Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 247
Harvesting the Monarch Soul Essence & Pure Gold Demon Core
BOOM!
A muffled explosion, akin to a peal of thunder compressed deep within the abyss of hell, thundered from the very depths of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor’s chest.
The entire Black-Sand Gorge shook violently. The millennium-old granite cliffs, already riddled with cracks, could no longer withstand the destructive shockwave as massive boulders weighing hundreds of tons crashed heavily into the bottom of the deep fissure. At the epicenter of the blast, the colossal, eighty-meter-tall physique of the primordial behemoth began to fracture, fissuring into countless radiant golden-fire veins.
The Primordial Dragon Pendant’s third-tier Primordial Flame, combined with the Nirvana Thunder Seed, had completely incinerated the evil magical core residing deep within its body.
“ROAAAAAAR... O... O...!”
The final roar of the millennium desert overlord no longer carried its former frenzied savagery or ferocious tyranny, but rather utter despair and extreme agony that tore through the desolate night of the wasteland. The sharp lava horns that had once batted away countless living beings were shattered into countless fragments of flying ash; the lava arms, harder than steel, crumbled in huge chunks, crashing down to the earth to become suffocating, flickering heaps of black fire.
CRASH!
The majestic, volcano-like body of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor completely collapsed. A towering column of fire and smoke soared high into the black clouds capping the midnight sky, before bursting into a crimson sea of ash swept along by howling gales of sand.
The earth finally ceased its trembling.
Amidst the desolate expanse reeking of burnt stone and pungent sulfur, Lin Feng slowly lowered his foot to touch the scorching hot sand. His pitch-black tactical cloak was whipped violently by the gale, its hem scorched slightly by the residual heat of magic, yet his spine remained as straight as a spear driven firmly into the earth.
He let out a long, slow breath, his chest heaving slightly. The muscles in both his arms still retained a faint trace of numbness after channeling his entire Lightning-Fire magic fused with supreme dragon might. Yet, his deep black eyes burned with an extraordinary brilliance at this moment, resembling two brilliant stars amid the dark night of the Western Regions.
Beside him, the over-twenty-meter-tall Gluttonous Black Wolf slowly retracted its razor-sharp obsidian claws, taking heavy strides to its master’s side. The giant wolf’s jet-black nose twitched as it sniffed the surrounding ashes, then threw back its head to emit a low, triumphant growl. The life-or-death blood battle with the primordial overlord had ended, and the ones standing firmly at the end were none of other than them!
Whoosh... Whoosh...
The wasteland sandstorms howled, sweeping across the ruins of the underground mausoleum that had just been razed to the ground. Suddenly, a strange phenomenon manifested!
Right at the epicenter of the towering pile of ashes—where the body of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor had just exploded—a stream of brilliant, deep-purple light suddenly surged fiercely, piercing through the dense, blinding dust.
That stream of light was so dense, transparent, and pure that it was utterly devoid of worldly dust, radiating a magnificent halo that blanketed an entire corner of the night sky.
“This is...”
Lin Feng’s pupils constricted slightly, his footsteps halting involuntarily for a beat.
Amidst the mesmerizing deep-purple radiance, a spherical sphere of light the size of a water jar floated and rotated. Within that transparent orb, a miniature behemoth silhouette about three meters long appeared vividly: patches of fiery red rock scales, violent sharp horns, and blazing, resentful eyes. The small beast bared its fangs and brandished its claws, throwing back its head in an unyielding roar, struggling frantically to break through the energy membrane and soar into the nine heavens!
A Soul Essence!
Not a lingering, shattered remnant soul, nor an ordinary Warrior-tier or Commander-tier soul essence... but a complete, one-hundred-percent intact, supreme Early-Stage Monarch Soul Essence!
Lin Feng’s heart pounded violently in his chest.
One must know that in this magical world, the probability of demonic beasts condensing a complete soul essence upon death was exceedingly low. For Servant-tier or Warrior-tier demonic beasts, this rate was merely a few percent. Reaching the Commander-tier, out of a hundred magical beasts, perhaps a few might drop one, each priced at hundreds of millions of gold coins, enough to cause noble houses and financial consortia to fight to the death.
And the Monarch-tier?
