Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 286
Dragon Flame Boils the Ocean, Incinerating A Million Sea Monsters
The offshore gale shrieked with a hair-raising savagery, sounding like the death-rattle screams of ten thousand evil spirits from the nine netherhells. The normally serene, sapphire-blue waters of the East China Sea had transformed into an ink-black abyssal chasm, churning wildly with ferocious, thirty-meter-high rogue waves that crashed violently against the reinforced defense seawall of Ninghai City.
“CRASH——! BOOM——!”
With every wave that battered down, tens of thousands of tons of saline seawater, mixed with stagnant death qi, slammed mercilessly into the magic alloy barricade. The thick slabs of granite emitted a terrifying, squeaking groan as sprawling spiderweb cracks began to fracture across their surfaces. The foul stench of deep-sea mire rushed straight into the lungs of every single soldier holding the frontline trenches.
Yet, what made the atmosphere suffocatingly heavy was not the unbridled fury of nature, but the malevolent black shadows cutting through the breaking waves at terrifying speeds.
“Observation deck report! Sector Five seawall shows dense monster energy fluctuations!”
“Blood-Red grade warning! The Night Shark Demon swarm has breached the offshore sea-mine perimeter five nautical miles out! Number... exceeding one hundred thousand!”
“And it doesn’t stop there! Look out at the horizon! The sea... the entire ocean surface has been torn apart!”
Frantic, panicked shouts echoed over the tactical military field radio. On the command tower of Sector Three, the Lieutenant Colonel in command gripped the steel railing so tightly that his knuckles turned completely pale.
Through the magic telescope, the offshore spectacle was enough to freeze the blood in the veins of any seasoned veteran.
Beneath the torrential rain, tens of thousands of razor-sharp triangular dorsal fins broke the pitch-black surface like the scythes of the grim reaper. These were the Night Shark Demons—the ultimate bloodthirsty assassins of the deep-sea trenches. Each Night Shark Demon stretched six to eight meters long, its entire body encased in midnight-black thorny scales as hard as tempered steel, while its gaping jaws bared three staggered rows of razor-sharp serrated teeth. Their eyes burned crimson like twin glowing coals, radiating an utterly ruthless killing intent.
They rode atop the violent waves, tearing madly toward the mainland. In the wake of the demonic sharks came countless colossal armored giant crabs, mutant sea-folk wrapped in slimy, shimmering scales, and bizarre deep-sea monstrosities never before seen in any bestiary of magical beasts.
Hundreds of thousands, swelling into millions of aquatic monsters, formed an unbroken black tidal wave that swallowed every inch of space, bearing the wild ambition of reducing the entire coastline of Shenzhou to dust!
“Open fire! All magic artillery batteries, open fire immediately!” the Lieutenant Colonel roared, his throat hoarse.
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”
Hundreds of magic cannons mounted along the seawall roared in unison. Massive blue-purple lightning spheres and giant frost orbs tore through the rainy night, drawing brilliant glowing arcs that plummeted straight into the sea.
The water erupted violently, columns of water shooting tens of meters into the air. Magic currents crackled across the salty surface, frying hundreds of Night Shark Demons swimming along the outer edges; their carcasses floated belly-up as black blood stained the churning waves crimson. Ice-element mages also poured their magic mana into freezing the surface, erecting jagged ice floes to block the path of the advancing horde.
Yet, such firepower against an army of a million aquatic monsters was no different than tossing a grain of salt into the deepest lake.
Within mere seconds, the newly congealed ice was smashed to smithereens by thousands of deep-sea behemoths. The magic currents, once dispersed into the vast ocean, rapidly weakened and fizzled out. The Night Shark Demons trampled over the corpses of their own kind, charging forward with a speed even more terrifying than before!
“Screeech——!”
A Commander-tier Night Shark Demon alpha burst out from a thirty-meter-high crest, its massive tail lashing out a thunderous blow against the defensive barrier of Sector Five.
“CRACK!”
The shimmering blue defensive light shield trembled violently before shattering into thousands of energy shards. Raging seawater surged through the breach, sweeping away two magic cannons and dozens of defending soldiers. Instantly, swarms of monsters lunged forward, their serrated jaws crushing metal armor as fresh blood gushed out to dye the roaring waves!
“Sector Five has fallen! We need reinforcements immediately!”
“The Earth-element regiment’s mana is depleted; we cannot reconstruct the wall!”
“There are simply too many of these monsters! This is their home turf—the ocean is an endless reservoir of vitality for them! How can anyone stop an angry ocean?!”
Panic and despair began to creep into the hearts of every soldier. No matter how iron-willed they were, facing the bottomless black ocean continuously spewing out tens of thousands of savage aquatic beasts made humans feel as insignificant as grains of sand before a natural disaster. Water overcomes fire, earth erodes, lightning disperses—the ocean was the impregnable fortress of the aquatic race!
