A piercing wind howled through the woods. The lingering aura of withering destruction had yet to fully disperse, and the entire woodland lay in shambles.
Broken branches littered the ground, which was covered in fine cracks. The aftershocks of the earlier Soul Power collision were still slowly dissipating in the air, and traces of the battle were everywhere.
Tang Wulin stood in place, the golden patterns covering his body fully illuminated as the domineering, boundless power of his Golden Dragon King Bloodline erupted without restraint.
His once-youthful body now brimmed with endless explosive strength. Layers of dragon scales covered his right arm, gleaming coldly, and his viciously sharp Golden Dragon Claw had fully materialized. Every inch of its blades shone with an edge that could tear through steel.
His eyes were now filled with scarlet veins. The frustration of seeing his teammates eliminated one after another, the fury of being crushed at will, and the guilt of being powerless to protect his companions and classmates had all piled up in his heart, turning completely into a fighting spirit that would charge forward without retreat.
He knew very well that an immense gulf separated his strength from Xiao Chen's, but he had nowhere left to retreat. Every teammate around him had been knocked out.
If he lost as well, the entire field would fall completely under his opponent's control, and Gu Yue would be left isolated and helpless.
Watching Tang Wulin prepare to stake his life on one final attempt, Xiao Chen frowned slightly.
It had nothing to do with the power of the Golden Dragon Claw erupting before him, but with something else.
The Golden Dragon King Divine Core.
It was the greatest opportunity throughout the entirety of The Legend of the Dragon King, as well as the most unsolvable fatal threat-a shackle Tang Wulin could never escape throughout his life.
Oh, no, that's not right. It got replaced with the Destruction God Position later. Destruction has been muted.
This Divine Core had given Tang Wulin a body that defied the heavens and the means to challenge opponents above his level. It was the greatest cheat behind his rise.
At the same time, however, the overwhelming malice and berserk will sealed within the Divine Core were a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment.
Xiao Chen silently considered it. If only I had a chance to extract this Golden Dragon King Divine Core intact.
But the instant that thought arose, he shook his head helplessly and suppressed it.
As he was now, he was merely a three-ring Soul Elder at level thirty-something. His cultivation foundation and level of power were both far from sufficient. He had no qualifications to touch the Divine Core, much less extract it.
More importantly, the Golden Dragon King's power had never been the only force hidden within Tang Wulin.
That sliver of a divine sense avatar that slumbered year-round-Old Tang, a Divine Sense Fragment of Sea God Tang San-was the greatest problem.
That strand of divine sense constantly protected Tang Wulin, secretly keeping the Golden Dragon King's malice in check.
With his current strength, rashly touching the Divine Core would only expose every abnormality in an instant, stir the grass and startle the snake, and perhaps even provoke a terrifying backlash at the God King level. The losses would outweigh the gains.
These thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, and Tang Wulin had already finished gathering his strength.
"Die!"
A deep, furious roar exploded outward. Tang Wulin drove his feet against the ground, instantly shattering the hard earth into a fine spiderweb of cracks as gravel and dust shot into the air.
His entire body became a streak of golden light. Carrying the utterly berserk pressure of his bloodline and wielding his razor-sharp Golden Dragon Claw, he charged straight at Xiao Chen without a care for anything else. His attack was fierce and domineering, leaving himself no way back.
Facing this desperate strike that poured in every last bit of strength, Xiao Chen remained calm. He neither dodged nor evaded, meeting it head-on.
"Wither Martial Soul, possess."
As his low voice fell, pitch-black, shadowy Soul Power of annihilation instantly swept over his entire body, covering every limb and bone.
A dense aura of death coiled around Xiao Chen. His refined, carefree bearing instantly turned cold and sharp, like a monarch of the dark night who commanded annihilation.
Dark light gathered in his right palm, and an extremely condensed Wither Head, heavy with pressure, slowly took shape.
There were no flashy moves or unnecessary variations, only the gathering of the purest destructive power. Yet it was enough to contend with the Golden Dragon King's ferocious assault before him.
The next instant, the two great powers collided with a thunderous crash!
Boom-!
A deafening explosion resounded throughout the woodland as a violent shock wave of black-and-white Soul Power instantly swept in every direction.
Every surrounding tree snapped at the waist. Leaves and shattered stones filled the sky, swept away by the air currents, and the entire battlefield was reduced to a wreck.
Violent currents of energy rampaged and collided, powerful enough to crush an ordinary Soul Master to death in an instant.
In this head-on clash, victory and defeat were decided with astonishing speed.
