His spine glowed beneath his skin.
Through his orange robe, the one he had put on after erging from the magma, a faint, pulsing light could be seen.
Vertebra after vertebra, from the base of his neck down to his lower back.
Golden veins lit up like liquid magma, running along his spine in a steady rhythm.
The Bone of the Heavens stabilized everything.
It allowed Kyrian to use that power without suffering as he had when he used the Aura of Ice against the Five-Horned Lava Lizard.
’The ice almost killed back then,’ Kyrian thought.
’The Aura was far too powerful for my body.’
’But now, because of my new body and the Heavenly Bone of the Fire Path, using the Aura of Fire won’t cause nearly as many problems, even though I still haven’t reached the Spiritual Fusion Realm.’
The old man retreated several more steps, his eyes fixed on Kyrian.
He had realized that he should not face those flas head-on. Not with his current Qi barrier, at least.
His expression beca increasingly ugly, a mixture of frustration, shock, and sothing darker.
But at the sa ti...
His expression beca increasingly greedy.
"Ming Hai..." he murmured, his voice low.
"You truly left sothing extraordinary behind..."
In his mind, there was no other explanation.
That power, those flas capable of lting his barrier, that supernatural resilience, and that absurd increase in cultivation could only be the result of the inheritance.
It could only be the result of the treasure hidden within the volcano.
And that ant only one thing.
He had to obtain it.
At any cost.
His greed increased.
So did his killing intent.
Then he advanced again.
This ti without the slightest hesitation.
The spear rose above his head, pointed toward the sky.
Fire Qi exploded around his body, not as a defensive barrier but as an offensive storm. Waves of heat radiated from him in every direction.
An enormous flaming serpent appeared behind the old man.
Composed entirely of concentrated spiritual energy, the serpent was colossal, easily ten ters long, its body ford from flas so dense they appeared solid.
Its scales glead like molten tal, each one pulsing with Qi.
Its fangs, the size of short swords, looked capable of piercing any defense.
"Scarlet Spear Art – Fire Serpent!"
The serpent roared.
It was not the sound of an animal.
It was the sound of fire burning, air exploding, and Qi expanding.
And it lunged forward.
Following the old man’s thrust, the serpent shot ahead.
The attack crossed dozens of ters in less than a second.
Destroying everything in its path.
Any Core Formation cultivator would have died instantly.
Even soone at the peak of the realm, soone at the Ninth Stage, so close to Spiritual Awakening, would have been reduced to ashes.
But Kyrian had no intention of confronting it directly.
Being resistant did not an being invulnerable.
His body, even after being transford by the Bone of the Heavens, even with bones harder than spiritual tals, could still be injured.
The physical force contained within that spear, the impact, not the fire, was still dangerous.
Very dangerous.
A Spiritual Awakening spear could pierce even his reinforced bones.
’I can’t block it,’ Kyrian thought.
’But I don’t need to.’
His eyes began to glow once more.
The red flas within his pupils expanded until they occupied almost his entire iris.
And the world responded.
’FOOOOM!’
A sea of orange fire erupted around Kyrian.
It was not a wall.
It was not a barrier.
It was an eruption.
The very earth ignited.
Kyrian felt the Bone of the Heavens pulse, and the ground around him answered.
Walls of fla rose from the earth, completely blocking the advance of the flaming serpent.
Not one wall.
Not two.
Dozens.
The two energies collided.
And it was not an even struggle.
The serpent’s flas, the old man’s ultimate technique, his specialty, began to disappear.
Consud.
Devoured.
As if they had encountered sothing superior.
Sothing dominant.
Sothing they simply could not challenge.
"What?!"
The old man’s eyes widened, his spear trembling in his hand.
He could feel his Qi being consud.
His technique, instead of advancing, was being absorbed by Kyrian’s flas.
Then he felt sothing else.
Danger.
Instinctively, he turned his head.
And saw them.
Flas appearing behind him.
Out of nowhere.
Without warning.
They had not co from the ground.
They had not co from the air.
They had simply appeared, as though space itself had caught fire.
As if they could erge anywhere within Kyrian’s field of vision.
The old man roared, a guttural, beastlike sound, as his Qi barrier instantly ford around his body.
The flas struck his defense.
And began to burn through it.
Again.
His expression changed.
It was no longer frustration.
It was fear.
He retreated violently, abandoning his position, abandoning the attack, and abandoning the serpent that dissipated into the air without his command.
But it was too late.
A portion of the fire touched his sleeve.
’FOOOOSH!’
Half the fabric vanished in the blink of an eye, transford into ashes that scattered through the air.
The arm beneath remained intact only because he had reacted quickly enough to pull away before the flas could consu his flesh.
But only barely.
Very barely.
The other three leaders fell completely silent.
None of them could believe what they were seeing.
A Spiritual Awakening expert.
The oldest among them.
The most experienced.
The one with the highest cultivation.
Was being pressured.
By soone in the Core Formation Realm.
Soone who, theoretically, should not even have been capable of touching a Spiritual Awakening cultivator.
It was absurd.
Unprecedented.
Monstrous.
The old man was breathing heavily now.
Not from exhaustion.
His body was still far from exhausted.
Very far.
But from shock.
His left sleeve had vanished, reduced to ashes.
His pride was beginning to vanish as well.
anwhile...
Kyrian remained standing in the exact sa spot.
Without injuries.
Without scratches.
Without even a burn.
Every attack the old man had launched had missed, or, when they struck the flas, had been neutralized by the superior power of his fire.
And even when the old man’s Fire Qi managed to approach him...
The flas simply disappeared.
As if they were incapable of harming him.
Silence overtook the battlefield.
The wind scattered the ashes of the destroyed sleeve.
Kyrian slowly raised his hand.
An orange fla danced in his palm, small, and controlled, yet pulsing with a power all four leaders could feel.
"Are you going to keep trying?" Kyrian asked calmly.
"Or are you finally going to realize that this is pointless?"
His eyes swept across the four n.
There was no fear in his gaze.
The old man gritted his teeth.
His hand tightened around the black spear hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.
But he did not attack again.
Not imdiately.
Because for the first ti...
He was no longer certain he could win alone.
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