The void of space was plunged into a deathly silence.
Lac Long Quan hovered alone, his face devoid of any emotion, as cold as a ten-thousand-year-old glacier. The Dragon Soul Spear in his hand trembled violently, not from fear, but from excitement, for it sensed the boundless fury of its master.
He looked towards the Holy Master and Faker, who were keeping a safe distance, their eyes filled with vigilance.
"You insects," Lac Long Quan's voice was no longer loud, but low and deep, yet each word was like a hammer blow, striking directly at the souls of his opponents. "I have been too lenient with you. From the very beginning, I only saw you as whetstones, as tools to temper my descendant."
He paused, his gaze becoming as sharp as a knife. "But you... have touched my taboo."
"From today onwards," he raised the Dragon Soul Spear. "Dao Saint and Madakaros, prepare to face the wrath of the Dragon God."
With that, a horrifying scene unfolded.
The energy from his body was no longer streams of qi, but poured out like a tsunami, like an endless ocean. The golden energy, carrying the purest Draconic Might, spread out, enveloping the entire atmosphere of the Earth, forming a giant, seamless cage.
He wanted to block the retreat of both the Holy Master and Faker. He wanted a battle to the death, right here.
"I will take both of your lives as an example to all of humanity, and to all of your subordinates."
The terrifying pressure from that energy cage bore down.
The four Early-stage Nascent Soul Holy Envoys, who were heavily injured and in panic, could not withstand it.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Four consecutive explosions rang out. Their bodies, under the pressure of the Dragon God, exploded into pieces, their souls scattered to the winds.
With just his pressure, he had killed four Nascent Soul experts.
Both Faker and the Holy Master slowly retreated, their already wary faces now filled with terror.
"This power..." Faker muttered. "He... he's not a Late-stage Nascent Soul!"
That was right.
The aura on Lac Long Quan's body, no longer concealed, stretched to its absolute peak.
Peak Nascent Soul!
An existence just one step away from the legendary Hong Hoang Realm.
Below the atmosphere, his golden energy gathered, turning the night sky of Earth a brilliant gold. The clouds were incinerated. The air became suffocating.
New Year's Eve was no longer peaceful.
"Ha... haha... Lac Long Quan... calm down," Faker forced down the terror in his heart, trying to negotiate. "We... we can discuss terms. We will release your descendant!"
"Terms?" Lac Long Quan laughed coldly, a smile without a hint of warmth. "Only the strong are qualified to negotiate terms. As for you, right now... you are only qualified to die."
He pointed the Dragon Soul Spear at both of them. His gaze was extremely cold.
"You captured my descendant. I will kill all of your descendants."
His words were not a threat.
They were a death sentence.
Immediately, the golden energy that had been gathering in the sky erupted.
It did not attack the Holy Master or Faker.
It transformed into thousands, tens of thousands of dazzling golden lightning bolts. The lightning did not strike chaotically. It was as if they had eyes, controlled by an invisible hand, roaming through the atmosphere, then piercing through the clouds and striking straight down to the ground.
Each lightning bolt carried the destructive power of a Peak Nascent Soul expert.
And every place it landed was calculated with extreme precision.
In a dense jungle in the Amazon, a secret base of the "Dao Saint" hidden beneath an ancient pyramid was suddenly struck by a golden lightning bolt from the sky. The entire base, along with hundreds of "Holy Sons" inside, exploded, turning into a giant crater.
In the Sahara Desert, a Madakaros fleet at rest was also hit by dozens of lightning bolts. The sturdy warships shattered like toys.
In Siberia, in Europe, in Africa...
All over the Earth, outside the Great Wall, wherever the Dao Saint had a presence, wherever there was a Madakaros base, golden lightning struck.
Screams of panic, explosions, and cries of despair echoed across the planet.
Decades of construction. Hundreds of bases. Tens of thousands of soldiers.
In one night, nearly half were wiped out by the wrath of a king.
This was no longer a war.
This was a purge. A massacre.
A bloody tragedy, unfolding on New Year's Eve, under the light of hopeful fireworks.
...
The wrath of Lac Long Quan, the rain of golden lightning, continued to fall upon the Earth. Each bolt was a judgment, an unforgiving punishment.
The purge was carried out with brutal efficiency. The number of Dao Saint and Madakaros subordinates outside the Great Wall plummeted at a dizzying rate. Bases built over many years, well-trained armies, all turned to dust under a single attack.
