Volume 4: Super-Tier Awakening & The Ancient Capital Calamity
Chapter 365
The Nether Wolf Tears Out the Demon Core
The atmosphere inside the Nether Altar was baked to the point of warping. Ripples of distorted space rolled like boiling water above the thick, viscous pool of blood beneath their feet. At the center of the battle stage, the Blood Puppet Monarch—a supreme apex Upper Monarch behemoth—stared in blank, absolute disbelief at the hollow cavity in its chest, where a bloody demon core was expanding frantically in volume. The blinding crimson light erupting from the core cast an eerie, blood-soaked sheen across the complex magic runes etched over its massive frame, creating a surreal and terrifying spectacle.
Every single muscle fiber on the Blood Puppet Monarch’s body, hardened like cold steel, began to crack apart, spitting streams of scorching, lava-like dark blood from ruptured veins. It was the undeniable prelude to a catastrophic self-detonation. Once this heart-demon core detonated, a ten-mile radius around the Nether Altar would be blasted into fine powder, and even the deeper spatial layers would collapse into eternal void.
“Groowl... Let everything... bury together!”
A muffled, rumbling roar echoed from deep within the monarch’s cracked, cavernous chest, carrying an unmitigated, bone-deep hatred toward the human who had driven it to this desperate end. Its blood-red eyes locked onto the figure hovering above with a final, deranged sneer. It refused to believe that at such close range—barely three yards apart—Lin Feng could possibly evade or intercept a supreme monarch-tier self-destruct triggered at point-blank range!
Yet Lin Feng’s reaction completely shattered the monster’s expectations.
His expression remained utterly devoid of fear. Instead, the corners of his mouth curved upward into a cold smile that saw straight through the threshold of life and death. His deep violet pupils flashed with a sharp, sword-like brilliance. Amidst this razor-thin crisis, Lin Feng did not retreat so much as half a step. Instead, his hands crossed abruptly, fingers dancing in a blur as they rapidly traced intricate, arcane spatial runes in mid-air.
“Want to self-destruct in front of me? You aren’t qualified!”
Lin Feng’s voice rang out like a bronze bell striking directly against the soul, carrying the absolute majesty of a supreme Archmage. The very next instant, a piercing, wind-tearing screech echoed from the deepest depths of the void. The space directly behind Lin Feng suddenly ripped open into a pitch-black fissure, revealing a colossal summoning gate covered in ancient dragon scales and glowing nether chains!
“Black Wolf! Take the demon core!”
No sooner had Lin Feng’s commanding shout faded than an overwhelming pressure—one that made all creation tremble—burst forth from the dark, boundless depths of the summoning gate!
BOOM——!
A pair of pitch-black dragon wings spanning nearly forty meters beat fiercely, unleashing a spatial tempest that swept away the surrounding sea of blood. The Gluttonous Nether Wolf surged out from the profound darkness like a streak of black lightning, tearing through the sky. Its entire body was shrouded in a thick layer of violet-black thunder, with dragon-shaped arcs of lightning crackling across its sleek, satin-like black fur, emitting a humming sound that made the scalp tingle.
At that moment, the Nether Wolf’s speed had reached a terrifying realm, surpassing the conventional limits of physics. It did not merely fly; it clawed directly through space, materializing right in front of the Blood Puppet Monarch’s chest in a ten-thousandth of a blink!
“Roar——!”
The Nether Wolf threw back its head and unleashed a heaven-shaking howl. Imbued with primordial Gluttonous bloodline might, the roar transformed instantly into an unrivaled sonic wave that slammed squarely into the Blood Puppet Monarch, halting the sixty-meter behemoth’s momentum for a fleeting, disoriented half-beat.
That single, fatal half-beat completely sealed the fate of the battle!
The Nether Wolf’s massive jaws snapped wide open to their absolute limit, its razor-sharp teeth gleaming like swords wrapped in a dense shroud of destructive violet-black thunder. Without a shred of hesitation, without the slightest pause, it lunged forward and clamped its jaws deep into the chest of the Blood Puppet Monarch—right where the bloated demon core was swelling to detonate!
CRACK... RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
The collision between the Gluttonous fangs and the protective barrier of the demon core sounded like a thunderclap in a cloudless sky. The bloody demon core, which had been radiating terrifying destructive energy, was abruptly choked back under the devouring might of the Nether Wolf’s innate divine ability! Violet-black electrical pulses erupted from the wolf’s fangs, piercing straight through layers of magical seals to grind the unstable self-destruction structure of the core into nothingness in a split second.
“What... what is this?!”
The Blood Puppet Monarch’s blood-red eyes dilated in utter horror. It watched helplessly as the self-destruction energy it had accumulated over a millennium was frantically sucked dry by an invisible suction force inside the beast’s maw, swallowed down into its belly like water returning to its source!
The Nether Wolf threw its head back, its sturdy, muscular neck flexing with raw power. With a mighty gulp, the entire millennium-old demon core—brimming with the terrifying essence of an Upper Monarch—slid straight down into its stomach!
Instantly, an explosive surge of aura erupted from the Nether Wolf, rapidly escalating its power! An unprecedented, terrifying pressure radiated from its body, causing the surrounding ground to fracture into deep gullies hundreds of meters wide. Its glowing crimson eyes flashed with ferocious lightning, and the fur across its entire frame stood on end. Every breath it took caused the surrounding space to ripple in distinct concentric circles. The Gluttonous bloodline within its body had received an astronomical influx of nourishment, pushing its strength right to the threshold of a brand-new realm!
