Chapter 160 – The Power of Thunder and Fire

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The Thunder Valley deacon was unable to believe such an unthinkable fact; even a peak Pulse Condensation Period martial artist would not be able to last inside for so long!

Lin Ming truly was a frighteningly fierce individual, however, there had to be a limit!

‘You had just entered the Altering Muscle stage and yet you can already favorably compare to a peak Pulse Condensation Period martial artist, or even reach a Houtian realm martial artist; isn’t this just a bit too ridiculous!?’

The deacon had been waiting for Lin Ming to realize that the difficulty was too hard and then to leave the magnetic chamber. But now the moon had already come out, and yet there still wasn’t any disturbance in the magnetic chamber.

The deacon even went knocking on the door at regular intervals to ask if Lin Ming was alright; he really suspected that Lin Ming had been shocked silly inside and was in urgent need of care.

Then after a while when the sand in the hourglass had cleanly leaked through to the bottom, he had to flip the hourglass over again. “What the hell, this is just too preposterous. Did the force of thunder inside the magnetic chamber leak out?”

The deacon kept imagining different scenarios of what could have occurred, but at this moment, the door to the magnetic chamber was pushed open, and Lin Ming hopped out, a cheerful smile plastered on his face. After he had successfully cultivated the Thunder Soul, he was in a very excellent mood.

Seeing Lin Ming come out, the Thunder Valley deacon stared at him with round eyes, looking Lin Ming up and down.

Even his clothes had all been burnt off…

The Thunder Valley deacon gulped. What had this daring fellow done inside? He had actually stayed in the twelfth level of difficulty for so long, yet he didn’t seem perturbed or even the least bit concerned. Was this Lin Ming struck by thunder as a child, gaining some mystic ability, and thus did not fear lightning anymore?

“Junior… Junior Apprentice Brother Lin, are you alright?”

“I’m great. Sorry for troubling you, Senior Apprentice Brother. I will go back first.”

“Uh… yeah… you go back first…” The deacon no longer knew what to say.

After seeing Lin Ming out, the Thunder Valley deacon immediately dashed into the magnetic chamber. He took a deep breath, revolved his true essence to its limit just in case he was hurt by the heavy hail of lightning, and then pulled open the door to the magnetic chamber…

In a moment, his eyes had gone perfectly round.

In the magnetic chamber, he only saw a few wisps of tiny electric currents running around, as if they were just barely able to maintain their existence. The other usual lightning snakes had already disappeared into thin air.

The deacon rubbed his eyes, making sure he hadn’t gone blind or daft. This wasn’t right; where was the thunder inside of the magnetic chamber?

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As he left the entrance to Thunder Valley, seeing no one around, Lin Ming was impatient and wanted to immediately try out the power of the Thunder Soul.

Although the inherent nature of lightning was filled with a terrifying energy, it was only a fleeting moment, and couldn’t last long. However, the Thunder Soul was actually an immortal spirit; it would never be extinguished. As long as he had enough true essence or Heaven Earth Yuan Qi, then he could release an unlimited amount of lightning that would never weaken.

The Thunder Soul was similar to the Flame Essence; it would only have a extremely low chance to be birthed in an area where thunder and lightning had existed for time immemorial.

A Thunder Soul was scarcer than a Flame Essence. That was because in this world, finding lands of thunder was much rarer than finding lands of flame.

With a shake of his long spear, tiny wisps of violet lightning appeared on the silver-white spear shaft; it was really quite beautiful.

“If I trigger the flame true essence and the thunder true essence at the same time, while revolving the ‘Heretical God Force’ so the power of true essence increases by 50%, what would happen?

As Lin Ming thought this, he began to stimulate the Thunder Soul and the Flame Essence within the Heretical God Seed at the same time.

Immediately, the highly compressed Heretical God Seed erupted like an active volcano.

Flame on one hand, thunder on the other. The flame and thunder intersected; each were as fierce as the other, and as violent as the other!