That was the realm of a regional overlord, the sovereign of tens of millions of demonic beasts! Across the entire Divine Continent for decades, the number of Monarchs hunted down and besieged by humanity could be counted on one hand, and among those rare hunts, the chance of a pristine soul essence appearing was virtually mythical!
A pristine Monarch Soul Essence was, for any nation, the ultimate nation-guarding treasure!
Peak Super-tier Mages were willing to trade their entire fortunes worth tens of billions of gold coins, or even cede massive magical mineral deposits and entire fortress cities just to acquire it. Because only the pure spiritual energy source of a Monarch Soul Essence could help them reinforce their Super-tier Star Palace to the mythical realm, or serve as the core raw material for refining Cataclysm-tier defensive magical artifacts!
Yet at this moment, a priceless, pristine Early-Stage Monarch Soul Essence, without even the tiniest fracture, was floating right before his eyes!
Swish!
The survival instinct of a beastly soul stirred; the deep-purple orb of light suddenly burst forth with speed, tearing through the air to shoot high into the sky, attempting to merge into the desert sandstorm and escape.
However, before Lin Feng could even make a move, the rough jade pendant hanging against his chest automatically emitted a crisp chime:
Clang!
The Primordial Dragon Pendant, having just broken through the seal of the third tier, suddenly radiated a blinding golden light. The Five-Clawed Divine Dragon carving on the jade surface seemed to come fully alive, the dragon eyes carved with ancient runes glowing brilliantly, emitting a deep, resonant dragon roar that echoed straight into the void!
SNAP!
A heaven-shaking, earth-shattering gravitational force abruptly erupted from the dragon’s mouth on the jade pendant!
The space surrounding the Monarch Soul Essence was instantly choked off, as if an invisible, gigantic hand of a primordial deity had descended from the heavens, locking down every avenue of retreat for the deep-purple orb. Even though the silhouette of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor inside scratched and shrieked in desperate fury, before the supreme majesty of the Primordial Dragon Pendant, all resistance became as laughable as foaming bubbles.
SWOOSH!
Without the slightest hesitation, the giant Monarch Soul Essence was jerked backward into a magnificent streak of purple light, plunging straight into Lin Feng’s chest to be swallowed entirely deep within the Dragon Pendant!
BOOM!
The very instant the Soul Essence entered the jade pendant’s space, Lin Feng felt an earth-shattering explosion ring out in his mind!
The pure, colossal spiritual energy of an ancient Monarch accumulated over a millennium was instantly refined by the Primordial Dragon Pendant into a torrential river of purple-gold light, pouring overwhelmingly into his sea of consciousness!
Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness surged like an ocean struck by a violent gale!
His six magic systems floating within the starry expanse of his consciousness—the deep purple Lightning Star Sea, the blazing golden Fire Star Sea, the illusory silver Space System, the pitch-black profound Shadow System, the pure azure-tinted Summoning System, and the steadfast earth-brown Earth System—simultaneously blazed with brilliant light!
The monarch energy current flowed like a divine rainstorm, bathing every single Star Seed, Star Trail, Star Map, and Star Palace.
The tiny cracks caused by the exhaustion of magic power during the great battle healed instantly at an astonishing speed. Not only that, but the borders of the Lightning Star Sea and Fire Star Sea began to expand violently, magic power rolling wave upon wave, surging and thickening manifold compared to before! The sense of the bottleneck separating the Advanced Third Realm and the Super Tier seemed to have been eroded away by a large swath of this energy flood!
And that was not all!
From deep within the Primordial Dragon Pendant, a warm, jade-green healing spiritual qi like a spring of life slowly overflowed, permeating his skin, weaving through every meridian, blood vessel, and cell of Lin Feng’s body.
Crack... crack...
The muscle fibers torn by the overwhelming load of power were instantly reconnected and reinforced more firmly; skin scorched raw by the desert heat peeled away in flakes of dead ash, revealing a fresh layer of skin as white and smooth as jade yet as sturdy as profound iron; the turbulent surging of blood in his chest instantly settled, turning wondrously cool.
In a mere dozen breaths, all injuries, exhaustion, and burning sensations accumulated over hours of life-or-death blood battle... had completely vanished without a trace!
Lin Feng stood straight, raising his head to take a deep breath of the cool midnight wind.
