Tang Tianlin already possessed extremely strong resistance to ice and fire.
To take another step and forge the Ice and Fire Golden Body, he needed greater stimulation from outside.
With that thought, Tang Tianlin raised his body's density to its limit and plunged deeper like a torpedo.
The farther down he went, the more terrifying the water pressure became, and the more extreme the temperatures grew.
Ultimate Ice and Ultimate Fire swirled around him in turn, constantly eating away at Tang Tianlin's body and making him feel a searing pain he had not experienced in a long time.
Pain was exactly right!
Pain meant his muscles were growing. It meant his body was constantly growing and strengthening under the tempering.
Upon reaching a certain depth, Tang Tianlin's pupils contracted. The Golden Dragon King Bloodline within him abruptly boiled, turning into crimson-gold blood energy that illuminated his surroundings.
At the same time, deep within the spring.
Two pillars of light, one red and one blue, shot skyward and merged with Tang Tianlin's crimson-gold blood energy.
Buzz!
Tang Tianlin's vision blurred, and his consciousness seemed to be forcibly dragged into another world by an overbearing force.
When his vision returned, the ice and fire spring had vanished, replaced by a shattered, desolate battlefield beneath the stars.
The sky was bleeding, and the earth was wailing.
A seven-colored dragon so enormous that its end could not be seen coiled across the heavens.
The seven-colored dragon's eyes were bloodred, his aura berserk. Countless rays of divine light burst from his body, destroying everything.
Just then, two enormous dragons, one red and one blue, crossed the void from afar. They tried to approach the seven-colored dragon, only to be thrown back again and again by the rampaging energy.
Finally, a seven-colored pillar of light pierced clean through both dragons, their blood staining the heavens red.
They became two meteors, one red and one blue, and crashed thunderously into the ground.
The next instant, the scene dispersed.
Tang Tianlin felt solid ground beneath his feet. Only when he looked down did he notice that he was standing at the bottom of the spring, surrounded by terrifying cold and surging heat.
Strangely, he felt nothing when the cold and heat struck his body.
"So this is the Ice and Fire Golden Body..."
Tang Tianlin felt the changes within him and lightly clenched his fists.
Now, even without activating Golden Dragon Body, he was still immune to the ultimate ice and fire attributes.
But this was not the time to celebrate. He still had business to attend to.
Tang Tianlin raised his head toward the boundless darkness ahead and chuckled. "Seniors, you've been watching for so long. Haven't you seen enough?"
As his words fell, two lights, one red and one blue, rose from the darkness like blazing suns, illuminating their surroundings.
Tang Tianlin narrowed his eyes to look, and his pupils contracted.
Two enormous dragon corpses lay silently at the bottom of the spring, like two mountain ranges whose ends could not be seen.
Even after hundreds of thousands of years in death, their bodies still radiated a heart-stopping pressure.
Without his Golden Dragon King Bloodline, Tang Tianlin would never have survived ten seconds beneath this Dragon Might.
"To think even beings like these could fall..."
Tang Tianlin sighed inwardly.
Beings at the pinnacle of the God King level could already match the current God of Destruction.
And the dragon race had possessed no fewer than nine such beings.
Suddenly, the deep-blue ball of light floated before Tang Tianlin and spoke in an ethereal, melodious female voice.
"Human, why do you carry the Dragon God's aura?"
The Dragon God?
Tang Tianlin froze, then realized that when the Ice and Fire Dragon Kings fell, the Asura God had not yet split the Dragon God in two. Naturally, they knew nothing of the Golden Dragon King's existence.
"Senior Ice Dragon King, here's what happened..."
Tang Tianlin gathered his words and gave a rough account of the subsequent events.
For instance, the Dragon God had regretted his actions and willingly allowed the Asura God to split him in two. To prevent later generations from following in his footsteps, he had established the rule forbidding Soul Beasts from becoming gods...
As Tang Tianlin spoke, another ball of light, this one deep red, lit up and hovered beside the deep-blue light, quietly listening to his account.
