45: Chapter 45 The Essence—Art is an Explosion!

Having finished his recovery, Zhang Wen stretched his limbs, feeling the power surging within his body once more; only that exclusive Profound Truth remained untested in its depth.

"The System specifically warned me back then that this move should never be used lightly unless I'm on the brink of life and death..." Zhang Wen rubbed his chin, though a glimmer of eagerness flashed in his eyes.

"But then again, if I don't test it myself, how will I know if it can truly serve as my trump card? Hmm, thinking about it, I definitely have to test it."

He muttered to himself, but his hands didn't stop, turning to rummage through his Storage Pouch for a pile of bottles and jars—pale gold Spirit-Calming Potions, emerald Life Essence, and amber Spiritual Energy Supplements, all neatly arranged in a semicircle by his feet, like a small rainbow defensive line.

"With these guys here to hold the fort, even if I run out of energy later, I can recover in time; now I finally feel more at ease." Zhang Wen dusted off his hands and chuckled, a hint of craftiness in the corners of his eyes.

The next second, the wind around him suddenly swirled backward.

Zhang Wen slammed his palms together, and the Spiritual Qi in his body surged like a bursting river, causing his Meridians to hum faintly from the force.

At first, only a few specks of Lightning Radiance leaked from between his fingers, but in an instant, they transformed into bowl-thick lightning pythons, the purple-gold plasma crackling as it scorched charred patterns into the bluestone ground beneath his feet.

As his hand seals accelerated, the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth gathered towards him frantically, and the clouds above churned into an ink-black color, with muffled thunder rolling within.

When the final seal exploded into a Shimmer in his palm, Zhang Wen suddenly looked up, his pupils filled with churning Thunder Fire, and the Thunder Power around him surged abruptly, causing the space to ripple like water.

"Nine Heavens Annihilation — Thunder Burial of the Great Luo Heaven!!!"

Before his shout had even faded, the thunder in front of him abruptly collapsed into a single point of purple-gold light, only to explode with the force of shattering heaven and earth!

In an instant, ten thousand lightning Dragon forms tore through the firmament, the purple-gold electric light surging towards the nine heavens like a furious torrent, forcibly grinding the thick dark clouds into dust across the sky.

Between heaven and earth, only a deafening roar remained, as if countless volcanoes were erupting simultaneously, or as if millions of giant hammers were striking the drums of the world; even the earth trembled violently, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading from beneath Zhang Wen's feet, continuously devouring the distant mountains with cracking sounds.

The violent Thunder Power transformed into a visible shockwave, crushing outward in a ring—wherever it passed, hundred-meter-tall ancient trees were instantly burned to ash by the plasma, hard rocks disintegrated into dust within the Lightning Radiance, and even the air was ionized into a pale purple mist, emitting sizzling burning sounds.

Even more terrifying was that the sea of lightning in mid-air condensed into an inverted thunder prison, with billions of electric snakes darting and colliding wildly within; every intersection exploded with blinding light, illuminating the world as if it were day, causing even the sun and moon to be eclipsed by this power.

Looking from afar, the entire land seemed to have been pressed into a thunder furnace by an invisible giant hand, the roaring and explosions continuing endlessly, as if trying to tear the order of this world apart completely and return it to the wildness of the beginning of Chaos.

Before the lingering power of the skill had dissipated, Zhang Wen had already collapsed to his knees like a withered tree broken by a gale.

His robes were long torn to shreds by the thunder, and blood mixed with charred flesh dripped down, pooling into a jarring pool of red beneath him.

His Spiritual Qi was completely exhausted, his Meridians felt as if they were being repeatedly pierced by thousands of steel needles, every breath tugged at him with excruciating pain, and even his fingertips were twitching uncontrollably—this miserable state was the most straightforward annotation of that Profound Truth's terrifying cost.

Yet, in the depths of his eyes burned the brightness of surviving a catastrophe; he struggled to reach out, his fingertips groping through the pile of potions for a long time before finally managing to hook a bottle of Life Essence.