Right at this moment of imminent peril, as a second towering wave carrying tens of thousands of Night Shark Demons crested the seawall, preparing to slaughter the residential districts of Ninghai behind them...
A solitary figure suddenly stepped off the roof of the central command tower.
There were no mechanical engines, no hovering flight gear to assist. The figure wore the pitch-black dress uniform of a Shenzhou Major General, his military cape snapping wildly in the howling gale. He walked upon empty air, each footfall stepping onto invisible stairs in the night sky as steady and immovable as Mount Tai guarding the frontier.
Lin Feng!
“Major General!” down in the trench, Ye Qingwan gasped, her hand tightening around the hilt of her sword at her waist, her gaze locked firmly onto his receding back.
“The Commander-in-Chief... is he planning to hold back the monster tsunami offshore all by himself?” One hundred thousand troops along the seawall raised their heads in unison, holding their breath as they gazed up into the gloomy vault of heaven.
Amidst the torrential rain and the silvery lightning tearing through space, Lin Feng hovered one hundred meters above the rolling sea. A level-fifteen gale shrieked around him, but strangely enough, not a single raindrop or drop of saline spray could touch the hem of his coat. Roughly half a meter from his body, an invisible force field radiated a smoldering heat, instantly vaporizing every falling raindrop into wisps of fragile white steam.
He looked down at the pitch-black ocean below.
Down there, tens of thousands of Night Shark Demons tilted their hideous heads upward, spotting the insignificant human daring to stand above them. The savage instincts of wild beasts flared violently. In their eyes, humanity was nothing more than soft, easy prey.
“ROAR——!!!”
The Commander-tier Night Shark Demon let out a monstrous howl that shook the waves. Following the command, thousands of demonic sharks beneath the water opened their gaping crimson maws simultaneously, converging water-element mana deep within their throats.
“SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!”
Tens of thousands of pitch-black water lances, thick with corrosive venom and immense hydraulic pressure, tore through the atmosphere, shooting straight up into the sky like a reverse rain of arrows. Their sole target was Lin Feng!
Facing a collective assault capable of blasting an armored cruiser to pieces, Lin Feng lazily lifted his eyelids, his gaze as calm as an autumn lake.
He spoke in an icy tone:
“Wretched vermin from the muddy depths, and you dare to brandish axes before this seat?”
Lin Feng’s right hand slowly rose, his five fingers splayed wide toward the vast ocean.
At that very moment, deep within his spiritual sea, the Fire Element Star Sea—having just broken through to the Advanced Third Realm—suddenly erupted like a blazing star! Forty-nine golden star-zi glowed brilliantly, linked together by ancient magical chains to form seven resplendent star patterns, which then wove together into a magnificent constellation shaped like an archaic primordial dragon!
That was not the mediocre orange-red flame of mortals.
That was the Primordial Dragon Flame!
The supreme flame refined from sacred dragon marrow, carrying the breath of the ancient True Dragons that once ruled all realms. Born from destruction, nurtured from chaos, it was the bane of all conventional five-element laws!
“DRAGON FLAME DOMAIN —— OPEN!”
A deep, sonorous shout echoed like an ancient bronze bell across heaven and earth, piercing through the howling tempest.
“BOOM————!!!”
A brilliant circle of golden light exploded violently from beneath Lin Feng’s feet!
It did not expand sluggishly; it burst forth at a terrifying velocity! Three hundred meters... six hundred meters... one thousand meters... and finally halted at a soul-shaking figure: ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED METERS!
The entire hemispherical space with a radius of 1,500 meters blanketing the East China Sea instantly underwent a complete transformation!
The pitch-black night sky suddenly flared with dazzling brilliance as if a golden sun had descended upon the mortal realm. The oppressive weight of dragon might crushed down like ten thousand mountains, causing the torrential rain pouring from the sky to vaporize mid-air, turning into a hazy white mist that shrouded the battlefield.
And the most absurd, insane spectacle—one never recorded in any magic grimoire—unfolded before the eyes of the one hundred thousand soldiers and citizens of Shenzhou:
FIRE WAS BURNING FIERCELY ON THE SURFACE OF THE OCEAN!
The pure golden Primordial Longyan was not extinguished by the seawater. On the contrary, it treated the vast ocean itself as fuel! Surging waves of seawater that touched the dragon flame instantly caught ablaze, the golden fire clinging tightly to the water’s surface and spreading at a speed the naked eye could barely track.
In the blink of an eye, the entire 1,500-meter expanse of sea beneath Lin Feng had transformed into a towering ocean of golden fire!
Terrifying heat exceeding thousands of degrees Celsius radiated outward in an instant. The air was roasted until it warped and distorted. The deep, dark ocean surface began to boil furiously like a colossal oil cauldron resting over an erupting volcano!
