Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 244
Dragon Flame Domain vs Demon Sand Domain
CRACK! RRRRUMBLE!
Crisp, shattering bone-breaking sounds echoed sharply amidst the swirling, chaotic desert dust storms, completely overriding the deafening, earth-shattering roars of the magma sandstorm.
At the feet of the towering, eighty-meter-tall colossal beast, a massive, tower-like black shadow was biting and tearing frantically. It was none of other than the Nether Prison Black Wolf, which—having fully absorbed the remnant soul of a millennium battle general and archaic dragon qi—had mutated into the Gluttonous Battle Wolf King, officially stepping into the Peak Ruler realm! Its body, over twenty meters long, was encased in a layer of pitch-black lightning scales resembling jet-black obsidian. All four claws were deeply embedded into the cracked granite foundation, and its razor-sharp, gluttonous fangs—like dozens of cold-iron blades forged in ancient furnaces—sank deep into the rear leg joints of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor.
SWISH! RRRIP!
Hot, dark-red magma blood poured out in a torrential cascade from the lacerated tendons of the colossal beast’s leg, splashing onto the stone floor and sending up columns of toxic smoke that stung the nostrils with a pungent, choking smell of sulfur.
The bone-piercing agony arriving so abruptly caused the massive, moving-volcano-like body of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor to violently sway. Its gigantic foot, which had just been aiming to stomp the altar to pieces, suddenly buckled by half a foot, dragging down an entire section of the Black Sand Canyon cliff in a thunderous collapse.
“ROOOOAR!”
A heaven-shaking, earth-devastating roar tore apart the reddish-brown clouds overhead. An ancient Sovereign that had rampaged across the barren desert for millennia, only to just break free from its seal and rise once again, was now having its leg tendons chewed apart by a mere Ruler-tier black wolf! To the towering arrogance of the Flame Demon Emperor, this was an unwashable, ultimate humiliation!
Its burning, gigantic magma hand swept backward, carrying a weight of tens of thousands of tons as it slammed straight down toward the wolf’s back, intending to grind this daring lifeform into ashes.
However, this once-in-a-millennium opening had already been completely captured in Lin Feng’s field of vision!
“Fall back, Black Wolf!”
Lin Feng’s divine will transmitted like a sharp flash of lightning. The Nether Prison Black Wolf instantly released its jaws from the magma-drenched flesh, slammed its hind legs hard against the opponent’s knee joint to borrow leverage, and flipped three times backward in mid-air. Transforming into a pitch-black streak of dark light, it glided swiftly back over a hundred meters, nimbly dodging the earth-shattering slam of the magma hand that instantly crushed an entire corner of the dried-up blood lake basin.
Right at the moment when the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor’s center of gravity was thrown off balance, all the magic energy hidden deep within Lin Feng’s body erupted completely!
Within his spiritual sea, the deep crimson Fire Element Star Sea surged like a towering ocean. Forty-nine Advanced-tier Star Constellations sparkled like ancient stars, simultaneously releasing the purest, most primordial source of energy. On Lin Feng’s chest, the Archaic Dragon Talisman pressing against his skin suddenly grew as hot as a block of iron baked red inside a divine forging furnace. Golden streams of thermal current from the dragon talisman flooded into his meridians, perfectly resonating with the soul-grade Archaic Dragon Flame!
“Trying to crush people with Sovereign coercion?”
Lin Feng stood loftily atop the peak of a shattered marble pillar, his black hair fluttering wildly in the fiery gale. The corners of his lips curved into an ice-cold arc as chilling as millennial frost, but deep within his eye sockets, two golden flames burned with unbridled fury.
“Let’s see whether the flames of someone crawling out of a grave like you, or my Archaic Dragon Flame is the true overlord!”
BOOM!
Lin Feng’s two feet stomped heavily against the pillar top. Without needing a magic incantation, without any cumbersome connections of individual Star Trails, an ancient, supreme will from his soul swept across all directions!
“DRAGON FLAME DOMAIN — OPEN!”
ROOOOAR!
A dragon roar echoed from the depths of the void, muffled and so majestic that all things in heaven and earth were forced to tremble and kneel.
From beneath Lin Feng’s feet, a gigantic golden magic circle carved with the image of an immemorial true dragon suddenly burst into brilliant light, then frantically expanded outward at wind-tearing speed. Ten meters... one hundred meters... three hundred meters... five hundred meters!
In just the blink of an eye, the entire space within a half-kilometer radius of the Black Sand Canyon completely transformed.