His entire body was brimming with vitality, the magic power within him rolling endlessly like a flood season river, his spirit even more vigorous and imposing than before entering the battle!
“Splendid... The third tier of the Dragon Pendant is truly heaven-defying!”
The corners of Lin Feng’s lips curled up slightly, his heart filled with incomparable exhilaration and satisfaction. A Monarch Soul Essence not only helped the pendant consolidate its new seal, but its反哺 (counter-nourishment) elevated his overall strength to a whole new level. This was truly the greatest windfall of one’s lifetime!
“GRRR... ROAR!”
At this moment, the excited growl of the Gluttonous Black Wolf ahead pulled Lin Feng back to reality.
He turned his head to look.
The massive giant wolf was using its huge front paws to dig up the ashes of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor. Sand, stone, and bone fragments flew in all directions. Suddenly, its claws struck an unusually hard object, producing a crisp, resounding “clanging” sound.
Lin Feng took a step forward.
He flicked his sleeve lightly, a gale sweeping away the thick layer of dust covering the top.
Beneath the charred sand, a rhombus-shaped precious jade the size of a wine jar slowly emerged.
The entire jade was deep red like a drop of dragon blood condensed over ten thousand years, swirling within it were glittering golden sandstone currents and wisps of ancient magical flames drifting leisurely. The moment it was exposed to the air, a warm yet entirely non-malignant heat wave immediately radiated out, causing the surrounding space to slightly distort and warp!
“Blood-Sand Demon Core!”
Lin Feng’s eyes lit up brilliantly.
This was the primordial demon core of the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor—the perfect fusion crystallization of Fire attribute and ancient Sandstone after absorbing the essence of heaven and earth beneath the desert for a thousand years!
If the Soul Essence was the soul, then the Demon Core was the heart and magical treasure trove of the demonic beast. If this Monarch-tier Blood-Sand Demon Core were taken to an auction house in the Magic City or Capital, its value would definitely be no less than thirty billion gold coins! For mages cultivating the Fire or Earth systems, this demon core was a holy artifact for forging a top-tier Soul Seed or crafting strategic Defensive Magic Stones!
Lin Feng extended his right hand, wrapping it in a layer of golden dragon qi before lifting the hundred-pound Demon Core. As warmth transmitted straight into his palm, he smiled faintly, waving his hand to sweep the demon core deep into his Spatial Storage Ring.
“To cap off a hard day of combat, this harvest is truly not in vain!”
Yet, the surprises had not stopped there yet.
CRASH!
When the demon core was lifted from its original position, the load-bearing structure of the underground mausoleum’s foundation suddenly lost balance. A square granite slab more than ten丈 (ten zhang) wide cracked and collapsed downward into the depths, revealing a bottomless pit leading straight into the bowels of the earth!
From the bottom of the deep pit, there was no stench or poisonous qi of demonic beasts, but instead, blinding golden light and soul-suffocating pure magic power surged straight into the sky!
“Hoh? There’s an underground space down here?”
Lin Feng raised an eyebrow. He signaled the Black Wolf, then his figure glided lightly, gracefully landing at the bottom of the deep pit.
Passing through the fallen rock dust, a magnificent secret palace chamber made of jade-green stone appeared before his eyes. This secret chamber was solidly constructed from millennium-old wind-magic stone, protected by an ancient barrier so it remained completely intact after the cataclysmic battle above!
And as Lin Feng’s gaze swept across the entire secret chamber, even someone as accustomed to storms as he felt his chest tighten for a brief moment!
Gold!
Everywhere was blinding, dazzling golden light!
Amidst the hall spanning hundreds of square feet, golden-yellow magical ore blocks were piled up like small mountains. Square magic crystals the size of fists, their surfaces covered in natural sandstone vein patterns, radiated magic power so abundant and stable that the air in the chamber grew thick!
“Golden Magic Crystals... Tens of thousands of catties of Golden Magic Crystals!”
Lin Feng stepped forward, picking up a heavy ingot of pure gold magic crystal.
This was an extremely rare mineral magic crystal produced only in primordial desert ore veins dating back over a thousand years. Unlike ordinary magic crystals used merely as consumable energy, Golden Magic Crystals possessed extremely high purity, serving both as raw material to temper high-grade magic armor and as “god-tier fuel” specialized for activating Defensive Magic Cannons on the city walls of major empires!