Tang Wulin let out a stifled howl of pain. All his clothes burst apart, and wounds of varying depths crisscrossed his skin, blood soaking his body.
An immense force of recoil poured into his body through the Golden Dragon Claw, sending his blood and vital energy into complete turmoil and injuring his organs.
He flew backward like a kite with its string cut and slammed heavily into a thick ancient tree.
The trunk shook violently, leaves rustling as they rained down. Tang Wulin spat out a mouthful of blood, which trickled from the corner of his mouth. His body went limp, slid straight down the trunk, and hit the ground hard. He stopped moving altogether, his eyes tightly shut and his breathing faint, having fallen completely unconscious.
Xiao Chen, by contrast, had stood in the same spot from beginning to end, his posture straight as a pine, without moving an inch.
A clear, lustrous blue halo firmly enveloped his entire body, shutting out every violent impact and lingering surge of destruction. Even at the center of the energy storm, he had not been shaken in the slightest or suffered the slightest injury.
This was his third Soul Skill-Resurrection.
This Soul Skill replicated a mechanic unique to the Wither in Minecraft.
In Java Edition, the Wither was treated as absolutely invulnerable during its resurrection charging phase. Even the highest-permission /kill command could not instantly erase it; the charging had to finish before its status could be resolved.
His cultivation was still shallow. At the three-ring Soul Elder realm, he could sustain this state of absolute invulnerability for only three seconds.
Yet those brief three seconds were already enough for him to withstand Tang Wulin's desperate assault, which had exhausted all his bloodline power.
Xiao Chen silently calculated that as his cultivation improved and his Soul Rings grew older, once he became a nine-ring Titled Douluo, the invulnerability duration of this Resurrection Soul Skill would surely increase to nine seconds.
At that point, this unanswerable invulnerability would truly have no answer.
A moment later, the blue halo around him slowly dispersed, and his invulnerable state quietly ended.
Xiao Chen raised his eyes, his calm gaze sweeping over the unconscious Tang Wulin on the ground. He actually wasn't eliminated?
He lifted his foot and walked slowly toward him, intending to end this battle for good.
But just as he came within a few meters of Tang Wulin and was about to reach him!
Tang Wulin, whose breathing had been faint, who had been utterly motionless and completely unconscious, suddenly snapped his eyes open!
They were no longer Tang Wulin's clear eyes.
His pupils were now deep as the sea, vast and boundless, carrying the supreme majesty of one who looked down upon all living beings and stood above the nine heavens.
The boy's former vitality and purity had faded away entirely, replaced by endless indifference.
An invisible yet terrifying pressure quietly spread from within Tang Wulin.
"Tang Wulin" slowly raised his eyes, his gaze locking precisely onto Xiao Chen before him. A deep voice slowly rang out, devoid of emotion, yet every word struck like thunder:
"It really is you, anomaly."
Those few words instantly stiffened Xiao Chen's entire body. Towering waves surged in his heart, and his pupils abruptly contracted, filled with incredulous shock!
Tang Wulin could not possibly say something like that!
This was definitely not Tang Wulin's consciousness!
An earth-shattering answer instantly flashed through Xiao Chen's mind, violently shaking him and leaving him utterly stunned.
It's Tang San. There's no mistake.
According to the original storyline he knew, Old Tang should still have been in a muddled, dormant state at this point.
His consciousness was fragmented, his understanding incomplete. He had no awakened, complete sense of self at all, much less any way to know his own identity, let alone see through Xiao Chen as a transmigrator!
This butterfly effect of mine is a bit too big.
Also, isn't this the Spirit Ascension Platform? Did Tang San hack his way in?
Countless questions churned wildly in his heart, throwing his mind into disarray.
But he knew very well that this was absolutely no time to panic. Facing a God King's consciousness, he could not reveal even the slightest flaw.
Xiao Chen forcibly suppressed the stormy waves in his heart and concealed every trace of anything unusual. His expression turned cold and grave as he stared closely at the other party, feigning ignorance and demanding in a low voice:
"Who are you?"
Hearing his question, the divine sense of Tang San occupying Tang Wulin's body revealed a flicker of supreme indifference and disdain in his eyes.
In his eyes, all living beings in the world were ants. Even a young genius endowed with extraordinary talent was nothing more than a mortal of the mundane world.
The next instant, the supreme pressure of a God King erupted in full. A majestic voice resounded through the woods, carrying an unquestionable, supreme dominance:
"Impudent! Why do you not bow before this God King!"
Before you continue