Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 266
Tier 2 Calamity Thunderbolt – Wrath of the Thunder God
Stones, dust, and thick gray smoke reeking of a foul stench still drifted through the suffocating expanse at the deep bottom of the Slaughter Abyss.
The octagonal black-stone sacrificial altar was cracked with long, jagged fissures. Winding blood-channels leaked pitch-black fluid that bubbled with crisp, popping sounds. Following the precise spatial slash, combining telekinesis and shadow threads executed by Lin Feng in the previous exchange, the Myriad Soul Bone Spear—the most vicious defensive and counterattacking ultimate technique that White-Robe Pontiff Ming Sha had painstakingly nurtured for decades—had been broken into absolute smithereens.
The intense backlash of power, resembling an inverted tsunami, slammed directly into Ming Sha’s chest.
“Pfft!”
A mouthful of pitch-black blood mixed with internal organs sprayed wildly onto the granite floor. The exquisite white jade mask covering half of his face cracked in half and fell to the ground with a crisp snap, shattering into lifeless fragments.
Revealed beneath the mask was not the sanctified visage of a high pontiff, but a visage distorted to the extreme: skin as gray as a corpse long decayed beneath a tomb, deeply sunken cheekbones exposing jagged teeth, and a crescent-shaped scar extending from the corner of his left eye all the way down to his earlobe—which was now twitching convulsively from supreme fury and rage.
Defeat.
A branch leader of the Underworld Church within the millennium-old Ancient Capital, an Advanced Peak powerhouse who had touched half a step into the revered Super Level, had actually been cornered to the point of vomiting blood by a wet-behind-the-ears youth, struggling like a cornered stray dog!
Every single blue-robed subordinate and gray-robed altar master whom he had meticulously trained had died entirely at the base of the platform, their blood staining every single stone step crimson. The blood sacrifice plan to awaken the millennial Dark Bone Emperor had been disrupted right on the threshold of success. Humiliation, bitterness, and resentment—like the venom of ten thousand crazed centipedes—madly gnawed at Ming Sha’s heart and mind, scorching away the shred of rationality remaining in his head.
“Damn you... You little maggot of Shenzhou...”
Ming Sha tilted his head back toward the arched stone ceiling, uttering choked, rumbling snarls from the depths of his throat. His hoarse voice sounded like rusty metal scraping against metal. Trembling, he raised his gaunt, bony hand, watching the droplets of black blood dripping incessantly onto the stone floor.
“You think... you think you’ve won against this seat? You think that by shattering my bone spear, you can safely walk out of this bottom of the Slaughter Abyss?!”
His eyes were bloodshot, crimson veins flooding his pupils, and his madness reached its peak. Without the slightest hesitation, Ming Sha opened his mouth and bit down fiercely, tearing open the joint of his left index and middle fingers!
“Swish!”
Foul, stinking black blood gushed out turbulently. Gritting his teeth, Ming Sha smeared that unholy stream of blood directly onto the body of the White Bone Grievous Spirit magic staff. At the top of the staff, the infant-fist-sized miniature skull, which had previously been dim, suddenly snapped open its empty eye sockets. Inside them burst forth two demonic, eerie greenish ghost fires. The weeping and grieving wails of thousands of wronged souls imprisoned within the staff shaft immediately echoed across all directions, so piercingly shrill that one’s eardrums felt ready to split.
“With blood as the medium, and bone marrow to sacrifice to the demon gods!”
Ming Sha muttered incantations of forbidden spells in an ancient, evil language. He drove the shaft of the magic staff straight into the center of his own chest!
“CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!”
A series of hair-raising, crisp sounds echoed unceasingly from deep within his body.
It was not the sound of ordinary bones breaking, but the brutal mutation of the Bone Demon Incarnation dark art. Ming Sha’s entire skeletal frame seemed imbued with a boundless, filthy magical source, beginning to twist, stretch, and deform at a speed visible to the naked eye. His spine hunched and swelled into a purplish tumor of flesh, every single vertebra pushing through the thin layer of skin and protruding outwards, sharp as the serrated teeth of a wild beast.
“Ah, aah, aah, aaah—!”
