"I see~ I understand."
Vita went with the flow, folding her hands elegantly over her chest—an unconscious gesture that only emphasized her proud curves.
That subtle smile still hung on her face, as if she knew everything yet couldn't be bothered to say it aloud.
"As expected… the relationship between Wang Qiu'er and Little Wutong is a tangled mess. Fascinating."
She chuckled inwardly.
"What a pity. Looks like I missed the most exciting part of the plot. But that's fine—there's plenty of time ahead. Fun… will come."
She dipped her chin slightly and offered Wang Qiu'er a courteous gesture that was half-teasing, yet impeccably proper.
"Well then, I'll be in your care from now on, my dear Master—Miss Wang Qiu'er."
With Vita tactfully acknowledging the new contract, the tension eased immediately—there was no need to keep fighting.
"That leaves only one enemy left to deal with."
Lu Jingming lifted his gaze toward the sky.
Up there, thunderclouds churned and lightning writhened like serpents. A massive Sky Azure Dragon was locked in fierce battle with Raiden Mei, who had taken on a form of living lightning. Even from afar, the surging energy waves made one's heart pound.
"Lemuen."
Lu Jingming smiled and turned to Lemuen beside him.
Lightning flashed in his hand, and a strangely shaped tachi, its length flowing with violet radiance and crackling arcs, appeared from thin air.
"Borrow this. Help send the Clear Sky Sect's sect master on his way."
He passed the blade over casually.
"Eh? For me?"
Lemuen blinked her pretty pink-violet eyes, confusion written all over her face.
She accepted the tachi on reflex, her tone a bit helpless.
"But I… I'm not very good with blades?"
She wasn't clueless, but her specialty was long-range sniping; her sword skills were beginner level at best—worlds apart from a true swordmaster.
Yet, the instant her fingertip touched the hilt, an anomaly erupted.
Bzz—!
The violet tachi in her hand burst with fierce lightning. The blade vibrated as if it had a will of its own, its form shifting and recombining rapidly in the glare.
"Eh?! It's transforming?"
Lemuen watched the weapon's change in surprise, her curiosity instantly piqued.
But when she saw the final form, her expression froze, and her tone turned bizarre. "Wait… why—why is it a lipstick?!"
Nestled in her palm was no divine weapon, but a lipstick—its shell gleaming with metallic luster and subtle circuit patterns—exquisitely crafted.
"Her name is the Seven Thunders of Retribution."
Lu Jingming's smile deepened, as though he had expected this.
"She's a very, very willful lady. If she doesn't get along with her user, or if you don't humor her, her condition becomes poor—she'll even throw a tantrum—like what you're seeing now."
"So basically…"
Lemuen's face darkened in an instant, disbelief and a touch of defeat in her voice.
"She's… looking down on me?!"
Being disliked by a weapon—what a hard pill to swallow.
"I'm afraid so."
Lu Jingming's lips twitched upward uncontrollably. He was obviously doing this on purpose—Lemuen had laughed when Wang Qiu'er turned the tables on him earlier.
"After all, you can't exactly fight with a lipstick, can you?"
He teased.
The Seven Thunders' pickiness was notorious. Aside from him—the wielder who manifested her—likely only Raiden Mei could wield her full power.
"Xiao Ming, you totally did that on purpose. I'm going to get mad, you know?"
Lemuen puffed her cheeks and feigned anger, glaring at him. Yet her curious eyes never left the magical lipstick. A weapon that could freely change shape had her thoroughly intrigued.
"Alright, alright, I'll stop teasing."
Seeing he'd had his fun, Lu Jingming reached out and tapped the lipstick lightly with his index finger, chuckling. "Seven Thunders of Retribution, switch form—sniper rifle."
At the instant the command was given, dazzling lightning exploded again.
Lemuen felt a sudden weight in her hands. Amid crackling arcs, the delicate lipstick extended, transformed, and recombined.
In the blink of an eye, a sleek sniper rifle—violet-black, brimming with techno-aesthetics and lethal beauty—appeared in her grasp.
Its long body gleamed with icy metal and restless arcs. The visual effects were intense, a perfect union of power and art.
"Waa—so cool!!!"
Lemuen's eyes lit up at once, her earlier displeasure gone in an instant.
She stroked the cold, powerful frame, unable to put it down. As a top-tier sniper, she was helpless before the Seven Thunders' rifle form—utterly conquered in a heartbeat.
"The Seven Thunders can do much more than transform."
Lu Jingming continued with a smile.
"The rounds she fires have the property of disassembling all things—reducing what they hit to atoms. More importantly, she grants her user a vision beyond the three-dimensional concept. Through her lens, nothing in this world can hide. For you, she's a perfect match."
The more Lemuen heard, the brighter her eyes shone. As a sniper who pursued precision and one-shot kills, the Seven Thunders' abilities felt tailor-made—more alluring than any legendary artifact.
Still, thinking that this powerful weapon didn't seem to like her—and had only taken combat form because Lu Jingming ordered it—she couldn't help feeling a trace of regret amid the excitement.
"Don't worry."
Lu Jingming saw through her thoughts and offered comfort.
"Spend more time with her. Communicate with intent and technique. With your ability, Lemuen, I believe you'll eventually win the Seven Thunders' true recognition."
He himself had Black Abyss White Flower and didn't urgently need the Seven Thunders.
Raiden Mei could fully exert its power, but for the rifle form, pairing a dedicated sniper like Lemuen with the Seven Thunders was unquestionably a match made in heaven—enough to produce a terrifying synergy.
Imagine it: with Lemuen's preternatural sniping skill, paired with a Divine Key that disassembles atoms and pierces illusion—she'd redefine what it means to kill at eight hundred km with a single shot, leaving nothing behind.