“GLUB... GLUB... BOOM!”
Millions of giant water bubbles the size of rooms rose from the ocean floor to the surface and burst, spewing scalding hot steam. The tens of thousands of vicious water lances from the Night Shark swarm were melted by the soul-scouring heat the moment they entered the domain, vaporizing into streaks of black smoke before vanishing without a trace!
“ROAR——! SCREECH——!”
The savage roars of the aquatic horde instantly turned into miserable, bone-chilling shrieks of agony!
The Night Shark Demons swimming within the 1,500-meter range of the Dragon Flame Domain were plunged straight into an earthly hell. They were deep-sea creatures, accustomed to bone-chillingly cold waters. Now, the seawater around them suddenly boiled to hundreds, thousands of degrees Celsius!
The proud, midnight-black thorny scales of the Night Shark Demons were baked glowing red like iron in a blacksmith’s forge, then fractured apart in sheets. The slimy flesh beneath was boiled to mush by the boiling water, rotting away into chunks of pale-white meat. Their bloodshot eyes exploded under extreme thermal pressure, and the boiling blood in their veins blew apart their internal organs!
Thousands of Night Shark Demons flailed desperately in despair, trying to dive deep into the ocean floor to escape the lethal temperature. But it was useless! Lin Feng’s Dragon Flame Domain penetrated hundreds of meters deep beneath the sea; the deep-layer seawater was boiling furiously as well, turning this place into a giant steaming cauldron incinerating all living things!
Yet this was merely the prelude to the death knell.
High in the sky, Lin Feng looked down at the boiling sea of fire below, his dark cape fluttering proudly. His aura had condensed to its absolute limit, the Fire Element Constellation glowing brilliantly behind him, its magic chains stretching into space to commune with the violent mana of heaven and earth.
He wanted this deep-sea monster horde to understand one simple truth: Who truly ruled this battlefield!
Lin Feng drew in a deep breath of scorching air, his majestic voice echoing across heaven and earth, drowning out the rumbling thunder:
“Advanced Fire Magic...”
He raised both hands high into the sky, his ten fingers curling slightly like the claws of an ancient primordial dragon tearing through the night:
“PRIMORDIAL DRAGON FLAME —— HEAVENLY FLAME FUNERAL!!!”
“RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE————!!!”
As the words fell, a primordial, magnificent dragon roar filled with destructive killing intent erupted from the nine heavens, shaking the entire coastal region!
The towering, ink-black storm clouds thousands of meters thick blanketing the East China Sea were suddenly torn apart by an invisible force, creating a colossal opening tens of miles wide. Beyond those gloomy dark clouds was not the quiet night sky, but a sea of crimson flames interspersed with sparkling golden light!
That was the Heavenly Flame miraculous phenomenon!
Yet, unlike ordinary Heavenly Flame Funeral magic which merely rained down scattered fire showers, Lin Feng’s magic—under the blessing of the Advanced Third Realm Peak Fire Element and the Dragon God bloodline—completely transcended the boundaries of conventional Advanced magic!
From within the blazing sea of clouds in the stratosphere, thousands of colossal dragon-flame meteors began to take form. Each meteor exceeded ten meters in diameter, its surface enveloped in blazing golden dragon fire, shaped like the jaws of dragons baring their fangs in a roar.
“WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH——!”
The mortal-destroying meteor shower was officially unleashed!
Thousands of dragon-flame meteors tore through the atmosphere, plunging toward the sea at terrifying speeds. Friction with the air created ear-piercing shrieks that tore eardrums, trailing fiery tails thousands of feet long that illuminated a corner of the night sky in brilliant crimson!
The dark East China Sea suddenly lit up as bright as day!
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM————!!!”
The spectacle of destruction descended!
Each dragon-flame meteor smashed squarely into the boiling sea. Every single impact triggered a heaven-shaking explosion, tearing the water surface into bottomless craters hundreds of meters wide, exposing bedrock and silt on the seabed for a fraction of a second!
Golden columns of fire up to a hundred meters tall stood erect amid the ocean, rolling outward in all directions. The terrifying destructive power of thousands of meteors combined with thousand-degree dragon flame turned the offshore battlefield into a living life-crushing machine!
“CRACK! BANG!”
A thirty-meter-long Commander-tier Night Shark Demon frantically struggling underwater was struck squarely in the back by a dragon-flame dragon head. The sturdy bone armor capable of resisting magic artillery fire shattered into a hundred pieces instantly. The golden flame immediately invaded its body, incinerating it from the organs out to the flesh. In less than three seconds, the commander behemoth roared in throes of agony before turning completely into a heap of charred black coal floating atop the water!
The remaining Servant-tier and Warrior-tier Night Shark Demons had even less of a chance to struggle.
