278: The essence and blood entered the fire, and with this breath, an unparalleled fire dragon was unleashed!

Inside the Treasure Vault, deathly silence reigned, broken only by the occasional joint-grinding sound of the hundred-meter-long metal monstrosity.

Lu Sheng stood upon the rubble of Spirit Stones, his right hand clenched fiercely around the [earth core red lotus core], which seemed to contain an entire world on the brink of destruction.

Within those dark golden, vertical pupils, greed and madness intertwined.

"Since I have a Five-Clawed Golden Dragon, I might as well get a Fire Dragon as a thug too."

Lu Sheng licked his somewhat parched lips, his five fingers abruptly exerting force.

"Break for me...!"

Crack!

A crisp sound of shattering.

The shell that had been Sealed for hundreds of millions of years was as fragile as an eggshell under his monstrous two-hundred-ton strength.

Boom—!

The moment the shell shattered, a world-destroying wave of heat erupted without warning.

This was no ordinary flame; it was Red Lotus Karmic Fire, the final resentment and venom of a collapsing planet.

Thick, crimson magma flowed frantically through the gaps between Lu Sheng's fingers. Upon touching the ground, it ignited instantly, burning sizzling black holes into the hard basalt floor.

"Come!"

Lu Sheng roared, his Mental Energy spreading out like a great net, attempting to forcibly gather this violent energy.

His logic was simple and brutal: make a Fire Dragon the same way he made the Golden Dragon.

Compress! Solidify! Forge the dragon's bones!

"Condense for me!"

Vast Mental Energy transformed into an invisible iron hammer, smashing down fiercely upon the flowing magma.

However.

He was wrong.

Wrong beyond measure.

Metal governs killing, its nature is firm, thus it can form bones.

Fire governs explosion, its nature is movement, it would rather break than bend!

The moment the will to "solidify" the rule of fire descended, the previously flowing Red Lotus Karmic Fire, like an enraged primordial Vicious Beast, instantly ceased its flow.

What followed was an intensely chilling, extreme contraction.

It was the precursor to an explosion.

"Huh?"

Lu Sheng's pupils contracted to pinpoints as a shadow of death instantly enveloped his entire body.

Before he could even react.

"BOOOOOOM————————!!!"

A deafening roar exploded within the sealed Treasure Vault.

The sound was so immense it transcended the concept of hearing, becoming pure vibration.

A crimson mushroom cloud rose from Lu Sheng's palm, instantly swelling to a hundred meters in size.

There was no suspense.

"Fuck me..."

Lu Sheng didn't even have time to finish his curse before his entire body was sent flying like a kicked ragdoll by the shockwave.

Thud!

A kilometer away, the Treasure Vault wall inscribed with defensive Formations trembled violently.

Debris flew, dust billowed.

A human-shaped crater now marred the wall, Lu Sheng embedded deep within it, his fate unknown.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Luo Tianfei, forced back hundreds of meters by the blast wave, saw the divine fire shield she had just conjured shatter once again.

Covered in dust and grime, she lifted her head, looked at the smoking crater, and couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth twice.

"I knew it..."

Luo Tianfei patted the dust off her clothes, a flicker of 'just as I expected' satisfaction in her eyes, mixed with an instinctive trace of worry.

"You don't even know about conflicting elemental attributes? Fire has no constant form; how could it be forged like metal?"

She was about to mock him a couple of lines and advise this lunatic to stop.

Clatter—

The sound of falling rubble rang out.

A charred hand reached out from the pile of broken stones, gripping the edge.

Next, the man who was smoking all over, his skin cracked, looking as if he had just crawled out of a crematorium, wobbled as he pulled himself out.

"Pah."

Lu Sheng spat out a mouthful of black smoke tinged with sparks, twisted the corner of his mouth, revealing a set of smoke-blackened teeth.

Relying on the powerful Physique granted by his Dragon God Bloodline.

The wounds on his body were visibly squirming and healing at a rapid pace.

Lu Sheng cracked his neck, producing crisp popping sounds.

He didn't even glance at the wounds deep enough to see bone on his body. Instead, he grinned, the light in his eyes frighteningly bright.

"The force is indeed pretty strong..."

"If the dragon I create doesn't have this kind of power, I wouldn't even want it."

He strode step by step towards the still-dispersing fire cloud, his footsteps as resolute as a believer marching to martyrdom.

"Again!"

For the next three hours.

The Heavenly Rank Treasure Vault was completely transformed into Hell.

Boom!

Boom!!

Boom!!!

The explosions came one after another, with an extremely rhythmic cadence.

Basically, every few minutes, a deafening roar would sound, accompanied by a human figure being blasted away, crashing into a wall, or smashing into the ground.

That poor wall was now pockmarked like the surface of the moon.

"Madman... a complete and utter madman..."

Luo Tianfei sat cross-legged in a corner. The arrogance on her proud face had long vanished, replaced by a tremor originating from the depths of her Soul.

Watching the man in the distance, once again covered in dust and grime from an explosion yet still laughing heartily, she felt her worldview crumbling.

Normal people Cultivate cautiously, treading on thin ice, fearing Qi Deviation.

This guy Cultivates by testing with his life!

"This kind of pain... does he not feel it?" Luo Tianfei's fingertips turned icy cold.

If it were her, forget being blasted so many times, even once would probably require half a month of recovery, leaving a psychological scar for a lifetime.

But Lu Sheng?

Every time he got up, the look in his eyes was more fanatical, more greedy than the last.

It was like playing poker with Death, convinced he held the trump cards.

"No... the method is wrong."

