Yet reality was always cruel enough to be laughable.
The underground lava world.
After taking a deep breath, Yan's Soul Power surged wildly within him. Five Soul Rings of optimal configuration pulsed beneath his feet.
"Fifth Soul Skill: Flying Sand Wild Flame!"
He bellowed, bringing himself to peak condition, then cautiously reached out with his heavily armored right hand toward the cluster of deep yellow flames.
"Come on! Become the stepping stone to my strength!" Yan's face was brimming with confidence.
But just as his fingers were about to touch the flames, there came a faint hiss, like a red-hot knife slicing through butter.
It was the twenty-third-ranked Heavenly Flame—the Mysterious Yellow Flame!
Though it ranked at the very bottom of the Heavenly Flame Ranking, it lay deep beneath the earth. Tempered for billions of years by the planet's core flames, its inner heat and destructive power were beyond anything a mortal body could imagine!
"What?!"
Yan's smile froze in an instant.
His prized Flame Lord armor, a defense capable of withstanding a full-power blow from a Soul Master of equal rank, had actually vaporized the moment it touched the Mysterious Yellow Flame?!
That's right—not melted. Vaporized!
"No... That's impossible!!"
Yan's eyes widened in terror. He tried to yank back his hand, only to find that the deep yellow flames seemed almost sentient, spreading up his arm!
"AAAAAAH!"
Yan's agonized scream rang through the entire underground world.
The flames looked gentle, but they were overwhelmingly domineering!
In the blink of an eye, his entire right arm had vanished, without even a speck of ash left behind!
Then came his shoulder, his chest, his head...
"Save me! His Holiness the Pope, save me! Nana, help me!!"
Yan thrashed wildly in the flames, desperately urging his Soul Power to extinguish the fire. But he found, to his despair, that his Soul Power was nothing more than the perfect fuel for the Heavenly Flame!
The stronger his Soul Power, the fiercer the flames burned!
"I'm part of the Golden Generation! I'm a genius! I can't die here..."
Yan wailed, but it was useless. In a mere three seconds, the Spirit Hall genius who had been dreaming of growing stronger was reduced to a pile of ash before everyone's eyes by a flame no larger than a palm.
Even his so-called Flame Lord Martial Soul was burned away in an instant, erased without a trace from this world.
A gust of wind blew, scattering his ashes into oblivion.
The Mysterious Yellow Flame still hovered quietly above the altar, its tiny tongues of fire flickering faintly, as if nothing had happened.
At the same time, after witnessing the scene with their own eyes, the entire Douluo Continent fell into a deathly silence.
Spirit Hall, Pope Palace.
"Clang!"
Chrysanthemum Douluo gaped, frozen in place as if struck by lightning.
"G-gone?"
"Yan is just... gone?"
"That was the Flame Lord! A top-tier Martial Soul with immunity to both fire and earth!"
"How did a touch from that little flame burn him to ash?"
"What kind of fire is that? Are all the flames in that world divine fire?!"
Qian Daoliu's face had gone deathly pale. He slumped into his chair.
As he stared at the seemingly harmless deep yellow flame on the Sky Screen, a chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to his scalp.
It was too weak.
The resistances they had always prided themselves on were a complete joke before the laws of that world!
Shrek Academy.
Ma Hongjun clutched his throat, his mouth dry and his whole body trembling.
As the wielder of the Evil Fire Phoenix Martial Soul, he had always considered himself the undisputed master of fire.
But after watching Yan burn to death, he had nearly wet himself on the spot.
"Th-Third Brother..."
Ma Hongjun's voice trembled, his words choked with tears.
"Is that fire even stronger than my Phoenix Flame?"
Tang San's expression was grave, and cold sweat covered his forehead.
Though he possessed the Purple Demon Eye, he felt his very soul trembling before that flame.
"Fatty, don't compare your flames to that."
Tang San took a deep breath, then said in a low voice,
"If I'm not mistaken, it's some kind of source flame from that world."
"Even if Yan had activated his Martial Soul Avatar, he'd have been like a sheet of paper before that flame—one touch, and he'd go up in flames."
Just as Yan's grisly death left the entire continent speechless with shock, the Sky Screen's prompt rang out again.
[Third Explorer: Yan. Death confirmed!]
