Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
Chapter 162
Divine Dragon Covenant & Unlocking the Godhead
The pungent stench of sulfur intermingled with the millennial mold of subterranean dampness assaulted his nostrils, stinging and bitter.
Deep within the subterranean gloom of the Shenzhou Pocket Realm, ribbons of grayish-green mist drifted languidly like ghostly silk streamers. This was no ordinary water vapor, but “Miasmic Demonic Vapor”—an accretion of countless eons that possessed an intensely corrosive affinity against raw mana. Whenever droplets of this toxic dew grazed Lin Feng’s black woolen combat duster, the fabric hissed in faint, microscopic sizzling bursts, curling into wisps of pale-gray smoke that carried an acrid singe.
Lin Feng remained utterly unfazed. Beneath the outer garment, a gossamer barrier of Shadow mana—delicate as a cicada’s wing—expanded noiselessly, encasing every inch of his flesh. His tactical combat boots crunched through the sodden mire littered with the calcified bone fragments of ancient beasts; every step was deliberate and measured, devoid of the faintest rustle. For three full watches, he had tracked the bizarre resonance vibrating against his sternum, traversing treacherous chasms riddled with spatial pitfalls to penetrate deep into this forbidden precinct.
The further he pressed forward, the steeper and more desiccated the terrain became. Mud gave way to slabs of obsidian stone—polished like mirrors yet coarse beneath his soles, radiating a chill as biting as permafrost.
Black steel rock.
Lin Feng lifted his gaze. Before him, the murky gray shroud parted to either side beneath an invisible crest of pressure. The apex of a colossal black marble ridge loomed within the cavernous subterranean sky, resembling the armored spine of some prehistoric colossus slumbering in the womb of mother earth.
And presiding over that mountain crest was a monument of such monolithic grandeur that it defied the comprehension of contemporary mankind: the Ancient Dragon God Altar.
The entire sanctum was octagonal, spanning over two hundred meters in diameter, hewn from a single unbroken vein of abyssal black marble. Its flagstones were incised with intricate primordial totems; deep runic grooves—long drained of their luminescent mana—still exuded an ancient, suffocating pressure heavy enough to constrict the lungs.
Yet, what seized Lin Feng’s pupils in absolute stillness were the nine heaven-propping stone pillars erected along the perimeter.
Soaring over thirty meters high, each monolith was carved with an ancient primordial black dragon coiling its serpentine bulk upward, their draconic muzzles thrusting toward the cavernous vaulted ceiling. Every scale chiseled along their length was jagged, ridge-carved, and astonishingly lifelike—so vivid they seemed poised to flex their coils and shatter their stony tombs at any heartbeat. The eyes of all nine dragons were inlaid with somber black obsidian; despite tens of thousands of years weathered under the dust of eons, they gleamed with glacial, phosphorescent embers, fixing an unblinking gaze upon the lone mortal trespassing upon their hallowed domain.
Hummm... Hummm...
Against Lin Feng’s chest, the Primordial Dragon Pendant—normally inert as a dormant stone—quivered with violent agitation.
A searing, scalding heat radiated outward from the jade pendant, seeping through his skin, coursing along his bloodstream, and directly electrifying the four Nebulas whirling within his sea of consciousness. His Lightning Nebula flared with manic arcs of deep violet lightning, while his Fire Nebula boiled like churning magma poised on the brink of catastrophic eruption.
This ravenous thirst was fiercer than anything he had ever felt before. It was not merely a primal hunger for raw energy, but a resonance of bloodline—an ancestral summoning beckoning the lost scion home after thousands of years of wandering.
“This is the place...” Lin Feng tightened his grip on the straps of his tactical harness, murmuring under his breath.
Drawing in a slow, resolute breath, he lifted his boot and planted his foot onto the first black marble riser ascending toward the heart of the altar.
CRACK!
A crisp fracture, sharp as splitting glacial ice, detonated across the deathly stillness.