On the black market, a single catty of Golden Magic Crystal was already priced at tens of thousands of gold coins. And here, piled like mountains, a conservative estimate was no less than fifty thousand catties!
This was undoubtedly the burial treasure of the ancient desert dynasty from primordial times worshipping the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor, buried underground for thousands of years, only now seeing the light of day once more.
beside the mountains of pure gold magic crystals, along both stone walls were dozens of rusted dark bronze chests. Lin Feng waved his hand to blast open the chest lids, revealing a series of ancient magic armor, short swords inlaid with magic stones, heart-protecting mirrors, and pottery jars sealing fossilized desert medicinal herbs... Despite enduring a millennium of dust, the magic runes carved on their surfaces still glowed with a faint radiance.
A colossal fortune sufficient to equip an elite magic legion!
“Store!”
Lin Feng stood on ceremony. He expanded his highest-grade storage ring space, torrential spatial magic power sweeping across the chamber. Wave after wave of golden magic crystals, chest after chest of ancient treasures flew like flocks of birds, continuously vanishing to settle comfortably within his vast storage space.
In just half an incense stick of time, the entire millennium-old secret chamber had been thoroughly cleaned out by Lin Feng, leaving only bare rock walls.
The harvest of this battle: a priceless Monarch Soul Essence, a Blood-Sand Demon Core, fifty thousand catties of Golden Magic Crystals, and countless ancient magic artifacts! If this news leaked out, the entire global community of mages would undoubtedly go wild with covetousness and jealousy!
Lin Feng’s figure stirred, stepping onto the rock wall to vault out of the deep pit’s mouth back to the surface of the ruins.
At this very moment, from far away beyond the entrance of the Black-Sand Gorge, the urgent thud of iron-clad horse hooves rang out like rumbling thunder!
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
Blazing torches tore through the desert night, billowing clouds of dust rising turbulently.
An elite armored cavalry detachment of the Zhenxi Military Region was frantically spurring their horses forward. Leading the troops was a burly figure clad in heavy armor, wielding a magic battle spear shimmering with dried blood—it was Lieutenant General Meng Zhan!
Right beside him, Ye Qingwan rode a snow-white wind-spirit horse, her tattered tactical robes fluttering wildly in the wind, her delicate face pale with worry and exhaustion.
Half an hour prior, when the pillar of destructive fire erupted from the center of the gorge and the earth-shaking roars of the behemoth fell silent, both Meng Zhan and Ye Qingwan had believed Lin Feng’s life was hanging by a thread. An ancient Monarch-tier strike gathering a millennium’s worth of magic power—even an experienced Super-tier Mage might not survive, let alone a twenty-year-old youth?
“Hurry! Faster!”
Meng Zhan roared, his voice hoarse, his eyes bloodshot. He had resolved himself: even if Lin Feng was left with nothing more than a corpse fragment or a handful of ashes, he would retrieve him, and use his own life to fight the behemoth to the death to avenge the young hero!
However, when the entire cavalry detachment crossed the final ruined turn and charged into the gorge basin...
Whinny... huff... huff!
Meng Zhan abruptly pulled tight on the reins! Hundreds of armored warhorses behind him likewise let out synchronous whinnies, braking so sharply that their iron hooves plowed deep into the scorching sand, kicking up blinding clouds of dust!
The entire reconnaissance detachment stood frozen as if carved from stone.
All sounds of shouting, ragged breathing, and clashing metal abruptly ceased. The space plunged into a dead silence so profound it was suffocating.
What struck the eyes of the hundreds of military officers and soldiers was not a scene of a behemoth rampaging in slaughter, nor was it Lin Feng collapsing in a pool of blood.
Instead, it was a desolate wasteland of ashes stretching as far as the eye could see!
The eighty-meter-tall Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor—the behemoth that had once made the frontier garrison tremble with terror—had now transformed into a pile of charred, shattered rock bones, collapsed motionless amidst a cooled sea of lava!
And right atop the highest granite boulder in the center of the battlefield...
A handsome youth clad in a pitch-black cloak stood towering against the gale.
