A Candle's Flame Dared Vie with the Blazing Sun!

The sky turned Gold-Red at that moment.

Shui Bing'er slumped helplessly onto the scorching earth, the enormous Gold-Red phoenix claw reflected in her clear eyes.

That was no mortal flame.

It was sacred, noble ultimate fire that tolerated no impurity.

Gold-Red light spilled over Shui Bing'er's fair skin, giving it a lustrous sheen.

Her sky-blue hair whipped through the raging heat.

Even in extreme danger, this favored daughter of heaven still displayed a breathtaking beauty.

"The Ice Phoenix... is actually submitting."

Shui Bing'er murmured unconsciously.

As the captain of Skywater Academy, Shui Bing'er had always taken pride in her Ice Phoenix martial soul.

Yet now, the martial soul within her trembled violently.

That trembling came from a suppression of rank deep within her bloodline.

Before the Gold-Red radiance in the sky, her Ice Phoenix martial soul could not muster even the slightest thought of resistance.

"Yellow, yellow, purple."

Shui Bing'er stared fixedly at the three soul rings beneath Chen Jin's feet.

It was clearly the most ordinary soul ring configuration, so why did it unleash such terrifying pressure?

This pressure surpassed even that of any Soul King Shui Bing'er had ever seen, approaching the level of a Soul Emperor.

Chen Jin.

The captain of Blazing Fire Academy who had defeated Heaven Dou Royal Academy in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Competition.

The strength he displayed now had completely overturned Shui Bing'er's understanding.

The Flame King Lion sensed a genuine threat of death.

As a thirty-thousand-year soul beast, it already possessed considerable intelligence.

Under the pressure of the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix, the cruelty in the enormous beast's eyes gave way to boundless terror.

Its bloodline trembled.

Its bones wailed.

It understood that unless it gave everything it had, it would undoubtedly die today.

Its roar shattered the surrounding air.

The dark-red markings on its body instantly turned a dazzling White-Scorching color.

That was the sign of compressing all the fire-attribute soul power in its body to the absolute limit.

The magma on the ground surged wildly at that moment, transforming into countless streams of White-Scorching fire that poured back into the Flame King Lion's body.

Its enormous body began to swell, and the scales covering it could not withstand that violent power, even showing signs of melting.

Scalding liquid flowed down its wounds and dripped onto the ground, corroding deep pits into it.

It raised its head high.

Its great maw opened.

A blazing white fireball several meters in diameter rapidly formed in its mouth.

Unable to withstand the intense heat, the surrounding space began to distort across a vast area.

All light was swallowed at that moment.

This strike was the Flame King Lion's origin strike.

A lifetime's strike that condensed thirty thousand years of cultivation.

A White-Scorching pillar of flame erupted from the enormous beast's mouth.

Wherever the pillar passed, the soil instantly vaporized, leaving behind a charred trench several meters deep.

The moisture in the air evaporated completely in that instant.

Nothing but scorching sulfur and ash entered their lungs.

Shui Bing'er could barely breathe, her chest feeling as though a Giant Rock weighed upon it.

The power radiating from that White-Scorching pillar filled Shui Bing'er with despair.

If she were caught in that strike, she would instantly turn to ash.

Her body trembled.

Her soul power was completely exhausted, and Shui Bing'er no longer had the strength even to stand.

She could only watch helplessly as that destructive pillar grew larger in her vision.

"Get back!"

A clear voice suddenly rang out beside her ear.

A black silhouette swept past like a phantom.

Zhu Zhuqing reached Shui Bing'er's side at the critical moment.

Her Nether Civet martial soul was pushed to its limit.

Although her martial soul was also trembling under Chen Jin's pressure, Zhu Zhuqing still gritted her teeth and did not retreat.

She stretched out her arms and wrapped them around Shui Bing'er's warm, soft waist.

"Netherworld Hundred Claws!"

Zhu Zhuqing spoke to herself.

Black claw blades traced countless afterimages through the air, striking the oncoming heat.

Using that counterforce, Zhu Zhuqing sped backward with Shui Bing'er.

Their figures flickered repeatedly through the forest, putting dozens of meters between them and the attack in an instant.

However, the Flame King Lion's attack covered far too wide an area.

Scorching aftershocks swept toward them like a tsunami.

Wherever they passed, ancient trees turned to charcoal and rocks melted into liquid.

Zhu Zhuqing and Shui Bing'er could only keep retreating, their escape route completely sealed by scalding magma.

Shui Bing'er looked at Zhu Zhuqing beside her.

"Thank you."

Shui Bing'er's voice was weak, tinged with a sigh.

Zhu Zhuqing said nothing.

Her gaze remained fixed on Chen Jin in the sky.

"Chen Jin, be careful!"