In a small Madakaros settlement in Australia.
A young Madakaros couple was on a date in a room.
"Hmph, I'm about to break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm," the male Madakaros said smugly, flexing his muscles. "When that time comes, I'll become a commander, with over a hundred subordinates. Don't you worry, you'll have all the fine food and clothes you want."
The female Madakaros beside him pouted coquettishly. "No way, I won't have it. Who wants to follow you."
"Haha, you will be mine!" the male laughed loudly, then pushed the female Madakaros onto the bed, preparing to do something.
Suddenly, a terrifying pressure from the sky descended, rendering them both immobile.
The golden lightning had not yet struck, but the male Madakaros's body could not withstand the pressure and exploded into a mist of blood.
Before he died, he only had time to hear a majestic roar echo in his mind: "YOU SHALL NOT FORCE A MAIDEN!!"
Before the female Madakaros could understand what had happened, she followed her lover's fate, vanishing into thin air.
In outer space.
Lac Long Quan's aura continued to stretch relentlessly, even showing faint signs of breaking through to an even higher realm.
Both Faker and the Holy Master were completely terrified. They could only stand there, helplessly watching as Lac Long Quan's wrath destroyed the empire they had built.
"He... he concealed his cultivation," the Holy Master muttered, sweat pouring down like rain despite being in a vacuum. "The rumors about him from 4000 years ago... were true!"
This truth was even more frightening than losing his subordinates. They were facing a living legend, an existence that had once made the entire Maka Legion wary.
Just then.
Lac Long Quan, who was at the peak of his rage, suddenly paused.
He looked up, no longer at the Holy Master or Faker. His gaze pierced through space, through the stars, looking towards a place infinitely far away in the universe.
He felt a gaze.
An invisible, emotionless gaze, yet it carried an absolute threat, staring intently at him.
That gaze carried no killing intent, no energy. It was simply... an observation. But that observation carried with it a "Law," a rule that could not be broken.
It was as if it was telling him: "You have gone too far. Stop, or be erased."
Lac Long Quan recognized that gaze. A memory from 4000 years ago resurfaced.
It was this same gaze that had appeared when he was wreaking havoc at the Maka Legion's headquarters, when he was about to shatter the balance of the universe.
It was the "Will of the Universe." A supreme power, an invisible existence that maintained the order and laws of all things.
4000 years ago, he had appeared with a Hong Hoang Realm cultivation, but for some reason, his cultivation had returned to the Late Nascent Soul Realm, and he remained on Earth.
His recent rage had shaken his power, revealing a sliver of the aura of the Void Piercing Realm. And it was immediately detected by the "Will of the Universe."
Lac Long Quan sensed that if he did not immediately retract his cultivation, returning to the limit allowed for a Nascent Soul, then in the next moment, he would be instantly erased by the "Law" of the universe, without a trace.
"Damn it!" he cursed inwardly, a sense of helplessness and unwillingness welling up. "After all these years, you're still keeping an eye on me?"
He had no other choice.
The heaven-shaking aura on his body slowly subsided, retracting.
From Peak Nascent Soul, it finally returned to Late Nascent Soul.
The energy cage enveloping the atmosphere also vanished. The lightning phenomenon in the sky also slowly disappeared.
The wrath of a king was forced to stop.
Only then did Faker and the Holy Master breathe a sigh of relief, as if they had just escaped from the jaws of death.
"We are not done yet!" Lac Long Quan looked at them, his voice filled with anger but also helplessness.
He said no more. He knew he couldn't kill them today. He turned and slowly flew back towards Earth. His figure, though still majestic, carried a hint of loneliness and melancholy.
Earth gradually calmed down.
The Holy Master and Faker stood there, watching Lac Long Quan's retreating figure.
"It's a good thing he stopped," Faker said, his voice still trembling. "But the damage this time... is too great."
"Yes," the Holy Master said, but his voice held no anger, only contemplation. "But... what made an existence like Lac Long Quan stop? He clearly had the power to kill us both."
A new question, a new mystery, was raised.
They didn't know that there was a "Law" far greater than them, governing this chess game.
And that intervention had inadvertently saved their lives.
But at the same time, it had also sown a seed of doubt in their hearts, making their next moves even more cautious and unpredictable.