The Dragon's Due
The aftermath of Gu Yue's elemental storm lay before them like a battlefield painted by a god of destruction. Trees reduced to splinters. Earth carved into new topography. The scattered remnants of a hundred Vajra Boars dissolving into spiritual essence that hung in the air like purple mist, waiting to be claimed.
Yao Xuan stood at the tree's edge, one hand still extended toward the Ancestral Dragon Chaos Qi shield that now enveloped Gu Yue. The shield shimmered with nine-colored light, four strands of chaotic power woven through it like threads of impossibility given form. It would hold against anything short of a Soul Douluo's full assault—and even that would take time to breach.
Inside her protective cocoon, Gu Yue's cheeks held the particular flush of significant expenditure. Her elemental fusion storm had consumed perhaps forty percent of her reserves, leaving her not weakened but spent in that specific way that preceded rapid recovery. The flush made her look almost vulnerable, despite the power still radiating from her battle armor.
"You didn't need to shield me," she said, but her eyes held gratitude rather than reproach. "I can still protect myself."
"I know." Yao Xuan's voice carried absolute certainty. "But you've done enough. The rest is mine."
Below them, the surviving Vajra Boars stirred. The leader, fifteen thousand years of accumulated power reduced to bloody tatters, dragged itself through the broken earth with whatever instinct remained. The two elites flanked it, their wounds equally grievous, their auras collapsed to mere shadows of what they had been.
They were dangerous still. Wounded beasts often fought with desperation that transcended their diminished power. But to Yao Xuan, in his current state, they represented not threat but opportunity—the concentrated essence of three ten-thousand-year soul beasts, their spiritual power dense and potent beyond the scattered remnants of the herd.
He leaped.
Ancestral Dragon Shattering Step propelled him from the branch not as descent but as launch, his body becoming projectile aimed at the heart of the surviving trio. Wind rushed past him, parted by scales that had grown dense enough to ignore such minor friction. The ground below rushed upward, but he wasn't falling toward it—he was striking.
Mid-flight, the enhancements activated in sequence, each layering upon the last with the practiced efficiency of techniques worn smooth by repetition:
"Ancestral Dragon Possession."
Scales flowed across his body like liquid metal finding form, covering every surface with their nine-colored gleam. Not just armor now, but expression—his dragon nature manifesting through human vessel with increasing completeness.
"Ancestral Dragon Overlord Body."
Muscles swelled beneath the scales, his frame expanding with the particular density of blood qi optimized for maximum power output. The dragon marks on his arms and upper body blazed with sudden light, their mysterious patterns contributing their own amplification to the growing whole.
"Ancestral Dragon Transformation."
The fourth blood qi circulation, ninety-four percent complete, responded to his call. His dragon claws sharpened further, their edges acquiring the subtle shimmer of absolute sharpness. The scales on his upper body gained depth, texture, the runes upon them now visibly moving in slow, ancient patterns.
"Elementary Ancestral Dragon Domain."
Nine-colored light erupted from him, not as attack but as assertion. The space around him became his space, the air itself acknowledging his presence as authoritative. Within this domain, his power amplified further—and more importantly, the Vajra Boars felt the weight of ancestral dragon bloodline pressing against their ancient instincts, reminding them that regardless of their cultivation, they were still prey.
"Battle Armor Possession."
The final layer. Six components materialized from their dormant state, each finding its place with the satisfying certainty of parts designed for this exact moment. Belt, helmet, chest armor, pauldrons, gauntlet—they settled upon him like old friends returning, their resonance with his bloodline creating harmonies that mere equipment could never achieve.
When his feet touched the broken earth before the Vajra Boar leader, Yao Xuan was no longer merely a Soul Master.
He was a convergence. An expression. A statement of what the ancestral dragon lineage could become when channeled through human vessel with sufficient preparation and will.
The leader stared at him through eyes that had seen fifteen thousand years of the Spirit Ascension Platform's simulated existence. In those eyes, something shifted—not quite fear, but the particular recognition of one apex predator acknowledging another's superiority.
Too late for that.
"Die." The word was quiet, almost gentle. "Ancestral Dragon Sky-Splitting Strike."
His first soul ring blazed—not purple now, but purple-black, its color deepening as his soul spirit approached its ten-thousand-year threshold. Power condensed on his arms, along his claws, at the very tips of his extended fingers. The muscles beneath his scales sang with accumulated tension, every fiber aligned along the vector of maximum release.