Having crawled out of the ruins once more, Lu Sheng didn't rush to grab the fire seed.

Bare-chested, a bowl-sized hole gaped in his chest—a masterpiece from the last explosion—now rapidly sprouting new flesh.

He lay on the scorching ground, panting heavily, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the vaulted ceiling.

He was thinking.

Beside him, the cold metal Golden Dragon coiled silently, every scale exuding an indestructible solidity.

"Metal is bone, so it needs to be hard, stable."

Lu Sheng muttered to himself, his gaze shifting to the still-violently pulsating Red Lotus Karmic Fire.

"Fire is energy, is explosion, is movement."

"Trying to give it bones is like trying to cage a flood; of course it explodes."

Lu Sheng abruptly sat up, a flash of inspiration striking his mind like lightning splitting Chaos.

"Fire isn't bone..."

"Fire is blood!"

"It doesn't need a scaffold to support a body; it needs a vascular System that allows energy to flow, cycle, and pressurize madly!"

Having grasped this point, the confusion in Lu Sheng's eyes instantly vanished.

He stood up, not even bothering to wipe the blood and grime from his face, and strode towards the flames once more.

Only this time, his movements changed.

No longer the broad, forceful attempts at compression.

Hum!

Mental Energy poured forth, but it was no longer an iron hammer. Instead, it transformed into thousands upon thousands of fine threads.

"Big Stupid Bird, watch closely."

Lu Sheng called out without looking back, his voice hoarse yet carrying an undeniable conviction.

"The real Fire Dragon is only now beginning to be forged."

Luo Tianfei subconsciously held her breath.

She saw Lu Sheng's hands moving rapidly through the Void Realm, as if playing a silent, fantastical rhapsody.

Those Mental Energy threads wove into an intricate, yet extremely precise network.

It was Meridians.

It was blood vessels.

It was a circulatory System that allowed the The raging red lotus karmic fire to gallop and accelerate within!

"Guide!"

Lu Sheng commanded in a low voice.

The temperamental fire seed, this time, did not resist.

Crimson flowing fire surged into the Mental Energy conduits. The previously chaotic explosive energy was forcibly organized, beginning to flow wildly along a specific trajectory.

No explosion.

Only a heart-palpitating howl, the sound of wind and thunder generated by energy flowing at high speed.

The temperature inside the Treasure Vault began to rise sharply.

But this was no longer the destructive, parching heat. It was a warmth with rhythm, with pulse.

Like a massive living being, breathing.

Before Lu Sheng.

No majestic, domineering physical body like the Golden Dragon appeared.

There was only an amorphous mass of light, woven from countless crimson "blood vessels."

They tangled, coiled, and ultimately converged into a core.

Though formless, the oppressive aura of this energy was even more terrifying than the hundred-meter Golden Dragon.

Because it was unstable.

It could erupt at any moment, and it could also create miracles at any moment.

"One final step left."

Lu Sheng looked at the massive "vascular network" before him, frowning slightly.

Conduits were in place, fuel was in place.

But this thing was lifeless.

It lacked a pump.

It lacked a heart that could propel this world-destroying energy in an infinite cycle.

"Since it's a dragon I'm creating, it must flow with my blood."

A flash of ruthlessness passed through Lu Sheng's eyes.

Pfft!

He abruptly bit the tip of his tongue.

Not just an ordinary drop of blood.

He mobilized all the Dragon God Sequence factors within his body, compressing his entire Essence Blood to its limit.

A mouthful of golden-red Heart's Blood, carrying an overwhelmingly dense Dragon's Majesty, was fiercely sprayed onto the core of the flame!

"For me... condense!!"

Sizzle—!

The dragon blood entered the fire, but did not evaporate.

Instead, it was like gasoline poured onto a raging inferno, or like a Soul injected into a shell.

That mass of golden-red blood rapidly permeated the center of the flame's network, transforming into a powerful pacemaker.

The previously steadily flowing flames abruptly halted.

The entire Treasure Vault fell into a deathly stillness.

Even Luo Tianfei in the distance felt as if an invisible hand had gripped her heart, its beating stopping along with that pause.

One second.

Two seconds.

Thump!

A dull sound, like a heavy hammer striking a leather drum, abruptly rang out.

The flame network violently expanded by a ring, then contracted back.

Thump!!

A second sound, louder and heavier than the first.

The rubble on the ground trembled and jumped.

Thump!!!

A third sound, like thunderclaps.

A visible crimson ripple, with that core as its origin point, swept out in all directions.

This was not a shockwave.

This was a life magnetic field!

"Roar..."

A low, hoarse roar, yet brimming with endless brutality and greed, emanated from the depths of the flame.

The sound made one's scalp tingle, as if a crack had been pushed open in the gates of Hell.

Whoosh—

The flame network began to grow frantically, using this as its bones, the fire as its flesh.

Though lacking the hard scales of the Golden Dragon, this forming monstrosity was wreathed in terrifying high temperatures Enough to warp the void.

Lu Sheng stood before that conflagration.

His face was deathly pale from excessive blood loss, but his eyes shone like two stars.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, turned his head, and flashed a savage, triumphant grin at Luo Tianfei in the distance, who was already dumbstruck and speechless.

"Big Stupid Bird, step back a bit."

"The temper of this thing I've created this time... isn't too good."

Before his words faded.

A giant claw, composed entirely of magma and raging flames, reached out from the firelight, grabbing the ground fiercely, instantly turning the hard basalt into a pool of boiling molten metal.

The second Dragon.

The Five-Clawed Fire Dragon.

Had come to life!