Flanking either side of the stairway leading onto the altar, where two black-steel warrior bas-relief statues stood sentinel with their backs against the pillars, ancient carpets of lichen and pulverized stone began showering downward in heavy cascades. Web-like fissures spidered frantically across their stony surfaces, peeling back the calcified crust to reveal a polished, obsidian-black alloy inscribed with shimmering arcane runes beneath.
SWOOSH!
Twin gouts of dark crimson witchfire flared to life within the hollow ocular sockets of both stone behemoths!
BOOM! THUD!
The earth trembled underfoot. The previously petrified statues rose to their full, terrifying stature of over four meters. Their monolithic frames had been cast from primordial black-steel alloy, their stony muscles bulging like hardened volcanic basalt, shoulders bearing colossal tectonic battleaxes as massive as ancient trunks. A feral, blood-drenched aura locked onto Lin Feng in an instant, coiling into a tempest of murderous intent that bore down like a collapsed ceiling upon his crown.
Black Steel Dragon Guards!
High-Grade Warrior-tier!
And these were far from ordinary Warrior-tier beasts. These were primordial sentinel golems forged from arcane metals and bound with the ruthless battle souls of ancient slayers; their physical durability and spell-resistance outstripped even the weaker breeds of entry-level Commander-tier monstrosities!
“Trespasser... die!”
A harsh, screeching grind—like two blocks of rusted iron grinding together in a stone mill—scraped from the hollow ribcage of the sentinel on the left.
WHAM!
The left sentinel stamped its foot onto the flagstones, cratering the rock into a jagged depression that splintered outward. The tectonic battleaxe in its grasp cleaved through the air, dragging ten thousand catties of devastating inertia fused with eerie scarlet sparks as it whipped through a ruthless horizontal arc toward Lin Feng’s midriff! Before the axehead could even arrive, the sonic gale of its kinetic wake screamed with compressed barometric force, blasting aside the encroaching miasma.
In this split-second suspended between life and death, Lin Feng’s expression remained as unyielding as glacial bedrock.
He did not retreat, for the sentinel on the right had already hoisted its colossal cleaver high above its crown, cocked to hammer straight down in a guillotine strike that severed every viable avenue of evasion!
”Night Shadow Escape — Void!”
Whoosh!
Lin Feng’s physical silhouette faded into an ethereal blur, disintegrating into a plume of inky smoke that slipped effortlessly into the shadow cast by the whistling axe-blade itself!
KABOOM!!
The tectonic axe sheared through empty air, slamming directly into the black marble flooring with an earth-shattering detonation. Chunks of shattered granite detonated outward in every quadrant as a violent plume of pulverized stone dust erupted into the vaulted heights. That catastrophic blow possessed sufficient kinetic force to cleave an armored military transport in twain, yet it had shredded nothing more than a fragile afterimage.
Fifteen meters away, within the dark pool cast at the base of the third dragon pillar, the black vapor coalesced back into Lin Feng’s solid frame.
His eyes were razor-cold. In a heartbeat, his left hand traced an exquisite lunar-silver Star Orbit across the void. Summoning mana erupted in a blinding flash, tearing open an abyssal dimensional rift as vast as a citadel gate right across the fabric of space!
”AWOOOOOOO——!!”
A primordial wolf howl, reverberating with the ghastly cadences of the netherworld, rolled out of the breach, setting the very atmosphere shivering.
A colossal dark silhouette the size of an armored truck surged from the dimensional portal, its razor talons gouging deeply into the black marble flagstones, carving scorched furrows that hissed with sparks. It was the Abyssal Nether Wolf! Its entire frame was blanketed in midnight-black fur that shimmered like dark silk; its four paws burned with gloomy nether flames, and its blood-red eyes locked squarely upon the Black Steel Dragon Guard on the left.
“Pin it down!” Lin Feng commanded in a low, iron-edged tone that rang like an imperial decree.
