At the top of the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters, Long Yuan watched Lu Fengnian, who was swamped with work, then suddenly asked, "Tower Master Lu, do you think a typhoon would stay in the same place for seven whole days?"
"A typhoon?" Lu Fengnian had already been driven to distraction by the aftermath: comforting the dead and injured, handling reconstruction, communicating with the Administration Office, and answering inquiries from the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters. A mountain of responsibilities weighed on his shoulders.
When he suddenly heard Long Yuan's question, Lu Fengnian didn't immediately understand what he meant.
"Exactly. A typhoon." Long Yuan walked to the enormous floor-to-ceiling window and gazed at the immense shadow stretching between sea and sky in the distance.
Under the cover of night, the typhoon itself looked even more spectacular and terrifying, like a black hole capable of devouring everything. Only when standing right before it could one truly feel how insignificant humanity was.
Lu Fengnian came back to his senses. As a branch Tower Master of the Spirit Pagoda, born into a powerful clan, he had received a proper education and knew a little about typhoons.
An ordinary typhoon would pass in a few hours, or at most a day or two. But according to the calculations of multiple organizations, this one would linger for a full week!
"Are you saying this typhoon wasn't formed naturally, but that someone is secretly behind it?"
At the thought, Lu Fengnian could no longer sit still. If someone had raised such a powerful typhoon to attack Eastsea City, just how strong would they have to be?
At the very least, he didn't think Leng Yaozhu could hold it back.
"Don't rush." Long Yuan pressed down on the hand Lu Fengnian had raised to pick up his Soul Guidance Communicator. "Even Vast Sea Douluo couldn't possibly summon a natural disaster on this scale. I think someone used some method to interfere with a typhoon that should have moved on, keeping it over Eastsea City for an extended period. But we'll have to keep watching to figure out exactly what's going on."
"But..." Lu Fengnian furrowed his brow. Leng Yaozhu had gone after the Evil Soul Master Titled Douluo who escaped. Who else could venture into the dangerous place around the typhoon's eye to investigate?
"Tower Master Lu, this matter is urgent and can't wait. Why don't I go take a look?" Seeing how torn Lu Fengnian looked, Long Yuan made the suggestion.
"No!" Lu Fengnian objected instinctively, but quickly calmed down. In a low voice, he said, "Brother Long Yuan, you possess astonishing talent. You should be thinking about how to keep yourself safe. Once you become a Titled Douluo, the whole world will be open to you. Why risk your life now?"
Of course, there was another reason: Lu Fengnian feared that if anything happened to Long Yuan, the Hidden Clan behind him would come looking for trouble.
"Hahaha! It's just a typhoon. Why should I fear it? I may not be able to match a natural disaster of this scale right now, but I can certainly keep myself safe."
Seeing how certain Long Yuan was, Lu Fengnian said nothing more. After all, Long Yuan had even defeated a Titled Douluo. Lu Fengnian was no match for him, and there was no talking him out of it.
"Right, get back to work. I'll go see what kind of fool dares to cause trouble here." Long Yuan waved a hand, and a pair of dragon wings covered in thick golden scales unfolded behind him.
The instant his golden dragon wings spread, a vast Dragon Might swept out from within Long Yuan, instantly overpowering the raging wind and rain outside the Spirit Pagoda.
Lu Fengnian felt his heart sink, as if he weren't facing a Six-Ring Soul Emperor, but an ancient giant dragon stirring from its slumber. In the end, he swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue.
Long Yuan lightly touched the window ledge with his toes. His figure streaked through the night like a golden meteor, charging straight toward the typhoon's vast, sky-obscuring shadow.
He was incredibly fast. In less than half a minute, he had crossed half of Eastsea City and reached the coast. He was already at the outer edge of the spiral cloud bands, less than a kilometer from the typhoon's eyewall.
The eyewall was where a typhoon's winds were strongest. Beyond it lay the relatively calm, mostly cloudless sky of the eye. If anything was amiss, it could only be there.
But the wind grew instantly more violent as he approached. Long Yuan paid it no mind and accelerated straight into the rapidly rotating eyewall.
Wind blades capable of tearing through alloy slashed at him, only to be deflected by the golden Dragon Scales flowing over his body. He beat his wings once, steadying himself amid the gale, and surged toward the eye.
He could already tell something was terribly wrong with the typhoon's eyewall. It contained an enormous amount of Soul Power, and beneath the sea ahead, his spiritual sense detected an incredibly powerful life force!
"So it really is a Sea Soul Beast causing trouble? But Sea Soul Beasts have always lived in peace with humanity. Why would one suddenly appear near shore and deliberately keep a typhoon going?"
The closer he came to the typhoon's core, the more violently the elements around him rampaged. Water and wind elements intertwined into a destructive Vortex. An ordinary Soul Master—even a Soul Douluo—would be torn apart instantly by coming near. But Dragon Might surged around Long Yuan, and a golden aura kept every force of the natural disaster at bay. He seemed like a god walking through the storm.
This golden aura was formed by combining his Soul Power with his Bloodline Power. It could also be called Dragon Qi Shield. It served as both offense and defense, an extension of his physical strength.
Long Yuan spread his spiritual sense in every direction and quickly detected a faint, peculiar fluctuation. It wasn't the violent aura of a natural disaster. Instead, it carried a trace of cold, sinister energy, like invisible threads tightly binding the typhoon vortex that should have been moving on.
Golden light flashed in Long Yuan's eyes, and he sped up once more, charging straight into the eye.
Inside the typhoon's eye, there was a strange calm. He could even make out the faint glimmer of stars overhead, but on the sea below, all he saw was darkness.
Long Yuan stared at the motionless sea and gave a mocking sneer. "Playing tricks in the dark. Come out!"
His third Soul Ring shone, and the golden light spread. Majestic Dragon Might erupted from within him!
This wasn't the pressure of an ordinary Beast Martial Soul. It was the supreme pressure of the Dragon God's authority—the aura of a king who commanded all beasts and stood above every Soul Beast.
"Beast! Present yourself at once!"
Long Yuan shouted, each word like a thunderclap that churned the sea below and raised wave after wave.
"Uuu..."
A distant, faint wail came from the depths. The next moment, the sea split apart in every direction, and a colossal body rose from the lightless depths.
It was a giant whale a hundred meters long. Its skin wasn't the gray of an ordinary whale, but a pure sapphire blue, shimmering all over and giving it an air of nobility and mystery.
Long Yuan wasn't even as large as one of its eyes. Yet under his abyss-deep Dragon Might, the giant whale could only tremble, unable to muster the slightest resistance.
"So it was you." Long Yuan hovered in midair, his golden dragon wings giving a slight beat as Dragon Qi Shield surged around him. "Deep Sea Demon Whale!"