The Green Scale Fire did not merely burn; it annihilated.
When the emerald flames licked against the subterranean granite, the stone didn't crack or crumble—it yielded like butter beneath a superheated blade. In moments, the dense rock dissolved into nothingness, carving out a hollow void beneath the chaotic pile of surface rubble.
Luo Zhen stood in the center of this newly formed sanctuary, a hidden cavern spanning several hundred square meters. With a casual flick of his sleeve, he recalled the terrified flames back into his body and settled onto the cooling stone floor.
The darkness here was absolute, a suffocating blackness that would render a normal human blind. But Luo Zhen was no human. To his draconic eyes, the gloom was as textured and visible as high noon.
He sat cross-legged, his breathing steady, and withdrew two porcelain vials from his robes. They were small, unassuming containers, yet they held the weight of his immediate future.
One vial contained three Shaoyang Pills—Grade 5 Spirit Pills, radiating a latent heat. The other held five Zifu Pills—Grade 6, and exponentially more potent.
Luo Zhen ran the calculations in his mind. To breach the threshold of the Demon King Realm, he required five million experience points. His internal counter currently sat at just over 4.2 million. He was short by eight hundred thousand—a gap that, under normal circumstances, would take months of hunting to bridge.
But these weren't normal circumstances. These pills contained rivers of medicinal energy. Even half of this stash would likely be enough to push him over the edge, allowing him to condense the legendary Demon Infant.
He exhaled slowly, purging his mind of anxiety. He needed his mental state to be as still as an ancient well, unrippled by the fear of failure. Once he found his center, he reached for the first vial.
He uncorked it and tipped his hand. Three Shaoyang Pills rolled into his palm, glowing with a faint, fiery aura.
Luo Zhen didn't hesitate. He tossed all three into his mouth at once, swallowing them whole without chewing.
The reaction was instantaneous. The pills dissolved the moment they hit his throat, transforming from solid matter into a scorching torrent of energy. It rushed into his stomach and exploded outward, flooding his limbs and meridians with raw power.
The mechanical, dispassionate voice of the System chimed in his mind, overlaying reality:
"You have refined a Shaoyang Pill. Experience Points gained."
"You have refined a Shaoyang Pill. Experience Points gained."
The notifications cascaded, but Luo Zhen didn't wait for the tally to finish. His hand was already moving, uncorking the second vial. He downed the five Zifu Pills in a single gulp.
The sensation intensified tenfold. If the Shaoyang pills were a river, the Zifu pills were a tsunami. His body felt as though it were being forged in a furnace.
"You have refined a Zifu Pill. Experience Points gained."
"You have refined a Zifu Pill…"
The chimes blurred together. Heat radiated from his skin, turning the air in the cavern dry and brittle. Deep within his Dantian, his Demon Core began to vibrate violently, sensing the critical mass of energy. It was waking up. It was hungry.
"Host, your experience points have reached the critical threshold," the System announced, its tone cutting through the haze of heat. "Do you wish to initiate the level up?"
"Yes," Luo Zhen replied instantly. There was no room for doubt.
"Experience points deducted. Ascension in progress…"
The moment the command was acknowledged, the vibration in his Dantian turned into a cataclysm.
Luo Zhen looked inward, his consciousness focusing on his core. The solid sphere of his Demon Core was beginning to fracture. Hairline cracks spread across its surface, glowing with blinding light. Then, with a sound felt rather than heard, it shattered.
It didn't break into dust; it broke into pure, concentrated Demon Essence.
Simultaneously, a wave of agony washed over him. It felt as though his insides were being shredded by razor blades.
"Hss—"
Luo Zhen gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles bunching. He locked his will, refusing to scream. This was the price of power. The destruction of the core was the prerequisite for creation. For five agonizing minutes, he endured the sensation of his very foundation crumbling apart.
Finally, the pain receded, replaced by a strange calm. The solid core was gone. In its place swirled a nebula of incredibly pure Demon Essence.
This was the first step. Now came the condensation.
Under his guidance, the swirling essence began to pull together, coalescing into a specific shape. It was shrinking, density increasing, taking on the vague outline of a humanoid infant.
But the heavens would not let a monster rise without a challenge.
Above the ground, the sky darkened. The atmospheric pressure plummeted. Even buried deep beneath the rocks, Luo Zhen felt the shift. The ambient Heaven and Earth Origin Qi was fluctuating wildly, agitated by his impending breakthrough.
"Host, your Lightning Tribulation is manifesting," the System warned, the urgency evident even in its robotic cadence. "Impact is imminent. You must endure this. Survive, and the Demon Infant forms. Fail, and your core shatters permanently. You will perish, body and soul."
