Chapter 208-2: Flowers That Bloom by Chance (2) |
The lower Furnace World was essentially the world’s power pool, requiring short-lived lives to become fuel in a polluted environment, providing energy for the world’s operation.
This was not a story of the dragon-slayer becoming the dragon, but that this world by nature had to have a group of lifeforms serve as consumables in the Furnace World for the world’s operation.
The structure of the Star Mound world was like an eternal loop. No matter who stood at the top, the fate of the bottom as fuel could not be changed.
Even if the original intent was to change things, in the end one had to adapt to the world’s rules and become part of maintaining its operation.
An individual’s will was meaningless before the world’s rules. Even standing at the peak, one could not reverse the world’s essence.
It was like the food chain in nature. The ocean’s surface must be covered by algae to feed the krill, and the krill must blanket the seas to sustain the whales. The Furnace World served as the foundational supply, similar to oceanic algae, effectively covering the energy conversion costs for the entire civilization.
Pull out the bottom, and the entire food chain collapses.
From a higher dimension, the existence of such classes was not mere oppression but a mechanism for maintaining the world’s balance.
The short-lived lives of the Furnace World, using themselves as fuel to power the entire world, seemed cruel, yet it was also the cornerstone of stability.
Those lower lifeforms he had once seen as symbols of suffering were in fact the foundation from which all was nurtured.
Now, standing at the summit of the world, he found that his efforts had only achieved replacement, not change.
Perhaps one day in the future, a seed like him would bloom again in the lower world, roaring against a fated destiny.
In the end, like him, they would stand at the summit, complete the replacement, and become the new order’s maintainer.
What shocked him even more was that when he consulted the historical records of the former top-tier race that had been knocked down to the lower world, he found they too had risen from the lower world, overthrown the former top, and completed a replacement.
Thinking himself one who defied heaven and altered fate, he had merely completed a rotating cycle.
History proved that the cycle never stops.
At that moment, he fell into self-doubt, realizing that building a perfect world of equal life was only a childish joke.
Dejected and in despair, after his dream collapsed, his will sank.
Until one day, he figured it out.
The inescapable cycle was because they were limited by the world beneath their feet. Perhaps they could seek breakthroughs and change by heading to a higher-tier world.
He made up his mind to lead the lifeforms of Star Mound to a higher-tier world, to break this long, endless cycle of enslavement.
With the seed rooted, he prepared for it in earnest.
After centuries of preparation, he successfully led his people to break the shackles of their world and descend into Monster World.
This world was the one he had dreamed of, but only the environment was fair.
Within this vast world existed countless powerful races beyond his imagination. The law of the jungle was still the rule of survival.
Unless he could stand at the summit of the world and, in this world of automatically deriving resources, establish a brand-new order that no longer required the lower beings to become consumables.
The appearance of Monster World gathered his shattered dream and rekindled his ambition to change the world.
For a dream so grand as to seem illusory, he carried the ambition to change the world, leading his people to wage war in all directions and set sail anew.
Formidable enemies fell one after another. The deeper his understanding of this world, the farther he felt from his dream.
But his steps in pursuit of the dream never stopped.
This world could bear his dream and also provide the fuel of resources needed to advance.
He would rush forward without end until he stood at the summit of this world, becoming a powerhouse who could change everything.
Coming back to himself, Ling Bone fixed his gaze on the surging Black Tide in the Light Mirror’s image.
The Black Tide’s great name thundered in his ears. He had heard of it many times from the mouths of defeated races, and at last he had encountered it.
Although this was only a single combat unit within the Black Tide, it would still require him to give everything to meet it.
Only by crossing this can there be a new future.
“Light Mirror, fuse.”
The Light Mirror then disassembled, turning into countless points of energy that merged with Ling Bone’s body.
Within the homeland, the already-prepared Power Gathering grand array activated. Countless racial members stretched out their hands; starlight overflowed from their bodies and drifted toward Ling Bone.
Like ice and snow melting into searing magma, in an instant a ring of dazzling radiance burst from around Ling Bone, rippling outward in layers.
Points of light beneath his skin raced through his body like electric currents, tracing complex spirit patterns. Muscles began to swell, every inch of skin emitting a golden glow, while power kept condensing.
As energy poured in without cease, Ling Bone’s body, originally close to three meters, gradually rose taller.
The light in his eyes grew ever more brilliant, no longer the former coldness, now igniting heat and resolve.
Power surged within him like a raging tsunami, his meridians widened to an unprecedented degree, every throb releasing surging energy ripples.
His bones, too, under the baptism of this power, gave off crisp detonations.
As if reforged, they became harder and tougher, to bear this mighty physique fused with the strength of his people.
Ling Bone threw back his head and howled to the sky, his voice like rolling thunder, resounding between heaven and earth.