Zhu Zhuqing could not help shouting.

Her voice was torn to shreds by the gale.

In midair.

Chen Jin hovered quietly.

Facing that White-Scorching pillar powerful enough to destroy heaven and earth, his expression did not change in the slightest.

Not even his eyelashes stirred.

Before the bloodline of the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix.

All flames in the world were subjects.

For a subject to attack its sovereign was, in itself, the greatest transgression.

"A candle's flame dared vie with the blazing sun."

Chen Jin murmured to himself.

Though his voice was calm, it carried unshakable confidence.

The bloodline of the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix surged and roared within him.

The Gold-Red light upon his right arm became dazzling beyond measure at that moment.

His first soul ring, a yellow halo.

Its radiance blazed, almost completely eclipsing the light of the other two soul rings.

The enormous Gold-Red phoenix claw abruptly clenched in the air.

The void trembled.

With the momentum to destroy heaven and earth, the phoenix claw slammed down.

Dazzling Gold-Red and destructive White-Scorching collided violently in midair.

There was no earth-shaking explosion as expected.

Nor was there a deadlock.

The Gold-Red phoenix claw released a piercing phoenix cry the instant it touched the White-Scorching pillar.

That phoenix cry brimmed with the arrogance of the sovereign of all flames.

Before the Gold-Red phoenix claw, the White-Scorching pillar that condensed the Flame King Lion's entire cultivation was actually as fragile as thin paper.

A teeth-grating tearing sound rang out.

The Gold-Red phoenix claw forcibly cleaved the enormous White-Scorching pillar down the middle.

Split in two.

The moment the wildly violent white flames touched the Gold-Red flames, they rapidly extinguished and melted away, as though they had encountered their natural enemy.

The split pillar became two harmless streams of fire that slid past either side of Chen Jin's body and struck the clearing behind him, blasting dust into the sky.

Chen Jin stood in the void, completely unscathed.

His phoenix wings spread.

Not even a speck of dust had touched the hem of his clothes.

Without losing momentum, the enormous phoenix claw continued pressing down toward the Flame King Lion below, bearing irresistible pressure.

Shui Bing'er stood rooted to the spot.

Her beautiful eyes were wide open, the shock within them already beyond words.

"He split it..."

"He actually split a thirty-thousand-year soul beast's all-out strike with a single blow."

Shui Bing'er murmured to herself, her voice trembling.

As a favored daughter of heaven, Shui Bing'er had seen countless geniuses.

She had also seen many powerful soul masters.

But the scene before her had completely overturned Shui Bing'er's understanding of the world of soul masters.

A Soul Elder in his thirties.

Using his first soul skill.

He had crushed a thirty-thousand-year soul beast's origin attack head-on.

If word of this spread, the entire Douluo Continent would be shaken.

Zhu Zhuqing was equally stunned.

Although she knew Chen Jin was strong, every time she saw him act, it redefined what strength meant to her.

That young man Shrek Academy had once abandoned.

He had now grown to a height that left everyone looking up at him.

Zhu Zhuqing looked at the Gold-Red figure in the sky, her heart pounding.

The soul power within her actually showed faint signs of a breakthrough at that moment.

That was a resonance drawn forth by the presence of the strong.

A situation she had thought meant certain death had been resolved so easily before Chen Jin.

Just how many secrets did this young man still conceal?

This region of the Star Dou Great Forest had now been reduced entirely to scorched earth.

Ancient trees carbonized in the intense heat, crumbling into black powder with a gust of wind.

Within the cracks in the ground, crimson magma flowed like streams.

Shui Bing'er slumped helplessly beside a slightly raised, charred rock.

Her sky-blue hair was soaked with sweat and clung to her fair forehead.

A trickle of blood hung at the corner of her mouth, looking particularly forlorn and beautiful against her pale, lovely face.

Those eyes, usually as cold and clear as ice, were now fixed on the figure in the sky.

The Gold-Red feathers swirling around Chen Jin traced profound, mysterious paths through the air.

Every beat of his wings stirred up a dazzling rain of fire.

Those were flames beyond worldly understanding.

Beautiful, yet filled with the majesty to destroy everything.

"So this is ultimate fire..."

Shui Bing'er murmured softly to herself.

At that moment, the Ice Phoenix martial soul within her conveyed a longing mingled with endless fear.

Ice and fire naturally countered one another.

But when the quality of fire reached an unattainable height.

Ice could only submit.

Shui Bing'er could clearly feel the soul power within her gradually draining away.

It was not because she had been attacked, but because the surrounding temperature was too high, and her ice-attribute soul power was directly assimilated and evaporated in the air.

Such an overbearing attribute was simply unheard of.

What Shui Bing'er found even harder to accept were the three soul rings beneath Chen Jin's feet.

