However.
An unexpected change suddenly appeared within the raging blaze ahead.
As the violent golden-red flames approached a certain point in the center, they strangely parted to either side, as though an invisible force had cleaved them apart.
A moment later.
The flames gradually dispersed.
The sight they revealed left Huo Wu's mouth hanging open in shock as she stood rooted to the spot.
Chen Jin still stood quietly where he had been.
He was completely unharmed.
Not even the hem of his clothes had been singed.
"This... how is this possible?"
Huo Wu rubbed her eyes, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.
That had been the full-force breath of a six-thousand-year-old Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow!
Even a level-forty defense-type Soul Ancestor would have been killed or crippled by taking that attack head-on.
Yet he hadn't suffered a scratch?
Just as Huo Wu reeled in shock.
A sacred radiance suddenly erupted from Chen Jin's body.
Seven-colored divine light shot into the sky, illuminating the charred forest around him in dazzling colors.
The enormous, sacred phantom of a phoenix slowly emerged behind Chen Jin.
The phoenix had nine magnificent tail feathers, each shimmering with seven-colored golden light.
Noble, elegant, exalted.
It was a supreme being that stood above all birds.
The Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix!
With the appearance of the Nine Heavens Divine Phoenix Martial Soul, a terrifying bloodline pressure instantly swept across the entire clearing.
At that instant.
Huo Wu felt the Soul Power within her abruptly stall.
The Fire Shadow Martial Soul behind her actually manifested on its own, beyond her control.
However.
Her normally prideful Fire Shadow Martial Soul now radiated reverence and submission, like a subject standing before a sovereign.
There was even a faint sense of affinity, an urge to merge with it.
Huo Wu stared blankly at the sacred phantom behind Chen Jin.
"This... this is his Martial Soul?"
Huo Wu's heart pounded violently.
"How can it possess such terrifying pressure? My Fire Shadow Martial Soul is actually afraid, trembling..."
As the wielder of a top-tier fire-attribute Martial Soul, she had never heard of any Martial Soul on the continent capable of suppressing Fire Shadow so absolutely.
This was no mere difference in Soul Power Level, but absolute supremacy in the level of life itself and the very source of the bloodline.
It wasn't just Huo Wu.
The instant the airborne Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow saw the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix phantom, its body abruptly stiffened as well.
The brutality and arrogance in its eyes were instantly replaced by extreme terror.
It was bloodline suppression that reached into the depths of its soul.
Before the Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix, this so-called Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow was nothing more than a sparrow on the ground.
Overwhelming fear drove the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow into a frenzy.
It let out a cry so shrill it became distorted.
All its feathers stood on end in an instant, and golden-red flames erupted like a volcano.
It began beating its wings wildly.
Countless enormous blades of fire rained down, blanketing the sky and turning the ground for hundreds of meters around into a churning sea of flames.
Billowing waves of heat swept outward, scorching even the surrounding space until it warped and twisted.
However.
Faced with this nearly frenzied assault.
Chen Jin merely stood quietly at the center of the sea of flames.
Whenever the violent blazing fire, hot enough to melt gold and iron, came within three feet of him, it silently merged into the seven-colored divine light within his body, becoming nourishment that sustained him.
Impervious to all flames.
Indestructible through all tribulations.
Such was the power of the Nine Heavens Divine Phoenix Martial Soul.
When it came to command over flames, no being could stand above the Divine Phoenix.
Watching the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow struggle madly amid the sea of flames.
Chen Jin slowly raised his right hand.
His five fingers curled slightly, faintly forming a peculiar claw shape.
In an instant.
A heart-stopping aura of destruction quietly gathered at the center of the clearing.
At that moment.
In the distance, Huo Wu felt her heart give a violent shudder.
An immense terror surged through her, leaving her unable even to breathe.
She stared blankly at Chen Jin.
The divine light surrounding Chen Jin reached its utmost brilliance at that moment.
The Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix phantom behind him swelled continuously, becoming an enormous being a thousand feet across in the blink of an eye.
It blotted out the sky and the sun.
Sacred golden light dyed the entire sky in seven colors.
"Phoenix Claw."
Chen Jin's voice rang out softly.
As his words fell.
The thousand-foot Nine-Heaven Divine Phoenix phantom abruptly thrust out an enormous seven-colored divine claw.
Five enormous claw marks swept through the air, tearing five pitch-black fissures through the space in their path.
With unparalleled dominance and destructive power, it savagely seized at the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow in midair.
Sensing the terrifying power contained in that claw, the fear in the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow's eyes reached its peak.
It knew it had reached the brink of life and death.
It let out a piercing shriek, and a layer of nearly white flames ignited across its body.
It was burning its own life force, trying desperately to withstand the blow.
However.
Before absolute power and bloodline suppression, every struggle was futile.
As though crushing a sheet of thin paper, the enormous seven-colored divine claw instantly crushed the white flames surrounding the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow.
Squelch.
A muffled boom rang out.
Five streaks of divine radiance instantly pierced the Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow's enormous body.
Before its blood could spill, the intense heat carried by the divine claw instantly vaporized it.
The enormous red bird in midair shuddered violently.
The light in its eyes gradually faded.
Its massive body fell limply from the sky and slammed heavily into the charred ground, without a trace of life remaining.
A ring of deep purple light slowly drifted out of its corpse, pulsing in the air.
The entire clearing.
Instantly fell deathly silent.
Huo Wu stood blankly in the distance, looking at the enormous corpse, then at Chen Jin as he slowly withdrew his right hand.
She was utterly dazed.
Her mind held nothing but a blank void.
Above the charred ground, the searing dust and smoke gradually dispersed.
The air was thick with an acrid, burnt smell, the lingering odor of feathers and flesh melted by intense heat.
Huo Wu stood rooted to the spot, her gaze passing through layers of heat waves to settle on the enormous bird's corpse.
The six-thousand-year-old Blazing Fire Azure Sparrow had become a mass of charcoal.
Everything had happened too quickly.
Only a few breaths had passed between Chen Jin making his move and that seven-colored divine claw descending.
The power of that strike still replayed in Huo Wu's mind.
When that claw descended, it had torn marks through space itself, and the violent blazing fire had become as docile as a lamb before it.
Huo Wu asked herself what would have happened had she faced that move instead; she feared she would have been reduced to drifting ash before she could even scream.
Was this really power that a level-thirty Soul Master could possess?
As Blazing Fire Academy's favored daughter of heaven, Huo Wu had always taken pride in her talent.
But now, looking at that straight-backed figure, she felt only that her pride had been trampled to pieces.
Before this person, a so-called academy genius was little more than a childish joke.
Chen Jin looked at the Soul Ring before him, satisfaction flickering in his eyes.
He sat down cross-legged, rested his hands on his knees, and prepared to draw in the Soul Ring.
At this sight, Huo Wu finally snapped out of her shock.
"Chen Jin! Have you lost your mind?!"
Before you continue