The following morning, the cave was a hive of quiet, tense activity. Outside, the perpetual storm of the Dragoncry Thunder Canyon raged, the constant CRACK-BOOM of lightning a grim, nerve-wracking soundtrack.
Inside the large tent, Zhang Tian woke first. He was surrounded by a tangle of naked limbs and soft silk sheets. Ning Rongrong was curled against his left side, fast asleep, her breathing soft and even, a faint, blissful smile on her face. On his right, Zhu Zhuqing was draped over his torso, her magnificent, heavy breasts pressed warmly against his chest, her stocking-clad legs hooked around his own.
He lay there for a moment, savoring the feeling, before carefully slipping out of their embrace.
Outside the tent, Qian Renxue was already awake, sitting cross-legged in a meditative pose, though her clenched fists betrayed her inner turmoil. She watched him emerge from the tent, her violet eyes flashing with a possessive, jealous fire that she quickly masked with a cool, aristocratic indifference.
Ah Yin and Liu Erlong were also awake, sharing a quiet cup of tea by the cavern entrance. They saw him, and a shared, secret look of hungry anticipation passed between them.
The party set out early, returning to the harsh, electrically-charged air of the canyon floor.
Ah Yin, as promised, raised her power. A large, shimmering bubble of disguised Blue Silver Grass enveloped them all. She Long and Ci Xue, accepting their roles as living batteries, stepped close, placing their hands on the construct and pouring their vast Titled Douluo spirit power into it, maintaining its integrity against the relentless, random bolts of lightning that crashed around them.
The journey was tedious and fraught with tension. Qian Renxue walked near the front, her gaze fixed on the map, trying to ignore the scene unfolding just behind her.
Zhang Tian was walking between his two fiancées. Ning Rongrong, energized and playful after a night of passionate lovemaking, was clinging to his arm.
"Husband, look at that crystal!" she chirped, pointing to a large, purple shard of rock. "It's pretty. Do you think it's worth anything?"
"It's just quartz, Rongrong. Stained by the ozone," he chuckled, pinching her cheek.
Zhu Zhuqing, on his other side, was more subtle. Her hand had found his, her fingers intertwining tightly. Every few steps, she would lean against him, her soft, voluptuous shoulder brushing against his arm, her large breast pressing into his side. It was a silent, constant, and possessive claiming.
Qian Renxue saw it all. Every casual kiss. Every possessive touch. Every shared, intimate smile. It was torture.
'That bitch,' she thought, her nails digging into her palms as she watched Zhuqing whisper something in his ear that made him laugh. 'She's rubbing her tits all over him. And that little princess... she's acting like a common street girl. They're shameless. They don't deserve him. He belongs with someone who understands real power. He belongs with me.'
They traveled for another full day, delving deeper into the canyon, the lightning storm growing more intense, more violent. The very air was so thick with power that it made their skin tingle.
On the afternoon of the third day, Qian Renxue finally stopped. "We're close," she said, her voice low and tense. "The report said the territory was just beyond this ridge."
They ascended the rocky incline, their protective bubble gliding over the jagged obsidian. When they reached the summit, they looked down into a vast, deep basin.
And they saw it.
The basin was a web of dark purple vines, spread out over a square kilometer. The vines were not like his or Ah Yin's. They were thick, menacing, and segmented, like the limbs of some colossal, subterranean insect. They looked like giant stalks of dark purple bamboo that had been twisted into living creepers.
In the center of the vast network, the main body of the beast pulsed with a terrifying, violet light.
And above it, the sky was black. The swirling vortex of storm clouds seemed to converge directly over this one spot. As they watched, a massive, brilliant-white bolt of lightning, thicker than their carriage, tore from the heavens and slammed directly into the creature's core.
KRA-KA-BOOOOM!
The sound was deafening, a physical blow that made the very mountain tremble.
The vine creature did not burn. It did not explode. It absorbed it. The entire network lit up, the purple segments glowing with an incandescent white light. The beast let out a high-pitched, resonant shriek, a sound of agony and ecstasy.
"It's… it's attracting lightning," Zhang Tian breathed, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and predatory hunger. "It's using the powerful lightning in this canyon's storm to accelerate its own evolution."
This was not just a thirty-three-thousand-year-old beast anymore. It had been tempered, forged in the heart of the storm. It was stronger. More powerful.
"This is it," he said, his voice hard with resolve. "This is the one."
The plan was set in an instant.