Two yellow and one purple.

In the soul master world, this was the most standard configuration for a Soul Elder.

Yet the radiance flowing over these three Soul Rings was so dense it seemed almost tangible.

With every pulse, they stirred ripples in the air visible to the naked eye.

Rank thirty... no, definitely more than rank thirty.

Shui Bing'er silently calculated.

Though Chen Jin had been formidable during the Soul Master Tournament, he had not yet reached this despair-inducing level.

How much time had passed? His strength had actually undergone such an earth-shaking transformation.

The Gold-Red Phoenix Claw slammed down through the air.

Boom!

The magma on the ground instantly exploded beneath the strike, turning into countless crimson raindrops that shot in every direction.

The Flame King Lion was driven bodily into the earth by that claw.

Its enormous body smashed a huge, deep crater into the ground, and the sound of breaking bones echoed through the woods.

Yet a thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast possessed extraordinarily tenacious vitality.

The massive beast struggled up out of the crater.

More than half the scales covering its body had shattered, and scalding blood flowed out.

Its scarlet eyes brimmed with savagery and madness.

As the overlord of this region, when had it ever suffered such humiliation?

The Flame King Lion threw back its head and roared wildly.

White-Scorching flames once again erupted from within its body, scorching the surrounding space until it warped.

The massive beast pushed off the ground with all four feet, its enormous body turning into a streak of White-Scorching light as it charged straight at Chen Jin in midair.

Its sharp claws tore through the air with explosive cracks.

Chen Jin turned slightly in the air, easily evading the savage strike.

Gold-Red flames condensed into solid form over his right fist, and he swung a heavy backhand punch viciously into the side of the beast's face.

The sound of impact rang out.

The Flame King Lion's enormous body was knocked off course once again and crashed heavily to the ground.

But the massive beast did not pause at all.

The instant it landed, its huge tail swept out like a heavy hammer wreathed in raging flames.

Gale winds howled.

Wherever the flaming tail whip passed, swathes of charred ancient trees were reduced to dust.

Chen Jin lightly tapped his toes against empty air and leaped nimbly upward, avoiding the sweeping tail.

Seeing its attack miss, the Flame King Lion opened its jaws wide.

Several White-Scorching fireballs shot out in succession, cutting off every route of retreat for Chen Jin.

Faced with this airtight assault, Chen Jin remained calm.

He raised his right hand slightly, and Gold-Red Phoenix Fire formed a huge shield before him.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of explosions rang out in midair.

The White-Scorching fireballs struck the Gold-Red shield and were instantly devoured and assimilated, turning into harmless sparks that scattered across the sky and faded.

The massive beast leaped high, its two enormous foreclaws blazing with searing white light as they smashed down with the crushing weight of Mount Tai.

The strike carried such tremendous force that even the air was compressed into a white current visible to the naked eye.

Rather than retreat, Chen Jin advanced, his right hand transforming into a Phoenix Claw as he fearlessly swung it toward the descending giant claws.

Fist and claws collided.

A visible red shock wave spread in every direction, stripping another layer of soil from the already scorched ground.

The Flame King Lion felt an irresistible force surge toward it, and its enormous body actually lost its balance in midair and was sent flying backward.

Chen Jin moved gracefully through the air, his mind utterly calm.

The Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix was the sovereign of all flames.

Although this Flame King Lion possessed thirty thousand years of cultivation, it was still a fire-attribute beast.

Before the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix's Ultimate Fire and bloodline pressure, the beast's fire-attribute power was forcibly suppressed by more than half.

This was also the fundamental reason Chen Jin could handle it so easily.

A thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast amounts to no more than this.

Chen Jin silently assessed it.

The massive beast's attacks seemed savage, but under the suppression of Ultimate Fire, they could pose no substantial threat at all.

He did not even need to activate the Divine Phoenix Domain.

The massive beast attacked again and again.

Claws, bites, tail strikes, incandescent white fireballs.

Its offensive raged like a furious tempest.

Yet against Chen Jin's near-perfect evasions and the Ultimate Fire that utterly countered it, these attacks could not harm him in the slightest.

Shui Bing'er leaned against a charred rock, her beautiful eyes filled with shock.

The battle before her had already surpassed her understanding of the world of Soul Masters.

A Soul Elder with only three Soul Rings could actually suppress a powerful thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast head-on.

And he seemed to be doing so with such effortless ease.

"Is this really only the strength of someone in the thirties?"

Shui Bing'er murmured to herself.

Even a Soul King from Skywater Academy could never hold out this long against a thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast, let alone suppress it.

The combat awareness and degree of Soul Power refinement Chen Jin displayed were simply like those of an expert who had spent many years immersed in this path.

That lofty bearing left no room for even the slightest doubt.