Ming Sha tilted his head back in a heart-wrenching, soul-rending scream. From both of his shoulder blades and his chest, dozens of razor-sharp, grayish bone spikes over half a meter long pierced through his flesh and burst outward, black blood mixing with pus flowing down his calves. His physique swelled to twice its size, muscles bulging with intricate networks of dark-blue veins like ancient tree roots, and his fingernails lengthened by three inches, pitch-black and razor-sharp as if capable of easily tearing apart defensive magic tools.
Demonic qi surged to the heavens!
A layer of thick dark-qi, reeking of death and poison, enveloped his body, transforming into a thick, jagged White Bone demonic armor studded with sharp spikes, protecting his entire body from head to toe. The half-step Super Level pressure, after being forcibly triggered into a berserk physical state, surpassed normal limits, pressing the surrounding air into a warped distortion.
Dark howling gales roared furiously, sweeping heavy boulders weighing hundreds of catties and hurling them violently against the cave walls. The stone vault at the bottom of the Slaughter Abyss trembled violently, gravel pattering down as if this entire underground grand hall were about to collapse completely.
“Hahaha! Can you feel it, brat?!”
Ming Sha took heavy steps forward. With every step he planted, the solid granite floor sank deeply into a cracked, circular pit: “This is the secret technique bestowed upon me by the Bone Emperor! Under this White Bone demonic armor, my physical body can rival a peak Commander-tier demonic beast! Even ordinary Advanced magic striking me is no more than an itch! Today, I will snap every bone in your body, strip your flesh piece by piece to sacrifice to the Underworld Church’s grand cause!”
His shrill, deranged laughter echoed through the deep abyss, like an evil ghost crawling out of the eighteenth level of hell, intent on flattening every living soul blocking its path.
Far away behind the massive boulder, Lu Zhen and Ye Qingwan had just stabilized the group of hostages. Seeing this terrifying scene, their complexions turned pale.
“This aura... too dangerous!” Lu Zhen gripped the hilt of his magic sword, his knuckles turning white, his voice carrying the utmost gravity: “He has forcibly transformed himself into a semi-demon physical state, and his physical endurance and explosive force have reached a monstrous threshold. If Lin Feng confronts him head-on alone, it will be extremely dangerous! Qingwan, stay behind and protect everyone; I’ll go assist him!”
“Wait, Lieutenant Colonel Lu!” Ye Qingwan grabbed Lu Zhen’s sleeve tightly. Her clear eyes gazed toward the towering figure atop the stone steps, shaking her head ever so slightly: “Look at Lin Feng...”
Lu Zhen froze, casting his gaze forward.
Amidst the howling, frenzied dark tempest, amidst the stench of black blood and spreading toxins, Lin Feng still stood motionless right there.
The hem of his black military uniform embroidered with twin dragons and gold trim fluttered violently in the storm. His pitch-and-glossy hair danced loosely across his forehead, revealing a delicate yet angular face, as steadfast as a towering mountain amidst a stormy sky. There was not a trace of hesitation, not a shred of fear, and even within the depths of his profound eyes lingered a bone-chilling coldness, as though he were watching a wild beast struggling desperately in an iron trap.
Lin Feng slowly raised his right hand.
His slender fingers flicked gently, and a tiny, golden spark grazed through space, incinerating a stream of toxic hidden weapons attempting to approach his body. He looked up at the hideous bone-spiked monster before him, his voice rising as calm as an unrippled lake surface, yet carrying a thousand-catty weight piercing through the darkness:
“Devouring blood and flesh, turning yourself into a filthy monstrosity... Do you think this borrowed power from corpses can save your pathetic life?”
Ming Sha paused, his blood-red eyes contracting violently: “What did you say?!”
“I said...” The corners of Lin Feng’s mouth curled upward into an icy arc, his killing intent condensing into substance that weighed heavily upon the void: “You’ve played enough. Pay for your crimes!”
As the words fell, an earth-shattering roar suddenly erupted from deep within Lin Feng’s body!
“BOOM!!!”
It was no longer the profound tranquility of the Shadow Element, nor the impulsive ferocity of Dragon Flame. This time, what awakened from within his soul was the most primordial and tyrannical destructive power of heaven and earth—Lightning!
Within Lin Feng’s vast, boundless spiritual sea, a deep purple thunder ocean rolled with monstrous waves tens of thousands of feet high. The Advanced Tier 2 Lightning Star Sea!
