The fire had been burning for over forty minutes and showed no signs of stopping.
Countless Ice Nest Worms were incinerated, their remains ejected into the air, turning into ashen-white dust that drifted down like snow.
The deck of the Nightmare Star and the surrounding area were already covered in a thick layer of "ash snow", which even clung to Yang Yi and Suna's faces, hair, and clothes, making it impossible to clean off.
The two could only stand farther away, using scarves to cover their mouths and noses to avoid inhaling any.
After about ten minutes, Yang Yi suddenly felt dizzy.
He quickly checked his status and found that his health had dropped to just over forty — and was still declining.
It seemed that the frostbite on his right arm was getting worse.
In his frenzied state, he couldn't feel pain, but that didn't mean his injuries would stop worsening. If anything, they were deteriorating faster.
He took out a bottle of Regeneration Potion and drank it to stabilise his health. Then, he looked back up at the sky, following the endless blue streak of light all the way to the northeastern horizon.
"What exactly is over there...?" Yang Yi murmured to himself.
The fire had been burning for nearly an hour now, and he estimated that the number of worms consumed had reached hundreds of thousands. Converted into believers, that would be tens of thousands.
If this continued, he wasn’t sure how long he could last.
Taking out a second bottle of Regeneration Potion, he kept a close eye on his health.
Meanwhile, Suna stood beside him, looking at his frostbitten, dark purple right wrist. A rare trace of concern flashed across her eyes.
Finally, ten minutes later, the Life Fireplace consumed the last batch of Ice Nest Worms.
The ashen snow in the sky also ceased.
But the price was...
The Nightmare Star was now frozen to the ocean, fused with the ice sheet.
Even though the Life Fireplace still burned fiercely inside, its flames were trapped within the structure, unable to warm the entire ship.
The extreme cold left behind by the Ice Nest Worms had seeped into the deck and hull, causing the temperature on the Nightmare Star to plummet, likely below -100°C.
As a result, the surrounding sea had frozen over, merging into a vast ice sheet.
Yang Yi and Suna made their way toward the Nightmare Star, where the "ash snow" was already knee-deep.
As they prepared to board, Suna grabbed Yang Yi’s arm.
"The ship’s surface is extremely cold. Avoid direct contact, or it’ll rip your skin off," she warned.
She then rummaged through her enchanted storage bag and pulled out two pairs of wool gloves, handing one to Yang Yi.
"...This is...?" Yang Yi asked in surprise.
"I knitted them using leftover spider silk," she explained.
【Name: Fire Silk Gloves】
【Type: Treasure】【Quality: Premium】【Description: A pair of gloves knitted by Witch Suna using Fire Spider Silk. Lightweight, warm, and does not hinder finger dexterity.】
It seemed that with exceptional craftsmanship, one could create equipment without relying on blueprints.
Both of them donned the gloves and climbed aboard the Nightmare Star.
Despite having only his left hand, Yang Yi's physical fitness allowed him to scale the ladder with ease.
The deck was also covered in a thick layer of ash snow. Yang Yi commanded his skeletal arm to start clearing it away.
The extreme cold had little effect on the skeletal arm, aside from making it slightly more brittle and prone to freezing.
Before long, the soft ash snow was cleared, revealing the deck beneath.
Along with it, several frozen skeletal arms were uncovered — buried beneath the snow, each clutching an Ice Nest Worm in its grasp. There were about fifteen of them, all shattered.
Suna approached curiously to examine the Worms, but Yang Yi stopped her.
"Be careful. Their body temperature is extremely low. Don't touch them directly. Let the skeletal arm carry them to the lab instead," he warned, feeling himself sway slightly.
His frostbite was becoming unbearable — half his body felt ice-cold, and he couldn't stop shivering.
He needed to use Limb Restoration Magic as soon as possible!
Yang Yi asked Suna for help moving the Life Fireplace back to their quarters before preparing to regrow his severed hand.