Once Tang Tianlin had finished telling them everything he knew, a long silence settled over the bottom of the spring.
After a long while, the Fire Dragon King's remnant consciousness sighed softly. "To think so much happened to the dragon race after we fell."
"Alas, we should never have let the Dragon God Crown Prince leave back then."
"Enough. It is all in the past..."
Tang Tianlin stood to one side without a word.
In this situation, silence was the best choice.
Just then, the Ice and Fire Dragon Kings stopped talking, and their remaining consciousnesses locked onto Tang Tianlin.
"Perhaps this is fate's arrangement."
"As it happens, our remnant consciousnesses cannot last much longer."
"Human, since you have inherited half the Dragon God's power, we shall lend you our aid this once."
"We were born because of the Dragon God. Today, we should perish for the Dragon God."
The Ice and Fire Dragon Kings' voices resounded through the bottom of the spring.
The next second, both balls of light abruptly burst apart, becoming a skyful of red and blue light that poured into Tang Tianlin's body together.
They were going to use the last of their power to condense Tang Tianlin's fifth Soul Ring!
The instant the power of ice and fire entered him, Tang Tianlin could clearly feel the Golden Dragon King Bloodline's yearning and excitement.
As the strongest Supreme God King in the universe, the Dragon God possessed the Creation and Destruction Godhead.
The Ice and Fire Dragon Kings were Dragon Kings the Dragon God had created with the power of creation, possessing elemental control second only to his own.
If he absorbed the power of the Nine Great Dragon Kings, could he attain the Dragon God's position without devouring the Silver Dragon King?
Tang Tianlin did not know. All he felt now was his body swelling, as though it had been filled to the brim.
A God King truly lived up to the title. Even a mere wisp of remnant soul was enough to benefit him immensely.
Had Tang Tianlin's health bar not been thick enough, he probably would have had to cosplay as fireworks.
"The Child of Nature and a Life Imprint?"
"Human, your origins are even more complicated than I imagined."
"We are about to die. Why think so much?"
"True. Then see the world of the future in our stead..."
As the Ice and Fire Dragon Kings' final words faded, the outline of a fifth Soul Ring gradually formed around Tang Tianlin's body.
The Soul Ring had a golden base, with patterns of ice and fire winding around one another.
This was no ordinary Soul Ring, but a million-year god-bestowed Soul Ring!
The instant the Soul Ring formed, the Soul Power within Tang Tianlin began soaring.
Rank fifty-one, rank fifty-two...
His Soul Power only gradually stopped rising upon reaching the peak of rank fifty-three.
Tang Tianlin opened his eyes, a glimmer of red and blue flashing through them...
"Whew. If I hadn't diverted some power to try to break through the Golden Dragon King's seal, my Soul Power probably could have risen a little more."
Just as he was about to stand, the two dragon skeletons suddenly began trembling.
Without the support of the Dragon Kings' remnant souls, the dragon bones began shattering inch by inch, dispersing into glittering dust. Only two translucent Soul Bones remained, floating silently.
One was ice-blue like frost, the other crimson like flame. They were unmistakably a pair of left and right leg bones!
"Ah, you two seniors are far too generous."
Tang Tianlin sighed and reached out to take the Soul Bones.
The Soul Bones felt heavy in his hands, their bodies translucent, looking like two pieces of the finest colored glass.
Who could have imagined that such beautiful things were actually two Million-Year Soul Bones?
Feeling the yearning from the Golden Dragon King Bloodline within him, Tang Tianlin did not hesitate. He immediately sat cross-legged, placing the ice-blue Soul Bone against his left leg and the crimson Soul Bone against his right.
The next instant, two utterly different powers surged into his body together.
On the left was the bitter chill of Ultimate Ice; on the right, the scorching heat of Ultimate Fire.
The twin extremes of ice and fire rose from both legs at once and rushed through his limbs and bones. The agonizing thrill instantly made Tang Tianlin's scalp prickle.
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