Lemuen drew a deep breath and tightened her grip on the Seven Thunders, confidence and sharpness rekindled in her eyes.
She lifted her gaze to the vast dragon-shadow in the sky, lips curving into the exclusive smile of a top sniper. "Then… it's my turn."
High overhead, thunderclouds boiled like a sea of ink. The colossal Sky Azure Dragon and the purple-haired girl incarnate as lightning fought at full tilt.
Raging thunder and azure dragon breath crashed wildly, each clash unleashing a roar that made heaven and earth pale. The chaotic energy tides scoured the already shattered heavens.
Niu Tian, transformed into the Sky Azure Dragon, roared thunderously—sound waves rippling the clouds.
Every swipe of his massive claws bore world-rending force, tearing apart the dense net of lightning woven by Raiden Mei.
Raiden Mei, however, moved like living lightning—flickering through the gaps between dragon breath and claws. Each swing of her tachi drew down ten-thousandfold thunder. Her expression was cold; her violet eyes held only the foe before her.
Niu Tian's strength was astounding. As Tang San's agent in Douluo Continent and master of the Clear Sky Sect, his cultivation was unfathomable. His physical might and soul power foundation nearly rivaled the Beast God Ditian of Star Dou Forest.
Even so, he faced a Servant. Though Raiden Mei wasn't summoned at her peak, she still wasn't someone a Limit Douluo could compare to.
Continue this fight and his defeat—and death—were almost certain. Only because his painstakingly tempered dragon body had exceptional resistance to lightning did the battle reach a temporary stalemate.
Raiden Mei wasn't impatient. Her mission was to stall, not kill. So she pressed steadily, grinding down his strength.
But beneath this seeming equilibrium, a fatal killing stroke had quietly arrived.
Below, Lemuen raised the Seven Thunders like the finest hunter, soundlessly.
The cool, technological lines of the violet-black rifle formed a strange contrast with her slender frame.
Purple arcs flickered along the weapon, resonating deeply with her own energy, humming faintly with excitement.
Her gaze became impossibly focused. The space around her seemed to turn silent under the concentration of her spirit.
All stray thoughts vanished. All senses, all calculations—wind speed, energy fluctuations, target trajectory, even minute wrinkles in space itself—flowed like rivers into the single sharp eye behind the scope.
Through the Divine Key's lens that pierced beyond three dimensions to the essence of all things, the world became pure streams of data and energy tracks.
The Sky Azure Dragon in the heavens—vast as a mountain range, energy blazing like a sun—revealed within his body the core node where his soul power surged.
That soul core sustaining all his might shone to her like the only lighthouse in a moonless night—vulnerable and blatant.
"Locked…"
Lemuen's red lips parted. Her voice was a whisper, scattered on the wind.
Her slender finger, steady and resolute, gently pulled the trigger.
There was no deafening blast—only the faintest hiss, like a hot blade tip piercing ice, or space itself being punctured by ultimate force.
A thread of violet lightning, honed to the limit and fine as a hair yet carrying the power to disassemble all things, moved at a speed defying all sense. It ignored distance, traversed the sky in an instant, and silently entered the tiny point where the dragon's neck met its body.
There lay Niu Tian's soul core.
Just as he gathered soul power for another gout of dragon breath to counter Raiden Mei, Niu Tian's massive body went rigid.
An unprecedented terror—not physical pain but the forced dissolution of his very existence into nothing—flooded his senses like ice water.
He looked down in disbelief at the strike zone—there was no gaping wound, no fountain of blood. Only a spreading patch of absolute void and silence.
In that region, tough dragon scales, powerful flesh, even his surging oceanic soul power—all of it unmade at a calm yet unstoppable pace, silently returning to base particles, to the world, as though it had never existed.
"Rooooar—!!!"
The Sky Azure Dragon bellowed with pain, shock, and unwillingness.
The roar no longer brimmed with power—it carried the weakness of life quickly draining away, and a bafflement he couldn't resolve.
His vast body trembled uncontrollably. The azure divine light around him guttered like a candle in the wind.
He could not fathom that a no-holds-barred duel with Raiden Mei would end like this—decisively ended by a completely unexpected shot from far below.
He died without ever seeing the attack's source or the hand that fired it.
At the same moment, Raiden Mei, poised to unleash even greater thunder, halted midair.
Niu Tian hadn't sensed the fleeting lightning from below—but she had.
That familiar aura belonged to the Herrscher of Thunder's power. She could never mistake it.
Raiden Mei stopped, hovering as her violet eyes, complicated in emotion, took in the titan whose aura was collapsing like an avalanche and whose life's flame was about to go out. Her fine brows knit faintly.
She hadn't wanted the battle to end this way.
In just a few breaths, the awe-inspiring sect master of the Clear Sky Sect, the mighty Sky Azure Dragon Niu Tian, could no longer maintain flight. Like a crumbling mountain, he plummeted from ten thousand meters.
Only one last, unwilling dragon cry lingered in the gradually calming thunderclouds like a lament—until even that fell silent.
Below, Lemuen lowered the Seven Thunders, still glimmering with faint violet arcs. She exhaled softly and turned to show Lu Jingming a light, mission-complete smile.
Even she was moved by the Divine Key's near-terrifying might.
A Limit Douluo at the pinnacle of the continent, with a physique comparable to or surpassing a true dragon, was slain by a single shot—dying without ever knowing whose hand killed him or how.
This is what makes a top sniper terrifying—thunder unheard, life and death decided from a thousand miles away.
All the more when the sniper wields a weapon that ignores physical defense, erasing the target at the level of existence itself: the Seven Thunders of Retribution.