Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 242
Fourfold Defense vs Thunder-Fire Sandstorm
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
Three thousand meters beneath the Ancient King’s Mausoleum, the earth shook violently. The granite pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling cracked open one after another, and massive boulders weighing dozens of tons plunged into the boiling blood lake, sending up scalding, foul-smelling crimson foam.
The Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor’s lava-scale-covered claw gripped tightly onto the edge of the black stone sarcophagus, instantly melting the surrounding rock into glowing red liquid. The terrifying heat radiating from the ancient behemoth’s body incinerated the oxygen, turning the subterranean grand hall into an oppressive, suffocating furnace.
“Lin Feng! Fall back now! The mausoleum is about to collapse completely!”
Major General Meng Zhan bellowed, his voice hoarse from smoke and dust. He gripped his heavy sword tightly, the veins on his bulging arm muscles straining as he braced against the rolling shockwaves. A mouthful of dark blood welled up from his chest to the corner of the battle-hardened frontier general’s mouth. The ancient magic pressure that had descended too abruptly had severely injured the internal organs of an Earth-element Advanced Mage like him.
Beside him, Ye Qingwan bit her pale lips tightly, looking anxiously at the young man’s back ahead:
“Lin Feng, the underground terrain is too narrow. This behemoth’s power will bury all of us if we stay trapped at the bottom of the cavern!”
Lin Feng stood towering at the vanguard position, his black robes fluttering wildly in the heat waves. His gaze was as sharp as a freshly unsheathed blade, without the slightest hint of wavering. He stared fixedly into the gigantic blood-moon eyes rising from the lid of the black coffin.
“Fall back, but not to run away—to lure it up to the surface!”
Lin Feng spoke in a low voice, his tone drowning out the sound of crumbling stone: “A cramped terrain only benefits its physical body and lava. If the cavern vault collapses and we’re buried alive, the reconnaissance squad outside won’t have a way out to Western Town Ancient City either! You two go first, I’ll provide rear guard!”
With that, Lin Feng did not retreat; he advanced. Striking the ground hard with his right foot, Wind-element starlike constellations blazed to life, lifting his body thirty meters into mid-air. His index finger pointed straight at the center of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor’s forehead!
“Wild Thunder Vanishing Shadow — Lightning Strike Piercing the Void!”
CRACK!
Raging black lightning condensed from the tip of Lin Feng’s finger into a ten-plus-zhang-long pitch-black lightning spear, tearing through the gloomy blood mist and shooting straight at the behemoth’s left eyeball!
This strike was not meant to deal fatal damage to an Ancient Monarch, but rather as the most blatant provocation!
The black lightning struck the scale-armored corner of the Flame Demon Emperor’s eye, exploding into a dazzling cluster of sparks and a few shattered red scales.
“ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!”
The Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor let out a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering roar! To an overlord who had ruled the desert for a millennium, a tiny entity no larger than an ant daring to strike its eye was an unforgivable sin! The soaring rage made the magma in the behemoth’s blood vessels boil.
RUMBLE!
A pair of gigantic bat wings stretching a hundred meters and covered in molten lava swung from the monster’s back, slamming fiercely into the void. The Flame Demon Emperor’s massive body, towering over eighty meters tall, shot upward like a reversed erupting volcano toward the deep, cavernous ceiling, pursuing Lin Feng with terrifying wind-tearing speed!
“Go!”
Lin Feng waved his left hand, and the silver, gentle kinetic energy of the Space element enveloped Meng Zhan and Ye Qingwan, pushing the two of them through the collapsing rock fissure above the sinkhole. He himself borrowed the spatial recoil, transforming into a pitch-black afterimage as he glided along the sheer cliff face.
CRASH, CRASH, CRASH!
The ground above the Ancient King’s Mausoleum exploded into a gigantic volcanic crater! Millions of tons of earth, rocks, and black sand were flung into the sky. The cold moonlight of the Western Border wilderness shone down upon the battlefield as the three figures and the ferocious behemoth burst straight out into the Black Sand Gorge valley!
The night wind howled through the jagged, blade-like stone ridges.
The Black Sand Gorge was a natural fissure dozens of kilometers long, separating the border wilderness from the Western Town Ancient City defense line. At this moment, at the narrowest bottleneck of the canyon, the remnants of the forward reconnaissance squad were struggling to support one another as they retreated.
They had just been through a fierce battle with a pack of monsters, their armor tattered and covered in wounds. When the ground behind them shook violently and collapsed into a bottomless abyss, everyone turned back in terror.
