Ten-Headed Fiery Sun Serpent Inner Core vs. Ancestral Dragon Chaos Qi
The golden-red sphere was a distillation of apocalyptic fury. It did not burn the air; it consumed it, leaving a vacuum trail that hissed with inrushing wind. The heat it radiated was not a wave but a wall, a promise of total annihilation. This was no longer a soul beast's skill—it was the forced ejection of its cultivated inner core's essence, a desperate, all-or-nothing strike.
Time seemed to dilate.
Yao Xuan's world narrowed to the approaching point of stellar heat and the profound, ancient darkness of the chaotic power swirling before him. Seventy percent of his vital energy was a staggering cost, leaving a hollow, trembling ache in his core. But the wisp of Ancestral Dragon Chaos Qi it purchased was worth the price.
The black-and-nine-colored barrier was not a shield. It was a concept—a fragment of primordial disorder before creation, where extremes canceled and energies unraveled into their base, harmless components.
The inner core struck.
There was no cataclysmic explosion.
There was a terrible, silent consumption.
The golden-red sphere of condensed solar venom touched the chaotic field. For an instant, they wrestled—the ultimate expression of destructive fire and poison against the ancient quiet before existence. The chaotic field rippled violently, its colors swirling madly, dimming. But it held. It did not block; it dissipated. The sphere's terrifying energy was not reflected or defeated in contest; it was gradually, inexorably, being unmade, its coherent fury scattered into random, dissipating heat and inert particles.
The light of the sphere faded from blinding gold to dull orange, then to a dying red ember. Its size shrunk. The violent heat washing over Yao Xuan lessened from a forge-blast to a severe summer sun, then to a mere warmth.
Yet, the Chaos Qi was not infinite. As the sphere was finally neutralized, winking out of existence just an arm's length from Yao Xuan's face, the chaotic barrier too fragmented, dissolving into motes of dim light that were sucked back into his body. A wave of profound exhaustion, spiritual and physical, slammed into him. He staggered, his vision graying at the edges, the cost of channeling such primordial power now due.
Across the arena, the Ten-Headed Fiery Sun Serpent was a pitiful sight. The nine fleshy tumors on its back were charred, smoking stumps. Its fiery aura was extinguished, its colossal body sagging, the brilliant red of its scales now a dull, ashen gray. Unleashing its inner core essence had crippled it, leaving it vulnerable, its life force flickering.
It was now or never.
Gritting his teeth against the hollow ache and dizziness, Yao Xuan tapped into the last dregs of his soul power. The golden light around him was feeble but focused. He couldn't use another Shattering Void Step. He could barely manage a forward lunge.
"For the future…" he whispered, the words a breath meant for a girl with silver hair, watching somewhere beyond the walls.
He pushed off the ground, a tired but determined golden streak. The serpent, its senses dimmed, could only manage a weak, sideways writhe.
Yao Xuan's claws, still faintly gleaming, found not the tough hide of its flank, but the raw, ruined flesh where a tumor had been. He poured the last of his dragonforce into the strike, not with a skill name, but with sheer will.
THUD.
The blow was not grand, but it was final. It pierced deep into the serpent's vitals. A last, shuddering sigh escaped the legendary beast, more steam than sound. Then, its massive form began to dissolve, not into motes of light, but into a shower of warm, golden embers and faint, spicy ash that settled gently on the marble floor.
Silence.
Absolute, complete silence.
Then, the Tower's voice, somehow sounding respectful:
< Final Trial: Ninth Stage. Cleared.>
A torrent of restorative energy, richer and more profound than anything before, cascaded down upon Yao Xuan. It was not just azure light, but liquid gold and silver, soaking into his pores, flooding his meridians, repairing the deep vital energy depletion, soothing his spirit, and amplifying his core power. It felt like a baptism.
He stood amidst the fading embers, breathing heavily, not from exertion now, but from awe at what he had done and the sheer volume of energy flooding him. He had done it. He had passed the ninth level.
In the observation room, the silence was deafening. The screens showed only the empty arena and Yao Xuan, bathed in luminous energy.
Leng Yaozhu was utterly still, her face a mask of stunned reverence. "A… a legendary soul beast… defeated. At the Great Soul Master rank. With primordial chaos power." The historical weight of the moment settled upon her. He hadn't just broken records; he had rewritten the premise of what was possible.
Her gaze shifted to Gu Yue. The girl had one hand pressed over her heart, the other resting lightly on the glass of the screen. A single, crystalline tear traced a path down her cheek, but her expression was one of triumphant, radiant joy that eclipsed her usual composure. The calculation was gone. In that moment, she was purely the girl who had believed in him from the start, witnessing the boy she cherished achieve the impossible. The Silver Dragon King's heir saw the definitive proof of her other half's potential. Gu Yue, the girl, saw her hero victorious.
"He…" Gu Yue's voice was thick with emotion, soft but clear. "He is coming back."
The trial was over. The path ahead, for both Yao Xuan and the Spirit Pagoda, had just been irrevocably altered.