Savage pulled himself out of that pile of stinking industrial sludge like pulling a radish.

  "Ptooey! The smell of this damn place is stronger than my socks."

  The veteran shook the interface on his mechanical arm which was sizzling with sparks. He was about to look up and curse, but the voice got stuck in his throat. He saw Carlisle already standing by the mud pit—no panting, no wretchedness, that figure straight as a ruler.

  At this moment, the unstable mana fluctuations around Carlisle had completely disappeared, replaced by a palpitating absolute silence. If the previous him was a wild fire that could explode anytime, the current him was like a scalpel just quenched from the furnace, cold, precise, and sharp yet restrained.

  "Boss..." Savage subconsciously took a half step back, instinctively pressing on the battle axe. "You look really creepy now."

  Carlisle ignored him. He raised his head; his gaze penetrated the haze over the ruins.

  "We are not out of danger yet." Carlisle's voice was hoarse, carrying a heavy bloody smell. "They can't hear us speak, but they can see."

  He raised a trembling finger, pointing to the sky.

  Under the belly of that "Truth Adjudicator" obscuring the sky and sun, countless black dots were falling rapidly accompanied by the roar of thrusters.

  Those were "Purge Paratroopers," like a steel rainstorm flowing upstream.

  "First Battalion, all out." Carlisle's voice was steady without any fluctuation, as if stating a mathematical axiom. "Their visors integrate the Fourth Epoch's magitech thermal imaging spell. In this cold ruin, the heat radiated by the three of us is like lighthouses on a pitch-black sea."

  "Damn..." Savage's laughter stopped abruptly. "The entire First Battalion came down? Just to catch the three of us?"

  Lyria hugged that metal suitcase tightly, hiding behind a broken concrete slab. Her face was pale, not only because of fear, but also because of environmental discomfort.

  "My natural camouflage fails here." The elf's voice was a bit tight. "The environment here is all dead matter; no plants can cover our vital signs."

  "No need for natural camouflage. I have a better way." Carlisle took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the dizziness in his mind. He bit the tip of his tongue, stimulating himself to stay awake with pain.

  His left eye lit up again; that silvery-white geometric pattern representing [The Inscriber] although dim, was still running precisely, beginning to deconstruct surrounding laws.

  "Since heat source is their hunting signal, then we hide ourselves in the silence of stones."

  Carlisle raised his right hand; fingertips tapped gently in the void. Originally violent mana was now smooth as flowing mercury, instantly constructing a seamless geometric structure.

  [Target Locked: Biological Surface]

  [Invoke Mandate: Thermodynamic Shielding]

  [Variable Setting: Surface Emissivity -> 0 | Entropy Increase Direction -> Involution]

  "Bear with it. I will rewrite your surface heat exchange logic temporarily."

  With his whisper, no cold air attacked, but Savage and Lyria instantly felt an extremely weird, suffocating "Sense of Enclosure."

  This feeling violated biological instinct—just like the body was suddenly wrapped in a layer of absolute insulating heavy rubber suit, and then stuffed into a pressure cooker being heated.

  "This is..." Lyria looked at her hands in horror. In her perception, she seemed to disappear from this world; all aura was locked inside the body, even pores on the skin seemed sealed by invisible power.

  "I cut off all your heat exchange channels with the outside world—including radiation, convection, and conduction." A thought intruded into the two's brains.

  Carlisle withdrew his hand, pressing on his own chest, face instantly flushing due to rapid rise in body temperature, explaining extremely fast:

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  "The law of conservation of energy is iron law; heat won't disappear out of thin air. I just constructed an 'Adiabatic Singularity' on your skin surface. From now on, all metabolic heat, muscle friction heat, even heat generated by thinking you produce, cannot dissipate into the air, but can only reflux and accumulate constantly inside the body."

  "For the next five minutes, we are air, background, absolute zero ghosts on the thermal imager." Carlisle gritted his teeth; blood vessels on his forehead throbbed. "But in these five minutes, you are human-shaped self-heating reactors. Body temperature will rise exponentially; you will feel blood boiling, internal organs burning, but must endure dead tight! Even if fainted from heat, don't move!"

  Footsteps approached.

  That paratrooper holding an assault rifle walked over. Heavy metal combat boots crushed glass slags on the ground, making crack, crack crisp sounds.

  Distance less than five meters.

  Savage held his breath; that mechanical severed arm began to get hot due to heat accumulation, wanting to tremble, but was pressed dead tight by his right hand.

  Heat. Indescribable dry heat.

