Hua Yang Zhenjun's reconstructed body convulsed like a marionette doused in lightning, tiger-striped meridians blazing through translucent flesh as fractured curses spilled from his triple-fanged maw. Below them, the ocean heaved in agony, its surface cratered by the aftermath of their clash. Zhao Rui hovered silhouetted against storm clouds, the Nine Heavens Thunder Lance crackling in his grip—a weapon reborn through Dragon King's Golden Blood and vengeance.
"Blasphemer!" Hua Yang's voice fractured into discordant shrieks—dragon's roar, tiger's snarl, and the Celestial Masters' poisoned whispers. "You dare stand where gods themselves kneel!"
The air itself crystallized as Zhao Rui's second The Spirit materialized—a towering silver-armored specter wreathed in anti-cultivation sigils. Twin azure flames burned where eyes should be, their gaze reducing Hua Yang's reconstructed glory to its gruesome truth: dragon scales stitched to tiger bone with celestial steel, golden core pulsating like infected flesh.
Clash of Shattered Divinity
The second元神 struck first. Its Bloodthirst Demonblade carved reality into bleeding fractals, each swing etching containment seals into Hua Yang's hybrid armor. The True Monarch countered with his Five Phoenix Spear, alchemical flames vomiting from its tip in tsunami waves.
Zhao Rui watched the duel through the Ten Thousand Laws Tome's prophetic lens. Each page now bled fresh warnings:
Warning: Target hybridization at 89% collapse
Recommended action: Corrupted core destabilization
"Enough theatrics," Zhao Rui muttered. His fingers tightened around the Thunder Lance as dragon-scale patterns surged across his skin. The weapon remembered this dance—three millennia past, it had shattered a star-eater's heart.
Dance of Lightning and Madness
Hua Yang's spear found purchase in the second The Spirit's chest—or so he thought. The blade skittered off golden soul-armor forged from the Golden Blood's essence, sparks revealing celestial steel grafts dissolving to ash.
"Impossible!" The True Monarch's remaining human eye bulged. "My strike felled dragon lords!"
The second The Spirit's fist answered—a meteor strike crushing Hua Yang's reconstructed sternum. Tiger bones powdered, dragon scales tore free, and the sky rained alchemical pus as the hybrid abomination crashed through three stone spires rising from the boiling sea.
Zhao Riu struck.
Final Teaching: Dragon's Wrath
The Nine Heavens Thunder Lance pierced Hua Yang's dantian in a scream of sundered reality. Purple lightning birthed itself within the True Monarch's golden core, cascading through celestial steel reinforcements and tiger marrow. The Tome fluttered open to its last prophecy—fractal dragons devouring a tiger-striped sun.
"Your masters built you to fail." Zhao Rui twisted the lance, venom-coated barbs flowering along its length. "A flawed vessel for stolen power."
Hua Yang's disintegration unfolded in reverse—first the Celestial Masters' tiger grafts dissolved, then reconstructed flesh sloughed away, finally revealing the shriveled mortal form beneath. His final scream contained multitudes: the Dragon-Tiger Mountain's broken promises, his enemies' laughter, and the sickening pop of a golden core imploding.
Aftermath: Sea of Silent Thunder
The ocean stilled. Brine-steam coalesced into funeral shrouds over Hua Yang's remains. Zhao Rui's second The Spirit dissipated in a shower of golden motes, its armor returning as Tome sigils mapping fresh warnings across Zhao Rui's skin.
Dun Che limped across solidified magma flows, his remaining eye squinting. "That... looked expensive."
"Worth every drop." Zhao Rui stared at his trembling hand—dragon-scale patterns fading beneath mortal flesh. "The Celestial Masters will send worse."
As storm clouds parted, satellite imagery captured the island's absence—government databases would later attribute it to undersea volcanic activity. None recorded the Tome's final projection looming over Dragon-Tiger Mountain like a crown of lightning.