Fire Rain
Red Dust Domain border.
Double Bridge Town.
Thick black clouds enveloped the sky above the small town, as if a storm was brewing.
A plainly dressed resident hurried across the muddy path with firewood on his back. Looking up at the sky from time to time, the pattering rainwater fell on his cheeks, and his footsteps quickened even more.
Under the iconic stone arch bridge of Double Bridge Town, awning boats were slowly docking one by one. People used thick ropes to tie the boats to the shore to prevent a hurricane from blowing them away; the shops on both sides closed early, and the clothes racks drying outside every household were also all taken in... The entire small town had made ample preparations in advance for this uncommon rainstorm.
"Mom! It's going to rain!"
Under the tiled eaves, a girl squatting by the door, plump and cute like a New Year painting, spoke excitedly.
"It's going to rain, don't run around, you know?" A middle-aged woman carried a few stacks of bedding and walked briskly past the doorway.
"No, you'll catch a cold playing in the rain."
"I'll wear Dad's bamboo hat and straw raincoat!" The girl stared at the bamboo hat and straw raincoat on the wall with glowing eyes, seemingly having been interested in them for a long time. "I'll just play for a little while, just a little while when the rain is small... when you tell me to come back, I'll come back immediately!"
"Haha, if my daughter wants to wear them, let her wear them." A tall Middle-Aged Man walked out of the house and smiled, "Playing in the yard for a while won't hurt."
"...Really, you father and daughter are two of a kind."
The woman glared at him but still didn't refuse, continuing to busy herself taking in clothes and doing her own things.
Seeing this, the girl jumped up excitedly, hugged her dad's neck, and gave him a kiss. Then she took down the bamboo hat and straw raincoat from the wall and earnestly put them on herself. In a short while, she turned into a brown fur ball. Perhaps because she was too short, the slender ends of the straw raincoat dragged on the ground like a bird's tail.
Drip, drop— Drip, drop—
Drops of rainwater fell from the pitch-black clouds, causing ripples on the surface of the river. Seeing this, the girl immediately bounced out the door, running around in the small yard.
"Dad! I really can't get rained on!" The girl's massive bamboo hat blocked the rainwater, and she spoke with endless excitement.
"Run slower, don't fall."
Gusts of wind brushed past Double Bridge Town. The original drizzle gradually became dense, and patches of ripples intertwined in the puddles, as if an invisible pair of hands was playing a chaotic and disorderly musical movement.
Jiajia's dad just sat under the eaves like this, looking at that small figure playing wildly in the rain, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curling up...
Right at this moment, his nose twitched slightly, and doubt flashed in his eyes:
"Strange... what's that smell?"
He sniffed earnestly for a long time, stretched out a hand beyond the eaves to catch a few drops of rain, and smelled them carefully under his nose.
"This isn't right, this doesn't seem like rain..."
"Dad! Why is my body smelling stinky?" Jiajia, playing in the rain, seemed to also notice something was wrong and tilted her head in confusion.
The Middle-Aged Man was stunned for a long while. He suddenly looked up at that ink-black rain cloud and immediately waved to Jiajia, "Stop playing, come back quickly!!"
The moment the man's words fell, a sudden change occurred!
A red bolt of lightning flashed through the pitch-black clouds. The next moment, the sky full of rain was suddenly ignited. The dim firmament seemed to be enveloped by the radiance of countless tiny suns, blinding everyone so they couldn't open their eyes!
What was falling from the sky wasn't rain at all, but nitroglycerin.
Boom——!!
The Fire Rain surged down from the sky. Jiajia, who had just taken a step to run, was also hit by a drop of Fire Rain. Her whole body, with the straw raincoat and bamboo hat soaked, turned into a burning flamingo in the blink of an eye, her sharp wails resounding through the clouds!
"Jiajia! Jiajia!!"
The man's pupils abruptly contracted. He didn't hesitate to rush into the rain, trying to pull Jiajia back.
The despairing firebird fluttered in the rain. Those wings only struggled twice before thoroughly collapsing to the ground. The earth, already soaked by the "rainwater," turned into a raging sea of fire, blocking the rushing man outside!
At the same time, the man also caught fire. He screamed and took off his ignited clothes, trying to extinguish the flames on his body, but even without clothes, this "rainwater" sticking to his body could similarly ignite his body!
The flames on the man grew more and more vigorous, and bursts of scorching smell drifted in the air. He desperately wanted to crawl into the house because only the ground under the eaves wasn't covered by the Fire Rain...
But it was too late.
A torrential downpour poured down from the sky. The entire Double Bridge Town had already turned into a flaming hell. The man only walked three steps before being burned into a charred corpse, collapsing in front of his own eaves, shattering all over the ground.
Not only the earth but even the tiled roofs were ignited by this Fire Rain. The fragmented Fire Rain flowed down the eaves like dazzling waterfalls of fire, and all the houses creaked amidst the high-temperature burning.
Flames filled every corner, thick smoke billowed, and oxygen became increasingly scarce... Even though there were still most people hiding in their houses, not burned to death by the Fire Rain, at this moment, they all curled up on the ground in pain, their faces pale and ferocious!
They greedily wanted to breathe air, but what was left for them were only burning embers and smoke. Just breathing three or four mouthfuls, they completely lost consciousness.
The earth was burning, the roofs were burning, the river was burning;
In this sea of fire mixed with wind and rain, human lives were as fragile as ants. Every minute, every second, someone was dying...
How long did it take to slaughter an entire town?
A heavy rain,
13 minutes.
Above the clouds releasing the Fire Rain, a figure stood tall and majestic.
Red lightning wandered around him, and a massive Alchemy Array spun silently beneath his feet. This Fire Rain slaughtering Double Bridge Town was merely a disaster he casually pinched out.
"Thirteen minutes, and only a few thousand people died... The efficiency is still too low."
Brand shrugged regretfully.
"The Red Dust Domain has a loosely distributed population, especially these hundreds of towns outside the main city... At this speed, to gather enough Philosopher's Stones will take at least several days."
"Still have to go to the Red Dust main city..."
"Over a million people live there. A casual Fire Rain array technique can kill hundreds of thousands. The speed should be much faster than here."
Brand identified the direction, then controlled the thick rain clouds under his feet to advance somewhere, leaving only a raging sea of fire dancing in the dead silent town.
Right at this moment, as if he perceived something, he turned to look at the horizon.
"Tsk... This group of people came quite fast."
Only to see that from the direction close to the Red Dust main city, an ink-wash figure rapidly tore through the sky like wrathful thunder, speeding over!!