Chapter 598: The Eleventh Color

Chapter 598: The Eleventh Color

Li Wei watched as a strange creature emerged from the spatial rift and flew toward the sun.

The creature resembled a flying dragon.

However, its build was slender, and its body was covered in scales of stone rather than true dragon scales.

Moreover, it bore only one enormous eye embedded in its forehead.

Truly peculiar.

It took the One-Eyed Stone-Skinned Dragon quite some time to approach the outer layers of the sun.

Here, temperatures already soared to several hundred degrees.

But for a creature that had spent countless years bathing in magma, this heat felt relatively cool.

It continued forward.

As it drew near the sun, it felt an immense gravitational pull.

This tremendous force dragged the One-Eyed Stone-Skinned Dragon rapidly toward the sun's surface.

Yet the dragon did not resist the powerful gravitational tug.

Instead, it spread its broad wings and glided down toward the solar surface.

Splash!

It crashed onto the molten ground.

Its stony skin and scales proved highly resistant to heat, shielding it from the terrifying temperatures on the sun’s surface.

It widened its single eye and quickly searched for where divine power was being generated within the sun.

Relying solely on its own senses, the One-Eyed Stone-Skinned Dragon could not detect divine power.

It was merely a legendary creature, lacking organs capable of perceiving such forces.

Everything it knew came from the guidance of a god beyond the spatial rift—it was only through that divine direction that it could judge where divine power would emerge.

Seeing the dragon swiftly advance toward the source of divine power,

Li Wei seemed to understand what the god on the other side of the rift intended.

That deity sought the divine power born within this sun.

Though he didn’t know where the god came from or how it had learned his coordinates in the ten-colored stellar system,

since the other party desired his divine power, they must be prepared to pay the price.

Li Wei quickly formulated a plan.

The sun was simply too vast.

Even with divine guidance, a legendary creature like the One-Eyed Stone-Skinned Dragon found it extremely difficult to reach the birthplace of divine power in time.

Often, by the time it arrived, the divine power had already dissipated.

Sometimes it hadn’t even come close.

So Li Wei deliberately set the location of divine power generation not far from where the dragon currently was.

Ten-Colored Divine Fire burned away solar matter, transforming it into divine energy.

Soon enough, the god on the other side of the spatial rift sensed it.

Immediately, the deity directed the One-Eyed Stone-Skinned Dragon to the nearest site.

The dragon saw no sight of divine fire consuming solar material.

All it witnessed was a golden orb of divine power slowly detaching from the sun’s surface, rising and vanishing into midair.

Everything the dragon observed was transmitted directly into the mind of the god behind the spatial rift.

To witness firsthand the birth and disappearance of divine power—

the god was overjoyed.

Although he still couldn't fathom why a mere sun should give rise to divine strength,

if it was unclaimed, then surely he could absorb and utilize it.

Boom!

Molten lava erupted violently across the sun’s surface.

Beneath the dragon’s feet, the ground burst open, spewing torrents of magma high into the sky—hundreds of thousands of meters up.

The dragon itself was torn apart by the sheer force.

Even a legendary beast could not withstand nature’s destructive might.

The god’s joy was abruptly cut short.

Moments later, a divine avatar emerged from the spatial rift.

A bizarre creature with three heads, one pair of wings, eagle claws, and a human torso.

Li Wei did not recognize this creature either.

An idea struck him—he recalled there was still a god imprisoned deep within the sun, one who had lived for millennia.

Perhaps Rose would know something about it.

He decided to ask her.

Rose remained dormant, conserving her energy as much as possible.

Suddenly, Li Wei’s voice echoed from outside, rousing her from slumber.

He described the monster’s appearance and asked, “Have you ever seen such a creature?”

Upon hearing this, Rose immediately recognized the monster Li Wei spoke of—it was an old acquaintance.

She replied, “Let me out of here, and I’ll give you anything you want.”

Seeing this, Li Wei said coldly, “If you won’t answer, forget it.”

After a while, silence returned.

Unwilling to miss this opportunity, Rose finally relented.

She said, “The monster you described is the Ancient Roar God of the Underworld—a deity among the oldest in the subterranean realm.”

“Ancient Roar God?”

Li Wei’s voice sounded again.

Rose continued, “His followers are mostly unintelligent monsters dwelling beneath the earth. They worship him out of fear, which makes him both ancient—and yet also the weakest among the gods of the underworld.”

“Monsters without wisdom cannot offer much faith to their deities.”

That the Ancient Roar God would appear first was entirely within Rose’s expectations.

In fact, she had anticipated that those few gods from the depths, starved for followers, would find someone like Li Wei—an easy target—to be irresistible.

One could hardly blame the Ancient Crying God for its dearth of believers.