The three hundred and forty-three purple lightning star-zi at this moment resembled three hundred and forty-three of the brightest stars in the night sky. Under the control of his profound and complete fifth-realm spiritual willpower, they did not need to line up sluggishly, but moved at the terrifying speed of light!
“Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish—!”
The speed at which the Star Orbits were drawn was so fast that the spiritual sea space trembled violently. Forty-nine brilliant Lightning Star Orbits intertwined in less than the blink of an eye, and then seven Star Palaces bearing the majestic Thunder God insignia overlapped with absolute precision, without the slightest deviation, without a trace of friction!
The seven Star Palaces converged, rising to the peak of the spiritual sea vault, erecting a magic architecture so grand, magnificent, and ancient that it was suffocating—the Advanced Tier 2 Lightning Star Palace!
Even more terrifyingly, right at the focal point of the Lightning Star Palace, a primordial purplish-black lightning seed—the Soul Seed “Calamity Thunderbolt”—shone blindingly bright!
That was the fated gift Lin Feng had tempered, carrying a destructive might five times the standard thunder and lightning of heaven and earth, along with the most terrifying forbidden effect: Calamity! Any material structure, magic structure, or lifeform that touched this torrent of lightning would be pulverized to the molecular level by the ultimate disintegration force, forever incapable of resurrection!
The electrical charge throughout the underground grand hall suddenly surged to a crazed degree.
The hair of Lu Zhen and Ye Qingwan, hundreds of meters away, stood on end automatically. The air dried up, filled with a pungent ozone scent that stung the nostrils. Wisps of thin, purplish-black lightning bolts slashed horizontally and vertically across the ground and the black-stone stone pillars, emitting rapid “crackling... boom, boom” sounds like battle drums urged from the realm of death.
Ming Sha—the one who had just revelled in his mutated physique—suddenly felt his entire body stiffen. A chill piercing straight to the spinal marrow surged from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head. Beneath his thick White Bone demonic armor, his flesh trembled involuntarily with the instinct of a lowly insect standing before an apex predator!
“This magic... This aura... Impossible! You’re only Advanced, why can your magic energy be pure and terrifying to this extent?!” Ming Sha shrieked in dismay, his voice cracking from panic.
Lin Feng did not answer.
He stepped forward, his body hovering half a meter above the ground, his arms spread wide like a god governing lightning descended to the mortal realm. His pupils completely transformed into deep purplish-black lightning vortices, reflecting the collapse of all things.
Lin Feng’s right hand clenched tightly into the void, pointing straight up toward the towering stone ceiling!
“Advanced Tier 2 Lightning Magic — CALAMITY THUNDERBOLT: WRATH OF THE THUNDER GOD!”
“CRASH-BOOM —————!!!”
An eardrum-splitting explosion rang out, and the entire expanse of the Slaughter Abyss shook violently like a magnitude twelve earthquake!
Deep underground, where skies and clouds should not exist, right at this moment, a dense purplish-black thunder cloud vortex hundreds of meters thick condensed from the void, pressing down directly atop the grand hall! The churning thunder clouds roamed, harboring thousands of deep-purple thunder dragons roaring and tearing through the millennium-old darkness of the ancient mausoleum.
The pressure descending from the cave ceiling caused the ground below to fracture into hundreds of deep trenches, boulders shattering into fine sand even before the lightning actually struck!
“No! Impossible! I am the White Pontiff, I possess indestructible armor, I cannot die here!”
Ming Sha completely went mad on the verge of annihilation. Ultimate fear choked his heart and lungs, driving him to channel the remaining magic energy in his body, raising his bone-spiked arms toward the heavens. All the spikes on his chest unleashed dense black qi, intertwining to form a gigantic White Bone shield three inches thick, tightly enveloping his body:
“Bone Demon Bodyguard — WHITE BONE INDESTRUCTIBLE FORMATION!”
Yet, all resistance from a mere maggot against the wrath of the heavens was nothing more than a meaningless joke!
From the very center of the purplish-black thunder cloud vortex, space suddenly fractured into a pitch-black rift. A pure destructive lightning current condensed into a gigantic Divine Punishment Lightning Halberd over thirty meters long, its entire body blazing with flames of pure purplish-black thunder, carrying five times the might of ordinary magic, tearing the wind as it struck straight down at Ming Sha’s head!