[Cause of death: Attempted to devour the twenty-third-ranked Heavenly Flame—the Mysterious Yellow Flame—with his bare hands.]
[Evaluation: The ignorant fear nothing. Heavenly Flames are divine treasures of heaven and earth; they cannot be touched without a great fortune, immense willpower, and top-tier pills. A mere ant dared covet a divine treasure. He deserved his death.]
These lines only drove countless Soul Masters further into despair.
"Twenty-third?"
"So that terrifying flame has at least twenty-two even stronger ones in that world?"
"And it's ranked dead last?"
"A flame ranked dead last can kill our Soul King genius in an instant..."
"Wouldn't the flames near the top of the rankings burn even our Divine Realm to ash?!"
Heavenly Palace, Main Hall.
After watching the system's footage of Yan turning to ash, Lin Feng shook his head in disdain.
"If you're a floor tile in a fantasy world, you'd better know your place."
"Even Xiao Yan had to prepare thoroughly to devour a Heavenly Flame. And you, a Soul King who plays with mud, thought you could swallow one whole?"
"You're really asking to die."
With that, Lin Feng casually shut off Yan's livestream. He had no interest in sparing such an idiot another glance.
"But this idiot's death gives me a chance to harvest another wave."
"System, check the current progress of my fortune collection."
[Ding! Current Douluo Plane fortune collection progress: 15%.]
[Due to Yan's death and Bibi Dong's submission (drinking porridge), the hearts of the strong in the Douluo Plane have begun to collapse on a large scale. The plane's barrier is weakening further.]
"Excellent."
Meanwhile, above the Sky Screen.
With Yan's death, the light screen representing him went completely dark.
Immediately afterward, that grand voice once again resounded across the entire Douluo Continent, making all the Soul Masters still steeped in fear shudder.
[Explorer Yan has died. A slot is now vacant.]
[Randomly filling vacant slot...]
[Number of replacements this time: four!]
Buzz!
Without warning, four even thicker pillars of golden light pierced through the clouds of the Douluo Continent, bearing an irresistible pressure as they descended precisely upon four entirely different places!
The first pillar of light: the core area of Star Dou Forest!
"Roar!"
A deafening roar rang out. A black giant ape, as massive as a mountain, pounded its chest in fury, trying to resist the force pulling it in.
Its muscles bulged like granite, and it radiated a terrifying presence powerful enough to send even Titled Douluo fleeing.
[First replacement: King of Star Dou Forest, Titan Giant Ape Er Ming!]
The second pillar of light: the Spirit Hall Branch in Nuoding City!
A middle-aged man who looked somewhat dejected, apparently about to clock out and head home, was enveloped in golden light, bewildered.
In his hands was a stack of Martial Soul certificates for the children whose awakenings he had just completed.
[Second replacement: Spirit Hall inspection deacon, Soul Grandmaster Su Yuntao!]
The third pillar of light fell upon Spirit Hall.
"No, I won't go!"
"Ghost Douluo, save me! His Holiness the Pope, help me!"
A man clad in golden armor, with a somewhat effeminate bearing, let out a shrill cry.
He had just witnessed Yan being burned to ash. Now, seeing the golden light descend upon him, he was scared out of his wits.
[Third replacement: Spirit Hall elder, Level 95 Titled Douluo, Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan!]
When the fourth pillar of light descended, the entire Soul Master world was shaken once more!
For the pillar pointed straight at the main peak of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan: True Dragon Mountain!
"Have I been chosen?"
Before the True Dragon Hall, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan patriarch, Yu Yuanzhen, who had just been denouncing the cruelty of that world, stared in bewilderment at the golden light surrounding him.
But as the head of a clan, he possessed the pride of a Level 95 Power Attack System Titled Douluo.
After a brief moment of shock, he straightened his back, lightning crackling around him as his arms instantly transformed into dragon limbs. He let out a spirited dragon's cry and declared,
"Hmph! Since I've been chosen, I'll go and see that world for myself!"
"My Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon is the greatest Beast Martial Soul under heaven, with the bloodline of a true dragon! Even in that world, dragons remain the sovereigns of all beasts!"
"I'd like to see what makes the dragons of that world so different!"
[Fourth replacement: Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan patriarch, Level 95 Titled Douluo, Yu Yuanzhen!]
The transmission began!
With a flash of light, the four figures vanished.
The people of the Douluo Continent held their breath once more.