From the smoking, pitch-black abyss, a gigantic demonic shadow slowly rose. Towering over eighty meters, its entire body was encased in glowing red-hot black stone armor, every joint cascading with torrents of magma. Its widespread wings blocked half the night sky, swallowing the faint starlight. The ancient Monarch’s aura pressed down on the canyon like an invisible divine mountain, causing the young mages to instantly collapse to their knees, blood pouring from their noses under the mental suppression!
“An Ancient Monarch! The seal is broken!”
“We can’t run in time... With a single step, it will flatten this canyon!”
Just as the despairing cries rang out, a roar carrying military majesty resounded: “Everyone hold your minds! Continue retreating toward the Western Town Pass! Do not stop!”
Meng Zhan landed on a high rock at the side of the canyon, his greatsword plunging into the ground. He poured all his remaining Earth-element magic energy into erecting three consecutive rock walls across the retreat path to block the shockwave. Ye Qingwan also deployed Wind Trails, creating currents of wind to support the movement speed of the wounded.
However, in the eyes of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor, this effort was no different from the antics of a colony of ants.
The behemoth’s blood-moon eyes swept across the retreating crowd at the far end of the canyon. It sensed the smallness and weakness of humanity. The monster let out a low rumble that shook the rock walls on both sides, then slowly raised its lava wings high above its head!
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
In the behemoth’s chest, a gigantic blood-colored desert magic core shone brilliantly. The elemental energy of heaven and earth within a fifty-mile radius suddenly went berserk!
The pitch-black night sky suddenly turned the color of diluted blood. The dry air burned into tiny sparks. Millions of tons of red sand were pulled violently into the sky by an invisible suction force, merging with pitch-black lightning generated by the extreme friction between the sand grains.
“Flame-Sand Lightning Storm!”
Meng Zhan’s eyes widened, his face turning ashen: “That’s an ancient desert world-destroying forbidden spell! This entire canyon will be crushed into a flat plain... There’s no escaping this!”
Before everyone’s eyes, a gigantic thunder-fire tornado over six hundred meters in diameter, reaching up to the ninth heaven, swirled with a speed clearly visible to the naked eye. Tens of thousands of boulders weighing dozens of tons were sucked into the vortex, turning into red-hot fire-enveloped cannonballs. Black lightning bolts intertwined closely around the tornado column, emitting deafening, ear-splitting explosions.
The thunder-fire sandstorm, carrying the destructive weight of millions of tons of sandstone and the scorching heat of all things, swept ferociously along the narrow fissure of the Black Sand Gorge, heading straight for the reconnaissance squad and their only escape route!
The rock walls on both sides of the canyon, dozens of meters thick, were instantly hollowed out upon touching the edge of the storm, exploding into billowing clouds of stone dust.
Suffocating pressure enveloped everyone. Meng Zhan gritted his teeth until they bled, about to step forward and active a magic self-detonation secret technique to hold back the monster: “Lin Feng! Take Qingwan and go quickly! This old man will bear this blow for you!”
Yet, a slender yet steady hand gently rested on his shoulder.
“Uncle Meng, you have shed too much blood for this borderland. Leave this spot to me.”
Lin Feng’s calm, exceptionally steady voice rang out amidst the roaring gale.
Meng Zhan turned around in astonishment. He saw the young man’s back stepping slowly onto the protruding rock in the very center of the canyon. Lin Feng stood there, alone yet towering like an unshakeable mountain weathering millennia of wind and frost.
The storm whipped Lin Feng’s robes, the dust howled past his ears, but his eyes held only absolute concentration. He did not retreat half a step. Behind his back were soldiers who had dedicated their youth to the motherland, his comrades, his homeland’s soil.
Want to cross here? Over Lin Feng’s crushed corpse!
“Fourfold Defense... Activate!”
A deep, mighty shout erupted from Lin Feng’s chest!
Within his vast spiritual sea, four brilliant Star Seas simultaneously erupted with magic energy! The Primordial Dragon Talisman hanging before Lin Feng’s chest vibrated violently, pouring ancient golden dragon breath into his meridians, replenishing an infinite, pure source of divine energy.
A multi-element defensive combination never before seen in the history of magic began operating with absolute precision!
FIRST LAYER: VANISHING LIGHTNING SHIELD!
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The deep purple Lightning-element Star Sea surged. From Lin Feng’s outstretched hands, thousands of raging black lightning bolts shot into the space ahead. Under the precise control of the Advanced Lightning-element realm, the black lightning bolts intertwined, weaving a gigantic hemispherical lightning net blocking mid-air!
