HLnovel Chapter 471 The Prelude to the Ultimate Trial
Chapter 471 The Prelude to the Ultimate Trial
The dull pain from my knee hitting the bluestone slab hadn't subsided when I got stung by stone dust.
When we looked up with sore eyes, we could see that we were in a circular stone arena—layers of stone seats rolled upwards like solidified waves, and the open space in the center gleamed with a cold, iron-like light. There stood a stone tablet about half a person's height, and the five words "Third Trial" seemed to come alive, their dark blue color covering the entire tablet.
"The sound of chains..." Qinglian's voice trembled, and the veins on the back of her hand, which was supporting her against the stone wall, bulged.
Only then did I notice that the rattling sound in my ears was still there, as if someone was dragging a rusty iron chain around the field.
Ling Feng's black iron sword hummed softly, its tip pointing in the direction the voice came from: "Be careful."
Before he could finish speaking, a deafening burst of laughter suddenly erupted.
The laughter was like a thunderclap muffled in a thundercloud, causing the pebbles on the stone seat to fall down in a rustling sound.
I looked up in the direction of the sound and saw a crack appear in the sky where dark clouds were churning. A figure wrapped in purple lightning was slowly descending. The black armor gleamed coldly in the lightning, the beast head ornaments on the shoulders had gaping mouths, and the lightning hammer in the hand was as tall as half a person. The arcs of electricity running on the hammer crackled and popped, and even the air smelled burnt.
“You young friends have arrived quickly.” He landed in the center of the open space, slammed his thunder hammer into the ground, and the entire arena trembled.
Only then did I see the lightning pattern at the corner of his eye, dark red like blood, winding from his brow bone all the way to his jaw. "I am the Thunder Demon King, and I have an eight-hundred-year-old friendship with that Netherworld Old Ghost." He glanced at the still-warm bead between my brows, and his Adam's apple bobbed beneath his black armor. "So you took his Evil Bead?"
That saves someone the trouble of robbing it.
The jade lamp of Azure Lotus suddenly shook violently, and a cluster of blue flames burst from its wick: "This is the ancient trial grounds, how could you...?"
"How would I know?" Thunder Demon King interrupted her, his thunder hammer slamming heavily into the ground. A bolt of purple lightning grazed past Qinglian's feet, burning a hole in the hem of her lotus-embroidered skirt. "I learned a lot about the secrets of this wretched place back in the day when I was with the previous Lord of Destiny." He tilted his head and stared at me, his pupils flickering with tiny flashes of lightning. "Little girl, do you think you can succeed just by passing two trials?"
"This family is the ultimate test—defeat me, and you get the key; defeat me and you'll be my lightning puppet, suffering eternal torment from the searing pain of lightning." He licked his lips.
I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails almost dug into my flesh.
The bead that had just merged into his brow suddenly became hot, and the diagram of the spiritual veins clearly appeared in his mind—there were actually nine hidden veins hidden beneath this arena, like nine strings stretched under the stone seat.
The "real challenge" that Xuanxiaozi spoke of was actually here.
“Miss Xiao.” Ling Feng suddenly spoke up. I turned my head and saw that his Xuan Tie sword was already three inches out of its sheath, with fine arcs of electricity floating on its blade. “This old man’s lightning magic is specifically designed to counter Yin Sha, but we…” He glanced at the shattered jade lamp of Qinglian and didn’t finish his sentence.
Qinglian gathered the three broken pieces of the lamp base in her palm, drops of blood seeping from her fingertips falling onto the wick, instantly intensifying the eerie blue light: "I'm protecting the spiritual vein node, Ling Feng is holding back the left flank." She looked up at me, her eyes still stained with mud from their escape, "You...you're the key."
Thunder Demon King's laughter rang out again: "You do know how to deploy troops?" He suddenly swung his hammer, and twelve bolts of purple lightning exploded in the air, like twelve silver needles piercing towards us!
I instinctively stepped back, but the bead between my eyebrows suddenly exploded with a burst of heat—in the spiritual vein diagram, the hidden vein in the due east direction suddenly lit up.