"I know," Luo Zhen whispered.
He steeled himself. He didn't try to run; you couldn't outrun the heavens.
Seven breaths later, the hairs on his arms stood up. A primal sense of danger screamed in his hindbrain.
CRACK-BOOM!
The world turned blue.
A bolt of tribulation lightning, thick as a pillar, smashed into the chaotic rock pile above. The stone evaporated instantly. The lightning didn't lose momentum; it tore through the earth, obliterating the ceiling of Luo Zhen's cavern and slamming directly into his seated form.
The sound was deafening, a physical blow that rattled his bones. The ground beneath him vaporized, blasting a crater into the bedrock. Luo Zhen was swallowed whole by the electric deluge.
It lasted only six seconds, but each second stretched into an eternity of blinding pain.
When the light finally faded, silence rushed back into the void.
Luo Zhen remained seated in the smoking crater. His skin was scorched black in patches. Inside him, thousands of tiny, parasitic arcs of lightning rampaged through his meridians, tearing at his flesh and organs.
But he was still alive.
He was a Green Scale Flood Dragon, a creature of the storm. His natural affinity for lightning dampened the damage, and his Green Jade Spirit Body—a physique built for regeneration—kicked into overdrive.
Luo Zhen focused his will. A brilliant emerald light erupted from his chest, enveloping his charred form. It was a soothing balm. Under the green glow, dead skin sloughed off, revealing fresh scales and flesh underneath. The invading lightning arcs were purged, expelled from his pores like smoke.
In moments, he was whole again.
"Congratulations, Host. You have survived the Tribulation," the System stated. "You may now condense the Demon Infant."
Luo Zhen wasted no time. He turned his attention back to his Dantian. The nebulous essence, having survived the shock, was ready.
He compressed it. The energy resisted, then obeyed. Slowly, the nebula collapsed into a solid form. It took the shape of a miniature infant, legs crossed, hands resting on knees. Features began to carve themselves out of the energy—eyes, a nose, tiny fingers.
An hour passed.
Just as the infant was about to solidify, the atmosphere shifted again.
For thirty miles in every direction, the ambient Qi of the world was seized by a gravitational force. It rushed toward Luo Zhen, forming a massive, swirling funnel in the sky above his hidden cave. The energy poured down like a waterfall, bypassing his flesh and flooding directly into the forming infant.
Under this torrential nourishment, the process accelerated.
Three minutes later, the funnel dissipated.
Silence returned to the cavern.
Deep within Luo Zhen's Dantian, the work was done. A fist-sized Azure Demon Infant sat suspended in the void. It glowed with a soft, ethereal light. In the center of its forehead sat a tiny, delicate jade horn. Its face was a perfect replica of Luo Zhen's own.
The infant's eyes snapped open.
BOOM.
A shockwave of terrifying Demon Might exploded from Luo Zhen's body. It wasn't wind; it was pure pressure, rolling out in concentric circles, crushing the rocks around him to dust.
This was the pressure of a King.
"Congratulations," the System chimed, and for the first time, it sounded almost approving. "You have successfully condensed your Natal Demon Infant. You have ascended to the Demon King Realm."
The transformation was far from over.
As the realization of his new rank settled in, millions of beams of azure light erupted from his pores. They wove together rapidly, spinning a massive, glowing cocoon around his body.
Inside the chrysalis, biology was being rewritten.
Luo Zhen watched, fascinated, as his lower half—the powerful serpentine tail of the flood dragon—began to split and reshape. Bones cracked and reformed. Scales receded. Muscle wove into new configurations.
Thirty minutes later, the cocoon fractured.
Shards of hardened light fell away like glass, dissolving into the air. Stepping out from the debris was a young man.
He was tall, lean, and dressed in robes of midnight black. His face was handsome but unremarkable, save for the eyes that held a steely, ancient resolve.
Luo Zhen looked down at his legs. He flexed his toes, feeling the stone beneath them. He had returned to the human form, fully restored.
Well, almost fully.
He ran a hand through his hair; it had grown wild and long, cascading down his back. He touched his forehead and felt the hard, cool surface of a small azure horn protruding from the center.
"A remnant of the dragon," he mused, smiling. He could live with that.
He felt a surge of new instinct bubbling up, a prompt from his body to test its new limits. Without thinking, he thrust his palm forward.
Roar!
A massive phantom of a Green Flood Dragon spiraled out of his hand. It was constructed of pure compressed air and demon energy. It slammed into the far wall of the underground cavern with the force of a wrecking ball.
CRASH!