When he bit the cap off with his teeth, his teeth were chattering, and the pale gold potion leaked down the corner of his mouth, with most of it spilling onto his lapels, but even after swallowing just a small mouthful, he let out a long sigh of relief.

"Huu... this exclusive Profound Truth... is fucking intense..." Zhang Wen coughed up blood foam, his voice hoarse as if sanded by sandpaper, yet carrying an uncontrollable excitement, "It consumes way more... than an SSS-grade Cultivation Technique of the same rank..."

He raised his hand to wipe the blood and dirt from his face, drawing in a cold breath, but the corners of his mouth widened further—though the cost was heavy, the heaven-destroying and earth-shattering power just now was enough to make any opponent tremble.

Zhang Wen immediately focused and circulated the Myriad Force Thunder Guidance, his pores suddenly opening, like countless tiny vortices frantically devouring the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth.

Wisps of spiritual light surged into his body along his Meridians; although far from matching the speed of consumption, it barely managed to keep a thread of life hanging.

He secretly rejoiced—fortunately, he had Cultivated the Indestructible Thunder Body, such an overbearing body-forging Cultivation Technique, in his early years; the Thunder Power circulating through his bones and limbs right now was rapidly recovering the injuries inside his body.

If it had been an ordinary physique, he would likely have already been torn to pieces by the thunder backlash in that explosion just now.

Zhang Wen panted heavily and looked up, seeing that where the skill had reached, scorched earth stretched to the end of his vision, with sizzling electric snakes still lingering among the remains of broken stones and charred wood, and even the air was filled with a burning smell like gunpowder smoke.

As this devastated scene hit his eyes, he suddenly grinned, and a thought popped into his head inexplicably—just like the words often on the lips of that mud-loving blonde guy in the anime he used to watch:

"Art... is Explosion!"

His hoarse voice, mixed with his panting, drifted into the wind, truly carrying a bit of that crazy yet pure flavor.

Inside the Safety Center of the Ningjiang District government.

The originally orderly office area was now silent, with only a few monitoring devices still emitting a buzzing sound like aftershocks.

The data stream on the screen had long since leveled off, but that energy curve, which had suddenly soared and then crashed down, was still branded into everyone's eyes.

The middle-aged man sitting in the main seat slowly unclenched his tightly gripped fist, the white marks on his knuckles from the exertion not yet faded.

He stared at the shocking peak data on the screen, his Adam's apple bobbing once, and then he looked up at the technician beside him, his tone carrying a note of gravity: "Did you detect that fluctuation just now?"

The technician adjusted his glasses, tapped his fingers rapidly on the keyboard to bring up a more detailed parameter report, and although his tone held surprise, he remained calm: "Detected, District Chief Wang. This energy intensity... preliminary judgment suggests it has the level of the Subtle Realm; that momentary burst just now did indeed cause a short-term overload in our district's geomagnetic monitoring network, but the core System was not affected."

The staff member in charge of coordination nearby leaned over, pointing at the energy residue trajectory on the screen: "And looking at the characteristics of this fluctuation, it leans towards the thunder attribute; it should be the outburst of some kind of technique or ability."

District Chief Wang tapped his fingertips lightly on the table, his brows slightly furrowed: "Can you lock onto the specific location? This level of energy release, whether accidental or man-made, must have its origins clarified for the safety of the citizens of Ningjiang District. Have the relevant departments follow up simultaneously to see if it caused any actual impact."

His voice was not loud, but it carried his usual composure; although the atmosphere in the office area had become a bit more serious due to this abnormal fluctuation, there was no panic—for these people who had dealt with various special incidents for years, beyond the shock, what was more important was to quickly sort out the clues, rather than dwelling on the accident itself.

Meanwhile, the protagonist Zhang Wen, having finished recovering his injuries, leisurely went home, completely unaware of how much extra workload he had caused others.