The Legend of the Dragon King

“Big Brother, are you out of your mind?” Xie Xie was so frightened that his soul seemed to have left him. There was so much lightning in the skies, it was like the might of the heavens! The more terrifying thing was when the lightning bolts condensed into balls of electricity which shot across the skies. There was no need to touch them as their apocalyptic energy could be felt by just looking at them.

“Stop talking. Close your eyes if you’re scared,” Tang Wulin’s voice resounded in his ears.

They were moving very fast. They covered a thousand meters in an instant. In the next moment, he rammed into the huge net of lightning in the skies.

“I’m dead.” Xie Xie closed his eyes instinctively as he waited for the shock of the terrifying bolts.

However, to his surprise, he did not feel any discomfort.

What was this?

He reopened his eyes. What he saw was a purplish-blue world, and the gorgeous sight before him made him feel bedazzled.

He noticed that they had been wrapped in a bright ball of violet light without him realizing. The bright purplish hues around them seemed to originate from a purple crystal sculpture. Outside this purple crystal, violet radiance pulsated with varying degrees of brightness. Bolts of lightning kept striking the crystal, but they did not affect it in the slightest. The lightning even seemed to disappear when it touched the orb.

He turned to look at Tang Wulin again. Xie Xie saw him sitting cross-legged in midair silently. His Golden Dragon King’s wings behind him were extended. His expression was calm with a hint of joy. His four black, one greenish-gold, and three orange-gold soul rings moved rhythmically around him. The golden trident rune on his forehead was glowing brightly.

‘What’s he trying to do now?’ Xie Xie stared at him with his mouth agape.

Eventually, he noticed that something was odd. Upon closer inspection, he could see that the bright purplish light orb that protected them was formed by the weaving together of many vines. These vines were shining brightly amid all the lightning strikes and appeared to be one single entity.

Could it be?

The Thunderclap Nether Vine?

Xie Xie finally found the answer himself, and his heart was filled with more amazement than anything else.

‘What’s Big Brother doing? That’s the Thunderclap Nether Vine. Could he be absorbing his ninth soul ring?’

Yes, Tang Wulin was indeed absorbing his ninth soul ring.

More precisely, the Thunderclap Nether Vine was leaping with joy after it felt the boundless lightning which he had stirred up above the sea. It kept urging him to plunge deep into the lightning field to absorb the immense amount of energy.

Ever since the Thunderclap Nether Vine became Zhang Geyang’s spirit soul, he had suppressed it for many years. It was not allowed to absorb any lightning to prevent it self-destructing.

For the Thunderclap Nether Vine, absorbing energy from lightning was its instinct. To put it simply, at this moment, it was like a ferocious beast that had been starving for countless years. When it suddenly saw delicious food of such quality, how could it resist?

The reason it betrayed Zhang Geyang was because it had been suppressing its nature all these years. Zhang Geyang, on the other hand was unwilling to fulfill his end of the deal. Its heart was filled with resentment toward its host for a long time.

Although it had only been a short while since it began to follow Tang Wulin, with the Damask Tulip’s help, it received Tang Wulin’s Nature Child’s nourishment. Not only were its wounds healed, many of its problems were also overcome.

At the moment, the reason it dared to appear in the outside world without a care and devour lightning to strengthen itself was that it had Tang Wulin’s protection.

With the support from the Nature Child’s aura, there was no need for it to worry about self-destructing from becoming too wild from all that lightning. Moreover, its host was not only the Nature Child, but also the Sea God Child!

At sea, the power of the Sea God Child was far superior to that of the Nature Child. The dense water element was the best protection for its core.

The Thunderclap Nether Vine had forgotten how many years it had been since it could devour and absorb the lightning elements in the air without any inhibition.

It was in its nature to instinctively devour the wild lightning element even though there was the risk of it dying from self-destruction. An opportunity to devour lightning without any restraint like this was its greatest temptation. When Tang Wulin released it and allowed it to absorb the lightning freely while protecting it with his water element so that it would not feel threatened, it had committed itself desperately and utterly to Tang Wulin.

