Chapter 345: Completing the War God Battle Body (I)
Chapter 345: Completing the War God Battle Body (I)
On May 4th, Kleide entered the small nation of Elbia and challenged the second-rate martial arts high schools in the capital.
He proceeded to defeat five experts of the Sixth Heavenly Realm in a row. Even the fully beastified headmaster, at the beginning stage of the Seventh Realm, couldn’t withstand a single move. No one could stand against the might of his Destructive Fist Will.
On May 6th, Kleide crossed Elbia and entered Gunado to challenge the nation’s largest martial arts academy, located in a major border city. The entire battle was broadcast live by the local television station.
In this fight, not a single expert in the late stage or peak of the Sixth Heavenly Realm could take a single punch from him. The academy master, who was in the middle stage of the Seventh Realm, was defeated in three moves, causing Kleide's reputation to grow even more.
By May 8th, Yan Ruoyi had recovered significantly, and was recording a new song in a temporary recording studio set up on the tenth floor of the hotel, while a bald middle-aged sound engineer and an assistant busily worked outside.
Chen Chu, as always, was nearby, dressed in a black suit with sunglasses on. He sat quietly on a sofa, seemingly "reading" the secret scripture. Inside the scripture’s space, a figure stood thirty meters tall.
By now, the War God Body was almost complete. It was clad in a black and red dragon scaled armor and held a halberd in both of its main hands. The other four arms, resting on either side of its back, had their hands and fingers positioned to form seals.
With four slowly rotating light wheels behind its head, it exuded the majesty of a Wisdom King holding a world in his hand.
The Battle Body appeared different from before. Instead of being an illusion, it now felt real, as if it were truly a person.
Currently, only a few minor rune conflicts remained within the body, and Chen Chu felt that after another hundred or so simulations, they could be resolved, which would take two or three days.
The seals the four hands made were just a deliberate pose Chen Chu made to look impressive, thinking that his True Martial Phantom would make a grander entrance that way.
At this stage, his Zhenwu secret scripture was almost successfully created. Although he had only simulated up to the seventh stage, its solid foundation and complete general outline meant that the simulation of the eighth stage would proceed rapidly once he broke through to the Seventh Heavenly Realm.
By then, breaking through one Heavenly Realm per month should be achievable. He could possibly even break through to the Ninth Realm by this August, taking less than a year to cultivate—faster than Xiao Tianyi, who had taken a full year.
Thinking of this, Chen Chu couldn't help but slightly curl his lips into a smile.
This sight immediately left the young assistant staring in a daze. She couldn't help it—he was just too handsome. Moreover, with the title of "Godslayer," the women in these entertainment companies looked at Chen Chu as if he carried an aura of stage lighting. He seemed to be shining in their eyes.
Because of this, Chen Chu had been going downstairs far less frequently. Every time he did, the female dancers and pretty secretaries from the concert teams would look at him as if they were ready to devour him.
Situations like this always made Li Daoyi incredibly envious. As an Innate Awakener, he didn’t receive the same treatment. Those women only wanted to sleep with him, to experience what being with an Innate Awakener was like, rather than actually liking him.
At that moment, the bald sound engineer said sourly, "Xiaowei, stop staring. No matter how much you look, he won’t be interested in you. After all, he killed a god."
The pretty young assistant giggled and said, "I know, that’s why I’m taking the chance to look at him while I still can. There might not be another chance later."
She continued to stare at Chen Chu with an unabashed, heated gaze.
Meanwhile, as Yan Ruoyi’s health improved, Bai Yunfeng announced to the public that the final concert in Miamir would be held on May 20th.
***
In the World of Water and Fire, the molten lava in the volcano’s crater churned violently.
Bang!
It suddenly exploded, and an enormous, ferocious black-and-red dragon head emerged. The dark red lava, burning with flames, flowed and dripped through the gaps in its scales.
Flames burned on the three pairs of spiked red horns on each side of the dragon's head, forming a golden crown that made the Thunder Fiery Emperor Beast appear both majestic and domineering.
It rose with a thunderous splash, causing large streams of lava to pour down its body in fiery waterfalls.
After a week in seclusion, while condensing field runes, the Thunder Beast had also absorbed an enormous amount of the volcano’s intense energy, making its presence even more oppressive.
At that moment, the constraint runes engraved on its right claw had reached a hundred in number. With this layering, the power of the force field constraint had almost doubled compared to before.
How much energy it could compress, however, and how intense that condensed energy would be, could only be discovered in battle.
Boom!
The rocks at the volcano’s crater shattered as the colossal black-and-red beast, nearly a hundred meters long, leaped hundreds of meters into the air, before crashing down into the lava lake below with a deafening roar.
The lake quaked violently, and millions of tons of molten lava were flung in all directions, forming a meteor shower of fire that covered a kilometer-wide area.
The Thunder Beast stood up on its hind legs, with half of its body submerged in the lava, and approached the purple dragon egg.
As soon as it was grasped, the egg began to tremble slightly, emitting a faint emotion of joy and anticipation.
The Thunder Beast growled softly. Roar!
You can have a little bit this time.Life energy flowed from deep within its body, gathering in its claws and enveloping the purple egg.
Immediately, a powerful suction force came from within the egg, as if a parched desert was greedily absorbing an oasis.
However, after it had absorbed roughly the equivalent of half a portion of essence, the Thunder Beast dispersed the life energy.
