Lightning spread through the black clouds, dazzling branches flaring and dying in an instant. Heaven and earth shone bright as day-the muddy road, the wildly thrashing trees, and the solitary Dragon King Temple.
The New Dragon King Temple flickered in and out of sight with each flash.
Thunder rumbled dully, and rain roared.
Lightning lit the night again. Black Snake had silently coiled outside the Dragon King Temple, raising his head to survey it coldly.
His tongue flicked rapidly.
Beyond the wide-open door lay pitch-black darkness, steeped in a cold, slick, ghostly aura.
Soon, lightning briefly forced back the darkness. Black Snake saw the newly sculpted Dragon King towering above, round eyes glaring furiously, beard and hair bristling like spears.
The workmanship was lifelike, yet he felt it was inferior to the simple statue the villagers had made before.
He slithered forward. The enclosing wall and gate cracked and buckled beneath his scales, then crashed down in the rain.
"How dare you!"
An angry roar rang out from the pitch-black doorway.
Inside the temple, a tall, imposing phantom emerged from the darkness.
Its bulging eyes glared viciously at Black Snake as it roared.
"What foul creature are you? Why do you not kneel before the Dragon King?"
Black Snake's head stood higher than the phantom. He gazed indifferently at its bluster, confirming that it was a Ghost Creature, a ghostly soul nourished by incense offerings.
He seemed to have encountered this ghost's aura before-
Furious rain washed over his hard scales, and mist wreathed his immense body.
In the darkness, snake and ghost faced each other through the rain. Black Snake noticed that it remained inside the temple and refused to come out. He suspected it feared the rain.
There was no roar, nor any further exchange.
When another bolt