Receiving its master’s directive, the Abyssal Nether Wolf showed not a sliver of dread before the hulking stature of the Warrior-tier construct. The muscles across its entire torso swelled violently, its skeletal framework popping and snapping in a chorus of brutal cracks. Catalyzed by the primordial bloodline stirring within its marrow, it ignited its most ferocious combat form: Taotie Metamorphosis!
ROOOAAAR!
The black wolf’s bulk doubled in an instant, its claws lengthening by two feet and its fangs curving into barbed, serrated iron scythes. Vaulting off its four limbs, it became a shadow-blur that pierced through the sonic barrier, lunging headlong at the left sentinel. Its cavernous crimson maw snapped shut with crushing ferocity around the construct’s axe-wielding arm!
CLANG! SKRRRRT!
The horrific shriek of monstrous fangs grinding against enchanted steel grated on the ear, sending sparks showering like fireworks. That earth-shattering bite, reinforced by the momentum of the behemoth wolf, instantly broke the four-meter construct’s center of gravity. Stumbling violently to the side, the golem was dragged off-balance, its tectonic cleaver carving a deep trench through the rock as it bellowed in futile fury.
While the Abyssal Nether Wolf locked horns with the first sentinel, Lin Feng focused all his attention upon the remaining adversary.
The Black Steel Dragon Guard on the right emitted a hollow, guttural roar, its smoldering witchfire eyes fixing dead upon him. Pivoting with an agility that defied its monolithic bulk, it clamped both iron gauntlets around the shaft of its greataxe, spinning its torso into a furious, tectonic whirlwind that stormed straight toward Lin Feng. The vortex of wind dragged a maelstrom of razor-sharp shrapnel that whistled through the air like a lethal storm of iron flechettes!
“Nothing more than a heap of rusted scrap—get lost!”
Lin Feng’s eyes narrowed into twin points of hyper-focused lethality. Within his sea of consciousness, the Fire Constellation whirled frantically; all forty-nine blazing crimson stars aligned at blinding speed, weaving into an immaculate, incandescent arcane diagram!
Crackle! Blaze!
The power of his Scarlet Flowing Flame Spirit Seed surged through his meridians into both forearms, condensing into a violent inferno of deep-crimson fire. The ambient temperature atop the altar skyrocketed to thousands of degrees Celsius, vaporizing the encroaching tendrils of Miasmic Demonic Vapor that clung to the outer ridges.
Dropping his center of gravity, Lin Feng planted his right boot firmly against the marble, anchoring himself to the stone. The musculature along his right arm coiled tight, the Scarlet Flowing Flame spiraling furiously around his fist, compressing endlessly until it unleashed the piercing, high-pitched screech of an enraged dragon!
”Fiery Burst — Scarlet Flame Explosive Dragon Blast!”
With a thunderous bellow, he punched straight into the vortex of incoming stone axes!
BOOOOOOM!!
A colossal fiery dragon head spanning over twenty meters roared forth from Lin Feng’s fist! Its snout blazed with eyes of pure, incandescent plasma as its jaws gaped wide, swallowing the tectonic axehead whole.
CRACK!
Forged as dense as meteoric iron, the tectonic cleaver was instantly superheated to blinding white under the catastrophic heat of the Scarlet Flowing Flame, detonating into thousands of molten slag fragments! Without losing a shred of its momentum, the explosive dragon blast bored mercilessly into the chest of the Black Steel Dragon Guard, striking the exact quadrant where a pale-gray mana core pulsed beneath its breastplate.
The golem’s arcane heart!
SIZZLE—HISS!
The incandescent heat melted black-steel alloy in the blink of an eye. The construct howled a metallic scream of agony, its stone arms flailing impotently as the apocalyptic flames penetrated deep into its thoracic cavity, incinerating the complex network of energy-conducting runes.
BANG!
A crisp, internal detonation rocked the golem’s core. The mana core shattered into ash! The four-meter frame of the Black Steel Dragon Guard shuddered violently several times before crashing thunderously onto the altar flagstones, disintegrating into thousands of charred, smoking boulders.