Yet this was not the end. A battle of this magnitude demanded an execution that was absolute and decisive.
Simultaneously as the Nether Wolf seized the core and paralyzed the Blood Puppet Monarch, Lin Feng plunged downward from the vault of the Nether Altar like a golden meteorite.
He stood upright in mid-air, both hands raised high above his head. Surrounding his body, a colossal Spatial Starcache materialized brilliantly, twinkling with tens of thousands of dazzling stars and blanketing a vast expanse of the sky. Complex stellar trajectories intertwined, funneling the purest spatial energy directly into his palms.
In the span of a single heartbeat, the Spatial Starcache condensed, transforming into a colossal spatial blade exactly thirty meters in length! This blade possessed no conventional physical substance; instead, it was forged from tens of thousands of microscopic spatial blades spinning at such high speeds that the naked eye could not perceive them, emitting a razor-sharp hum that shredded the surrounding light into a million silver fragments.
Lin Feng lowered his gaze toward the monster standing dazed and vacant after losing its core. His eyes were as cold as millennial ice, and every word he uttered echoed across all directions:
“Space Blade: VOID DECAPITATION BLADE!!”
WHAM!
Following Lin Feng’s downward slash, the entire space ahead folded in half like a thin sheet of paper being torn apart. The thirty-meter spatial blade carried a heaven-cleaving, world-destroying might as it hacked straight down from the crown of the head toward the neck of the Blood Puppet Monarch!
SWISH ——!
A bone-chilling, razor-sharp sound rang out, meeting zero resistance. The blade swept through with the smoothness of a knife slicing through tofu, cutting straight across the heavily armored neck of the Upper Monarch beast.
Time seemed to freeze in that exact moment.
The Blood Puppet Monarch remained standing tall, its arms locked in their rigid posture. Yet, looking closely at its neck, a silver line of light as thin as a hair had materialized from one side to the other. Immediately afterward, its colossal, blood-armored skull—weighing tens of tons—slid slightly to the side before separating entirely from its torso!
BOOM!
The giant skull plummeted freely onto the black jade floor of the Nether Altar, rolling dozens of meters away and leaving a thick streak of dark blood across the stone. Its blood-red eyes remained wide open, brimming with unresigned despair before the light within them vanished forever.
Simultaneously, the headless, sixty-meter body of the Blood Puppet Monarch began to violently shudder. Thousands of thick, dense plumes of black smoke erupted from the severed neck like a geyser, reeking of a millennia-old corpse stench. Within a few short breaths, the massive frame collapsed flat against the ground like a ruined tower, dissolving into piles of gray ash that sank deep into the dark earth.
An Upper Monarch overlord had truly been slain on the spot! There were no miraculous saves, no last-minute desperate counterattacks; only the absolute power of Lin Feng and the Nether Wolf served as the coldest answer to any enemy daring to challenge them.
Everything around them fell into an eerie silence. The howling wind, the roaring thunder, even the beating of their own heartbeats seemed to halt.
Yet, immediately following that stillness, a mind-shaking transformation erupted at the center of the Blood Puppet Monarch’s pile of ash.
From deep within the dense ashes, a pure Upper Monarch Soul Remnant slowly floated up into the air. This soul remnant was as large as a basin, radiating a brilliant blood-jade hue that cast an enchanting, illusory glow much like a full moon suspended in a dark night. It emitted ripples of spiritual energy so pure that any mage standing nearby would feel their soul cleansed and their mind instantly enlightened.
This was the priceless prize that every apex powerhouse across the mainland craved to the point of madness—the Soul Remnant of an Upper Monarch! Sixty percent of a high-tier monster’s value was condensed entirely within that exquisite blood-jade orb.
Lin Feng lowered himself slightly, reaching out to grasp the Soul Remnant floating ten meters off the ground.
Yet, just as his fingertips grazed the empty air mere inches from the soul remnant, a strange anomaly erupted from the chest of his robe.
CLANG ——!
A deep, ancient bell-like chime imbued with primordial majesty rang out from Lin Feng’s chest. The Primordial Dragon Pendant—an artifact he had worn for ages that had never shown any drastic activity beyond aiding in energy absorption—suddenly vibrated with astonishingly violent amplitude!
The ancient dragon patterns carved across the surface of the jade pendant abruptly burst into a blinding, golden brilliance, shining so intensely that it pierced through the dark night sky of the Nether Altar, casting a direct beam straight up into the highest clouds of the firmament.
“What is this...?”
Startled, Lin Feng withdrew his hand and looked down at his chest. He could clearly feel waves of unimaginably ancient and tyrannical energy radiating from the Primordial Dragon Pendant, surging directly into his meridians and bloodline. That golden light expanded ceaselessly, transforming in the blink of an eye into a colossal dragon-shaped energy cocoon that completely enveloped Lin Feng within, isolating him entirely from the outside world!
And the moment that golden light touched the floating, blood-jade Upper Monarch Soul Remnant, the remnant shuddered before automatically dissolving into a stream of glowing liquid, rushing frantically straight into the interior of the Primordial Dragon Pendant’s light cocoon!