Chapter 487: Hadal Bonefire (1/2)

The legendary Jiangchen genius, the one who’d sealed himself away after sensing the void realm thirty thousand years ago, had lost!

With a single blow, Lu Yun dismantled the endless rings of bones surrounding Jiangchen Xie. Mere aftershocks were enough to send the archaic genius deep into the earth. Furthermore, Lu Yun’s disdainful words depicted his defeated opponent as completely worthless.

“I’m a failure? A pathetic worm?” Jiangchen Xie’s eyes became empty.

When he’d first sensed the void realm thirty thousand years ago, he’d also seen that long, white path. He knew the streaks of crimson upon it were painted by the blood of his own kind.

After a very long period of hesitation, he’d shied away from stepping foot upon the path proper. He could have found the long-lost void realm, yes… but he would’ve also died doing so.

“No!” Jiangchen Xie regained his focus. “I’m still alive… so I haven’t failed! I’ll never fail!”

Boom!

His body tunneled out from the ground. “Lu Yun!”

Following a loud, explosive roar, his scattered monster of white bone began collecting back into shape. Its new body was fifty kilometers long and bore both draconic and tigrine features. A single horn was perched upon its crown. It stood in front of Dusk capital like a mountain range, every bit as humongous as the walled city before it.

Jiangchen Xie himself was enveloped by a bone-white aura of light. His presence intensified once more, until it reached the zenith of what was possible for returned void. Standing atop the head of his bone beast, a thick mantle of white fire had replaced the air of corpse energy about him.

Despite being roughly ten kilometers away, Lu Yun felt a peculiar wave of both extreme heat and cold hit him. It was a rather paradoxical feeling.

“Hadal Bonefire!” The young man paled slightly.

Such a terrifying flame was born only in a place of boundless death and disaster when an unfathomable amount of malignant air set bones alight. The fire’s polarizing duality of hot and cold was potent enough to destroy all things.

Nurturing the malignant air within that served as its fuel, it was one of the strongest kinds of fire in all of existence—worthy enough to be mentioned alongside the three immortal fires of the world.

Lu Yun hadn’t expected Jiangchen Xie to carry such a sinister flame, nor had he accounted for the genius’s remarkable skill with it.

“The Hadal Bonefire comes from the bone beast beneath him!” he gasped, realizing the key. Jiangchen Xie hadn’t just tamed the fire for himself, he’d also refined its natural vessel into his treasure.

“Come on, then!” Jiangchen Xie roared again.

The bone serpent beneath him shambled toward Lu Yun with surprising speed, a tongue of bleached fire from its maw leading the charge.

The surrounding immortals and cultivators scattered, afraid of the slightest touch from the fire. If the fire made contact, it would strip the flesh from their bones without fail. The earth began trembling as the Dusk city walls behind Lu Yun fissured with frightening cracks.

Corpse Refiners invaded the city from every direction, a zombie horde in tow. Their objective was clear: anyone who wasn’t one of their own must die!

The world’s great factions and clans had always tried forming alliances to hunt them down. Even after the sect had become the ruler of Truespirit Major, plenty had refused to give up their efforts. Thus, they were perfectly content to attack indiscriminately. Both outsider geniuses and Dusk cultivators and immortals were on their hit list.