Beneath the hazy frontier moonlight, his figure was straight as an ancient celestial spear planted firmly between earth and sky, his demeanor composed and calmly serene beyond measure. At his feet rested a giant black magic wolf slick as night satin with an obsidian lightning horn, resting leisurely, its cold eyes glancing sideways at the cavalry detachment that had just swooped in.
The aura on that youth did not possess the slightest trace of weakness or struggle. On the contrary, the deep, profound magic power circulating around his body radiated an invisible pressure that forced even the military’s most battle-hardened warhorses to tremble and kneel all four hooves to the earth!
Clang!
The heavy magic battle spear weighing hundreds of catties in Lieutenant General Meng Zhan’s hand suddenly slipped from his rough palm, plunging deep into the shattered stone beneath his feet.
The wind-weathered general’s bloodshot eyes widened to their absolute limit, his pupils constricting violently. His chest grew choked, every muscle fiber on his weather-beaten face twitching uncontrollably from the sheer magnitude of shock:
“Dead... dead? The ancient taboo monster... was it really killed by him?!”
Beside him, Ye Qingwan tightly covered her trembling lips. Tears could not be contained from welling up in the corners of her eyes, streaming down her dust-stained cheeks. Her heart pounded as if trying to leap from her chest. She gazed at Lin Feng’s proud silhouette standing amidst the sea of ash, leaving her mind with nothing but awe and ultimate, indescribable emotional tremors.
Alone!
By his individual strength alone, he had shattered the undefeated myth of the primordial overlord, rescued thirty thousand officers and soldiers at the Zhenxi Pass, and fully protected the nation’s frontier defense line!
This was no miracle... This was an unprecedented divine miracle in the magical history of the Divine Continent!
Thud!
Amidst the bewildered shock of hundreds of soldiers, Lieutenant General Meng Zhan—the supreme commander of the Zhenxi front, a man who had never bowed to any formidable foe—abruptly dismounted from his horse, dropping to one knee upon the scorching sand!
He clenched his steel-armored fist, striking a heavy “BANG” against his left chest—the highest and most sacred greeting ritual of the Divine Continent’s military for a savior!
Meng Zhan looked up at Lin Feng, his deep, resonant voice echoing throughout the gorge:
“Meng Zhan and the thirty thousand soldiers of the Zhenxi Military Region... pay respects to Master Lin for saving our lives! We are willing to revere Your Excellency as a reincarnated Archmage!”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Following Meng Zhan’s battle cry, the hundreds of elite armored cavalry behind him, without prompting, simultaneously leaped from their horsebacks and dropped to one knee on the earth!
The sound of iron armor striking chests reverberated like thunder in a clear sky. The gaze of every soldier looking toward Lin Feng burned with the fiery flames of fanatical worship and utmost reverence from the depths of their souls!
“All hail Archmage Lin!”
“All hail Archmage Lin!”
The thunderous cheers of hundreds of soldiers blended with the desert sandstorm, soaring turbulent into the midnight sky, shaking an entire corner of the Western Regions!
Standing atop the heights of the ruins, Lin Feng looked down at the armored army kneeling respectfully below. He smiled faintly, his gaze calm yet formidably majestic. This battle had come to a complete close, and his reputation after tonight would undoubtedly act like a nuclear bomb shaking the entire Capital, Magic City, and the Holy City of the world!
Yet...
The exact moment Lin Feng prepared to step down to greet Meng Zhan, his sword-like eyebrows twitched slightly.
The Primordial Dragon Pendant on his chest vibrated with an extremely minuscule rhythm.
Lin Feng abruptly whirled around, his eagle-sharp gaze shooting straight toward the distant horizon at the very end of the Black-Sand Gorge—where it bordered the boundless, uninhabited restricted zone of the Western Wilderness.
In that place, deep within a black sand tornado lingering in the midnight air, a bizarre and malevolent spatial fluctuation rippled a fragile circle before vanishing completely.
It seemed that, within the darkness of the desert, a pair of mysterious and ancient eyes had witnessed the entire spectacle of the Primordial Dragon Pendant awakening and swallowing the Monarch Soul Essence...
The battle at Zhenxi Pass had concluded, but it seemed an infinitely darker, more treacherous vortex of conspiracy... had only just begun!