Chapter 55: Defying Heaven's Power

“Lilac, what is happening?” Yun Che lifted his hands, staring at the flames dancing across his body, his face stunned with shock.

But Lilac did not answer him. She stood there, silently gazing at the flames surrounding Yun Che through the Eye of Heaven, murmuring softly under her breath: “His meridian has changed color. It seems that what was left by the Evil God—those five seeds—are truly here. Which means… that this place, in fact, is one of the Evil God’s Five Great Secret Sanctuaries!”

“How could he have found it so easily. I suppose his luck is extraordinary… or perhaps… is it the Evil God’s meridian guiding him?”

The flames on Yun Che’s body grew fiercer by the second, soon rising to tens of meters high. The walls around him, even the rocks beneath his feet, slowly melted and crumbled into the blazing inferno. One could only imagine how terrifying the temperature must have been. Yet Yun Che, throughout it all, remained unscathed—no injury, no hint of discomfort.

Within the burning flames, he felt his meridian violently churning. He quickly focused his spirit, forcing himself to look inward at his meridian… That single glance nearly made him scream aloud.

For his meridian… had turned completely crimson! Even all fifty-four meridian gates, now fully open, had deepened into a richer red.

What… is happening?

His divine energy began surging rapidly through his meridian, wave after wave of inexplicable divine power rushing in, causing the energy within to swell—swell—swelling until it reached the very limit of what his meridian could contain…

Boom.

A soft sound of something bursting through echoed faintly.

The divine energy in his meridian quickly contracted again. The quantity remained the same, but now it was far denser. This was clearly… a marked leap in divine energy level!

His divine energy, in the space of a moment, leapt from the fourth level of the Nascent Soul stage directly to the fifth!

But that still was not the end. The divine energy within his meridian continued expanding rapidly, pouring in from some unknown source like a frenzied torrent, filling the meridian that had already begun to glow crimson once more…

Boom!

Another breakthrough echoed from within his meridian. The very nature of the divine energy had once again undergone a generational leap—from the strength of the fifth level of the Nascent Soul stage, it ascended to the sixth!

Yun Che’s mouth fell open in astonishment. Even though he had grown up within the grand sects, with abundant resources and wise teachers, he could hardly believe this completely unprecedented surge in divine power. From the flames that once consumed him, to this moment—less than half a minute later—his divine energy had leaped from the fourth level of the Nascent Soul stage all the way to the sixth!

Such a thing—people shouldn’t even have heard of it!

He nearly felt as though he were dreaming.

A two-level leap was still not the conclusion. The crimson flames on his body continued to slowly rise, already blazing up dozens of meters into the sky. The ground around him sank significantly as it melted away, rivers of magma pooling beneath his feet—yet none of it harmed him.

That inexplicable divine power continued to assault and fill his now crimson meridian, driving his divine energy into an explosion of terrifying growth…

…Nascent Soul seventh level!

…Eighth level!

…Ninth level!

…Tenth level!

“Lilac… what exactly is going on?” Yun Che bit his tongue hard—this was his third time confirming whether he was truly awake or just dreaming! For him, these few short minutes felt like a dream. He hadn’t even had time to process the shocking two-level divine energy surge, and already his power had spiraled out of control—leaping all the way to the tenth level of the Nascent Soul stage!

Even a genius born into a grand sect, with abundant resources and wise teachers, would need at least three years to go from the fourth to the tenth level of the Nascent Soul stage. According to what he’d heard, Xia Qingyue took three and a half years to make that same leap. In the tiny Flow Cloud Castle, that span of time was worth nearly a century! He was hailed as the first genius of Flow Cloud Castle.

And yet he had accomplished it in under five minutes!

This defied Yun Che’s understanding—it overturned the very foundations of the divine energy cultivation rules across the Tianyuan Continent! So, though his heart was filled with immense joy, it was overshadowed by an even greater terror.

And the expansion of his divine energy had not ceased—not even its pace had slowed. Even at the tenth level of the Nascent Soul stage, his divine energy continued to grow stronger.

“No mistake. The thing you consumed—that is one of the five seeds left by the Evil God! I searched the eastern reaches of the Demonic Empire for so long without finding it, and yet you stumbled upon it by chance. With such modest abilities, you’ve somehow found it without even realizing. Your luck is so extraordinary it borders on divine retribution!” Lilac’s voice carried a note of grim resignation.

“…Which one of the Evil God’s seeds causes such a surge in divine power?” Yun Che stared at her, utterly bewildered.