At that exact moment, on the opposite flank, the Abyssal Nether Wolf brought its own confrontation to a brutal conclusion. Empowered by Taotie Metamorphosis, its jaw strength was monstrous beyond measure; with a savage, neck-snapping wrench, it severed the cervical vertebrae of the remaining golem. The massive stone head rolled across the pavement, the twin witchfires in its eye sockets guttering out forever.
Suffocating silence reclaimed the cavern. The only sounds remaining were the ragged, deep panting of the Abyssal Nether Wolf and the spitting crackle of cooling molten stone.
Wuuuuum...
At that precise moment, the Primordial Dragon Pendant resting against Lin Feng’s breast pulsed with a resonant hum.
Two dense plumes of grayish-blue vapor—the distilled warrior souls and battle intent accumulated over tens of thousands of years within the guardian golems—drifted upward from the rubble. Then, as if drawn by an irresistible gravitational vortex, they plunged directly into the jade pendant upon Lin Feng’s chest.
Having completely devoured the two High-Grade Warrior-tier remnant souls, the face of the Primordial Dragon Pendant flashed with a brilliant flare of imperial gold, its surface growing warm as a live coal fanned into blazing vitality.
With a flick of his wrist, Lin Feng recalled the Abyssal Nether Wolf into his Contract Space to recuperate and digest its gains. Stepping across the smoking debris alone, he ascended toward the dead center of the altar.
Before him stood an octagonal stone dais raised three feet above the platform.
Upon its dustless, polished surface was carved a slender, serpentine indentation in the likeness of a coiling dragon.
The exact silhouette of that indentation... matched the Primordial Dragon Pendant down to the finest curvature and the tiniest scale!
Lin Feng’s heart hammered against his ribs. Reaching up with a slightly trembling hand, he unclasped the ancestral jade pendant from his neck. A familiar warmth radiated into his palm; it felt as though the pendant itself was yearning to return to its destined seat after countless millennia of displacement.
Without hesitation, Lin Feng sank onto one knee and carefully slotted the Primordial Dragon Pendant into the groove atop the dais.
CLICK!
A crisp, pure click resonated—a fit so seamless it left not a hair’s breadth of leeway!
BOOM!!
The instant the pendant locked into place, the entire Ancient Dragon God Altar violently convulsed!
The black marble platform blazed with light. The ancient runic channels, bled dry for epochs, suddenly reignited as a radiant stream of molten liquid gold cascaded through them like divine magma, radiating outward from the epicenter across all eight cardinal and ordinal directions.
All nine heaven-propping stone pillars detonated with synchronized roars that rumbled like sky-splitting thunder!
Along the shafts of the nine pillars, the nine chiseled black dragons stirred as though awakening from the sleep of death. Stony scales sloughed away in clattering sheets, revealing midnight draconic scales that gleamed with an ethereal, metallic luster. Their draconic eyes ignited with divine radiance; in perfect unison, nine titanic dragon muzzles tilted toward the vaulted heavens and released a heaven-shattering roar that ripped through the cosmos!
”ROOOAAAR————!!”
Carrying the supreme sovereign majesty of an apex primordial ruler, that bellow transcended the boundaries of time and space, echoing throughout the entirety of the Shenzhou Pocket Realm!
Basalt plates buckled; the cavernous rock ceiling convulsed violently as stone dust fell in sheets like a torrential downpour. Demonic beasts lurking in the farthest reaches of the ruins—whether low-tier Soldier-tier vermin or ferocious Commander-tier predators—trembled uncontrollably, throwing themselves flat against the dirt, paralyzed with terror and not daring to twitch a single claw.
Above Lin Feng’s head, stormclouds condensed into a colossal vortex that blotted out the cavernous sky.
From the very eye of that vortex, the fabric of space sheared open into a chasm ten thousand fathoms wide. Slowly, an unfathomably colossal draconic head forged from deep, translucent black energy manifested from the rift!
