Chapter 206: Orochimaru, I'm Going to Kill!
The cosmic projection still radiated around him. The desolate starry sky was gone, replaced by a landscape formed entirely of pure lightning—natural mountains and rivers sculpted by thunder itself.
Within the projection, everything fell into Jiang Zhe's silver-robed perception.
He clearly saw it—the Spacetime Nightmare Beast had self-detonated its divine body, scattering countless divine particles into nothingness. From its remains surged endless strange substances, flowing back into the embrace of the Silent Winds.
These "strange substances"… they were the very root of everything!
They were what made the Silent Wind Prison so different from the deadly Silent Wind outside.
They stripped the Silent Wind of its terrifying lethality and instead turned it into something that could fuse into a divine body, granting power and enhancing its very "quality."
But the price was eternal imprisonment—you could never leave their grasp!
The proof was right in front of him:
—The moment he left the Silent Wind Prison earlier, his tempered divine body collapsed, the strange substances he had fused into it instantly returning to the prison.
—The same with the Spacetime Nightmare Beast. Every time a portion of its body burned away, the strange substances it had absorbed suffered no loss and simply returned to the Silent Wind.
If one wanted to break free of the prison's control, they would have to give back everything they had taken.
But who would dare? From immortals to Universe Masters, who could bear to completely destroy their divine body, then rebuild it anew, just for ultimate purification?
Their divine bodies contained shards of their souls. The more they gave up, the more of their souls would be erased.
Jiang Zhe clicked his tongue after sorting through his thoughts.
"So… it's no exaggeration to say that the moment any lifeform used the Silent Wind to temper their divine body, they were already dead."
"What exists now are nothing but walking corpses controlled by the Silent Wind Prison."
After a brief sigh, Jiang Zhe began gathering his spoils.
First, he retrieved the Spacetime Nightmare Beast's World Storage. With a touch of world power, he extracted the lightning treasures within and stored them inside his inner universe.
He refined them, increasing the diversity of his lightning species, accelerating the evolution of his Thunder Universe.
Among the collection, three items stood out:
—A massive earth sword.
—A heavy thunder hammer.
—A set of six wind daggers forged as psychic weapons.
Most were spoils the Nightmare Beast had stolen, all relatively ordinary treasures.
The first two would only be worth a handful of treasure points, but the dagger set could earn over ten if offered to the clan.
Jiang Zhe kept the thunder hammer inside his universe for himself.
When his true body sent over lightning materials, he would hand over the remaining two treasures for clan exchange—no need to keep selling top-tier sets every day.
With that done, he moved on to the troublesome task of retrieving the beast's shattered fish-scale armor.
Hopefully, even after being detonated twice, it hadn't been completely ruined.
Under his projection's sweep, Jiang Zhe tracked most of the scattered scales. One by one, two by two, ten, then hundreds—he carefully gathered them all.
Flexible and sharp, the scales had formed a beast-like armor for the Nightmare Beast. But Jiang Zhe reshaped them into a humanoid form.
Soon, tens of thousands of scales pieced together into the upper half of a battle armor.
Infusing each with his void energy, he left spiritual marks, completing ownership. At once, he felt the armor's half-formed body resonate with the remaining scattered scales.
Following the connection, his search grew much faster.
Fortunately, this was inside the Silent Wind Prison, where the only danger was the omnipresent Silent Wind itself. Unlike Luo Feng's mad hunt for the Madness God Armor in the Universe Sea, this was far less impossible.
Even so, thousands of scales had scattered beyond the prison.
Standing at its edge, Jiang Zhe activated the armor, calling them back.
This was the "Flame Scale Armor."
Forged from 99,999 fish-scale pieces, it could block ninety percent of both material and soul-based attacks. A secret pattern was carved within, requiring comprehension of fire laws to activate.
That very pattern, once awakened, was the "Explosive Form" the Nightmare Beast had used.
—By igniting the armor, scales would shoot outward like a storm of death.
As he had guessed, each detonation damaged the secret pattern.
Though divine power could slowly heal it, repeated detonations in a short span would leave irreparable harm, eventually destroying the armor.
Overall, the armor wasn't highly ranked. Compared to "Pan Spirit Armor," it was heaven and earth apart.
"I don't have comprehension of fire laws, so I can't use its explosive form… but that's fine. I don't need more attack power anyway. As long as it blocks ninety percent of material attacks, it's enough."
He immediately donned the armor.
Dark scales layered like black towers, faint red flame patterns running across them. Its design resembled the Song Dynasty's infantry armor.
With a wave of his hand, golden wings appeared before him—retrieved while collecting the scales.
They were the Nightmare Beast's very own wings, also a treasure, classified as both flying and psychic weaponry.
They required mastery of both fire and space laws to fully awaken their secret pattern.
Not perfectly suited to him, but Jiang Zhe didn't care.
Like the armor, he didn't value their offensive power. With his grasp of spatial laws, as long as they boosted his speed, they were more than useful.
Binding them, he fixed the wings to his back.
"Perfect—full kit unlocked!" he shouted with glee.
Right hand wielding Thunderbolt, left hand gripping Aegis, clad in scaled armor, and golden wings flaring from his back.
He looked majestic, a walking war god.