I suddenly raised my hand and pressed it against the crack in the stone seat beside me, following the spiritual vein to activate the power.
"Take three steps to the right!" I grabbed Qinglian's arm and staggered away, then turned to Ling Feng and shouted, "Slash at his hammer handle!" The Xuan Tie sword pierced through the air with a whooshing sound, striking the connection between the thunder hammer and its handle.
The Thunder Demon King clearly hadn't expected him to dare to take the hit head-on. He grunted and took half a step back, causing the lightning on his hammer to weaken by 20%.
"Alright!" I took the opportunity to bite my tongue, and the blood dripped onto the stone ground, winding into a net along the veins of the spirit vein.
This is the "Pulse-Guiding Array" from the Spirit Control Technique, which can temporarily borrow the power of underground spiritual veins.
Suddenly, the jade lamp of the Azure Lotus emitted a clear and melodious sound. The lamp base, which had been broken into three pieces, was reassembled. The azure light blade bloomed like a lotus flower and wrapped around the Thunder Demon King's right leg.
"Interesting." The muscles beneath the Thunder Demon King's black armor bulged, and with a sudden tug, he tore the Azure Lotus's light blade to shreds.
His lightning hammer began to glow a dark red, the arcs of electricity on its surface transforming into a crimson glow like a snake's tongue. "However..." he suddenly grinned, slamming the hammer heavily into the ground, "this is the true lightning magic of my school!"
Amidst the earth-shaking roar, I saw the arena floor crack open with spiderweb-like patterns, and crimson lightning snakes shot out from each crack.
Enraged, Ling Feng shattered the lightning snake that was coiling around his ankle, and the jade lamp of the Azure Lotus cracked again.
I gritted my teeth and activated the spiritual veins, but the lightning snakes actually rushed back along the spiritual veins, burning black marks on my arm.
"Xiao Yao!" Ling Feng's voice cracked, his Xuan Tie sword already chipped. "His lightning magic is consuming the spiritual veins!"
I looked up abruptly and met the Thunder Demon King's ambiguous, half-smiling gaze.
Fine cracks had appeared on the surface of his lightning hammer at some point, and from these cracks seeped out a purple-gold lightning that was ten times more dazzling than before.
“Little girl,” his voice suddenly softened, as if coaxing a child, “it’s not too late to admit defeat.”
I wiped the blood from my face, my fingertips touching the burning bead between my eyebrows.
Within the spiritual vein diagram, nine hidden veins were trembling wildly, like strings about to snap.
"It's not time yet," I said to myself, and to the entire arena.
The Thunder Demon King's smile deepened.
He raised his hand and pressed it on the crack in the lightning hammer. Suddenly, the purple-gold lightning surged, enveloping his entire body in a dazzling cocoon of light.
I heard Qinglian gasp, and Lingfeng's Xuan Tie sword clattered to the ground—the aura emanating from that cocoon of light was more than ten times stronger than before.
The pebbles on the stone seat began to fall again, this time not because of the tremors, but because they were shaken off by the terrifying pressure.
I stared at the figure gradually becoming clearer within the cocoon of light, and suddenly recalled the heavy tone in Xuanxiaozi's voice when he spoke of "the real challenge."
Perhaps... he was never referring to the Netherworld Ghost King, but rather to this Thunder Demon King who harbors deadly tricks?
The moment the cocoon of light burst open with a "bang," I heard my own heart pounding.
The Thunder Demon King strode in, riding on a field of lightning snakes. His black armor was shattered, revealing muscles covered in lightning patterns beneath. From the cracks in his thunder hammer, a lightning I had never seen before was brewing, powerful enough to tear this space apart.
The purple-gold lightning on the lightning hammer was like a venomous snake that had come to life; I could even hear the hissing sound of electricity crackling in the air.
