Chapter 850: The Divine Transformation of The Tenth Innate Ability, An Ancient Awakening (I)

At the edge of the marsh, endless yellow sand swept across the vast desert. Amid the howling gales, a colossal beast over 3,300 meters long, black and red in color, slowly lowered its head. Golden flames erupted from its mouth, engulfing the land within a one-kilometer radius.

Sand and stone melted into lava, forming a molten lake several kilometers wide. Crimson shockwaves rolled outward, casting the Dragon Emperor in an even more fearsome light.

Within the restrained intensity of the golden flames, the level 9 golden-black giant deer beast had its scale armor melted away and its flesh evaporated. Only a portion of its essence fused into the steadily dissolving remains.

In less than a few minutes, the flames spewing from the Dragon Emperor’s mouth gradually died down. A golden-black rhomboid object over ten meters wide hovered slowly in the air. It looked like bone, yet gleamed like crystal; etched on its surface were black patterns, and a faint dark halo swirled around it, exuding a heavy and indestructible aura.

At that moment, the Silver Colossal Dragon flew over, its nine-hundred-meter-long body circling around the Dragon Emperor. As it gazed at the essence crystallized from the level 9 beast’s remains, a trace of doubt flickered in its eyes.

Ao Tian, are you aiming for this transcendent beast’s innate ability?

Thunder Fiery, don’t you already have the time beast’s bones and essence?

The Single-Horned Kunpeng also seemed puzzled. In its eyes, time-related innate abilities were immensely powerful.

Zhulong, for instance, wielded the ability to slow time. When using that, it alone remained unaffected; that kind of thing was ridiculously overpowered. Add to that its ability to instantly expand its body tenfold during its day-night cycles, and among mythical colossal beasts, it was nearly invincible at its level. Only a monster like the Dragon Emperor could suppress Zhulong through sheer brute strength.

The Dragon Emperor let out a low rumble.

What I need now are abilities that complement and harmonize with the other laws I command. Though time is powerful, it may not suit me. Of course, the final decision depends on what this metal-type ability offers.

The Golden-Blue Colossal Dragon nodded.

True. Thunder Fiery, you’ve comprehended far too many laws and abilities. One more time-based power might not give you the greatest boost.

That made sense.

The Silver Dragon and the Kunpeng exchanged looks and nodded in understanding. As the three colossal beasts looked on, the Dragon Emperor fixed its gaze on the crystal. Its soul will enveloped it, instantly magnifying the imprinted traces of abilities by hundreds of thousands of times.

As they were forged from the remains of a beast, they were inherently incomplete, lacking the portion fused with the soul and only retaining the fragments imprinted in flesh and bone. However, to the Dragon Emperor, that didn’t matter. It only needed to comprehend the foundational structure.

Metal element absorption and conversion, material metallization, metal control, domain of gold...

Soon, the Dragon Emperor had analyzed the full array of skills this beast had possessed. Among them, the ability to absorb metal elements was precisely what it sought. At once, a vicious smile crept across its face.

What allowed the Dragon Emperor to fight across major realms was its body, dozens of times more powerful than other beasts of the same level. Its foundational strength was already unmatched. Coupled with the continuous tempering of nine high-level laws and their layered enhancements, its physical body had now reached over two hundred times the strength of ordinary beasts at the same level.

Beyond that were the ultimate techniques of its high-level laws. For example, the Law of Destruction, evolved from the Strength ability, still retained its hundredfold power boost. There was also the Vajra Law, and the Speed Law that retained the original hundredfold speed and thirtyfold displacement based on body length.

Add to that the Chaotic Dark Force’s immunity to all techniques—all of it layered onto the colossal beast’s body, making it virtually unstoppable in close combat. The laws of flame, lightning, and corrosion simply expanded its ranged and area-of-effect capabilities. The Source of Life greatly enhanced its regeneration and endurance.

Thus, compared to time manipulation, consuming attribute points to enhance and level the metal-type ability, then merging it with the Dark Star rune to obtain the Dark Star power, was actually the more suitable path for the Dragon Emperor.