The chief reason lay in the simple fact that this deity was entirely improper.

Its ascension to divinity was a matter of pure circumstance, a stroke of luck granted by a bygone era.

In the present age, where the myriad laws and authorities of the worlds had been seized by the pantheon, such an ascension would be utterly impossible.

And because it acted so entirely on primal instinct, it could never become a deity like Lolth, flanked by a massive following of the subterranean world's dark races.

In the eyes of mortals, the Ancient Crying God resembled a malevolent deity.

Indeed, it fell short of even the standard wicked gods.

At the very least, a wicked god knew how to beguile hearts and ensnare the minds of the masses.

Yet this being possessed the raw might of a god while performing none of a god's duties.

When hunger struck, it would devour its own faithful without a moment's hesitation.

How could any sapient creature offer their devotion to such a master?

It operated entirely upon the biological impulses of its pre-divine existence.

For this, it was the deity Lolth despised above all others.

It sat at the absolute nadir of the subterranean pantheon's pecking order.

Nevertheless, Lolth was forced to concede a single truth.

Though the Ancient Crying God was brainless, its martial prowess was undeniably formidable.

In a direct clash of brute force, its combat capability ranked among the highest in the underworld.

Yet, this did not stop the subterranean deities from collectively scorning the witless creature.

They refused to even grant it the title of a god, viewing it instead as a ninth-tier calamitous beast.

"Though the Ancient Crying God lacks wit, its martial might is truly immense; you are no match for it," Lolth said.

"Release me, and I can help lure it away for you."

Levi replied, "Save your breath, I have my own ways."

It was a farce; there was absolutely no possibility of letting Lolth go free.

"A brainless god? That sounds far simpler to handle than you, Lolth."

Levi turned his gaze outward toward the approaching divine avatar of the Ancient Crying God.

Though it lacked a mind, the creature seemed to possess a modicum of caution.

It at least understood the utility of sending an avatar forward to probe the situation.

Levi allowed the divine avatar to plunge directly into the sun.

With a sharp hiss, the solar matter erupted into surging divine power, ignited by the ten-colored sacred fire.

A look of pleasant surprise crossed the Ancient Crying God's face as it rushed toward the eruption.

Its three heads opened their jaws wide, greedily inhaling the exotic divine energy drifting through the air.

Feeling the stolen power convert into its own within its flesh, the creature rejoiced.

Not all deities possessed the capacity to assimilate another's divine energy.

Even when attempted, it usually required a tortuosity of complex refinements.

But unowned, drifting energy was a far simpler matter, effortlessly absorbed and claimed as one's own. The Ancient Crying God gorged itself on the unowned power Levi had deliberately released.

Having truly bolstered its own strength, its main body could no longer contain its impatience, tearing through the planar rift to charge toward the sun.

It desired to consume the entirety of the divine power generated by this star.

It could sense it.

This sun was an endless, churning font of immense divine energy.

Yet its avatar could only harvest a fraction of it from a small perimeter.

To the Ancient Crying God, this was an intolerable waste.

En route to the sun, the deity's body fractured, splitting into a swarm of countless ancient giant mosquitoes.

They descended upon every corner of the sun where divine energy was being born.

Avarice had entirely blinded what little intellect the creature possessed.

It failed utterly to realize that this gambit would cost it its final chance of survival.

Watching the swarm take form, Levi finally recognized the true lineage of his foe.

So it was a deity born from the evolution of a prehistoric giant mosquito.

The countless ancient pests scattered, alighting upon the solar surface to drain the newly birthed energy.

As they drank, a wisp of the ten-colored sacred fire slipped into their bodies, disguised within the stolen power.

The surface of the sun was already awash with ten-colored flames.

The Ancient Crying God paid no heed to the fiery taint it swallowed along with its meal.

Not until its avatars began to perish in massive, sweeping swathes.

Only then did the Ancient Crying God sense the impending doom.

It frantically recalled its remaining splinters, commanding them to converge.

By the time the swarm reassembled, nearly half of its total strength had been eradicated.

The myriad mosquitoes coalesced once more into the singular form of the Ancient Crying God.

Levi threw off all pretense of concealment.

From the solar surface rose a colossal titan of flame, standing a million meters tall.

The super-giant of fire raised a massive foot, stamping the Ancient Crying God deep into the subterranean magma.

A harsh, sizzling screech rang out.

The molten rock seared the creature's flesh.

The Ancient Crying God thrashed its wings, the snout of one head shifting into a slender, wicked lance that lunged toward the sole of the titan's foot.

A series of sharp punctures followed.

Relying purely on its monstrous, raw physical strength, the creature pierced the fiery sole and fled the magma depths.