"Ah Yin," Zhang Tian commanded. "You stay here. Maintain the protective bubble for Rongrong, Zhuqing, and Renxue. Do not let them get close."
"Uncles," Qian Renxue said, her own voice sharp and authoritative. "You will be the main assault."
"I am going too," Liu Erlong stated, her crimson leather armor seeming to glow in the violet light of the canyon. She cracked her knuckles, her eyes blazing with a warrior's fire.
She Long and Ci Xue looked at this new woman, a Spirit Douluo they didn't know, and then looked at Qian Renxue, who gave a sharp nod.
"Fine," She Long hissed. "Just stay out of our way."
The three powerful figures—two Titled Douluos and one Spirit Douluo—leapt from the ridge, their auras exploding to life.
"Snake Lance Avatar!"
"Porcupinefish Avatar!"
"Sacred Flame Dragon Avatar!"
She Long became a forty-meter-long silver serpent, his lance a colossal, deadly fang. Ci Xue swelled into a terrifying, ten-meter-wide spiked ball of purple-black fury. And Liu Erlong erupted into a magnificent dragon of pure, white-gold flame, her Ultimate Fire a stark, holy contrast to the violent purple lightning of the valley.
The Thunder Hell Prison Vine sensed their approach. The ground exploded.
Dozens of those massive, bamboo-like purple vines shot from the earth like spears, each one crackling with stolen lightning.
"Exploding Thunder Kill!" She Long roared, unleashing his fifth spirit ability. His lance became a blur, a silver streak of lightning that shot through the air, aiming to pierce the main core of the plant.
But the vine was fast. Impossibly fast. The ground shifted, and a dozen thick tendrils rose up, forming an intricate, swirling shield that deflected the powerful lance strike, sending it careening harmlessly into the canyon wall.
"My turn!" Ci Xue boomed. His fourth spirit ring flared. "Poison Spike Barrage!"
The spikes on his massive Porcupinefish body elongated and shot out, a cloud of thousands of black, venomous needles that rained down on the vine network.
The needles struck the tough, segmented vines and simply… embedded themselves. The poison had no effect. This was a creature born of pure lightning and earth; conventional toxins were useless against it.
The vine creature screeched, and retaliated. It focused on the biggest, most immediate threat. A colossal tendril, glowing with the power of a thousand lightning bolts, whipped through the air, aimed directly at Ci Xue.
Liu Erlong intervened. "Sacred Dragon Breath!"
A torrent of pure, white-gold Ultimate Fire erupted from her draconic maw. The sacred flame clashed with the purple lightning, and the resulting explosion was a chaotic, beautiful detonation of fire and electricity that sent shockwaves rippling through the canyon.
The two ultimate elements were almost evenly matched. Liu Erlong's fire was pure, but the vine's lightning was raw, ancient, and endlessly supplied by the storm above.
"It's targeting me!" Liu Erlong roared, as two more lightning-whips shot from the ground, flanking her, trying to pin her down. She was the weakest of the three attackers, and the beast knew it.
"Sacred Flame Armor!" she commanded. Her second ring flared, and her entire draconic form was coated in a blazing, defensive aura of white-gold fire. The lightning whips struck the armor and sizzled, their power struggling against the purity of her Ultimate Fire.
"Nine Splitting Shadow!" She Long hissed, his third ring glowing. His snake-lance form blurred, splitting into nine identical, swirling phantoms, all attacking the beast's core from different directions at once.
The beast was overwhelmed. It couldn't defend against all of them. It let out another high-pitched shriek as the true lance, hidden among the phantoms, punched through its defenses and skewered a major vine.
Purple, electrified sap sprayed everywhere. The beast was wounded. And it was furious.
It ignored the Titled Douluos. It saw only Liu Erlong, the fire-breathing nuisance that was neutralizing its greatest weapon. It gathered its power. A dozen massive vines erupted from the ground around her, forming a collapsing prison.
"Sacred Flame Purgatory!" Liu Erlong roared, unleashing her fourth ability. A cage of her own, made of pure white-gold fire, erupted around her, incinerating the incoming vines, turning them to ash.
The battle raged, a colossal, beautiful, and terrifying clash of avatars.
High on the ridge, the four observers watched, safe within Ah Yin's protective blue bubble.
"They're incredible," Ning Rongrong breathed, her eyes wide with awe.
Qian Renxue said nothing, but her hands were clenched into fists. 'This woman… Liu Erlong… her flame. It's… Ultimate. How? How can a member of the failed Golden Iron Triangle possess such power?'