It was a Primordial Black Dragon so monolithic it stole the breath from the lungs.
Its coiling serpentine form, spanning ten thousand fathoms, wound across the sky of the Pocket Realm. Its jagged horns reached upward like twin mountain peaks piercing the clouds, while its molten golden eyes blazed like two ancient suns looking down upon the mortal plane. Its aura was so primordial, sovereign, and sacrosanct that any mortal soul would feel an involuntary compulsion to prostrate themselves in worship.
Those colossal golden eyes fixed upon the lone youth standing at the altar’s center.
Lin Feng did not kneel. He stood straight as an unbending spear planted between heaven and earth, his fathomless dark eyes lifted to meet the ancient gaze of the divine dragon head-on. There was no cowering, no dread—only an indomitable battle will and an unyielding conviction to climb to the pinnacle of the magical arts!
Beholding that gaze, a flicker of millennia-rare appreciation danced deep within the golden pupils of the Primordial Black Dragon.
”Inheritor of the Primordial Dragon Pendant... resolute of will, steadfast of bloodline... One worthy to inherit the Divine Dragon Covenant...”
A profound, primordial voice—resonant as a bronze bell tolling from the dawn of creation—echoed directly within Lin Feng’s consciousness.
The colossal dragon parted its jaws, and a pure pillar of black-gold radiance cascaded downward like a heavenly waterfall plummeting from the ninth firmament, striking Lin Feng squarely through the crown of his head!
BOOOOM!!
The divine torrent poured into his frame through his crown acupoint. Lin Feng clenched his jaw until his molars groaned, his entire body tightening like a drawn bowstring. Veins bulged along his forehead as muscle fibers were shredded and reforged under the crushing pressure of the pure dragon soul.
Yet, he did not utter a single whimper.
Within the boundless sea of his consciousness, the pillar of dragon light slammed into the core, illuminating all four swirling Nebulas with incandescent brilliance.
A midnight-black draconic sigil slowly branded itself into the deepest recesses of his soul, fusing into his origin consciousness. At that exact moment, an immense repository of ancient knowledge detonated in his mind, unlocking a supreme passive divine authority that only draconic sovereigns were entitled to possess:
UNIQUE PASSIVE SKILL: DRAGON MIGHT DOMAIN!
Lin Feng’s soul shuddered as the mechanics of this miraculous authority laid themselves bare before his mind:
Unlike conventional elemental domains that could only be manifested by reaching the Advanced tier or absorbing an elusive Soul Seed, the “Dragon Might Domain” was an innate, intrinsic authority! Within a fifty-meter radius of Lin Feng, he could freely release the formless, intangible sovereign pressure of the ancient dragons.
Within the perimeter of this domain, any adversary of equal or lower cultivation tier would suffer severe spiritual suppression: their outgoing spell power would be cut by a flat 20%, while their Star-connecting speed and casting velocity would be degraded by 20%!
Simultaneously, the dragon might shrouding Lin Feng’s body bolstered his own mental fortitude, granting a 30% resistance against all spiritual assaults, while rendering him completely immune to hypnosis, illusions, and fear spells woven by the Psychic or Shadow elements below the Super tier!
This was an absolute suppression authority, transforming Lin Feng into an unassailable bastion in close-quarters magical warfare!
And the baptism did not end there!
After unlocking the domain, the pure primordial essence fragmented into roaring streams, surging violently into his Lightning and Fire Nebulas.
The forty-nine violet stars of his Lightning Nebula gorged ravenously upon the mana, expanding to one-and-a-half times their original volume, crackling with dark, annihilating arcs of lightning. His Fire Nebula boiled with ferocious intensity, the Scarlet Flowing Flame deepening into a mature, blood-crimson hue as mana crested against the confines of his spiritual vessel.
Both elemental systems stabilized simultaneously, catapulting Lin Feng’s cultivation straight to the threshold of: Intermediate Tier 2 Peak!
