"Just as I thought!"
Xue Chen's heart settled. He completely relaxed and focused all his energy on guiding the vast thunderous force, hurling it again and again, with ever-increasing ferocity, against the first seal deep in his dantian, now riddled with cracks!
Rumble!!!
The energy from the third Thunder Punishment had not yet been fully absorbed when the fourth, then the fifth...
Thunder punishments, thicker and darker than before, began crashing down one after another from the black thundercloud, all aimed at the same target: Xue Chen!
Inside Ice Crystal Palace, Ice Empress and Xiao Lan looked up at the tiny figure in the sky, swallowed again and again by streaks of destructive lightning. Their hearts pounded with fear.
They had seen Xue Chen absorb the first two Thunder Punishments with their own eyes, but each subsequent bolt was more terrifying than the last!
"Snow Empress, this is already the fifth one!
Why hasn't it ended yet? Xiao Chen... can he really withstand it?"
Ice Empress couldn't help sending a telepathic message to Snow Empress in the sky, her voice full of worry.
Even the faintest aftershock from each Thunder Punishment made her heart flutter with unease.
Snow Empress kept her spiritual power tightly wrapped around Xue Chen, sensing even the slightest fluctuation in his life force.
She could clearly feel that his life force had not weakened. On the contrary, as the thunder poured into him, it grew stronger and stronger. Even from this great distance, she could hear the rush of his surging blood and qi.
"Chen'er's life force is very stable. In fact... it continues to rise."
Snow Empress's ethereal voice carried a trace of wonder as she replied to Ice Empress:
"It seems the power of this tribulation really is being perfectly absorbed and transformed by him. For now... let's trust him."
Even so, the frigid Soul Power circling her remained poised to strike, and her ice-blue eyes never left him. She dared not relax for even a moment.
The Thunder Punishments fell one after another: the sixth, the seventh...
When the eighth thunder dragon roared down and slammed into Xue Chen, the first seal inside him finally let out a groan of unbearable strain!
A crisp cracking sound, as if it came from the depths of his soul, swelled to immense proportions in Xue Chen's perception.
The first seal, formed from layer upon layer of intricate, shadowy runes, had endured the frenzied assault of eight Thunder Punishments. In an instant, cracks spread across its entire structure.
At last, amid a blinding flash of lightning, it shattered!
It turned into countless specks of light and vanished into the depths of his life essence.
The Thunder Dragon Emperor behind him suddenly grew more solid. The sun of thunder in its eyes blazed brighter, and the dragon patterns on the Radiant Thunder Dragon Spear seemed to come alive, letting out a delighted murmur.
Snow Empress keenly sensed the subtle change in Xue Chen's aura.
A deeper gravity flashed in her ice-blue eyes.
The instant the seal broke, energy far more vast and pure than all the thunder he had absorbed before surged out from its shattered depths!
Boom!!!
Xue Chen felt his whole body erupt into a boil!
His Bloodline Power soared and swelled wildly. A rich crimson radiance shimmered across his skin.
His little body now seemed like that of a pure-blooded Ferocious Beast!
Roar!!!
The Thunder Dragon Emperor Martial Soul behind him let out an impassioned roar that shook the heavens!
At the same time, another strange transformation began!
Before the final, ninth Thunder Punishment could even fall, the power gushing out of the seal began gathering around Xue Chen of its own accord!
A deep-blue ring, clear as a sapphire, suddenly appeared around his body!
Its color was pure and profound, as if it held an endless sea of thunder within.
Along its outer edge, brilliant blue-gold bolts of lightning coiled and danced, radiating an aura like that of a Soul Ring, yet utterly different!
This Martial Soul was attached to neither his Thunder Dragon Emperor nor his Radiant Thunder Dragon Spear. It simply encircled him.
"What is this...?"
Below, Ice Empress's jade-green eyes flew wide, disbelief written all over her lovely face.
Sensing the special aura of rules within the ring—akin to a Soul Ring, yet somehow beyond one—she blurted out, "A Soul Ring?!"
Even Snow Empress, with all her vast experience, now stared in unprecedented shock and confusion with her ice-blue eyes.
Floating in midair, she felt the unfamiliar power radiating from the ring around Xue Chen. For the first time, an almost dazed expression appeared on her exquisite face.
"A Soul Ring formed from the energy of the Thunder Tribulation and his own Bloodline Power? One that circles his body rather than being attached to a Martial Soul...?"
Snow Empress murmured, her voice full of uncertainty and profound shock.
She had roamed the continent for nearly seven hundred thousand years and read countless secrets about humans and Soul Masters, yet she had never seen—or even heard of—anything so bizarre!
This completely upended everything people believed about the Soul Master system of Douluo Continent!
The succession of strange events had driven the doubts in Snow Empress's heart to their limit.
Innate Level 20 Soul Power, twin top-tier Martial Souls, an abnormal Thunder Tribulation covering the Far North, the absorption of Thunder Punishment, and now this bizarre "Soul Ring," condensed on its own and circling his body...
It all pointed to a possibility she had never dared to consider before.
"Chen'er... what kind of being is he? Could it be... that he doesn't belong to this Douluo Continent at all?"
The thought exploded in her mind like a bolt of thunder.
Just then, the Thunder Tribulation in the sky seemed to sense that the first seal inside Xue Chen had been completely broken.
Boom!!!!
The ninth—and final—Thunder Punishment came crashing down on Xue Chen!
The final bolt was so powerful that the ruins of Ice Crystal Palace below began collapsing on a massive scale. Even Snow Empress felt a shiver of dread!
Xue Chen, however, showed no fear.
He threw back his head and roared. The vast source power released by the broken seal boiled within him, pouring into the hazy blue Soul Ring around his body!
Two vast forces, one from within and one from without, collided and merged in a final clash, with Xue Chen's body as their battlefield.
Under the frenzied assault of the thunder, the deep-blue Soul Ring around him shook violently, its radiance growing ever brighter. The blue-gold lightning along its edge danced wildly,.
Snow Empress and Ice Empress held their breath.
The instant the mysterious Soul Ring finished forming—Buzz!!!
A strange hum rang out across heaven and earth!
All the thunder, all the Bloodline Power, all the source power suddenly collapsed inward and converged!
The remaining bolts of lightning streamed into the blue ring like a hundred rivers rushing into the sea.
The blue-gold lightning patterns along its edge were greatly nourished, coiling tightly around the blue ring!
A complete, solid-looking blue Soul Ring now hung around Xue Chen!
Its main body was a deep, translucent blue, edged with a border of leaping blue-gold lightning. It radiated the imperial majesty of one who stood above all things, along with a boundless surge of Bloodline Power!
It quietly circled Xue Chen, revolving slowly. It no longer relied on any Martial Soul, as if it were part of his life essence, a symbol of his strength as an individual!
The Thunder Tribulation dissipated.
Before you continue