This was Lin Feng’s supreme lightning-guiding technique! The black lightning in the desert storm was the phenomenon of extreme discharge between dust particles. When the storm struck, the Vanishing Lightning Shield membrane immediately acted as a conductor, absorbing all the scattered black lightning bolts and redirecting them to shoot straight into the rock walls on both sides, completely neutralizing the sandstorm’s ability to pierce through the center!
SECOND LAYER: VOID SHIELD — SPACE WALL!
“Space Wall — Triple Overlap!”
Silver light burst from Lin Feng’s pupils. He raised his right hand, his five fingers clenching tightly around the space ahead. Instantly, three invisible walls as dense and thick as diamond crystal appeared right behind the lightning membrane!
Each Space Wall was a region of space compressed a hundred times over, possessing extreme elasticity and rebound characteristics. Any boulder or thousand-ton granite fragment hurtling toward it at supersonic speed would have its kinetic energy neutralized by the spatial refraction force, and then be bounced right back!
THIRD LAYER: CHAOS REFRACTION!
A hazy, mysterious gray halo poured from Lin Feng’s Chaos-element Star Sea. He drew a gigantic magic arc, enclosing the entire outer perimeter of the defensive position.
Chaos Refraction did not meet the millions of tons of red sand with brute force; instead, it deformed gravity and the trajectory of material flow! It turned the frontal contact area into a slippery cone, forcing the entire ferocious red sand vortex to divert to the flanks of the canyon, using force against force to thoroughly disperse the destructive pressure!
FOURTH LAYER: DRAGON FLAME BODY PROTECTION!
BOOM!
At the innermost core layer, the golden flame of the Primordial Dragon Flame blazed fiercely from the depths of Lin Feng’s soul! A dragon-head-shaped golden fire armor enveloped his entire body, while emitting a heavy, warm glowing dome covering a thirty-meter radius around him.
The golden temperature reached thousands of degrees Celsius, yet it was perfectly controlled by Lin Feng, creating a purifying furnace. All toxic desert miasma, the ancient king’s deathly aura, and the tiny toxic dust particles that slipped through the outer three layers were instantly incinerated into pure white ashes upon touching the Dragon Flame, unable to penetrate even a fraction of an inch!
Four layers of defense: Lightning Element conducts electricity, Space Element blocks impact, Chaos Element bends trajectories, Fire Element purifies toxic miasmas!
A flawless magical fortress, layer upon layer, densely intertwined and towering right in the heart of the Black Sand Gorge!
And then...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Flame-Sand Lightning Storm finally collided head-on with Lin Feng’s Fourfold Defense!
The collision sounded like thunder tearing the sky apart. The entire canyon was submerged in a dazzling halo of light. The ground beneath Lin Feng’s feet sank three feet deep, massive cracks spreading in all directions!
The first layer, the Vanishing Lightning Shield, shook violently! Tens of thousands of pitch-black lightning bolts from the storm crazily bit and clawed at Lin Feng’s lightning net like demonic pythons. Yet his network of black lightning was astonishingly resilient. It sucked dry all the destructive electrical charge, then channeled it along the lightning-guiding branches straight into the adjacent stone cliff walls. The two flanks of the blade-like cliffs were blasted into large chunks by the lightning, but not a single bolt of lightning could break through the lightning membrane to strike the center!
Immediately after, tens of thousands of heavy, boulder-sized chunks of lava followed the tornado, smashing fiercely into the second layer: the Space Wall!
CRACK! CRASH!
The three transparent space walls emitted violent silver ripples. Boulders the size of houses rushing forward at a thousand miles an hour smashed into the Space Wall, only to have their kinetic energy bounced right back, shattering into fine powder right in mid-air! That terrifying mechanical pressure was enough to crush a battalion of mages, but before Lin Feng’s dense space wall, they could only leave faint silver ripple marks!
Following that came the marvel of the third layer: Chaos Refraction!
The blood-red desert sand surged forward with immeasurable weight. But upon touching the chaos energy field, the ferocious vortex suddenly slipped! The straight trajectory tearing through the canyon was bent into a gigantic V-shape. Millions of tons of red sand were flung back against the two cliff flanks on either side, rushing like two roaring torrents of floodwaters sliding past the outer edges of the canyon, completely bypassing Lin Feng’s position and the retreat path behind.
And finally, the eerie dark red poisonous smoke that crept through the gaps was instantly burned with a crackling hiss upon touching the fourth layer—the golden Primordial Dragon Flame—evaporating into harmless wisps of white smoke that vanished into nothingness.
The mad thunder-fire sandstorm raged frantically for a full two minutes!
The gale howled, thunder rumbled, and heaven and earth seemed on the verge of complete collapse. A three-mile stretch of the Black Sand Gorge was dug up over ten meters deep by the storm, the cliffs on both sides battered and in ruins.