Nearby sealed kings who had been drawn by the earlier battle stared, jaws hanging open. That dazzling set of equipment nearly blinded them with envy.
Yet none dared move rashly.
Judging from the blast just now, whoever had self-destructed was most likely an Invincible King. And this survivor? His strength was even more terrifying.
Some even recognized the wings, realizing the slain had been none other than one of the prison's titans—
The Spacetime Nightmare Beast.
Not someone they could afford to provoke.
Jiang Zhe lingered a while longer. Seeing that none dared make a move, he cursed them as cowards, flapped his wings, and departed.
…
A top-class F-rank ship plunged deep into a barren planet's crust, stopping nearly ten thousand meters below ground.
Jiang Zhe halted there, preparing to go into seclusion.
"Restart!"
Behind him, the phantom of a silver serpent appeared, its head and tail joined in an endless circle. A ghostly clock hovered behind it, like a vast magic array.
The hands of the clock spun backwards.
His body state was dragged back to a recorded node—
The moment after entering the Silent Wind Prison, when his divine body had been tempered and filled with strange substances.
At once, the Silent Wind no longer gnawed at him. To it, he was "one of their own."
Compared to the outer Silent Wind Belt that could annihilate Universe Masters, the prison's version was nearly harmless.
"Burn divine body!"
Jiang Zhe began the most reckless form of consumption, immersing his consciousness in every particle, feeling them burn away.
With a unique mental cultivation, he attached fragments of his awareness to the strange substances that drifted out, following them as they returned to the Silent Wind.
Through their eyes, he saw a vision that stunned him—
Golden particles drifting endlessly, as omnipresent as the Silent Wind itself.
They clustered around vast golden veins that stretched across the void. If the prison was a human body, these were its "meridians" and "blood vessels."
The vision flashed away, his scattered awareness extinguished. His sight returned to normal.
Staring at the token on his left ring finger, Jiang Zhe's breath grew heavy. He might have uncovered the truth.
"Restart!"
The serpent and the clock returned, rewinding time once more, this time to the moment before his divine body burned.
The lost fragments of his awareness revived. Again, he saw the golden veins and drifting particles.
Again, the vision faded as his particles returned to him. His divine body was restored.
"Burn!"
Eyes closed, he burned himself once more, watching the golden veins through the drifting particles.
"Restart!"
"Burn!"
"Restart!"
Over and over, again and again, he repeated the cycle, striving to study those golden veins more clearly.
After over a dozen repetitions, he channeled his void power into the token on his finger.
At once, it unfurled into a web of thin golden threads, spreading into the void, vanishing beyond sight.
"Burn!"
His awareness, riding the drifting particles, finally reached the ends of those threads.
The token's threads joined seamlessly with the vast golden veins of the prison. They were a branch of it.
His heart pounded. With haste, he stirred the token.
Its threads trembled, sending out invisible ripples. Golden particles around it scattered, and the Silent Wind itself receded.
Then his awareness vanished, the special vision cut off.
"Restart! Restart! Restart!"
Again and again, he pushed further.
Finally, after countless trials, he ended his study. Resting his chin on his palm, he tilted his head in thought.
"A bold guess…" he muttered.
"The golden veins are the true body of the Silent Wind Prison. Together with the golden particles, they changed the Silent Wind, turning a death zone into a Noah's Ark."
"They're a treasure—no, beyond that, a supreme treasure!"
"Whether an ultimate treasure or something even higher, I can't say. But its rank is undoubtedly terrifying. Perhaps even linked to the very birth of the Silent Wind itself."
"Since I've uncovered its essence, what I must do next… is attempt to claim the golden veins as my own."
He frowned, sighing. "Too difficult. My void power can't even touch them. If I hadn't seen them through that vision, I'd be as blind as every other Universe Master who came here."
"The only thing I can touch are the golden particles—the strange substances I've already fused."
Then a thought struck him. His eyes sharpened.
"Wait. If I refine enough golden particles, maybe I can sense the veins themselves. They're connected—like the parts of Luo Feng's Chaos Gold Wings."
"The prison is fifty light-years across. To refine enough particles… even the Nine Nether Lord himself would barely qualify."
"But my complete divine body, though smaller, could still absorb a sea of them—enough to influence the prison significantly."
"And I don't have to worry. As long as my life core remains, even if my one-light-year body collapses, I can just use my innate ability, Source, to drain Old Primitive dry and recover."
"When in doubt—ask the Spring Wind. No Spring Wind? Then just do it!"
A ruthless gleam flashed in Jiang Zhe's eyes.
"First, I'll need a quiet environment for my experiment…"
Virtual Universe, Rainmountain, Original District, Manor No. 101.
Inside a bamboo house, Jiang Zhe poured a cup of tea for his junior nephew, Mo Ling, before calmly saying:
"Nephew, I want to slaughter every lifeform in the Silent Wind Prison. May I?"
Clatter!
The tea spilled across the tatami before Mo Ling could even drink it. His hands shook violently.
"U-Uncle… what did you just say?"
Jiang Zhe repeated patiently, "Nephew, I've uncovered some truths and wish to attempt something. But before I do, I need to kill everything inside the prison. I want to hear the clan's opinion. Can it be done?"
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