“Probably because the Evil God’s seeds contain a fragment of his own power. Now that the Evil God’s meridian heir has been found, in transforming your meridian into a fire attribute, he also bestowed upon you that power. Rest assured—this exaggerated growth in divine energy will bring no side effects!” Lilac spoke calmly.

“Transforming his meridian… into a fire attribute?”

Boom!

A sense of a barrier being shattered echoed from deep within Yun Che’s meridian. The crimson flames that had been blazing across his body finally extinguished.

In that instant, Yun Che clearly felt his entire meridian undergo a transformation almost akin to transcendence—becoming more resilient, more open, and far more radiant. The divine energy within had grown thick and rich to a degree he could barely comprehend. Every meridian, every bone, every cell of his body had undergone a metamorphosis, brimming with a force far surpassing what he had before.

His eyes grew clearer, his hearing sharper, even his perception of the surrounding world shifted dramatically. This sensation of total rebirth from the inside out nearly drove him to shout with joy. Yun Che lifted his head, slowly exhaled a breath—and suddenly, a divine energy aura erupted from his body, far more imposing than anything he had felt before!

“You’ve entered the Nascent Soul stage at Level One! Congratulations—you’ve officially become a true cultivator. At sixteen years of age, reaching the Nascent Soul stage shouldn’t be too common in this land.” Lilac spoke with a calm, unremarkable tone.

All the shock, awe, and unease he’d felt vanished the moment he stepped into the Nascent Soul stage at Level One. He lifted his hands, raised a finger, willed it—and a tiny flame flickered to life at his fingertips. The fire was intensely hot, yet it did not scorch his skin in the least. Looking at the flame ignited by his own divine power, he smiled silently.

Is this some kind of celestial compensation for me? I’ve wasted sixteen years… yet in this single day, it has returned to me a hundredfold what was rightfully mine!

Yun Che closed his eyes and looked inward. His meridian had turned a deep crimson, like a flawless ruby carved from pure, unblemished red. Not only his meridian—his veins, his blood, even every cell in his body had taken on a faint red hue.

“So… does that mean I’ll never be burned by fire again?”

He knew how extraordinary his words sounded, but this was the unmistakable truth his body and meridian were telling him.

“That’s correct,” Lilac replied, her voice tinged with something unfamiliar. “In ancient legends, the Evil God possessed the most powerful elemental force among the chaotic realms. He could manipulate any natural element through divine power, even convert divine energy into elemental energy at will. In the memory imprint of his drop of immortal blood, it clearly records that among the five seeds he left behind, one contains this kind of powerful elemental ‘source force.’ If one obtains such source force, not only can one command the corresponding element, but one also gains absolute immunity to that element!”

“Because of this record, even though I haven’t used the Evil God’s immortal blood myself, I risked coming to this continent to search for the Evil God’s secret realm mentioned in the memory imprint. Because one can command elements and resist their temptation—that’s something I myself could not withstand. For in this age, when the True Gods have long since vanished, such power is truly…”

“A power that defies heaven!”

Lilac’s voice suddenly turned cold and ominous: “Simultaneously, this is also a forbidden Pandora’s box! Now that this box has been opened by you, no one knows what chain reactions the return of such a long-lost divine power to the world might unleash. You may face divine retribution, or perhaps bring endless disasters and calamities. For if your secret is revealed, countless people will seek to kill you and seize your heaven-defying power… If it weren’t for me and you sharing a life, even I would want to kill you and claim your strength.”

“…Hey! Don’t scare me like that! I’ve just reached the Nascent Soul stage—don’t go throwing around terms like ‘heaven-defying.’ Here, even a divine beast could crush me without difficulty.” Yun Che slightly pulled back his neck, pretending to be afraid.

Though he said this, from what Lilac had confirmed—his ability to control fire and achieve total immunity to it—his heart remained in turmoil. Never fearing fire… This was indeed a power that only beings of divine origin might possess! Not even humans—even the mighty flame dragon that Lilac had slain, though of fire nature, could never achieve complete immunity to fire. When facing a force far stronger than its own, it would be scorched into nothingness.

“This isn’t meant to scare you! So don’t let the surge in divine power make you careless—you must quickly strengthen yourself, at least to the point where you have sufficient means of protection. Now, your divine energy has reached the Nascent Soul stage. In the time ahead, you need to consolidate your current divine energy. And I can begin teaching you some techniques you can learn… But first, deal with that flame dragon. To your present strength, its corpse is nothing but a massive treasure!”

Lilac’s tone remained as cold and indifferent as before, devoid of emotion. Yet to Yun Che, it felt nothing like her usual self. For in her words, he no longer detected the usual contempt, disdain, or occasional boredom. Though her voice was still firm, it now carried, faintly but unmistakably, a hint of… concern?