The gloomy atmosphere, stinking of blood and toxic sulfur, was instantly swept away without a single trace of debris. In its place was a dazzling golden sea of fire, as brilliant as a blazing sun fallen down to the mortal realm! Each flame, bearing a noble golden hue, soared high into the sky, condensing into countless gigantic fire lotus blossoms floating adrift in the void.
The temperature within this five-meter radius did not carry the evil, scorching heat of the desert magma; rather, it possessed the pure, absolute, and unyielding heat of the dragon race, capable of purifying and burning away all filthy, evil qi in the world!
HISS HISS HISS!
The blood-soaked layers of black sand clinging to the canyon walls instantly evaporated into wisps of pure white smoke the moment they touched the golden flames. The space around Lin Feng warped, thermal ripples twisting violently and turning the thousand-foot area into an inviolable sacred domain.
“Domain... A Domain?!”
Nearly a kilometer away near the cave exit leading outside, Meng Zhan strained to use his battle spear to support his body, his eyes dilated so wide that the corners of his eyelids tore open. The veteran general who had weathered a hundred life-and-death battles at the frontier and witnessed countless outstanding magical talents of the Central Plains now felt his throat as dry as if he had just swallowed a mouthful of burning sand:
“That is not ordinary flame mobilization... That is a true Domain! A young mage of his age... to actually open up such a flawless Domain by himself?!”
Ye Qingwan stood beside him, her jade-green magical robe fluttering in the hot wind. She clutched her heavily heaving chest, her clear eyes reflecting the brilliant golden flame reigning at the center of the canyon. The suffocating, thousand-pound pressure that had weighed heavily upon her lungs ever since the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor awakened suddenly vanished in a miraculous way.
Within the range of the Dragon Flame Domain, all of Lin Feng’s fire elements were amplified threefold, his magic consumption was halved, but most importantly, the Sovereign coercion of the Flame Demon Emperor had been pushed back layer upon golden layer outside the five-hundred-meter boundary!
“ROOOAR!”
Realizing that his coercion was being repelled by someone weak, and feeling the breath of an ancient natural predator exhaled directly onto his face, the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor went completely mad.
It was the overlord of the red sand sea from a millennium ago! The one who had buried hundreds of thousands of living souls beneath magma sandstorms—how could it possibly endure the flames of a puny human daring to audibly seize control of the spatial dominion right before its eyes?!
CRASH!
The remaining gigantic foot of the Flame Demon Emperor stomped heavily onto the valley floor. The stomp carried the entire evil magic energy of an Ancient Sovereign!
CRACK! RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
The fissure beneath the colossal beast’s feet split open by dozens of meters, fathomless. From deep within the earth, millions upon millions of dark red sand grains, as if stained with fresh blood, began to boil, surging backward into the air like a colossal vortex.
“DEMON SAND BLOOD ABYSS — CLAW OF ANNIHILATION!”
Space shook violently. The innate domain that had forged the tyrannical reputation of the Flame Demon Emperor a millennium ago was finally fully activated!
Millions of hot, crimson blood-sand grains spun at supersonic speeds, turning the entire Black Sand Canyon valley into a roaring, flaming meat grinder. The demonic red sand, dragging boiling magma at thousands of degrees from the depths of the earth, surged upward, drowning every single boulder and every trace of the ancient altar into a deep crimson magma ocean.
The blood sand roared, transforming into hundreds-of-meters-long desert giant pythons slithering through the air, carrying an extreme, fishy stench and destructive heat as they charged straight toward Lin Feng’s golden light zone!
BANG! BOOM! SWISH!
The moment the two great domains collided head-on, heaven and earth seemed on the verge of exploding!
The piercing impact sounded like tens of thousands of sharp metallic blades slashing against one another across the sky. At the boundary where the two domains met, the pure golden dragon flame and the blood-red sand sea frantically devoured each other, creating a chaotic, fiery band of energy so blindingly bright that it would blind anyone staring directly at it.
HISS HISS HISS!
The golden Dragon Flame roared, releasing wave after wave of draconian thermal energy that burned every grain of blood sand. The evil sandstone particles filled with grievances instantly melted the moment they flew into the five-hundred-meter boundary, purified into clear liquid droplets before evaporating into white smoke. The billowing dragon might forcefully pushed the sand sea back inch by inch!
However, the Demon Sand Blood Abyss of the Flame Demon Emperor was no empty reputation. Under the control of a Ruler-tier magic beast, the volume of blood sand was practically infinite. Billions of glowing red sand grains continuously pelted the golden barrier, creating popping sounds like a rainstorm pelting a sheet of steel. Dark red magma sand surged upward in waves dozens of yards high, as if crashing down to extinguish the stubborn golden spark at the center!