He retrieved the severed fragments from his storage ring, laid them out on the table, and counted — five fingers intact, the crucial palm present, though some small pieces were missing, and there were visible cracks.
He then asked Suna to help retrieve the long-legged sardines that had been frozen inside the ice blocks. After decapitating them, he laid them out on the table.
These were the long-legged sardines he had previously been raising in the captain’s quarters, but due to the extreme cold brought by the Ice Nest Worms, they had all turned into frozen sticks.
Suna spent quite some effort handling them, preparing a total of thirteen decapitated long-legged sardines.
By this time, Yang Yi’s complexion had worsened significantly — his lips had darkened, his face was deathly pale, and blackened blood was starting to seep from his severed left wrist.
"Are you sure this will work?" Suna’s expression turned serious. "You should just amputate your right arm — at least that way, you'll survive!"
"I’m sure." Yang Yi’s voice was weak, but his confidence was unwavering.
He carefully arranged the largest fragment of his severed palm in the correct position to avoid reattaching it incorrectly. He also lined up his fingers in proper order before activating Limb Restoration Magic.
Mysterious symbols suddenly materialised in the air, crawling along Yang Yi’s severed wrist before transforming into tiny spiders.
Suna's eyes widened in disbelief as she watched.
The spiders began spinning silk, carefully stitching Yang Yi’s severed hand back together like master tailors. The missing portions were replaced with flesh and blood from the long-legged sardines.
The entire process took about five minutes — longer than any previous spellcasting session, possibly due to the frozen flesh affecting the magic.
But the result was remarkable, almost otherworldly — Yang Yi’s right hand was fully restored!
There was a slight difference in skin tone, likely due to the long-legged sardine material, which made it appear a bit paler.
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His five fingers were all normal human fingers, their length, and proportions natural — except for one extra addition…
At the base of his right pinky, an extra long leg from a long-legged sardine had sprouted, like something out of a grotesque horror story.
It was about the same length as an index finger, and Yang Yi could even control its movement — extending, retracting, and even kicking with it.
"Uh…"
Yang Yi looked slightly embarrassed as he stiffly turned his neck to Suna. "Um…could I ask you for a bit of surgery?"
"Pfft! Hahaha!"
Suna couldn’t hold back her laughter, bursting out in amusement.
It was probably the first time Yang Yi had seen her laugh so freely.
An hour later, the surgery was successfully completed.
Suna helped Yang Yi remove the extra long leg and bandaged the area.
Though, in reality, the bandaging wasn’t necessary — under the effects of Regeneration Potion, the wound had already begun scabbing over and was essentially healed.
Yang Yi’s right hand was now fully restored.
The only unfortunate part was that his gloves had been destroyed, leaving him with just one.
While the gloves weren’t particularly warm, they were waterproof, slip-resistant, and excellent for climbing.
Yang Yi put the remaining glove on his right hand to conceal its paler tone, making it look more natural.
Meanwhile, after finishing the surgery, Suna was fully immersed in studying the Ice Nest Worms.
These creatures were extremely fragile and had an incredibly low body temperature — so much so that touching them directly would cause severe frostbite or even freeze one’s fingers solid.
Thus, Suna handled them with extreme caution. She wore a protective mask and thick heat-resistant gloves — the kind used when handling hot ovens.
Using glass tongs with rubber-coated tips, she picked up a broken insect limb and placed it over an alcohol lamp.
However, the liquid inside the lamp wasn’t actually alcohol — it was oil extracted from Pale Wrigglers.
After several minutes of heating, the ice-like insect limb finally began to melt.
She then dropped the slightly melted limb into a beaker of hot water. Instantly, the entire beaker froze over, turning the hot water into solid ice.
Next, she placed the frozen beaker back onto the alcohol lamp for further heating…
"It seems these worms’ bodies absorb heat. The higher the temperature of the object they touch, the faster and more heat they absorb. Once they reach a certain threshold, their bodies melt and eventually turn into…seawater!" Suna shared her discovery.
After burning the beaker dry, all that remained inside was a small amount of sea salt.
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