He struck.
The motion was too fast to track, too precise to evade, too absolute to survive. Yao Xuan's body became the arrow, the spear, the inevitable conclusion that the leader's fifteen thousand years had been building toward. His claws met the Vajra Boar's skull at the exact point where even diamond-hard hide thinned enough to matter.
The impact produced sound like thunder given physical form.
The leader's body folded. Not broke—folded, its massive frame compressing along the axis of Yao Xuan's strike, its legs buckling, its spine bowing, its entire existence reduced to the single point where ancestral dragon will met mortal beast. Spiritual essence erupted from the wound not as leakage but as flood, years of accumulated cultivation pouring out like water from a shattered vessel.
Yao Xuan didn't stop.
The elites had begun to move, their wounded bodies responding to some ancient survival protocol. They would flank him, as they had flanked the leader for millennia, their coordinated attacks overwhelming threats that neither could face alone.
He was already among them.
"Ancestral Dragon Shakes Earth."
The second form of Zhuo Shi's technique, modified by Xiao Zhi's analysis and Yao Xuan's understanding, activated without conscious command. He leaped, blood qi gathering in his core, then descended—not onto either elite, but onto the space between them.
The impact sent eight dragon-shaped shockwaves radiating outward. The elites were caught in them, their already-unstable footing destroyed, their techniques disrupted, their coordination shattered. For a crucial moment, they were not a team but two isolated individuals, each facing the dragon alone.
Yao Xuan moved between them like thought given motion.
The first elite died before it could recover from the shockwave's disruption. His claw found its eye—the one vulnerability even Vajra Boar hide couldn't protect—and pushed. Spiritual essence erupted.
The second elite, seeing its companion fall, attempted to flee. Not cowardice, but the recognition that survival sometimes required retreat. Its wounded body dragged across the broken earth, tusks carving furrows as it sought distance.
"Ancestral Dragon Soars."
The third form activated, and Yao Xuan's speed multiplied beyond anything the wounded beast could match. Two hundred percent movement amplification. Temporary disregard for gravity and collision volume. He was not pursuing; he was arriving.
His claw found the second elite's spine at the precise point where vertebrae met skull. The strike was surgical, almost delicate—the economy of motion that spoke of genuine mastery rather than brute force. The elite's forward momentum continued for several strides before its body understood that its animating consciousness had already fled.
Silence.
Yao Xuan stood amid the bodies of three ten-thousand-year soul beasts, their spiritual essence flowing into him in currents so dense they felt almost solid. His breathing was elevated but controlled, his expended energy already beginning to replenish through the natural recovery his bloodline provided.
Above him, Gu Yue descended from the tree, her own recovery underway. The Ancestral Dragon Chaos Qi shield dissolved as she approached—not dismissed, but released, its purpose fulfilled.
"How much?" she asked, settling beside him.
Yao Xuan checked internal metrics. "Twenty-three years remaining. The elites were... concentrated."
Gu Yue nodded, her silver eyes tracking the spiritual essence now flowing toward both of them from the scattered remnants of the herd. "Mine as well. The storm's harvest distributed evenly."
They stood together amid the devastation, two figures in armor that gleamed with residual power, surrounded by the dissolving forms of a hundred soul beasts. The eternal twilight of the Spirit Ascension Platform continued its unchanging cycle above them.
"One more engagement," Yao Xuan said quietly. "Perhaps two. Then the threshold."
Gu Yue's hand found his. Her fingers interlaced with his scaled ones, the contact grounding, real, theirs.
"Together," she said.
"Together."
They waited while the spiritual essence finished its work, while their soul spirits absorbed the accumulated centuries of cultivation from their fallen prey, while the forest slowly began to reclaim the space the storm had cleared.
When the last wisp of purple energy had been absorbed, Yao Xuan felt the change within him—the particular fullness that preceded transformation. His soul spirit coiled in his chest, its nine-colored radiance now edged with the pale black of approaching ten thousand years. One more threshold. One more push.
Then evolution.
"We should move," Gu Yue said. "The spiritual residue will attract scavengers. Strong ones."
Yao Xuan nodded. His hand still held hers as they began walking from the battlefield, leaving behind only the evidence of their passage and the slowly dissolving forms of the herd they had destroyed.
Behind them, the forest remained silent.
Ahead, the deeper zones waited.
And between them, held in linked hands and synchronized steps, the particular certainty that whatever came next, they would face it as they faced everything: together.