Chapter 346: An Utter Crushing
Long Ao and Luo Teng, still aboard the Thunderclap, were spared by its protective shield.
But the reprieve was short-lived. A series of sharp cracks echoed across the water as the runic thunder patterns etched into the hull dimmed one by one. The shield had held, but it was now gone. The Thunderclap was utterly defenseless before Jiang Chen’s demonic vessel.
A cold glint in his eyes, Jiang Chen unleashed another torrent of dragon flame.
The seawater around the ship began to boil and gurgle.
BOOM!
The massive Thunderclap shuddered violently once more. From the point of impact on its hull, scorched black wounds began to spread like a disease. On deck, the two men were thrown about. Luo Teng, with his weaker cultivation, was sent tumbling. This time, with no shield to stop him, he couldn’t even summon a spiritual tool before he was flung overboard, crashing heavily into the churning sea.
Long Ao, ever the pragmatist, knew the ship was lost. He shot into the air, invoked a water-walking art, and began treading across the waves, rapidly putting distance between himself and the doomed vessel.
Curiously, the mysterious powerhouse didn’t pursue him, simply letting him flee without any sign of giving chase.
He is, after all, the strongest Foundation Establishment disciple of the Dragon Tiger Immortal Sect, Jiang Chen mused. ‘Invincible below the Golden Core,’ they call him. He wouldn’t die so easily.
As if on cue, the very air grew heavy, squeezed by an unseen hand. A suffocating pressure descended, and the murky sea surged, churning up waves dozens of feet high.With a great whoosh, Zhao Wuji erupted from the depths.
Beneath his feet stood a colossal spirit beast. It stood over ten feet tall, its shoulders spanning nearly six feet. Though it possessed only a single leg, it was as thick and sturdy as a stone pillar. Clad in dark golden scales, each the size of a man’s palm, it looked as if it wore a suit of divine armor. The edges of the scales shimmered with a faint violet light.
A row of serrated spines ran down its back, from neck to tail, their tips slightly charred and occasionally spitting half-inch flickers of blue flame. A pair of twisted, short horns grew from its forehead, riddled with honeycomb-like pores from which tendrils of lightning, fine as silk, would occasionally dart. Its snout was long, revealing two pairs of sharp fangs stained with dark purple saliva that gave off the acrid stench of sulfur.
Its eyes were pure amber, leaving faint violet trails in their whites as they moved. It snorted, and two columns of white vapor, laced with fine electric sparks, shot from its ox-like nostrils. Its tail, though not long, ended in a bushy, blue-purple mane, each strand crackling with electricity. With every swing, it sounded like the crack of a thunder whip.
Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow. “So this is the Thunder Kui Dragon Beast… a juvenile?”
Though the young beast displayed little overt ferocity, its mere presence radiated the immense pressure of its bloodline, sending the surrounding water demons scattering in terror. Even the black waters of the turbid current swirled away from its single hoof, as if cowering before its innate mastery of thunder.
Atop the beast, Zhao Wuji was a figure of pure rage. The thunder patterns on his robes blazed with a blinding light, silver-gray lines slithering across the fabric like countless lightning serpents. His pupils had transformed into two swirling vortices of raw electricity, and his sclera were webbed with crackling energy. His gaze, fixed on Jiang Chen, was utterly ferocious, like that of a ravenous demon.
His voice, laced with crackling power, boomed across the water. “You will pay for this!” The sound of his gnashing teeth vibrated with thunderous might, causing the sea around them to explode with a deep hum. The black water was blasted back three feet in all directions, exposing the treacherous reefs below.
The air instantly filled with the overpowering smell of sulfur. Every breath Jiang Chen took felt like swallowing hot sparks, his throat burning with a raw, searing pain.
The next second, Zhao Wuji raised his right hand, fingers splayed. The purple electricity gathering in his palm was no longer a storm of serpents or a net of lightning. Instead, it coalesced into a translucent spear of pure, condensed power, its tip flashing with a radiance that was painful to behold. The very sea recoiled from its presence, boiling into a column of swirling white mist that spun just beneath the spearhead.
But before he could unleash his attack, another deafening BOOM echoed, followed by the sickening crack of splintering wood.
Jiang Chen and Zhao Wuji both turned toward the sound.
They watched as spiderweb cracks raced across the hull of the massive Thunderclap. Turbid seawater poured into its breached frame. Before their very eyes, the ship listed violently, its starboard side dipping beneath the waves as its keel tilted toward the sky. It spun in the dark current like a broken leaf before, piece by piece, it began its final descent into the abyss.
Zhao Wuji’s composure shattered. A raw, agonized howl tore from his throat. “My Thunderclap!”
This was the moment Jiang Chen had been waiting for.
Scorching Sun Finger—Red Sun Piercing the Sun!
A violent surge of golden flame erupted, condensing into a pillar of light easily ten feet in diameter. The flames within no longer danced; they compressed into a solid mass, glowing like a superheated ingot of gold, its surface covered in intricate, flowing patterns of fire. The air itself sizzled and popped, scorched by the sheer intensity. The murky water below it vanished, instantly vaporized into a shimmering haze of distorted air.
A look of pure horror flashed across Zhao Wuji’s face. There’s an expert of this caliber in Mystic Heart City? In the Canglan Sea?
Regret, sharp and bitter, flooded him. He should never have come.
Feeling his own qi and blood roiling, he stomped down hard on the back of the Thunder Kui Dragon Beast. The beast roared in pain, the dark golden scales on its body bristling. The blue flames on its spines shot up, now half a foot high. It slammed its single leg down, and the boiling sea was forcefully pushed away.
The horns on its forehead lit up, and countless fine bolts of lightning erupted from the pores, wrapping around Zhao Wuji. The patterns on his robes flared, and a dense network of silver-gray lines crawled up his neck from beneath his skin, connecting to the thunder vortices in his eyes. With a rising hum, a dense shield of crackling lightning materialized around him.
The next second, the pillar of golden fire slammed into the lightning shield. There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a dull, grinding crunch, like the sound of bones being pulverized.
Golden fire clawed at the lightning, seeking to devour it. Violet arcs of electricity lashed out, desperately trying to tear the flames apart. The two opposing forces tore at each other within that ten-foot space, blasting the surrounding seawater away and revealing a patch of warped, shimmering space.
Jiang Chen’s Scorching Sun Finger, at its peak, could challenge an early-stage Golden Core cultivator. And that was before accounting for the amplifying effects of the Fire Flame Fruit and Red Yang Pill he’d consumed earlier. The stacked effects created a power that was nothing short of terrifying.
That Zhao Wuji had lasted this long was, frankly, a testament to his strength.
His face was now flushed crimson, his teeth grinding so hard they audibly clicked. The veins on his arms bulged like thick ropes. The Thunder Kui Dragon Beast beneath him fared no better; its once-brilliant scales were now coated in a layer of charred black. The mane on its tail was scorched and curled, and its low growls had turned into whimpers of agony.
A cold, almost bored expression settled on Jiang Chen’s face. “You didn’t think that was all I had, did you?”
The words sent a chill down Zhao Wuji’s spine. “You… what do you mean?”
Jiang Chen offered no reply. Instead, he reached into his dantian and drew upon his wood-element spiritual power, feeding it directly into the fire. In an instant, the elemental cycle turned—Wood feeding Fire.
The power of his attack didn’t just increase. It doubled.