This lineup was truly impressive!
There was a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, two Titled Douluo, and even Su Yuntao, the man known as Blind Douluo!
"That's Er Ming! It's the Titan Giant Ape!"
At Shrek Academy, Xiao Wu stared at the familiar figure on the light screen, so frantic that tears streamed down her face.
"Er Ming may be strong, but he's too hot-tempered. If he provokes some powerful person in that world..."
"And Chrysanthemum Douluo, and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan patriarch..."
Douluo Plane, deep within the Void Lightning Pool.
There was no land here, only endless spatial storms and silver lightning.
Floating in the deepest reaches of the void was a gigantic island: East Dragon Island!
This was the domain of the true overlords of the Beast Realm in the Battle Through the Heavens World—the Ancient Void Dragon Clan!
Buzz!
The next moment, space twisted, and Yu Yuanzhen's figure appeared out of thin air on the outskirts of East Dragon Island.
"Wh-where is this?"
As soon as he landed, Yu Yuanzhen was so stunned by the sight before him that he couldn't speak.
All around him stretched a dark, unfathomable void, with a vast island floating beneath his feet.
On top of that, the air was filled with an ancient, desolate aura, domineering beyond all measure.
The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Martial Soul within him began trembling uncontrollably!
It was the submissive feeling of encountering its own ancestor!
"What terrifying dragon energy! This must be a sacred land of the Dragon Clan!"
Yu Yuanzhen's eyes blazed with delight as he sensed it all.
"Hahaha, heaven is helping me! I really am favored by fate!"
"The powerful Dragon Clan must live here!"
"With the true dragon blood in my veins, I'll surely earn their recognition—perhaps even obtain a divine inheritance!"
With that thought, Yu Yuanzhen wasted no time and activated his Martial Soul Avatar!
"Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Avatar!"
"Roar!!"
With a soaring dragon's cry, Yu Yuanzhen transformed into a gigantic blue-purple lightning dragon, seventy or eighty meters long!
Lightning coiled around his body, scales bristled, and his dragon might surged!
This was the power that had let him run amok across the Douluo Continent!
He would show the members of his kind in this world how powerful and noble he was at his strongest!
"Esteemed Dragon Clan seniors, I am Yu Yuanzhen, bearer of true dragon blood. I have come to pay my respects!"
Then Yu Yuanzhen controlled his true form and circled through the void, his voice rolling outward like thunder.
Meanwhile, on East Dragon Island.
Several Ancient Void Dragon Clan warriors on patrol stopped in their tracks when they heard the commotion. They looked up at the blue-purple worm showing off in the sky, their faces twisting into strange expressions.
"What... is that thing?"
One Ancient Dragon Clan warrior scratched his head and asked his companion in confusion:
"It looks like a lizard, but kind of like a loach, and it actually dares to claim it has true dragon blood?"
"And that cry of its is awful. It sounds like a pig being slaughtered."
Another Ancient Dragon Clan warrior gave a cold laugh, a trace of viciousness flashing in his eyes.
"No matter what it is, daring to shout on East Dragon Island and release such a vile, revolting aura is a provocation against the Ancient Dragon Clan!"
"Commander Heiqing is nearby. Let him go clean up that trash."
High in the sky.
Yu Yuanzhen was still working hard to display his dragon might, hoping to attract the favor of some powerful expert.
Just then—
Rumble!
The sky above suddenly split apart, and an enormous black dragon claw, so vast it defied description, thrust straight through the crack in space!
Every scale on the claw was larger than Yu Yuanzhen's entire body. Dark golden light flowed across them, and it radiated an aura that seemed to tower over all creation!
The instant the claw appeared, the surrounding space froze solid!
"This... this is..."
Yu Yuanzhen's vaunted Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Avatar looked like a tiny earthworm beside that enormous claw.
The absolute suppression that came from deep within his bloodline left him unable to muster even the strength to move a finger.
"What mongrel lizard dares call itself a dragon on the Ancient Void Dragon's turf?"
The next moment, a voice like muffled thunder exploded through the air. Yu Yuanzhen's seven orifices bled, and cracks instantly spread across his Martial Soul Avatar!
Then a burly, black-armored man, built like an iron tower and with muscles that looked as if they had been cast from steel, stepped out of the void.
He looked at Yu Yuanzhen before him.
Before you continue