The two kinds of energies began to circle and intertwine around each other. Coupling with the increased power from the ‘Heretical God Force’, the rising energy caused a turbulent vibration in the air, as if the atmosphere itself was being torn apart by these powerful energies.

In that moment, Lin Ming felt as if he could not control these two energies. If it continued, then something dangerous would occur.

As he was about to forcefully withdraw the true essence, a memory suddenly flashed in Lin Ming’s mind. He suddenly recalled the principle of thunder and flame behind the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead.

This idea gave him pause. “If… I let the two different energies in my hands follow the same concept as the Devilfire Thunderbolt Bead… would it have the same might as the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead?”

To rashly test such a hypothesis was dangerous. Not only that, but he was barely in control of these two energies, and was already stretched to the limit of what he could handle. Still, Lin Ming could not suppress this intensely tempting thought in his heart.

“Flame becomes an eddy, thunder becomes a snake…” Lin Ming recalled how the thunder and flame inside of the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead would revolve. As he did this, he also desperately urged all his true essence out, and revolved the wild flame and thunder according to this method.

The Heavy Profound Soft Spear began to shine with light from an electric bolt that twisted around it. Snakes of fire wound around the shaft, and the crackling sounds of lightning and churning flames filled the air with a sound that was absolutely frightening.

Lin Ming’s face flushed red, and blue veins began to jut out from his forehead. Just as the potent power was about to break free of its shackles, Lin Ming let out a roar and fiercely thrust out the spear. The power of thunder and the power of flame interweaved into a ball of light that shot outwards with incredible speed, almost straight upwards at a 100 foot high cliff.

Bang!

There were only the deafening sounds of loud explosions and countless rocks scattering in all directions, and dust filled the air. There was a rumbling sound that lingered, and then the 100 foot high cliff collapsed in an avalanche of stone!

Seeing this power, Lin Ming was stunned silly.

What terrifying strength!

This explosion could instantly kill an early Pulse Condensation Period martial artist, or even a middle Pulse Condensation Period martial artist!

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

His cultivation was only at the early Altering Muscle stage, yet relying on the power of the Heretical God Seed, he could actually produce such a horrifying killing move!

This ‘Heretical God Force’ secret technique simply went against the will of the heavens!

Lin Ming had thought that the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’ which he cultivated was already heaven defying. After all, contained inside were the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’, ‘Flow like Silk’, the Tempering Marrow realm, Eight Inner Hidden Gates, Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, and all sorts of other strange and miraculous cultivation methods.

He had only cultivated it a bit, and yet he was able to cross a whole stage and a half to fight with enemies at the peak Bone Forging stage. But now, when he compared that to the ‘Heretical God Force’, Lin Ming felt that the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’ was just some commonplace cultivation technique!

“It seems so. After all, while the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’ is a top-tier Body Transformation cultivation method manual within the Realm of the Gods, this cultivation method manual cannot be considered a forbidden technique that cannot be passed down. There must be many people who are familiar with the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’! For instance, in the sect of the mighty elder who had learnt the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’, as long as you were a core disciple at the sect, you would be able to learn study this cultivation method.”

“But this ‘Heretical God Force’ is actually unique within the entire Realm of the Gods. That second mighty elder who died had only discovered this secret technique within an ancient ruin in the Realm of the Gods. It has a very high possibility that it was left behind by an ancient evil god. It is not a cultivation method or martial skill or movement ability. It can only be called a mystical secret technique. Such an amazing ability is naturally not something that the ‘Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians’ can compare with.

“With this martial skill that I created by accident and with luck, although I can guarantee it can kill an early Pulse Condensation Period opponent, the consumption of energy is simply too large. The true essence within me has lowered by 40 or 50 percent. It’s impossible to use this ability in succession.

As Lin Ming was lost in his thoughts, the Thunder Valley deacon frantically ran out of the entrance.

He had been standing in a daze inside that last magnetic chamber looking at the few small electric snakes that were remaining. Then he had heard a tremendously loud explosion that had scared him awake; he had thought that the array formation had exploded.

