered into pieces, falling onto the floor in chunks.
"Ahhh—" The monster’s agonized roar exploded in everyone’s ears, instantly sending shivers down the spines of the audience.
But after that scream, the livestream room brightened again with warm light, and a young girl appeared on stage, beginning to clean up the monster’s remains and pack away the altar along with it.
The audience’s hearts sank back down from their throats to their chests.
It seemed... safe now.
"So, the magic show ends here, and it’s time for me to leave," Jiang Shu said with a slight smile, holding the flaming bottle, step by step towards the direction of the window, then opened it.
"By the way, everything you just saw was fake. You still have to believe in science," he added with a mysterious smile, then extended his hand out the window and snapped his fingers.
Responding to the sound, a flame appeared outside the window. The flames spread, gradually forming a ladder of fire that continued to build and extend upward.
"Now, I’m going to return this to its owner. Farewell, everyone," Jiang Shu said as he shook the small bottle in his hand and waved goodbye.
He climbed onto the window sill, flipped over, and then jumped onto the ladder of flames, climbing up.
"Holy shit!"
At this moment, the audience was stupefied, their minds filled with only this phrase. They felt something shattering their worldview.
"Holy shit!"
The show director was also stunned. He slapped the photographer beside him, "Come with me, come get this on camera!"
The two of them ran to the window, poking their heads and the camera out to look up.
The fire ladder, over thirty meters long, hung in the air, its lower end fluttering about a dozen meters away from the window, the upper end disappearing into the dark night sky, seemingly endless, as if leading to heaven.
And there, at the very end of the fiery ladder, was Jiang Shu’s silhouette, clearly visible. Despite the height, a small blue flame still burned, seemingly the small bottle in his hand.
The stage’s large screen showed the footage from the camera. At this moment, all the audience stood up involuntarily, staring at the image on the screen, dumbstruck and speechless.
Believe in science...
Ha ha ha ha ha. Believe in science!
Mr. Jiang had just finished speaking about believing in science and was now climbing up to heaven on a ladder of flames with the Hell Monster’s soul fire, to purify the creature.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Believe in science!