Chapter 652: Fire Rain

The border of the Mortal Realm.Shuangqiao Town.

Thick black clouds hung over the town, as if a storm was brewing.

Simply dressed residents hurried along muddy paths, carrying firewood. From time to time, they looked up at the sky. A light drizzle fell on their faces, and they quickened their pace.

Underneath Shuangqiao Town's iconic stone arch bridge, covered boats slowly docked. People used thick ropes to tie the boats to the shore, preventing a hurricane from blowing them away. Shops on both banks closed early, and clotheslines outside homes were all taken down. The entire town had thoroughly prepared for this unusual storm.

"Mommy! It's going to rain!" a round, cute girl, looking like a New Year's print, excitedly chirped from under the eaves, squatting by the door.

"It's going to rain, don't run around, okay?" A middle-aged woman, holding several stacks of bedding, quickly walked past the doorway.

"I won't run around, can I play in the yard?"

"No, you'll catch a cold in the rain."

"I'll wear Dad's bamboo hat and straw raincoat!" The girl's eyes lit up as she stared at the hat and raincoat on the wall; she seemed to have been interested in them for a long time. "I'll just play for a little while, just for a bit when the rain is light... If you tell me to come back, I'll come back right away!"

"Haha, if my daughter wants to wear them, let her," a tall middle-aged man said, stepping out of the house with a smile. "Playing in the yard for a bit won't hurt."

"...Honestly, you two are just alike," the woman said, glaring at him. Still, she didn't refuse, but continued her busy task of gathering clothes.

Seeing this, the girl excitedly jumped up, hugged her dad's neck, and gave him a kiss. Then she took down the bamboo hat and straw raincoat from the wall and carefully put them on. In a short while, she looked like a brown fur ball. Perhaps because of her short height, the long ends of the raincoat dragged on the ground like a bird's tail.

Drip-drop—drip-drop— Raindrops fell from the inky black clouds, creating ripples on the river's surface. Seeing this, the girl immediately bounced out the door, running around the small yard.

"Dad! I'm really not getting wet!" the girl exclaimed excitedly, her large bamboo hat shielding her from the rain.

"Slow down, don't fall."

Gusts of wind swept through Shuangqiao Town. The light drizzle gradually intensified, and ripples intertwined in the puddles, as if invisible hands were playing a chaotic and disordered symphony.

The girl's father sat under the eaves, watching the small figure playing freely in the rain, a smile unconsciously curving his lips.

Just then, his nose twitched slightly, and a puzzled look flashed in his eyes: "Strange... what's that smell?"

He sniffed carefully for a long time, then stretched a hand out from under the eaves, caught a few raindrops, and brought them to his nose, sniffing them closely.

"That's not right, this doesn't seem like rain..."

"Dad! Why do I smell stinky?" The girl, playing in the rain, also seemed to notice something was wrong and tilted her head in confusion.

The man froze for a moment, then suddenly looked up at the inky black rain clouds. He immediately waved to the girl, "Stop playing, come back, quickly!!"

The instant the man finished speaking, an alarming transformation began!

A red lightning bolt flashed within the inky black clouds. The next moment, the falling rain suddenly ignited. The dim sky seemed to be enveloped by countless tiny suns, blinding everyone.

What was falling from the sky was not rain at all, but nitroglycerin.

Boom—!! Fiery rain poured down from the sky. The girl, who had just started to run, was struck by a single drop of this fiery rain. Her straw raincoat and bamboo hat, already soaked, caused her to instantly burst into flames like a blazing bird, her sharp wails piercing the sky!

"Jiajia! Jiajia!!" The man's pupils constricted abruptly. He rushed into the rain without hesitation, trying to pull the girl back.

The desperate flaming bird struggled with its wings just twice before collapsing completely to the ground. The earth, already soaked with the "rainwater," had turned into a raging inferno, blocking the man who had rushed out!

At the same time, the man also caught fire. He screamed, tearing off his ignited clothes, attempting to extinguish the flames on his body. But even without his clothes, the "rainwater" sticking to his skin could ignite his flesh!

The flames on the man's body grew more intense, and the smell of burning flesh permeated the air. He desperately tried to crawl back into the house, because only the ground under the eaves was not covered by the fiery rain...

But it was too late. Torrential rain poured down from above, and the entire Shuangqiao Town had become an inferno. The man took only three steps before he was burned into a charred corpse, collapsing in pieces before his own eaves.

Not only the ground, but even the brick and tile roofs caught fire from the fiery rain. Scattered drops of fiery rain flowed down the eaves like dazzling waterfalls of flame. All the houses creaked and groaned in the intense heat of the blaze.

Flames filled every corner. Thick smoke billowed, and oxygen grew increasingly scarce. Even most of the people who had hidden inside their homes, not directly burned by the fiery rain, were now painfully curled up on the ground, their faces pale and contorted.

They gasped greedily for air, but all that remained for them were burning embers and smoke. After just three or four breaths, they completely lost consciousness.

The ground burned, the roofs burned, the rivers burned. In this fiery deluge, human lives were as fragile as ants. Every minute, every second, people died...

How long does it take to slaughter a town?One heavy rain.Thirteen minutes.

Above the clouds releasing the fiery rain, a figure stood imposingly.

Red lightning crackled around him, and a massive alchemy array silently spun beneath his feet. The fiery rain that annihilated Shuangqiao Town was merely a disaster he had conjured on a whim.

"Thirteen minutes, and only a few thousand died... The efficiency is still too low," Brand said, shrugging with regret.

"The Mortal Realm has a dispersed population, especially these hundreds of towns outside the main city... At this rate, gathering all the Philosopher's Stones will take at least several days."

"I still need to go to the main city of the Mortal Realm..." "Millions live there; a casual fiery rain array could kill hundreds of thousands. The speed should be much faster than here."

Brand oriented himself, then manipulated the thick rain clouds beneath his feet, moving towards a certain direction. He left behind only a raging sea of fire, flickering in the desolate town.

Just then, as if sensing something, he turned his head towards the horizon. "Tsk... These people arrived quite fast."

From the direction of the Mortal Realm's main city, an ink-like figure, like enraged lightning, rapidly tore through the sky, hurtling towards him!