If it could continuously absorb heavy metal elements to elevate its physical density and toughness, its colossal body could reach an ultimate threshold. Perhaps one day, it could truly evolve into a celestial being on par with a black hole—twisting space-time merely by standing in the void, capable of tearing apart entire worlds.

Beyond that, the Dragon Emperor had another consideration—the material conversion aspect of the metal ability. Aside from those still in the beginning stage, ancient titans had all begun undergoing principle-based transformation. Their flesh and blood were being transmuted into a completely new, vastly more powerful form of matter.

In this situation, once it broke through to the ancient titan level, hunting other ancient colossal beasts to gain evolution points and accelerate its evolution would likely become even more difficult.

There wasn’t even any need to mention the ancient true spirits. Beings at that level had already fully transformed, becoming entities of principles; their bodies had long since ceased to be flesh and blood. Therefore, the material transformation aspect of the metal ability was extremely important.

The Dragon Emperor withdrew its gaze and looked down at the three colossal beasts.

Next, I’m going to contemplate this beast’s metal ability. You three can wander around nearby, but make sure you don’t stray too far.

They had already traveled over 1.5 million kilometers deep into the Chaotic Region, a place riddled with danger. In this region, even mythical colossal beasts had no way to protect themselves.

Perfect timing. The great Saixitia needs to digest a little.

Thunder Fiery, if you're not around, I definitely won’t dare run off on my own.

The three colossal beasts were well aware of how dangerous their surroundings were. They had no intention of roaming aimlessly; besides, they had consumed too many resources recently and truly needed time to digest them. Instead, each found a sand dune ten to twenty kilometers away to settle down.

As the three beasts dispersed, high atop a distant mountain, a towering vortex of transcendent energy churned. Within it, Chen Chu slowly opened his eyes, and the phantom of a three-faced, eight-armed figure became increasingly distinct.

At that moment, the transformation of Chen Chu’s true form had already reached the late stage—he was just a step away from completion. Sensing the power within his body, Chen Chu mentally commanded,

Convert 1,000 attribute points into an epiphany aura for the Dragon Emperor.

At once, the transparent display showed his attribute points drop from 153,094 to 152,094. A surge of attribute energy passed through the soul passage, transforming into an epiphany aura that descended upon the Dragon Emperor.

Boom!

In the Dragon Emperor’s vision, the innate ability traces etched into the rhomboid crystal exploded, transforming into millions of runes that danced in the air.

With the effect of the epiphany aura, its powerful soul will sifted through those millions of foundational runes, picking out one by one those that contained information on the metal element absorption ability.

In the epiphany state, time seemed to stand still, and it was unclear how much had passed. In the Dragon Emperor’s eyes, only a hundred thousand runes remained, still spinning, recombining, and being continuously optimized.

The Dragon Emperor was well-versed in the process of contemplating incomplete traces on beast remains and reconstructing innate abilities from them. By the time the 1,000 points of attribute energy were fully consumed, a dark-golden rune composed of hundreds of sequential rune chains slowly emerged in the Dragon Emperor’s gaze. It resembled a giant phantom deer, emanating an aura of immense durability and weight.

Whoosh!

The Dragon Emperor exhaled a wave of scorching shockwaves through its nostrils, a look of satisfaction appearing in its eyes. The metal ability had been successfully reconstructed. Next came the task of adjusting its structure to match the Dragon Emperor’s form, then condensing the rune to fully make it one of its own abilities.

Convert another 1,000 attribute points into an epiphany aura for the Dragon Emperor.

Hum!

The mysterious epiphany aura once again shrouded the Dragon Emperor. In its consciousness, the black-golden rune expanded and dissolved into a network of complex rune chains.

At the same time, a phantom of a black-and-red colossal beast, over three thousand meters long and formed from condensed soul will and blood vitality, slowly emerged, drawing closer to the rune chains.

Boom!

The moment the rune chains approached the vitality phantom, hundreds of them instantly shattered due to conflict with the power of the nine high-level laws. The vitality phantom collapsed along with them. The Dragon Emperor had anticipated this outcome, and its gaze remained calm.

Again.

With focused will and condensed vitality, the phantom, modeled after its own form, appeared once more. At the same time, it began adjusting the shattered rune chains.

Boom!

The black colossal beast phantom collapsed again. It continued...