Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Twelve Divine Kings (Final)

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The dragons’ water-fire barrier trembled violently, thunderous roars resounding as layer upon layer of cobweb-like cracks spread across its surface.

A bolt of violet lightning circled the barrier, flickering with the speed of near-instantaneous teleportation. Each time the lightning flashed, it struck the dragons’ defense with a forceful blow, carving yet more cracks into the shield.

Little by little, the damage accumulated.

Now the water-fire barrier was covered in fractures, looking as though it would shatter at any moment.

“What do we do? We can’t even catch a glimpse of him—how are we supposed to fight?” Ao Yan watched the violet lightning flicker relentlessly, helplessness filling his massive crimson dragon eyes.

It wasn’t that the dragons were incompetent; rather, their adversary was simply too monstrous.

They had already shattered the space for thousands of miles around, creating a vast spatial black hole to guard against the primordial gods’ mastery over space. But who could have foreseen that among the gods there would be Lei Xing, a deity whose physical body defied all reason?

Without relying on spatial travel, Lei Xing could still rampage through the black hole with lightning speed nearly equal to teleportation.

Sheltered within their barrier, the dragons couldn’t even catch sight of Lei Xing’s form! All they could do was endure the relentless onslaught.

To make matters worse, Lei Xing’s mastery of the Law of Thunder made his attacks unimaginably powerful. Their combined barrier, which could rival an ordinary God-King’s defense, was on the verge of being destroyed by his blows.

“Change formation! Combine forces!” Ao Run’s water-blue dragon eyes glinted coldly as he watched the ever-flickering lightning. Without hesitation, he revealed their trump card.

“Isn’t it too soon?” Ao Yan hesitated at the suggestion. The combined form was indeed the dragons’ most potent technique, but it consumed enormous energy. Even at their best, the dragons could only sustain it for an hour.

Ao Run turned, his icy blue gaze locking onto Ao Yan’s crimson eyes. His voice was cold and resolute: “If we don’t change formation now, this Thunder King will destroy our barrier and unleash a massacre. What will we use to resist him then? Besides, an hour of our combined form is enough to suppress an ordinary God-King. I refuse to believe we can’t subdue a Primordial God-King.”

Hearing this, Ao Yan looked at their nearly shattered barrier and the ruthless Lei Xing. His crimson eyes flashed with indecision.

“Fine! Change formation! Combine forces!” The enormous red dragon head nodded, Ao Yan’s voice rumbling like distant thunder.

In a tunnel of shifting rainbow light—

Dressed in white, Fan Yan gently fanned himself, a faint smile playing on his lips. “The Thunder God is indeed formidable—he’s about to break the dragons’ defense. But the dragons will soon use that move, won’t they?”

For tens of thousands of years, his Daoist sanctuary had stood beside the Eastern Sea as a neighbor to the dragons; thus, Fan Yan knew their ultimate technique well.

A thunderous roar erupted—

Within the barrier, the dragons threw back their heads and let out an earth-shaking dragon cry. Suddenly, their bodies shone with divine light of water and fire, swirling and soaring as they converged on their two leaders.

Ao Run and Ao Yan circled high in the sky, blazing with intense bursts of water and fire, awaiting their brethren as, one by one, the other dragons merged into their bodies.

A final, resonant roar—

Now fused with the power of the entire dragon host, Ao Run and Ao Yan twisted their massive forms, each stretching over eight thousand feet long, their voices echoing across the heavens. Their eyes—one cold blue, one blazing red—locked onto each other as they charged.

A torrent of water and fire burst from the two Dragon Kings, dyeing the pitch-black sky in their colors.

Sitting atop his frozen throne, Nanluo watched the process with little initial interest. After all, such fusion techniques were common among all the great races—typically, they merely blended their strength.

But when Ao Run and Ao Yan completed their fusion, Nanluo realized the dragons had achieved body unity.

There were three levels to fusion arts: unity of power, unity of body, and unity of soul.

Unity of power meant merging divine strength—a soulless force, little better than a dead thing. Unity of body went a step further, granting a physical vessel to fully unleash that power. Unity of soul, however, was a rare and profound state—when the combined entity became a true, living being.

In all the vastness of the primordial world, Nanluo had never encountered a living creature capable of soul unity.

“How interesting! Lei Xing is in for a hard time!” Nanluo’s golden eyes sparkled with intrigue.

A colossal dragon, nine thousand feet long, armored in scales of water and fire, with eight claws beneath its belly, roared as it shook its two heads—one water, one fire. Dragon energy soared skyward as it broke through the water-fire barrier and ascended to the heavens.

The leaders of the great powers—Lionheart, Fire Kirin, Taishan, Phoenix Sovereign, and others—watched the peerless, twin-headed dragon in shock and awe. Was this the dragons’ ultimate fusion technique?

The battle between the gods and the armies of the various races came to an abrupt halt. All eyes turned to the sky, to the twin-headed dragon displaying its might, each observer lost in their own thoughts.

But everyone knew one thing: the outcome of the war now rested on the battle between the twin-headed dragon, champion of the old powers, and Lei Xing, champion of the gods.

If the twin-headed dragon triumphed, the old powers would defend their status as the unrivaled lords of the primordial world, crushing the gods’ rising momentum.

If Lei Xing emerged victorious, the gods’ power would surge. From then on, nothing could stop them, and the very order of the world might change.

This was no empty alarmism—it was the complex reality now unfolding.

From the moment the gods appeared, the great powers knew they were acting in concert with Nanluo. Otherwise, with the arrogance typical of the primordial gods, how could so many have gathered here by coincidence?

Nanluo, himself a Primordial God-King, had ascended from God-King to God-Lord, gaining the right to found a race and contend for dominion over the world.

The great powers had ruled for countless millennia—how could they allow a new force to shatter their order?

A clash between Nanluo and the great powers was inevitable—a battle to determine supremacy.

If Nanluo won, the great powers would be forced to acknowledge his status, perhaps even permit him to found a new force. If he lost, all negotiations would be off.

Yet Nanluo, as a Primordial God-Lord, was nearly boundless in might—hardly an adversary the great powers could defeat easily.

For various reasons, the God-Lords of the great powers had chosen not to face Nanluo directly, instead sending their second-strongest warriors and many elites to besiege him.

But if Nanluo clashed head-on with their armies, the resulting casualties would be immense. Even if he prevailed, he would face ceaseless pursuit from the great powers’ God-Lords.

Both Nanluo and his kin would be plunged into an endless war of attrition—a fate that ran counter to his desire for steady, low-profile ascendance.

The advent of the gods, however, offered a compromise.

The gods would represent Nanluo against the great powers. In turn, the great powers would send forces of equivalent strength to face the gods.

Thus, both sides could avoid catastrophic losses—and, perhaps, escape a war without end.