After another ten minutes of brutal, elemental warfare, the beast was weakening. The three avatars had coordinated, pinning its main body, severing its connection to its root network. It was wounded, bleeding purple energy, its lightning fading.
This was the moment.
"Now!" Zhang Tian yelled. He burst from Ah Yin's protective dome, his own spirit power flaring to life. His fourth, black ring, and all three of his previous rings that were all actually purple, blazed with power.
He gathered the energy, the feeling of his domain, the power of the bloodline, all of it. "Blood Silver Overlord Spear!"
A colossal, forty-meter-long spear of pure, crimson-gold energy materialized in the air above him. It pulsed with the combined power of an Emperor and his clan.
With a final, devastating roar, he unleashed it.
The spear tore through the air, a red comet that slammed directly into the wounded, weakened core of the Thunder Hell Prison Vine.
There was a final, agonizing shriek from the beast. And then, silence.
A deep, magnificent black spirit ring rose from the smoking, shattered remains. And beside it, pulsing with a faint, electrical light, was a spirit bone. A left leg bone.
Zhang Tian landed beside the corpse, his breathing heavy but steady. He looked at the ring, at the bone, and a deep, profound sense of satisfaction washed over him.
He didn't waste a moment. He sat cross-legged on the black rock, his gaze hardening with focus. "Guard me," he commanded.
He reached out with his spirit and drew the black ring towards him.
The absorption began.
The moment the thirty-three-thousand-year-old ring touched his spirit, a storm exploded in his mind. It was not just power. It was rage. It was the raw, untamed, chaotic fury of the thunder itself. A remnant soul, forged not of animal instinct, but of pure, elemental violence, slammed into his consciousness, seeking to annihilate him.
His Purple Demon Eyes flashed. His Boundless-level mental force, already vast, became an unbreachable wall. But the lightning-willed soul was relentless. It crashed against his defenses again and again, the psychic impacts sending jolts of pure agony through his entire being.
'It's… it's suppressing my mental force,' he realized, a flicker of genuine alarm piercing his concentration. 'The lightning attribute… it counters mental energy!'
But he was not just single man. He was an Emperor of the Blood Silver Clan.
He focused his own will, not just his mental power, but the very essence of his Blood Silver Emperor that had absorbed the powers of many Immortal Herbs. He met the storm of lightning not with a wall, but with a vortex of his own. 'Devour!'
He didn't just resist the remnant soul. He began to eat it.
For four long, grueling hours, the silent battle raged within him. Finally, with a last, defiant psychic scream, the soul of the Thunder Hell Prison Vine shattered, its power, its rage, its very essence absorbed and integrated into his own.
He opened his eyes. The world was different. A new, electric power hummed in his veins. He had done it.
He stood, his aura surging. The bottleneck of Level 50 was gone. He was Level 51. Level 52. He was a Spirit King.
He picked up the pulsing spirit bone and stored it in his Storage Type Spirit Tool. Absorbing it could wait.
He looked at his companions. At his victorious, exhausted lovers. At the shocked, awed Titled Douluos.
They had won.
It was in this precise moment of shared, triumphant relief that the sky above them darkened.
It was not the storm. It was something else. Two new auras, so immense, so powerful, they made the Titled Douluos beside him feel like children, flashed across the heavens directly above their canyon.
They were moving at an impossible speed, two Super Douluos on a mission.
One aura was heavy, sorrowful, and filled with a rage that Zhang Tian knew all too well. Tang Hao.
The other was vast, proud, and crackling with a lightning energy that made the entire canyon seem to dim in comparison. Yu Yuanzhen.
Ah Yin reacted before anyone else could even blink.
Her Blood Silver Grass erupted outwards, not with force, but with a subtle, perfect wave of illusion. The entire clearing, their victorious party, the very corpse of the spirit beast, all of it vanished, replaced by the seamless, unremarkable image of an empty, lightning-scarred rock basin.
The two Super Douluos streaked overhead, their powerful senses sweeping the canyon below. They sensed the lingering, chaotic energy of the great storm, the ancient power of the lightning beasts in their lairs.
But of the small, victorious hunting party hidden just beneath their gaze, they sensed absolutely nothing at all.
~~
A/N: Check out my other novels like "Huo Yuhao's Future Knowledge", "Harem Master: Seduction System" and the "Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist" and I hope you like this story and those stories as well.
Check out more chapters on my P.atreon. The P.atreon will have 20+ Chapters ahead for this story. I hope you like it.
The link of p.atreon is: bit.ly/evildragon