Beneath the dense barrage of the Heavenly Flame Funeral, tens of thousands of aquatic monsters were crushed, melted, and torn to shreds! Their flesh, the moment it was roasted, was burned to ash by the dragon flame and dissolved into the churning boiling water. The blood of tens of thousands of deep-sea creatures spilled out, vaporized by the heat before it could even spread, turning into crimson wisps of smoke lingering in mid-air before vanishing!
“HISSS HISSS HISSS——!”
The sound of seawater vaporizing shrieked in deafening succession.
Millions of cubic meters of seawater were incinerated in an instant, creating colossal murky-white steam columns thousands of meters tall that shot straight up into the nine heavens like towering explosion pillars! Steam billowed turbulently, banishing the humid storm clouds dozens of miles away.
The 1,500-meter expanse of sea had completely transformed into a blazing dead zone!
Not a single shark fin broke the water’s surface anymore.
Not a single aggressive roar of an aquatic beast remained.
That entire vanguard army of over one hundred thousand Night Shark Demons and countless savage deep-sea monstrosities—which had made the entire East China Sea defense line tremble in despair—had now... completely evaporated from this world!
The sea surface swept by the domain was scorched so deeply it sank dozens of meters lower than the surrounding sea level, forming a colossal depressed basin bubbling furiously, covered by a layer of greyish-white ash drifting atop unextinguished golden fire waves.
Silence.
An eerie, bone-chilling silence blanketed the hundreds of kilometers of coastal seawalls.
Only the howling wind slicing through rock crevices and the crackle of boiling seawater offshore remained.
Along the trenches, one hundred thousand Shenzhou soldiers stood frozen in place. The soldiers who, just minutes before, had despondently gripped their weapons preparing for a desperate last stand, now stood with gaping mouths and wide eyes staring out to sea, trembling uncontrollably and unable to utter a word.
Advanced mages, seasoned military officers, and even Ye Qingwan—who always maintained an icy expression—stood completely paralyzed. Her pupils constricted, her chest heaving violently from shock.
Burning the ocean?
Using fire magic... to boil a 1,500-meter expanse of sea, incinerating over one hundred thousand aquatic monsters in the blink of an eye?!
Is this a power an Advanced mage can wield?!
Even if a Super-tier fire mage were to strike, they could hardly pull off such a law-defying miracle of nature, subduing water with fire to such a tyrannical, explosive degree!
“The God of War... He truly is the God of War!” An elderly soldier trembling dropped his magic rifle, his knees buckling onto the muddy seawall as tears streamed down his face, gazing at the figure hovering high above.
“Long live! Major General Lin, long live!”
“SHENZHOU WILL TRIUMPH! COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, LONG LIVE——!”
From Sector One to Sector Twelve, roars shattered the deathly silence. Tens of thousands of arms raised high into the sky, cheering like rolling thunder that swept away the fear and gloom that had weighed heavy over the East China Sea defense line for days. The morale of the entire army exploded to an unprecedented peak!
Amidst the vault of heaven lit by fading embers, Lin Feng slowly lowered his arm.
His pitch-black military cape fluttered gently in the warm steam rising from the sea. The Primordial Dragon Flame on his fingertips curled like an obedient baby dragon before quietly withdrawing into his palm, vanishing without a trace.
His facial features were sharp and cold, carved like a statue of granite, devoid of even a shred of complacency after creating an unprecedented miracle.
Because he knew very well... this was merely the prelude.
“RUMBLE... RUMBLE... RUMBLE...”
Suddenly, from deep beneath the ocean floor, more than twenty nautical miles offshore, an overwhelmingly evil and terrifying black mana fluctuation ten times denser than the previous attack began to transmit upward!
The seabed shook violently, agitating the floating ash atop the boiling water into a wild frenzy. The depressed basin created by the Heavenly Flame Funeral was suddenly pushed dozens of meters upward by a pitch-black ocean current surging from below.
“OOO... WOO... O... NEEEEGH————!!!”
A muffled bellow, carrying the utter wrath of an ancient millennium ruler of the deep sea, tore through the black water and shot straight into the sky!
That sound carried immensely powerful magic sound waves, causing the sea surface within a hundred miles to fracture into deep abyssal trenches. From the pitch-black trenches offshore, two crimson glowing eyes as large as skyscrapers slowly rose above the water.
That was the mutated Eight-Desolation Giant Whale!
And this time, it was no longer alone. Surrounding its massive, three-hundred-meter-plus body, the ink-black sea began to swirl into a colossal, towering water tornado connecting the ocean floor straight to the stormy clouds. Within that swirling tornado, the pressure of a true Ruler-tier being was slowly awakening, crushing the entire coastal space of Shenzhou into an even more terrifying nightmare!
On the hovering command platform, Lin Feng narrowed his eyes at the pitch-black tornado offshore, the corners of his lips curling into an icy, murderous smirk:
“So you’ve finally decided to crawl out, big fish?”