With each step the Thunder Demon King took, a charred trench would crack open in the ground, and the crimson lightning snakes would emerge from the cracks and instantly coil around the jade lamp of the blue lotus. The wick of the lamp would explode into sparks with a "sizzle," and she would stagger and fall to the ground, still clutching half a charred lotus petal in her fingertips.
"Xiao Yao!" Ling Feng's Xuan Tie sword was nicked by the lightning snakes. He threw out three lightning talismans and shattered the snakes that were wrapped around my ankle. "His lightning magic is devouring the spiritual veins!"
Activating the hidden meridians again will cause a backlash!
A metallic taste rose in my throat.
When he took the purple lightning bolt that struck Qinglian head-on, the clothes on his left shoulder were burned to shreds, and the blood vessels under his skin felt like they were strung together by red-hot wires. Every heartbeat made him feel numb with pain.
What alarmed me even more was the bead between my eyebrows—the evil bead that was supposed to suppress the yin energy was now burning hot, and the originally clear spiritual vein diagram was gradually blurring into a chaotic mess, like a piece of paper soaked by rain.
"Little girl, what are you trembling about?" The Thunder Demon King's voice, crackling with thunder, made my eardrums ache.
The moment he raised his hand, the entire sky darkened, and countless purple-gold lightning bolts fell from the clouds, like an impenetrable net covering the sky.
My first instinct was to dodge, but the spiritual vein diagram was already in complete disarray, and I couldn't even tell which way was north, south, east, or west.
"Hold on!" Ling Feng's Xuan Tie sword suddenly pierced into the crack in the stone at my feet, and the electric arcs on the sword crackled and popped, actually creating a blue light shield above my head.
But the light shield only lasted for three breaths—the instant the laser pierced through the light shield, Ling Feng groaned and spat out a mouthful of blood, and the sword blade clattered to the ground.
A strand of lace brushed past my right ear, and the tip of my hair sizzled and caught fire.
I rolled on the ground to extinguish the flames, and when I looked up, I was met with the eyes of the Thunder Demon King—the lightning in his pupils was no longer fragmented, but condensed into two small suns, so bright that no one dared to look directly at them.
"This is the power of the Key of Destiny?" He scoffed, slamming his thunder hammer heavily beside me, the shockwave making my internal organs tremble. "That old bastard used this broken bead to suppress me for eight hundred years, and now it's become your protective charm?"
That's when I noticed the flaw in his words—Xuanxiaozi?
The "old thing" he was referring to was Xuanxiaozi?
But Xuanxiaozi clearly stated that he was just an ordinary rogue cultivator guarding the training grounds...
"Xiao Yao!" Qinglian suddenly screamed.
The moment I turned my head, a bolt of purple lightning as thick as a bucket struck my back.
With no way to avoid it, I gritted my teeth and clenched the evil bead in my palm, but this time it didn't heat up like before; instead, it was bone-chillingly cold.
The excruciating pain shot from my spine to the top of my head.
I was like a withered leaf caught in a gale, crashing against the armrest of the stone seat and bouncing off.
Blood dripped from my mouth down my chin onto the stone ground. I saw my shadow distorted by the lightning, and the wound on my left shoulder was still hissing and emitting blue smoke, with a section of white bone exposed.
"Admit defeat." The Thunder Demon King's voice suddenly came very close.
He knelt on one knee in front of me, the tip of his thunder hammer pressed against my Adam's apple. "Wouldn't it be great to be a thunder puppet?"
No pain, no fatigue, just follow someone and travel the six realms...
I stared behind him—Ling Feng was struggling to his feet, clutching the broken sword, while Qing Lian supported herself with the lamp base, the blood seeping from between her fingers staining the ground in small blue patches.
Their shadows were stretched long by the lightning, like two tottering stone statues.
“No.” I forced a smile, blood splattering onto the runes on the thunder hammer. “You said Xuanxiaozi suppressed you for eight hundred years…” I struggled to raise my hand, my fingertips brushing against the dark red patterns on his thunder hammer. “Then he must have a backup plan.”
The Thunder Demon King's pupils suddenly contracted.