The Thunderclap Nether Vine was absorbing the immense lightning power to strengthen itself without any restraint. With every strike, it clearly felt that it was becoming more powerful.

When the Thunderclap Nether Vine was born, it had one of the slowest cultivation rates among all soul beasts, until it reached the rank of ten thousand years. After that, it was the soul beast which cultivated the quickest, but the sad thing was that it’s cultivation rate actually became too fast. If there was enough lightning, there would be a risk of it self-destructing every time it cultivated.

This was a plant soul beast with destructive instincts and an unfortunate fate.

However, at the moment, Tang Wulin’s Thunderclap Nether Vine could be regarded as the most fortunate of its species. It had found a host who had the favor of the plane’s lord and was the son of a deity. It could finally absorb lightning without a care. If it could cry, tears of happiness would have been streaking down its face already.

It rejoiced in its own decision. If it had not listened to Damask Tulip’s persuasive words, it would only grow old with Zhang Geyang and arrive at death’s door together. It might not even have been able to bask in this world of lightning without a care.

The Thunderclap Nether Vine’s absorption did not affect the storm at all.

The dark clouds above the sea seemed to be descending. As the thunder rumbled, the entire sea started boiling. Gusts of strong wind blew across its surface and the waves started behaving wildly.

The more terrifying thing was that not a drop of rain had fallen.

Those who were familiar with the sea knew that when a tempest came, the longer the ocean brewed, the more terrifying the tempest would be.

For the Douluo Federation’s three great fleets, this gave them sufficient time to make preparations.

The ships of the three fleets quickly moved closer to each other. Giant metal columns poked out of the larger ships and connected the neighboring vessels.

When the ships came together and were connected via the metal columns, they moved in closer. From afar, it looked as if a piece of uneven land had appeared on the sea’s surface.

With the three motherships as the center, all the vessels of the three great fleets were connected to each other. The three motherships were like three pillars, while the others were arranged neatly. The entire arrangement was a result of the meticulous calculations done on the Federation’s part. It could withstand the greatest tempests.

This was the Douluo Federal Fleet’s Strategy Alliance. It was designed specifically to withstand any bad weather that might appear on the sea.

On the mothership’s deck, the soul fighter planes had been secured within the hangar. This was to prevent them from being damaged by the tremors brought by the tempest.

The Boundless Sea Douluo hovered above the sea and felt the changes in the water element around him silently.

He could feel that the water elements seemed to have a life of their own as they continued to rise in the air. The explosive lightning bolts in the skies were the more terrifying of the two elements. They already seemed to have formed a lightning hell. Even with his cultivation base, he felt terrified.

Under normal circumstances, there was no need to worry even if they encountered a tempest if he was here. Given his close ties with the ocean, he could chase away the dark clouds with a wave of his arm.

However, the situation today was indeed unique as he seemed to have lost the favor of the sea. His cultivation base was greatly suppressed and there was no way he could control the dark clouds anymore. With the lightning as intense as it had become, he could not interfere with it directly.

The more he observed, the more the Boundless Sea Douluo felt that this was not man-made. He could not imagine any human being able to activate such terrifying lightning and water element power.

This was not something that could be done by a human. Not even a Limit Douluo could do this. He was already a Limit Douluo who was closest to the sea, so he himself knew that he could not do this.

Could it be that there was a group of great beasts in the seas, at least two of them, that were akin to Limit Douluos and had activated the water and lightning elements separately? They would also have to be favored by the sea and able to obtain more of the sea’s power than he could. This was the only possible way to create such a phenomenon.

Fortunately, mankind’s technology had already advanced to the state where soul beasts could not compare. He did not have to worry about this too much. Otherwise, this would have been a sticky situation.

‘Let’s see how much they can do. No matter how intense the tempest is, it can’t possibly break the Strategy Alliance formed by the three fleets. As for the two great beasts, if they’re bold enough to show themselves, I’ll give them a taste of my four-word battle armor.’