The lightning halberd descended at a speed transcending all visual perception.
The space it passed through was melted into glowing plasma trails, temperatures reaching hundreds of thousands of degrees Celsius burning away all oxygen in an instant!
“RUMBLE —————— BANG!!!”
It was a sound no words could fully capture. It sounded like a gigantic meteorite crashing into the earth, and yet like the angry roar of the Thunder God wishing to sweep away all filth of this world!
Blinding purplish-black light erupted, swallowing the entire octagonal altar, blinding all vision within a radius of a thousand meters!
The moment the lightning halberd struck Ming Sha’s protective White Bone shield, there was no stalemate or struggle whatsoever!
“CRACK! SHATTER!”
The three-inch-thick White Bone shield—which Ming Sha boasted could withstand the full-force blow of a Commander-tier demonic beast—instantly fractured like a crisp piece of rice cracker! The Calamity force frantically permeated every fiber of bone, destroying magic linkages and causing the entire shield to shatter into tens of thousands of tiny fragments, evaporating into pure white ashes right in mid-air!
The Underworld bone staff—the natal magic tool he treasured as his life—was swept by the lightning halberd, snapping into two pieces, the skull atop it exploding into fine powder!
“AAAH, AAAH, AAAH —————!”
Ming Sha’s scream echoed with terrifying misery, but it only lasted half a second before being completely crushed by the roaring thunder!
The purplish-black lightning halberd stabbed straight into his right shoulder, nailing his massive body fiercely onto the granite floor! The Calamity thunder sea instantly erupted, transforming the entire peak of the altar into a churning pool of lightning lava. Thousands of lightning bolts hissed like razor blades, frantically tearing, crushing, and decomposing every inch of flesh and every single bone spike on the White Pontiff’s body!
His thick layer of skin melted, flesh and bones pulverized, and the pitch-black blood that had just gushed out was instantly incinerated into billowing white smoke by the terrifying temperature of the lightning!
“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!”
The millennially solid black-stone octagonal altar could not withstand such terrifying destructive force, collapsing halfway, blocks of stone weighing tons cracking and scattering wildly before plunging down into the abyss below.
A single strike of Wrath of the Thunder God, truly leveling everything!
After more than ten lengthy, agonizing breaths that felt like an entire century, the blinding purplish-black light gradually subsided. The thunder clouds atop the stone vault vanished into the void, returning an eerie silence to the underground grand hall.
Only the crackling sound of tiny purplish-black static electric sparks lingering on the cracked ground remained, accompanied by agonizing, intermittent gasps.
The billowing dust and smoke gradually settled.
Behind the large boulder, Lu Zhen and Ye Qingwan blankly walked out. Both of them, alongside the thirty newly rescued hostages, widened their eyes as they stared toward the center of the altar, their hearts pounding in their left chests as though they wanted to leap out of their throats.
The scene before their eyes was truly soul-shaking!
The towering half of the octagonal altar from moments earlier had now turned into a ruined pile of debris, the stone floor gouged deep into a gigantic crater over twenty meters wide, where the edges still bubbled red-hot like volcanic lava.
At the bottom of the crater, a tattered figure knelt prostrate in a pool of viscous black blood.
Ming Sha!
The imposing, notoriously brutal White Pontiff of the Underworld Church was now no different from a rag doll thrown into an incinerator!
His pristine white robe had turned to ashes. His entire right half of the body—from shoulder, arm, to part of his chest—had been completely melted and pulverized by the lightning halberd, revealing shattered rib bones charred jet-black like charcoal. Dozens of proud bone spikes were snapped down to their roots, scorched flesh emitting a pungent, choking burnt odor. The remaining half of his face was completely deformed, one eye blown out leaving only a bleeding black socket, and the broken magic staff lay discarded beside the pool of blood.
He breathed in shallow, dying gasps, as frail as an oil lamp about to run out of fuel before a storm. Not a shred of magic energy remained in his body; the Star Sea in his spiritual sea had been fractured by the Calamity thunder might, thoroughly crippling the half-Super Level magic cultivation he had toiled a lifetime to achieve!
