The journey to the Magma Falls was not a walk.
It was a rhythmic struggle against the planet's own crushing pulse.
Lian Shenhai, in his tiny six-inch obsidian frame, moved with deliberate weight. Every step he took on the cooling basalt crust felt like a hammer striking an anvil.
To the world, he was a lizard—a speck of life in a graveyard of fire.
But to the vibrations traveling through the rock, he was something else entirely.
A localized gravitational anomaly.
His mass did not simply rest on the stone.
It claimed it.
The air around the Magma Falls was poison—sulfur, vaporized minerals, and raw mana thick enough to sting the lungs. The closer he moved to the river of living gold, the more the heat distorted the world.
The air shimmered in oily waves.
The cavern itself was silent.
Not peaceful silence.
Pressurized silence.
The kind that existed just before a mountain collapsed.
[VOID LEDGER]
External temperature has reached 1,200°C.
Scale integrity: 84%.
You are technically a very well-seasoned appetizer at this point.
Continue forward or activate emergency cooling?
Emergency cooling is for the weak, Ledger.
Lian's mental voice carried the quiet arrogance of someone who had watched galaxies burn.
I did not survive the collapse of the Myriad-Origin Sanctum to be cooked by a puddle.
If my soul cannot withstand the heat of a Rank-F planet, then I do not deserve the Sovereign's throne.
He stepped into the molten river.
The sensation was immediate and violent.
The magma did not simply feel hot.
It felt heavy.
Liquid stone pressed against his scales with crushing pressure, trying to squeeze the breath out of his tiny lungs.
But Lian did not panic.
He focused his Sovereign Soul.
Slowly, deliberately, he aligned his internal density with the molten rock surrounding him.
His body became a single point of impossible mass.
The pressure changed.
The magma no longer resisted him.
Instead, it accepted him.
He began to sink.
His small obsidian claws cut through the glowing liquid like a ghost moving through a wall.
Beneath the surface, the world became a blinding ocean of orange and crimson light.
Mana currents flowed through the magma like veins through living flesh.
The planet itself was alive.
And he was walking through its blood.
Far above, on Azure Peak, the sleeping god was beginning to wake.
His guests were paying the price.
Yin's hands trembled.
She was a master poisoner, a woman known for her calm and cold-blooded mind.
But now her blood was literally boiling.
She reached for her hidden pouch—her final weapon.
Her fingers touched molten metal.
Her poison needles had melted.
Steel and toxin had fused into a useless glowing lump inside her robe.
"How… how is this possible?" she whispered.
Her voice cracked as blisters formed across the skin of her neck.
"He hasn't even opened his eyes."
"He's just sitting there."
Beside her, Lu began to cry.
The bright orange silk of his Cloud-Tiger robes slowly turned black as the heat radiating from Lian's body scorched the fabric.
Every step Lian took deeper into the magma increased the crushing gravity pressing down on Azure Peak.
Hao, the brute who had mocked the so-called Mountain Trash, was now crawling across the stone.
Or at least trying to.
His body refused to move.
The pressure felt like the sky itself had collapsed onto his spine.
His vertebrae clicked painfully.
Meanwhile, Gao—the arrogant Young Master—had been forced face-first against the stone porch.
Blood ran from his broken nose.
He watched a drop fall from his face.
It never reached the ground.
The blood vaporized before touching the stone.
This isn't a man.
The thought froze his mind.
We didn't wake a master.
We disturbed a volcano.
Back beneath the molten river, Lian felt something change.
A massive displacement of magma.
Not a current.
A predator.
[VOID LEDGER]
Thermal anomaly detected.
Apex predator present within magma flow.
Suggested action: remain still.
Secondary suggestion: become a rock.
Lian sank deeper.
His claws anchored into a submerged basalt ledge.
Then he erased himself.
Through Sovereign Stillness, he suppressed his heat, his mana, even the rhythm of his heartbeat.
To the magma currents, he became nothing more than a cold pebble resting on the riverbed.
Moments later, the curtain of the Magma Falls parted.
The Crimson Serpent emerged.
It was a titan of ruby and fire.
Nearly sixty feet of coiled muscle and molten fury.
Its scales were translucent crimson crystal, glowing with internal heat.
As it moved, the magma did not simply flow around it.
It bowed.
The serpent did not swim.
It ruled.
Lian watched silently.
The creature was far stronger than his current vessel.
In a direct confrontation, he would die instantly.
But Lian's mind was not that of a hatchling.
He analyzed.
Mass distribution.
Muscle tension.
Heat concentration.
There.
Just behind the armored skull.
A thin pulsating membrane.
The only unprotected path to the brain.
The serpent paused.
Its forked tongue flicked through the magma.
It sensed something wrong.
A cold void where heat should exist.
The serpent lunged.
The magma exploded.
A thunderous shockwave ripped through the molten river as its jaws snapped shut.
But Lian was already gone.
Using the serpent's own shockwave, he launched upward.
He did not swim.
He fell upward through gravity manipulation.
A black streak against molten gold.
He landed on the serpent's neck.
The creature roared, thrashing violently.
The cavern trembled.
Obsidian shards rained from the ceiling.
[VOID LEDGER]
Survival probability: 0.1%.
You are currently riding a dragon while being approximately the size of its eyelash.
Save your commentary for later, Ledger.
Lian dug his claws between the scales.
The heat was unbearable.
His scales cracked under the crushing force of the serpent's movements.
But he did not release his grip.
Every fragment of his Sovereign Soul focused into one point.
His right claw.
A single gravitational needle.
"Sink."
The claw pierced through the membrane.
Straight into the serpent's nervous system.
The Crimson Serpent screamed.
Not just sound.
Pure thermal fury exploded from its throat.
The entire cavern shook.
Miles away on Azure Peak, Lian's human body suddenly vibrated with a low humming sound.
Feng coughed up a fountain of blood.
A phantom pain pierced through his skull.
The mountain groaned.
Azure Peak sank deeper into the earth.
Bedrock cracked under the surge of impossible gravity.
"Please…" Gao whimpered.
All arrogance gone.
"Forgive us… Ancestor…"
But the Ancestor was not there.
He was miles away.
Inside a river of fire.
Tasting the first drop of a dragon's blood.
[NEXT OBJECTIVE]
Consume the Crimson Brain.
Trigger Rank-E Evolution.