Li Chen unleashed his Martial Soul Avatar and merged into the Wither Storm. It began passively devouring everything around him, and the age of his Seventh Soul Ring continued to rise.
Pitch-black armor began encasing the Command Block core, and three short tentacles sprouted behind him. Hunger surged through him, constantly urging him to keep devouring matter.
One of its heads had already taken on a single-eyed, gaping-mouthed form. The purple beam it fired could draw matter in to be devoured even faster.
He traveled in one direction, devouring everything along the way, and encountered two more Nether biomes: the Basalt Deltas and the Crimson Forest.
Yet he had not seen a single naturally generated block of soul sand in this Nether, let alone a Soul Sand Valley.
After traveling an unknown distance, the Wither Storm swelled another size larger. More long tentacles sprouted, and a Storm Radius formed around it.
Its predominantly red coloration turned purple. Only because the Nether had neither weather nor a day-night cycle was the Storm Radius spared from becoming a realm of eternal night and unceasing thunderstorms.
Li Chen saw this within the Wither Storm's core—the Command Block. The complete Storm Radius command included an ever-expanding domain.
The domain's effect set the time within it to night and the weather to heavy rain, executing on a loop once every minute.
It also inflicted the Wither effect on every other target within the domain, with a permanent duration and a loop that ran every second. Even if the effect was removed one second, it would be reapplied the next.
Three Wither Symbiotes would be summoned within the domain. Their melee damage rivaled an Iron Golem's, and they could leap into crushing slams. Their ranged attacks were even more terrifying: they could summon vast numbers of arrows, splash potions, Shulker bullets, and Ghast fireballs.
They could also summon large numbers of infected monsters.
Unlike in Story Mode, where killing a Wither Symbiote yielded a Command-Enchanted Book, these Wither Symbiotes dropped nothing upon death. As long as the Wither Storm survived, they would revive after accumulating enough energy.
Though the Wither Storm's power was formidable, its price was an even fiercer hunger and craving for evolution. Only devouring blocks brought some relief, and the moment it stopped, that hunger would surge back.
Everywhere he passed became a pockmarked ruin. After an unknown amount of time, all three heads had become single-eyed, gaping mouths, marking its entry into the fourth stage.
By the time Li Chen came to his senses, he could no longer control the Wither Storm. Its power had clearly reached the God Level.
He wanted to stop, but he was trapped inside the core. Apart from seeing the outside world through the Wither Storm's eyes, he could not even control the Command Block.
"I'm done for!"
The Wither Storm had no self-awareness, only instinct. He had come to his senses too late. Its power now exceeded his by far, leaving him trapped inside with no choice but to watch.
Outside, Wine Fox had been following from a distance. Sensing that something was wrong with Li Chen, she unleashed her fourth Soul Skill, "Obstacle-Clearing Song," once more. Something similar had happened when he took the soul sand earlier.
But the Wither Storm perceived her action as an attack. One head slowly turned toward her, bathing her in its purple beam.
Even a Super Douluo could not break free of the beam's pull. She was dragged closer little by little, and Wine Fox was about to be swallowed.
Just as he tried to do something, a tentacle pierced Wine Fox's body. Two opposing emotions erupted within him.
One came from the Wither Storm. It cheered in exhilaration, its craving to devour and evolve growing ever stronger.
The other came from Li Chen. He watched the netherite armor on Wine Fox crumble inch by inch amid the black-purple energy. He watched Totems of Undying light up at her chest, then shatter-one, two, three...
The golden light bursting from the totem fragments illuminated her face. That face, usually wearing a mischievous smile, was now twisted with agony. Yet her eyes remained fixed on the core, her lips moving as though she were calling his name.
Li Chen could not make a sound. For the first time across two lifetimes, he understood what it meant to have knives twist in his heart.
At some point, without realizing it, he had begun to see Wine Fox as a living, breathing person, rather than a maid NPC added by a mod who could simply revive after death.
Another totem shattered.
"...Don't worry about me..." He heard his own voice, as faint as a mosquito's whine amid the roaring storm, unable to carry beyond it. "...Go..."
The twenty-second.
The twenty-third.
She had only one box in her backpack, containing twenty-seven Totems of Undying in total.
Li Chen hammered at the Command Block, even though it accomplished nothing, even though it was futile.
Just as helplessness overcame him, the Wither Storm, driven by nothing but the instincts to devour and evolve, suddenly stalled.
It felt a pang in its heart. It did not understand why its heart ached when it had no heart, and this sent it crashing into a motionless shutdown.
Even with the Wither Storm frozen, Li Chen's control was extremely limited. He could control only a single tentacle.
He made that tentacle pull free, then stretched it beneath her just before she hit the ground to cushion her fall.
Wine Fox looked toward the Wither Storm's core. Knowing Li Chen was safe, she smiled and closed her eyes in relief.
Li Chen took advantage of the Wither Storm's shutdown to begin reclaiming control little by little. That description was not entirely accurate, though-the Wither Storm had never seized control from him.
He knew this had happened because he was too weak to wield a power that far surpassed his own.
That weakness lay not in his Soul Power Level, but in other areas.
His willpower had been insufficient. He had failed to resist the temptation of power, and by the time he realized it, it was already too late.
He lacked experience. Everything had gone smoothly since his transmigration, and he had boxes of Enchanted Golden Apples and Totems of Undying. He had believed himself cautious, but was that not another form of self-righteous arrogance?
Now Li Chen had to correct his mistake. Starting with a single tentacle, he kept trying to control the frozen Wither Storm.
Progress came slowly each time. Sometimes, even after gaining control of another tentacle, he lost control of the one he had already mastered. At other times, he accidentally fired a tractor beam.
As he controlled the Wither Storm, its sensations fed back into him-the instinctive hunger, the craving for evolution. Li Chen did not resist them. Instead, he chose to accept them again.
Unlike before, however, accepting them did not mean he would once again devour everything in an unrestrained frenzy. The Wither Storm was his Martial Soul, his power.
To master this power completely, he needed to understand it on a deeper level. After enduring that despair-inducing hunger, what reached him from the deepest recesses of the Wither Storm was a loneliness he could hardly put into words.
"Loneliness?" Li Chen froze. Was he not a lonely person himself?
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