The wall didn't just break; it exploded. Dust billowed, choking the air.
Luo Zhen stared at his hand, impressed. "Powerful. This must be the Exclusive Skill the breakthrough granted me."
It was rare, but not unheard of. When a beast crossed a major threshold, the universe sometimes gifted them a technique perfectly suited to their physiology.
"I'll call it the Green Flood Dragon Break," he decided.
He closed his eyes again, reaching out with his mind rather than his hands.
Immediately, a new sense unfurled. His Spiritual Consciousness extended from his skull like invisible tendrils. It moved through the rock, through the air, expanding outward.
He could "see" the texture of the soil above him. He could hear the wind howling thirty miles away. He could sense the heartbeat of a field mouse scurrying through the grass on the surface.
"A thirty-mile radius," he noted, opening his eyes. "Standard for an Early-Stage Demon King. It will grow as I do."
Now, for the final test.
Luo Zhen crouched slightly and pushed off the ground.
There was no incantation, no gathering of Qi. He simply willed it, and gravity released its hold on him. He shot upward like a bullet, blasting through the hole the lightning had made, soaring straight into the open sky.
He hovered a hundred meters in the air, looking down at the scarred earth. The wind whipped his long hair around his face.
He was flying. True flight. The fleshy wings he used to have were gone, dissolved during the transformation, but he didn't miss them. They had been clumsy. This was freedom.
He banked left, then right, accelerating across the sky.
After a few minutes, however, his brow furrowed.
"Slow," he muttered.
It was miraculous compared to walking, but compared to the memories he had of high-level cultivators, it was sluggish.
"This is just basic locomotion," he realized. "No wonder the Sword Cultivators still use their flying swords even after reaching the Nascent Soul stage. I need a specialized flight technique. This won't be enough to outrun a real threat."
He descended, landing softly on the ruins of his tribulation site. He smoothed his robes and summoned the System interface. A holographic panel materialized in the air before him.
[Host: Luo Zhen]
[Species: Green Scale Flood Dragon (Tier 1 Sacred Beast)]
[Realm: Demon King (Early Stage)]
[Bloodline: Sacred Tier 1]
[Abilities: Water, Fire, Ice, Lightning]
[Exclusive Skill: Green Flood Dragon Break]
[System Note: Major Realm Breakthrough detected. Bloodline Evolution probability: HIGH.]
Luo Zhen's eyes locked onto the final line.
Bloodline Evolution.
This was what he had been waiting for. The Demon King realm was just a container; the bloodline was the fuel.
"System," he said, his voice trembling slightly with anticipation. "Initiate the Bloodline Awakening."
He took a deep breath. "I have never been more ready to face the Nine Infants."
"I hope you can endure longer this time, Host," the System replied ominously.
The world dissolved.
The rocks, the sky, the ruined earth—everything faded into a grey mist. When the mist cleared, Luo Zhen was standing in a void.
And looming before him, stretching up into the infinite darkness, was the Nine Infants.
It was a nightmare made flesh. A hydra of catastrophic proportions, its nine heads weaving through the shadows, its body a mountain range of scales and muscle.
A wave of Demon Might crashed down from the beast. In the past, this pressure alone would have forced Luo Zhen to his knees, crushing his bones.
But not today.
Luo Zhen stood his ground. He flared his own aura, a defiant spark against a raging inferno. For the first time, he wasn't just surviving the pressure; he was pushing back.
High above, one of the massive snake heads shifted. Its eyelid, the size of a house, slowly slid open.
The pressure doubled instantly.
Thud.
Luo Zhen dropped to one knee, the stone floor of the mental realm cracking beneath him. He gritted his teeth, sweat popping on his forehead, but he refused to lie flat.
"Is that all?" he snarled internally.
A second head stirred. A second eye opened.
The pressure didn't just double; it grew exponentially. It was like a planetary gravity crushing him. Blood sprayed from Luo Zhen's nose. His capillaries burst. His vision swam.
"No," Luo Zhen growled.
His eyes turned blood-red. He wasn't going to die here. He wasn't going to submit.
"I am a King!"
He twisted his body, and the human guise shattered. In a flash of blinding emerald light, he reverted to his true form.
A two-hundred-meter-long Green Scale Flood Dragon materialized in the void. His scales shimmered with electric blue light, his claws tore at the ether.
Compared to the Nine Infants, he was tiny—a garden snake hissing at a titan.
But size didn't matter. The will to ascend did.
Luo Zhen reared his head back, his mane flowing with azure fire, and looked the ancient beast in the eye.
He opened his jaws and unleashed a roar that shook the very foundations of the void.
"ROAR!!"