As he was running out of the entranceway, he happened to see Lin Ming in front of all the falling debris, looking a bit confused.

This… this was originally a 100 foot high cliff…

The deacon had already protected Thunder Valley for many years; he was now well acquainted with the terrain around Thunder Valley. He could only look at Lin Ming incredulously. Could it be… that this 100 foot high cliff was collapsed by Lin Ming?

He glimpsed the Heavy Profound Soft Spear that Lin Ming was casually holding in his hands. There was a faint flash of true essence on the spear point.

Did he just make a move with his spear a moment ago that caused a 100 foot cliff to collapse?

Heavens!

The Thunder Valley deacon already thought that his timid heart had experienced enough excitement for today. This was just too terrifying. If he experienced a third shock, then he just might have a heart attack.

‘The rocks of the cliff had magnetic darksteel mixed in it! Who knows how many times harder it was than ordinary rock? How could this be possible!?’

“Junior Apprentice Brother Lin, what is all this? What happened here?”

Lin Ming slowly shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, I was not careful and the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead that I was examining exploded…”

Lin Ming had used the power of thunder and flame to release this move. Moreover, the concept behind this skill was the same as the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead. Perhaps even the man who created the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead would have difficulty discerning the difference between the effects of the bead and Lin Ming’s new ability.

“Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead?” The Thunder Valley deacon was surprised for a moment, and then he remembered what had happened recently. After Zhang Guanyu had been crippled by Lin Ming, news of the event had spread throughout the entire Sky Fortunate City.

At that time, when Zhang Guanyu was dueling Lin Ming, he found that his own strength was inferior, and he was already in a situation where he was defeated. Because of this, he tried to ambush Lin Ming with the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead, so Lin Ming had wasted him in response.

“So that’s what happened…” The Thunder Valley deacon exhaled; so this explosion was caused by the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead. If Lin Ming had thrown it then it would have collapsed the cliff. However, this Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead was simply too perverse. If a 100 foot high cliff could explode and end up looking like this, what would happen if it was thrown at a person? Would that person explode too?

Thinking this, the Thunder Valley deacon recalled the magnetic chamber and the thunder inside that had disappeared. His curiosity was piqued again, but Lin Ming had already made the first step and said, “Senior Apprentice Brother, it’s getting late, I should head back first. Thunder Valley should shut down about now. If there’s a chance, we will meet again.

Lin Ming didn’t wait for the Thunder Valley deacon to respond; he had already started moving after he finished his sentence. Since he had comprehended the concept of wind, Lin Ming’s speed was extremely swift.

“Oh, Junior Apprentice Brother Lin, hang on, about the matter of the thunder inside the magnetic… chamber……

The Thunder Valley deacon’s words trailed off halfway. Lin Ming had already disappeared beyond sight. This left him speechless. He had wanted to understand just what had happened inside that magnetic chamber in Thunder Valley…

Fortunately, there was always thunder and lightning in Thunder Valley throughout the entire year. It just so happened that there had also been a thunderstorm that evening, and Lin Ming had managed to absorb almost half of the thunder energy from there.

Since the Thunder Valley deacon could not find a reasonable explanation, he dropped the matter.

But by the second day, the news of the explosion that occurred outside of Thunder Valley had already been passed on to Ouyang Dihua.

“Your luck is quite good! The explosion from the Thunderbolt Devilfire bead actually didn’t kill you! However, you have now used up the Thunderbolt Devilfire Bead; what else can you do to resist? Now when I kill you, it will be as easy as slaughtering a dog or chicken!”

Ouyang Dihua had already contacted the disciple of the Refiner Faction who had been expelled from the Seven Profound Valleys for violating sect rules. To Ouyang Dihua’s delight, that disciple had already taken a half-step into the Houtian realm, and had now surpassed even himself in strength.

It would be a breeze for a martial artist a half-step into the Houtian realm to deal with Lin Ming who was only at the early Altering Muscle stage.

“Lin Ming, your death has already been decided!”