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
Under the frantic friction of two supreme-tier energy flows, the entire Black Sand Canyon was churned into ruins. The towering millennial granite cliffs on both sides of the canyon began to soften under temperatures exceeding three thousand degrees Celsius, cracking and then melting down like candle wax, turning into glowing red volcanic glass flashing with evil light along the slopes.
The flat ground vanished, leaving behind only a colossal, boiling purgatory furnace!
“Quite powerful... The might of a Ruler-tier is indeed not something a Ruler-tier can touch—!”
Standing at the epicenter of the Dragon Flame Domain, the pressure weighing upon Lin Feng’s shoulders began to multiply exponentially. His chest throbbed with rapid rhythms, and the sweat that just oozed onto his forehead was instantly baked dry into white salt streaks by the surrounding heat.
Although the soul-grade Archaic Dragon Flame possessed supreme grade quality that absolutely suppressed flame quality, the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor completely overwhelmed him in terms of accumulated magic energy amassed over a millennium at the bottom of its grave! Its blood sand sea was like a bottomless ocean, endless and continuous, ceaselessly eroding and consuming the boundary of the Dragon Flame.
From the initial five-hundred-meter radius, under the savage suppression of the blood sandstorm, the golden flame boundary began to shrink inward to four hundred meters... then three hundred and fifty meters!
“ROOOOAR!”
Seeing signs of the golden flame contracting, the blood-moon eyes of the Flame Demon Emperor flashed with extreme ferocity. With a resounding roar, its two stone-armored giant arms raised high, channeling all the magma sand sea in the valley to converge into a demon-sand tsunami towering over three hundred meters high!
The towering wall of dark red magma sand stood upright between heaven and earth, completely blocking the sky, carrying the force of tens of thousands of tons as it prepared to smash straight down onto Lin Feng’s head, burying him forever at the bottom of the sand grave!
“Careful! Lin Feng! Dodge now!”
Meng Zhan yelled from afar until his voice grew hoarse. That magma sand tsunami, hundreds of meters wide, far exceeded the scope of a single spell; it was a natural destructive force of catastrophic proportions! Under that pressure, even an Advanced-tier defensive mage of peak caliber would be ground into flesh and blood in the blink of an eye!
Yet, on the verge of life and death, as the colossal wall of blood sand cast a pitch-dark shadow overhead, Lin Feng’s face did not show a single trace of panic.
He exhaled softly, his cold gaze locked steadily onto the incoming torrent of magma sand waterfall.
“Trying to overwhelm me with sheer volume?”
“Did you really think I only have the Fire Element?”
CLANG!
A crisp sound resonated from deep within his spiritual sea. The bizarre ash-gray Nebula and the sparkling silver Star Sea simultaneously quaked!
Lin Feng’s pupils abruptly transformed: his left pupil turned into an endless swirling ash-gray, while his right pupil blazed with the brilliant silver of primordial space!
Versatile Archmage — Hexa-Element Cultivator!
“CHAOS ELEMENT — ORBITAL BENDING!”
Lin Feng raised both hands into the void, his ten fingers flicking lightly as if plucking the invisible strings of the laws of nature.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!
A gigantic ash-gray chaos vortex over a hundred meters in diameter suddenly opened right above his head, resembling a bizarre interdimensional mirror hovering amidst the golden sea of fire.
The moment the thousand-degree thermal wave and thousands of tons of glowing red magma sand crashed down upon the ash-gray vortex surface, the bizarre occurred!
There was no earth-shattering impact!
All the violent kinetic energy, all the scorching heat, and tens of thousands of tons of blood sand hurtling forward at supersonic speeds were suddenly absorbed by the Chaos force, bent at a perfect one-hundred-and-eighty-degree angle according to the laws of spatial inversion!
SWOOSH! BOMBARDMENT!
Under the wide-eyed, shocked gaze of the Flame Demon Emperor, the destructive thermal energy and thousands of tons of magma sand it had created suddenly whipped around in reverse, turning into a colossal rocket of fire that shot straight back toward the colossal beast’s chest at twice its original speed!
THUD! BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The backlash strike slammed directly into the desert stone armor on the Flame Demon Emperor’s chest!
Deafening explosions resounded across the canyon. The beast’s volcanic stone armor, as hard as diamond, was pierced right through by its own heavily compressed magma sand stream, cracking into hundreds of flying rock fragments. Pitch-black magma blood poured out torrentially from its chest, scorching the rocky flesh beneath!
“ROOOOAR!”
The Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor wailed miserably, its massive body taking three consecutive steps backward, each step crushing patches of rocky hills behind it. It flung both arms toward the sky in a frenzy of rage, ignoring the wound on its chest. The demon sand around it erupted once more, transforming into dozens of twenty-meter-long blood-sand spears that shrieked as they hurtled straight toward Lin Feng from every angle!
“It’s not over yet!”
Lin Feng did not give his opponent any chance to recover. The silver pupils of the Spatial Element flashed brilliantly, and Advanced-tier spiritual magic energy erupted to its absolute limit!
ISSUE OF SPACE — TELEKINETIC SUPPRESSION!
Lin Feng’s two hands abruptly clenched into the void!
CRACK!
An invisible, formless wave of telekinesis carrying the weight of thousands of mountains descended to blanket the entire space ahead. The air compressed until it froze solid like cold steel.
Dozens of blood-sand spears flying at wind-tearing speeds, along with the second wave of magma sand surging from beneath the Flame Demon Emperor’s feet, abruptly halted mid-air!
Time seemed choked off. Every single grain of glowing red blood sand, every droplet of scattering magma was firmly locked in place by the invisible telekinetic hands of the Spatial Element, unable to advance even an inch! The scene before them looked identical to a colossal desert sculpture frozen mid-air, magnificent and suffocatingly bizarre.
“My turn to return the favor!”
Lin Feng’s voice rang out as sharp as a tolling bronze bell.
Deprived of the interference of the Demon Sand Blood Abyss for a brief moment, the Dragon Flame Domain instantly reclaimed absolute supremacy!
The golden sea of fire beneath Lin Feng’s feet boiled frantically, soaring high into the sky as it hissed and transformed into nine colossal fire dragons over fifty meters long winding around his body. Each fire dragon carried the pure destructive aura of the Archaic Dragon Flame, their dragon scales shining like cast gold, their razor-sharp claws tearing through space!
“NINE DRAGONS LEAVE THE SEA — BREAKING DEMON!”
Lin Feng pointed a single finger straight at the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor!
ROOOOAR!
The nine golden fire dragons roared in unison, tearing apart the blood-sand curtain that had been immobilized by telekinesis, shooting forth like nine golden lightning bolts ripping through the desert night. They wrapped tightly around the two arms, two legs, and sank deep into the torn wound on the Flame Demon Emperor’s chest!
HISS HISS HISS! BANG!
The dragon flames burned fiercely across the colossal beast’s body, scorching its rocky skin and melting the dark red, black magma tendons into ashes. Billions of white smoke billowed to obscure half the beast’s torso, and the painful roars of the desert tyrant echoed across the Western Frontier borders!
“Good heavens... He... He is suppressing an Ancient Sovereign?!”
Meng Zhan trembled as he leaned against the canyon wall melted into volcanic glass, his teeth chattering. The veteran general who had witnessed countless lives and deaths on the battlefield could no longer believe what his eyes were witnessing.
A young mage, utilizing exquisite, wondrous coordination of a Hexa-Element magic arsenal: employing the soul-grade Dragon Flame to counter the Domain, using Chaos to bend away strikes, using Space to seal the battlefield, and then releasing destructive power to counterattack! This was no longer an ordinary magical battle; this was a supreme tactical performance of a future Archmage!
Yet, the crisis of an Ancient Sovereign was not so easily extinguished.
“ROOOOOAR!”
Amidst the golden sea of fire scorching its flesh, the blood-moon eyes of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor suddenly turned an extremely evil, dark purple.
The four colossal fire horns on top of its head—symbols of the desert demon god’s power—began to display glowing red cracks. From within those crevices, a millennium-accumulated ancient desert black flame began to leak outward, carrying the aura of complete annihilation!
It had been driven into a corner! It was ready to burn its very core soul to drag the enemy down into mutual destruction!
The pressure throughout the entire valley suddenly spiked fivefold. Both great domains, stimulated by this ancient black flame, began to shake violently as if on the verge of exploding, threatening to bury every living soul in the Black Sand Canyon into ashes!
Right at that hair-breadth moment of life and death, when the colossal pressure bearing down upon Lin Feng’s skin made his meridians as taut as about-to-snap lute strings...
THUMP! THUMP!
A deep, sonorous heartbeat, resembling the pulse of an immemorial God, suddenly echoed from deep within his chest!
The Archaic Dragon Talisman pressed against Lin Feng’s chest suddenly shook violently. Unstoppable, dazzling streams of golden light burst outward from within the dragon talisman, piercing through the desert dust storm and brightly illuminating a corner of the Western Frontier sky!
On the surface of the dragon talisman, the third ancient seal... began to show its very first cracks!