Just as he was about to pull back the Thunder Hammer, I suddenly grabbed his wrist—the bead between his eyebrows exploded with golden light!
The light, like a living thing, burrowed into the runes of the thunder hammer, and I saw that the dark red lines were cracking with gold, like the cracks on an ice surface.
"You...you touched the runes!" Thunder Demon King roared, trying to shake me off, but I stuck to his hand like a leech.
The golden light slid down my arm and into the Thunder Hammer. With each rune it entered, the Thunder Demon King's lightning patterns faded a little.
His black armor began to crumble piece by piece, revealing muscles covered with bluish-purple veins. Where was the arrogance he had displayed just moments before?
"Ling Feng!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Chop his elbow!"
The broken blade of the Xuan Tie sword pierced through the air with a whooshing sound.
The Thunder Demon King cried out in pain and let go. I took the opportunity to roll to the side and watched as the Thunder Hammer fell to the ground with a "clang"—the runes that had been corroded by the golden light were hissing and emitting black smoke, like ants that had been doused with boiling oil, scrambling to burrow into the hammer handle.
"Qinglian!" I called again, "Yudeng!"
Qinglian bit her lip and tossed the lamp base over.
The moment I caught it, the wick suddenly burst into a ghostly blue flame, burning right in the center of the lightning hammer's runes.
The runes emitted a piercing shriek, and the surface of the thunder hammer cracked with spiderweb-like patterns before exploding into countless fragments with a "boom"!
The Thunder Demon King staggered backward, his lightning patterns fading to a pale pink, and fragments of his black armor fell to the ground.
When Ling Feng's broken sword was pressed against his throat, he suddenly laughed: "You think you've won?"
That bead…
"Shut up!" The wick of the lotus lamp burst into flames, causing smoke to rise from his neck.
The Thunder Demon King's body began to turn transparent, like mist blown away by the wind, leaving only a vague sentence: "The Core of the Stars... is not something you can withstand..."
As soon as he finished speaking, a golden light suddenly rose from the center of the arena.
I got up, clutching my left shoulder, and saw a white jade altar slowly rising from the ground. In the center of the altar floated a bead that shimmered with starlight—it was brighter than the moon, but not as cold as moonlight. Instead, it exuded a comforting warmth, like the temperature of my mother's hand when she covered me with a blanket when I was a child.
"This is the final form of the Key of Destiny—the Core of the Stars." Xuanxiaozi's voice surged from all directions, hoarser than before, "But remember, the price for touching it is your most precious possession."
I gazed at the core of the star, the wound on my left shoulder still aching, but a surge of warmth suddenly welled up inside me.
The heat surged upwards along the blood vessels, finally gathering at the center of the forehead—where the evil bead had disappeared without a trace, leaving only a warm mark, as if someone had gently pressed it.
Qinglian helped me stand up, and Lingfeng picked up the broken sword and put it back in its sheath.
The three of us stood there, gazing at the core of the stars on the altar.
Its light fell on the back of my hand, revealing the fine veins, much like the hidden veins in the spiritual vein diagram.
"Do you want to touch it?" Ling Feng asked softly.
As I gazed at the starlight flowing within the core of the star, I recalled the spiritual vein diagram shattered by the Thunder Demon King, the jade lamp that had broken and then reformed, and the Xuan Tie sword that had been broken in two by Ling Feng.
"Bang." I heard myself say.
The light from the core of the star suddenly intensified, illuminating the entire arena as bright as day.
I reached out my hand, and when my fingertips were still three inches away from it, I suddenly felt a pang of heart palpitation—not fear, but an indescribable familiarity, like a long-lost friend smiling at me across the years.
The wound on my left shoulder stopped hurting at some point.
As I gazed at my hands shining in the starlight, I suddenly recalled the look in Xuanxiaozi's eyes when he said "the real challenge."
Perhaps the challenge he was referring to was never the Thunder Demon King or the Netherworld Ghost King, but rather the truth hidden within the core of this star that I must confront.
But so what?
I took a breath and gently touched the core of the star with my fingertips.