Levi looked down at the tiny god, feeling the peculiar frustration of trying to swat a mosquito with a cannon, struggling to find his mark.

His massive form gradually shrank, his million-meter body condensing and solidifying until it stood only ten thousand meters tall.

Before him, the ancient god Guming was no larger than a fist.

"Repulsion Flame Ring—Inversion!"

A colossal ring of fire materialized in the surrounding atmosphere, rapidly contracting inward.

It compressed the space in which Guming could move.

Guming darted left and right, but even with all its divine might and the aid of elementary force laws, it could not break through the inverted Repulsion Flame Ring.

At last, Li Wei seized it in the palm of his hand.

Elementary Force Law erupted from his palm. His five fingers clenched tighter and tighter, seeking to crush Guming into fragments.

The left head of Guming transformed into an impossibly sharp spear.

It lunged toward Li Wei's fingers, aiming to sever them.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sparks burst forth as the spear clashed against his fingers.

After being enhanced a hundredfold, Li Wei’s physical resilience had increased dramatically.

Guming could no longer cleave through his body.

From its right head, Guming exhaled a stream of golden mist.

Li Wei’s lava-imbued hand took on a golden hue.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Once more, Guming swung its spear and severed Li Wei’s fingers, breaking free from confinement.

Flapping its wings, it soared swiftly through the air, attempting to flee.

Li Wei glanced down at his severed hand.

The portion touched by the golden mist had been altered beyond repair, unable to regenerate.

The hand broke cleanly at the wrist.

Flames surged from the wound, forming a new hand in its place.

The mutated limb fell into the molten magma below, slowly sinking.

Consumed by the ten-colored divine flames, the golden luster began to fade.

Li Wei turned his gaze toward Guming, who still struggled to escape the sun.

He now understood that the golden mist and piercing strike were manifestations of Guming’s own law-based abilities.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible for it to withstand the power of his elementary force law-enhanced hand.

Only a law could oppose another law.

Rumble! Rumble!

Heaven and earth overturned.

The scene replayed itself—the moment when Li Wei had once grasped Rose.

Mountains rose from the ground, then collapsed like waterfalls, sweeping Guming deep into the heart of the sun.

With a fierce cry, Guming brandished its spear and charged forward.

It pierced through the cascading heavens above, racing toward freedom beyond the sun.

Seeing this tremendous breakthrough ability, Li Wei realized he couldn't defeat Guming using the same method.

That technique had worked on Rose because she lacked such aggressive momentum.

Faced with overwhelming attacks, she found no viable opening and was ultimately crushed beneath their weight.

But Guming was different—it wielded the Laws of Piercing and Fragility.

These granted it unparalleled precision and penetration, allowing it to find weak points even amidst endless assault.

Even under relentless pressure, it managed to breach Li Wei’s defenses.

Li Wei shifted tactics.

His consciousness sank fully into the sun, applying the Elementary Force Law across the entire star.

In an instant, the gravitational pull of the sun intensified hundreds of times over.

Terrifying gravity manifested as invisible hands, seizing hold of Guming and dragging it deeper into the solar core.

Though Guming had previously cut through every tangible obstacle with unstoppable force,

it now floundered helplessly before this unseen grip.

There was nothing to attack, nowhere to strike—

All it could do was rely on its raw strength to resist the crushing pull of the sun.

Deep within the sun, Rose felt her body grow unbearably heavy.

She looked up warily.

“What’s happening?”

“What are you doing?”

No answer came to her questions.

Being at the very center of the sun, Rose experienced little effect from the increased gravity.

Gravity radiated outward from the core; already positioned there, and protected by her Web Law—which sealed all powers—

she merely sensed a slight increase in weight.

Had she been on the surface, everything would have long since been crushed to dust.

Boom!

No matter how hard Guming struggled, it could not escape its fate.

It plummeted into the sun, surrounded instantly by torrents of ten-colored divine flames.

Guming thrashed violently, shattering waves of flame around it.

One cluster of divine fire was destroyed—

only for ten more to surge in and encase its body anew.

As the ten-colored flames burned, both its divine form and energy weakened steadily.

Its resistance grew fainter and fainter.

Unlike Rose, it possessed no ability to seal itself away.

Though possessing far greater offensive power than Rose, once fallen into such peril, it too lost all ability to protect itself.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

In the end, the divine body of the Ancient Thunder God was completely consumed by the ten-colored divine flames.

Only a single divine core remained, condensed with its own lawful authority, putting up a desperate last resistance.

After an unknown passage of time, a tiny crack appeared in the Ancient Thunder God's divine core.

At the edges of the divine flames consuming the core, a trace of golden light also emerged.

That was the eleventh color of the divine fire.

(End of Chapter)