Yet...
Right at the very center of that destructive epicenter, Lin Feng’s Fourfold Defense stood unshakeable!
The silver halo of Space, the black lightning of the Lightning Element, the gray ripples of Chaos, and the brilliant golden flame intertwined, forming an immortal lighthouse amidst the roaring storm!
Behind Lin Feng, the narrow mountain trail where the reconnaissance squad and Meng Zhan stood remained safe and sound. Not even a single grain of red sand or a stray spark could cross that solid boundary to touch the hem of their garments.
Meng Zhan stood frozen in place. The middle-aged general’s hand, gripping the sword hilt tightly, trembled violently. His weathered eyes widened, a storm of extreme terror rising in his heart:
“This... Is this the defense of a young man under twenty?!”
“Six-element magic coordinated to this degree... Using lightning to guide lightning, using space to block force, using chaos to bend trajectories, using divine fire to purify... A miracle! This is definitely a tactical miracle!”
Ye Qingwan stood beside him, both hands pressed tightly against her chest, her sparkling eyes brimming with tears of emotion and admiration. She looked at the young man’s back ahead, pride surging boundlessly in her heart. This was the man she trusted, a mage born to shatter all impossible boundaries of heaven and earth!
Behind them, dozens of reconnaissance soldiers who had prepared themselves mentally to sacrifice their lives let go of their weapons in a daze. They looked at the four-color lighthouse standing firm against the end of the world, then at Lin Feng’s proud back, every gaze igniting a fierce flame of hope.
“We survived... We survived!”
“Lord Lin Feng has blocked the Flame Demon Emperor’s forbidden spell!”
Whoosh... whoosh...
Having exhausted its power without being able to shake its target, the Flame-Sand Lightning Storm finally began to weaken and gradually dissipate. The red dust settled, revealing a battlefield landscape mottled with cracks and scorched earth.
Lin Feng slowly withdrew his Fourfold Defense. The silver light and gray mist faded away, leaving only the golden Dragon Flame lingering faintly around his sturdy shoulders. He stood on the elevated rock, his chest heaving slightly as he regulated his magic breath, but his gaze remained as sharp as a divine sword looking straight ahead.
Over there, less than a mile away from Lin Feng, the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor stood frozen like a statue.
The ancient behemoth’s gigantic blood-moon eyes widened to their absolute limit, its pupils contracting into two tiny dots of astonishment and bewilderment. It could not comprehend it! A full-power blow carrying the destructive scale of an ancient Monarch’s forbidden spell, powerful enough to flatten a millennia-old city, had been completely blocked by a tiny entity the size of a dust particle?!
The astonishment quickly transformed into extreme humiliation!
A desert overlord once appointed as a guardian divine beast by the ancient king had now been slapped right in the face by a human youth!
“ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!”
The Flame Demon Emperor’s ultimate fury roar exploded, tearing apart the Western border night! The lava flames on its body burned twice as fiercely, turning its entire body into a thousand-degree red-hot mass of magma. Its gigantic, ten-thousand-ton heavy claws stomped hard onto the ground, creating shockwaves that flattened all surrounding rocks.
It spread its demonic wings, preparing to rush forward and use its massive behemoth body to crush that arrogant human into dust!
Lin Feng coldly looked at the going-berserk monster, the corners of his mouth curling slightly into an arrogant smile:
“An Ancient Monarch... Is that truly the extent of your capability?”
Yet, at the very moment when the Flame Demon Emperor’s killing intent condensed to its peak, preparing to unleash a fatal close-quarters strike, deep within Lin Feng’s Contract Space, a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering event suddenly erupted!
CRACK! SNAP!
The sound of magic-bound iron chains shattering echoed straight into Lin Feng’s soul!
A mournful, deep yet violently demonic wolf howl echoed from the deepest part of the Nether Prison:
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Under the suffocating life-and-death pressure of the Monarch-class creature, resonating with the divine dragon breath from the Primordial Dragon Talisman and thousands of defeated desert general war-spirits absorbed within the ancient tomb, the boundary-sealing wall of the Nether Prison Black Wolf had completely cracked open!
A bone-chilling, pitch-black demonic flame spilled out from the Contract Space, swirling around Lin Feng’s body. In the dark void, a gigantic demonic wolf shadow was expanding frantically, its long, sharp claws tearing open the void, its ferocious red fangs rising menacingly!
Breakthrough!
The Nether Prison Black Wolf had finally smashed its shackles, officially stepping into the threshold of the Peak Overlord realm!