  This was not just summer heat, but a burning sensation backfiring from deep within the bone marrow. Savage felt every blood vessel of his turned into a pipe flowing with magma; every beat of the heart was like adding a handful of firewood to this closed furnace. Sweat just seeped out of pores, because unable to evaporate and dissipate heat, turned into boiling water pasting on the skin, bringing needle-pricking stinging pain.

  The red scanning beam like the Grim Reaper's scythe swept slowly over the mud pit where the three hid.

  The beam stayed on Carlisle's face for two seconds.

  At that moment, time seemed to stand still. Carlisle could even see clearly the worn number on the soldier's armor, and the residual heat emitted by that black muzzle—compared to the extreme heat approaching boiling point inside their bodies at this moment, that muzzle was simply cool as a block of ice.

  Beep.

  The scanner emitted a light sound representing "No Abnormality / Cold Background."

  "Sector A-7, heat source reaction disappeared." The soldier's muffled voice came through the helmet, carrying a trace of doubt. "Strange, clearly captured just now..."

  Just then—

  Beep beep beep—BOOM!!

  Fifty meters away, that wreckage where Carlisle stuffed the battery just now suddenly burst out a dazzling blue fire!

  That was a directional thermal pulse caused by ether battery overload. In the thermal imager's vision, that position instantly erupted with a high-temperature signal like a small sun, and the delay rune Carlisle deliberately set made that heat wave present an illusion of "Fleeing Outward."

  "Twelve o'clock direction! High-energy heat source detected! Target moving at high speed!"

  That paratrooper turned abruptly, thrusters roared to start, rushing toward the explosion point like a cannonball. "All units attention! Surround Sector A-9! Repeat, surround Sector A-9!"

  Surrounding heavy footsteps went away instantly; all firepower was attracted by that perfect bait.

  "Now!"

  Carlisle shouted in a low voice, voice becoming extremely hoarse due to throat congestion.

  He pointed to the sewer manhole cover underfoot—that was the last door to survival.

  "Quick! While now... I can't hold on much longer!"

  The three stuck to the oil-stained ground, enduring the high temperature almost exploding inside the body, crawling bit by bit toward the manhole cover. Lyria felt she was about to turn into a furnace about to explode; vision became blurred due to congestion; the world became shaking red light spots in her eyes.

  Finally, Savage's fingers dug into the edge of the manhole cover.

  That iron cover usually easy to lift was now heavy as a thousand jun. Because of the existence of thermodynamic shielding, heat generated by muscle exertion instantly fed back to muscle fibers, bringing severe pain like being scorched by fire.

  "Up..."

  Savage's eyes were red; throat let out a low growl suppressed to the extreme; arm veins popped up, lifting the manhole cover fiercely!

  The pitch-black entrance revealed before eyes; cold wind carrying rot smell blew up, simply like a gift from heaven for them now.

  The three drilled in sideways quickly, combined forces to reset the manhole cover slowly.

  As the last ray of light disappeared, darkness wrapped them.

  "Un... Undo!" Savage roared hoarsely; he felt his brains were about to boil.

  Carlisle snapped his fingers tremblingly.

  [Mandate Revoked]

  Whoosh!

  A visible heat wave erupted from the three instantly!

  Biological heat energy suppressed for a full five minutes was released in an instant; surrounding damp cold air was heated instantly, stirring up a layer of thick white fog.

  "Huff... huff... huff..."

  Lyria collapsed on the slippery ground, back clinging to the cool stone wall breathing heavily. The temperature difference shock just now made her dizzy, but that pleasure of heat leaving the body was simply indescribable. She was soaked all over, just like fished out of water; cheeks flushed terribly red, blond hair sticking messily to forehead.

  "This move... f*cking absolutely amazing..."

  Savage wiped the sweat off his face; the whole person was steaming, like a steamed bun just out of the steamer. "I've never suffered like this in my life... Kid, you are stewing us as meat in a pressure cooker..."

  "This was the only way."

  Carlisle leaned against the wall, panting violently; fingertips still retained the numbness after casting.

  He looked up, listening to the faintly heard explosion and killing sounds gradually going away overhead—the bait was still working; those paratroopers were fighting wits and courage with a pile of scrap iron.

  "At least... we survived."

  In the darkness, deep in the sewer only dripping water sound. Temporarily no shadow of Val, only endless depth and unknown darkness.

  But Carlisle knew, since this was the coordinate provided by Val, that greedy goblin must be hiding in some rat hole nearby, waiting to confirm safety before appearing.

  "Let's go," Carlisle propped up his knees to stand up barely. "Not time to rest yet."