In the blink of an eye his height reached five meters.
His body, shedding golden energy, rose into the air then, like a sun ascending, bursting forth with dazzling light.
Gazing down at the racial members who, having offered their strength, had collapsed from exhaustion, Ling Bone clenched his fist, battle intent rising in his heart.
“Wait for my return.”
With that, he turned into a streak of golden light and shot toward the direction from which the Black Tide was surging.
The air was cut by the golden light as a howling roar exploded in his ears. Ling Bone’s flight grew ever faster.
His battle intent kept rising.
Rising from the dust, breaking the cocoon to become a butterfly, going against the current.
Along this path he had faced desperate straits countless times and never fallen.
It had always been so, and this time would be no exception.
In his sight appeared the Black Tide that blotted out the sky and sun, like an endless dark ocean, crushing the land with a force like overturning mountains and seas.
Where it passed, the earth fractured inch by inch, revealing ink-black cracks as if to devour all things of the world, sweeping in with the howl of destruction.
Ling Bone’s expression was stern, battle fire burning in his eyes. His body suddenly accelerated to crash into the Black Tide, as if to break that dark wave-line with his own flesh.
He spread his arms, golden energy surged around him as if tangible, his body became enveloped in a shimmering array of runes, as streams of dazzling light intertwined across his surface.
“Kill!”
With a roar, Ling Bone plunged into the Black Tide.
Countless Evil Entity silhouettes condensed within the Black Tide lunged to bite.
Boom.
With a single punch, golden light carved a path, and a mass of Evil Entities were blasted to powder and reabsorbed into the Black Tide.
From deep within the Black Tide came piercing shrieks as myriads of Evil Entities pressed down like a swarm of bees.
The golden light around Ling Bone sizzled under the pressure of the Black Tide. The twelve spirit nails on his back suddenly flared with golden edges. They were the refined racial essences extracted when he conquered twelve powerful races, now burning.
Twelve golden light chains pierced through the Black Tide and, under Ling Bone’s control, churned, raising golden vortices within the Black Tide.
The Light Mirror fused into Ling Bone’s body constantly scanned the Black Tide’s information, seeking a weakness.
Seven nested parsing runes surfaced on his retina.
But the ever-effective Light Mirror failed to parse any weakness of the Black Tide. This was an unprecedented case.
There were only two possibilities for this phenomenon.
Either the Black Tide had no flaws at all, no weaknesses that could be targeted.
Or the Black Tide’s tier was too high, beyond the limit the Light Mirror could analyze.
But… he did not care.
As the vortices wrought by the golden light chains compressed under the collision of endless Evil Entities, power surged within Ling Bone. Gilded lines grew upon his broken bull horns. The spirit nails on his back burst one after another, ripping his back as they released energy and poured it into his spine.
Blood soaked his back. Ling Bone’s figure kept rising taller as he fought his way through the Black Tide.
In that moment Ling Bone seemed to see his former self in a trance.
That self who had started from the dust, growing amid pressure and despair.
Feeling the ultimate oppression brought by the Black Tide, Ling Bone fought fiercer and fiercer, wanting to tear apart the endless dark curtain blocking the road to his dream with his own strength.
“Kill!”
The Black Tide surged and compressed. The number of Evil Entities did not decrease but kept increasing, and the Black Tide Evil Entities appearing grew stronger and stronger.
At this time, atop the high tower at the Abyss of Heaven territory node, the Earthmind Evil Spirit was watching this ‘reckless fool’ who dared to charge directly into the Black Tide.
Sensing the battle intent transmitted by the Evil Eye’s analysis, the Earthmind Evil Spirit also felt a desire to fight kindle in his heart.
“Earthmind, you are not a warrior.”
“I understand.” Though battle intent surged in his heart, the Earthmind Evil Spirit chose to heed the Evil Eye’s thought.
But it could join the battle in another way.
In an instant, within the perceptual image, the Black Tide energy beside Ling Bone rapidly gathered toward one direction.
The Earthmind Evil Spirit’s consciousness descended. The Black Tide surged and compressed, condensing into the outline of the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s projected body.
Power kept sublimating, and the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s projection quickly solidified.
When the darkness faded, the Earthmind Evil Spirit’s projected body appeared.
The humanoid projection stood suspended with arms folded, over two meters tall, skin a dark red, with two flames burning in its eye sockets, its body filled with a ferocious, destructive aura.
Gazing at the rapidly charging Ling Bone, Earthmind raised his hands and drew Black Tide energy into his palms.
A pair of ferocious black gauntlets condensed upon his fists, wisps of dark mist coiling upon their surface.
Meanwhile the radiance around Ling Bone blazed, like a scorching sun descending. With an irresistible momentum he rushed in.
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