Defeated!
Dignified as the First White Pontiff of the Capital branch, yet he was ruthlessly and thoroughly crushed to this extent by a youth under twenty years old!
“Clop... Clop... Clop...”
Firm, rhythmic footsteps tapping against the Bluestone floor echoed through the ruined space.
Lin Feng slowly descended from mid-air to the ground. His black cloak fluttered gently in the passing breeze, his entire body unsoiled by a speck of mortal dust, carrying a poised, leisurely demeanor as if he had just strolled through a wild garden.
He walked leisurely toward the ruins of the altar. Every step he took upon the shattered gravel was like a funeral bell tolling directly into Ming Sha’s tattered soul.
Stopping before the edge of the deep crater, Lin Feng looked down at the defeated foe beneath his feet, his gaze cold and devoid of a trace of pity. For such conscience-deprived cultists who used the lives of their fellow Shenzhou compatriots as sacrifices, death was the gentlest mercy bestowed upon them.
“Cough... Hack...”
Ming Sha tremblingly raised his charred head. With his sole remaining eye brimming with bloodshot veins and extreme hatred, he glared fixedly at Lin Feng. His charred lips twitched as he spat out a mouthful of black blood mixed with ash, and then suddenly wore a grotesque, horrifyingly deranged smile:
“Ha... Haha... Lin Feng... Do you think... you’ve won?”
His voice was intermittent, whistling like wind through a narrow window slit: “You think destroying the altar and crippling this seat... means you can save the Ancient Capital? Too late... Everything is already too late!”
Lin Feng slightly frowned: “What did you say?”
“Look... look behind you!” Ming Sha cackled madly, blood gushing profusely from the corners of his eyes and mouth: “Your Wrath of the Thunder God is indeed heaven-defying... but its power is too immense! That blow just now didn’t merely crush me... it cracked the ancient seal of the Ancient Emperor sealed for a millennium!”
“BOOM... CRASH...”
Just as Ming Sha’s words fell, the entire deep bottom of the Underworld Palace suddenly plunged into an unprecedented, violent tremor!
It was not the aftershock of Lightning magic.
Instead, it was an ancient death-qi oscillation—cold, dark, and a hundred or a thousand times more evil than Ming Sha’s aura—surging turbulently from deep beneath the abyss!
At the exact center of the ruined altar, where the gray stone coffin of the Dark Bone Emperor lay, a deep fissure ran straight from the edge of the lightning crater all the way to the base of the coffin. The stone coffin lid, weighing tens of tons, shifted a few inches to the side, revealing a pitch-black, fathomless gap.
From within that gap, wisps of dense, ink-like black death qi began leaking outward, transforming into screaming, wailing skull specters the moment they touched the air.
At the same time...
“Thump... Thump... Thump...”
A series of heavy, muffled heartbeat sounds echoed from within the stone coffin, resembling the heartbeat of a demonic heart that had slumbered for thousands of years suddenly beginning to function once more! With every heartbeat that echoed, the surrounding space contracted, causing the chests of everyone present to tighten, struggling for breath to the point of wanting to vomit blood.
Ming Sha tilted his face toward the heavens, his triumphant, crazed laughter echoing: “Did you hear that?! The Bone Emperor’s heart has started beating again! When He awakens completely, all million living souls of the Ancient Capital... every single one of you... will be buried along with this seat! Hahaha —!”
Lin Feng’s gaze darkened. Looking at the crack on the stone coffin and the surging ancient death qi, he instantly understood just how critical the situation had become.
Yet, looking at the disgustingly manic grin of the scumbag beneath his feet, the flame of killing intent in Lin Feng’s eyes did not diminish in the slightest, surging even higher instead.
He raised his right hand, and upon his five fingertips, the pure golden flame of the Primordial Dragon Flame burned fiercely, radiating utmost-yang, utmost-rigorous heat that incinerated the death qi lingering around.
Lin Feng’s gaze was as sharp as a blade, piercing straight through Ming Sha’s remaining eye, his voice as cold as an irreversible death sentence:
“Whether the Bone Emperor awakens or not, I do not know.”
“But one thing is certain...”
“Before that monster opens its eyes, you—you conscience-deprived beast—will be the first to descend to the netherworld to pay for your crimes!”