He was now merely a single catalyst away from officially breaking through to Intermediate Tier 3!
Wuuuuum...
The blinding brilliance gradually receded. The ten-thousand-fathom phantom of the Primordial Black Dragon dissolved slowly into the void, leaving behind the sonorous echoes of its bellow resonating across the jagged cliffs.
Atop the stone dais, the Primordial Dragon Pendant popped free from the groove, gliding smoothly back into Lin Feng’s waiting palm. The face of the jade now displayed subtle, shimmering golden filigree, radiating a soothing warmth that nourished his soul with every breath he took.
Lin Feng closed his fist around the pendant and fastened it back around his neck beneath his collar. Exhaling a thin breath of white vapor that scorched the air, he felt the newly awakened power coursing like a tempest through his meridians. His gaze was deep as an abyss, his entire bearing completely transformed—exuding the imperious, sovereign majesty of a king looking down upon all creation, an aura no mere mortal could ever mimic.
Yet, just as Lin Feng turned to depart from the altar...
CRACKLE—BOOM!!
A ferocious streak of azure lightning sheared through the curtain of Miasmic Demonic Vapor cloaking the peak, crashing directly onto the marble platform less than thirty meters from the altar!
KABOOM!!
The earth-shattering detonation shook the entire mountain crest. Hardened black-steel stone splintered into a crater five meters across, azure electrical arcs dancing across fractured boulders as the air burned with the acrid reek of ozone.
As dust and lightning glare subsided, a silhouette stepped arrogantly from the epicenter of the blast.
He was roughly twenty-two years old, clad in a beast-hide battle mantle of deep azure, embroidered with the crackling lightning crest of the great Zhao Clan. His short, spiky hair was dyed a pale azure, and serpentine arcs of lightning writhed perpetually around his limbs, tearing the surrounding air into crackling micro-sparks.
Zhao Tianlei!
Rank 5 on the Shenzhou Battle Ranking—the “Raging Thunder Mage God”!
At this moment, Zhao Tianlei’s eyes held none of their customary aristocratic aloofness; instead, they were bloodshot with rabid envy and insatiable greed!
He had tracked the abnormal mana disturbances through the canyon to this sanctuary. He had witnessed with his own eyes the heaven-shaking dragon roar, witnessed the ten-thousand-fathom phantom of the Primordial Black Dragon descending to bestow its divine blessing upon the youth atop the altar!
A primordial inheritance! A heaven-defying fortune that even the patriarchs of the imperial capital’s apex noble clans would murder for!
And yet, such a priceless celestial treasure had fallen into the hands of a backwater freshman who hadn’t even attended the academy for half a year?!
Zhao Tianlei’s fists clenched tight, azure lightning crackling furiously across his knuckles, condensing into razor-sharp lightning blades that gouged the stone beneath his boots. Tilting his chin, his gaze locked onto Lin Feng like a ravenous beast, his voice hissing through bared teeth with suffocating killing intent:
“Lin Feng... You truly possess monstrous luck to unearth this primordial altar.”
Zhao Tianlei took a heavy step forward, the berserk lightning aura rolling off him warping the surrounding air:
“But a gutter-born piece of trash like you is unworthy of touching divine relics of antiquity! Surrender everything you obtained from this altar, cripple the magic in both of your arms...”
The corners of Zhao Tianlei’s mouth curled into a sadistic, mocking sneer, his voice rumbling like impending thunder:
“... Otherwise, don’t even dream of leaving this Pocket Realm alive!”
Amidst the savage storm of lightning pressure surging toward him like a tidal wave, Lin Feng remained motionless atop the dais.
Mountain winds whipped the hems of his black duster. Lin Feng’s calm, level gaze stared straight into the eyes of the Battle Ranking’s fifth-ranked powerhouse. In the fathomless depths of his dark pupils, an imperceptible vortex of the Dragon Might Domain began silently unfolding...