The egg was clearly not satisfied, and sent out a weak but earnest desire for more.
The Thunder Beast decisively refused. Roar! No, you can’t have too much at once. That’s enough for today!
It had calculated that losing only half an essence portion's worth of life energy wouldn’t affect its foundation or strength; it could easily recover by consuming two level 7 colossal beasts. However, if that loss was excessive enough to surpass a full portion of essence, even it would feel weakened.
These were lessons that could only be learned through painful experience. The feeling of deep internal weakness and emptiness from before was just too unpleasant.
The Silver Colossal Dragon and other colossal beasts had also attempted to condense their life energy to feed the egg, hoping to cultivate more emperor-level life forms.
However, it rejected all of them, refusing to absorb their life energy. It was as if this little creature found their energy inadequate.
Roar! Alright, I need to go eat something to replenish myself. I’ll ‘charge’ you up again next time, the Thunder Beast growled as it placed the now slightly enhanced egg back into the lake.
The scorching lava lake acted as an incubator, which offered a bit of help with the egg's hatching process. Usually, the dragon egg would also absorb the surrounding fiery energy to strengthen itself.
However, compared to the energy it absorbed, more life energy had been lost over time, condensed into a substance that the Tiger Serpent ate to grow to level 9 and revert to its ancestral form.
The Tiger Serpent had been quite clever—it didn’t choose to devour the dragon egg directly. Since it lacked the skill to absorb biological genes and bloodlines, eating the egg itself would have only been like consuming a highly nutritious resource.
After all, it was just an egg, not even a fully-formed life form yet. Its significant potential came from the inherited power of laws within it. Therefore, it was better off continuing to absorb life substances and enhance its own bloodline until it completely drained the life energy from the egg.
As the Thunder Beast walked with heavy steps past the side of the Ice Crystal Dragon Palace, a massive dragon head emerged from the Earth Dragon King’s hall, roaring with excitement.
Roar! Roar! Thunder Fiery, are you heading out?
The Deep Sea Dragon Turtle's eyes lit up with intense anticipation. It had been cooped up in its palace for several days, and it was so bored it felt like it was going to mold.
The Thunder Beast glanced at it and growled. Roar! How many energy conversion runes have you condensed?
Roar! Roar! Twenty... no, nineteen... roar! It seems like fifteen.
The Dragon Turtle had initially wanted to claim the required number, but under the Thunder Beast’s gaze, it slowly shrank its head back with embarrassment, finally admitting to the actual number.
That wasn't actually slow in a week. After all, they didn’t have the Thunder Beast’s systematic learning and experience. Moreover, the progress was only slow at the beginning. While it had taken them two or three days to condense the first rune, the pace would pick up afterward.
Roar! The rule remains the same. No one is allowed to leave the Dragon Palace until they’ve completed twenty runes. The Thunder Beast growled, and the Single-Horned Kun, which had poked its head out of the water, also sheepishly shrank back.
The Silver Dragon and Nine-Headed Serpent were the only ones that didn’t need the Thunder Beast’s supervision. One was diligently cultivating to catch up with the Thunder Beast, while the other took turns sleeping with its eight heads, resting peacefully.
With a splash of water exploding everywhere, the Thunder Beast burst out of the underwater Dragon Palace under the four mutated orcas’ watchful eyes and the Blue Giant Crab’s flattery.
Once outside, the Thunder Beast took a moment to position itself. Then, with a burst of scorching golden energy from its back, it vanished in the blink of an eye beneath the deep sea.
Following the Thunder Beast's instructions, the Kun had recorded several locations where the aura of level 9 colossal beasts could be sensed while it roamed the ocean..
The Thunder Beast’s destination was one of these points. From what the Kun could perceive at the time, the aura emitted by this colossal beast was somewhat stronger than that of the ancient Tiger Serpent, but not to an exaggerated extent.
The pitch-black sea below was eerily silent. Suddenly, a dazzling golden light exploded underwater, followed by a scorching shockwave and a resounding roar. The Thunder Beast held the body of a level 7 blue dragon-like beast in its claws, devouring it while remaining on the move.
The Thunder Beast once had to be on high alert whenever encountering a level 7 beast. Now, however, killing them was almost as trivial as killing chickens. He could basically slay them instantly upon encounter.
About three hours later, after covering over a thousand kilometers, the Thunder Beast arrived near the target location and sensed the level 9 beast’s powerful aura from afar.
The invisible aura radiating over a hundred miles was impressive. Its imposing presence was palpable, which the Thunder Beast found satisfying. The corners of its mouth slightly curled up into a sinister smile, giving it a particularly fierce look.
The aura emitted from its opponent was helpful, allowing it to detect and assess its chances of victory in advance. If it encountered a level 9 beast at the early stage and was confident in defeating it, it would engage. If that opponent was at the peak of Level 9 and beyond the Thunder Beast’s capability, it could retreat.
In fact, it was quite normal for level 9 beasts to do the same. Generally, when other level 9 beasts of the same stage sensed this aura, they would usually withdraw, only continuing to approach if they were vying for territory.
After all, aura was one thing, and combat power was another. Without a solid assurance of victory, level 9 beasts generally avoided explosive battles to prevent injuries that could impact their growth.
It wouldn't be worth the bloodshed if winning a fight didn't yield significant rewards, and any edible resources would have already been consumed by the resident beast, leaving only places with slightly richer transcendent energy.
The Thunder Beast was an exception in this regard.