Inside Lin Xiao’s core, the oceanic mists of the Foundation Establishment realm reached their ultimate thickness.
For standard fighters, the shift from Foundation Establishment to the Golden Core was a brutal, terrifying trial. It needed compressing oceans of gaseous and liquid spiritual qi into a solid sphere under the crushing weight of one’s own will. A single tremor of doubt, a momentary lapse in concentration, or a hairline fracture in the foundation would cause the nascent core to detonate, reducing the fighter’s dantian to bloody mist.
For Lin Xiao, however, the process felt remarkably like kneading dough for steamed buns.
The four million, eight hundred thousand units of pure ancient qi swirled together with the five hundred thousand units of golden karmic merit and the pulled out essence of eight hundred and fifty tons of ancient star-bronze. Under the steady, rhythmic pressure of his Primordial Chaos void, the vast sky ingredients folded over themselves again and again.
“Squeezing pressure steady at forty-two thousand bars,” the Dao Spirit reported within his mindscape, her tone carrying the calm smooth speed of a master craftsman overseeing a flawless bronze casting. “Atom-deep posture is achieving total symmetry. The primal chaos star-core is folding space into nine micro-space-folding layers.”
“It’s getting very warm in the middle,” Lin Xiao noted, floating peacefully within the internal vortex. “Like holding a freshly baked sweet potato right against your chest on a snowy morning. Not burning, just... Deeply satisfying.”
At the exact center of his existence, the spinning vortex collapsed.
PING.
The sound was delicate and pure, like a single raindrop falling into a crystal chalice.
In that instant, all internal rough churning ceased. The swirling storms of indigo mist vanished, drawn entirely into the center.
Floating in the boundless darkness of his dantian was a single, perfect sphere.
It was the Flawless Primordial Chaos Golden Core (Wuji Huntian Jindan).
Yet calling it a “golden” core was a gross failure of mortal language. It wasn’t yellow gold. It was a shifting, semi-clear pearl of ancient jade that radiated nine distinct rings of rainbow-bright sky light. Emerald wood essence, vermilion fire, golden earth, azure water, white metal, deep-sea void, lunar silver, solar crimson, and the pure gold of heavenly karmic merit swirled across its surface in unending harmony.
The core didn’t merely store energy. It breathed. With each rhythmic pulse of the pearl, a wave of liquid ancient essence circulated through Lin Xiao’s jelly-like body, renewing every droplet of his semi-clear sapphire form with boundless, self-replenishing life.
Outside, above the physical valley, the heavens reacted to the birth of this impossible existence.
The clear autumn sky suddenly turned dark again. But this was not the greasy, rotten-egg blood-mist of Elder Han Gu.
From the upper air, huge thunderclouds rolled in from the four cardinal directions, stacking eight tiers deep until the noon sun was blotted out. Spirals of pitch-black lightning crackled across the cloud bases. It shook the mountain peaks with the ear-splitting roar of the Heavenly Dao Sky-trial.
An entity formed a Golden Core of such terrifying perfection that it threatened to disrupt the universal balance. Each time, the heavens deployed annihilating sky-trial thunder to strike the heaven-defier down into ash.
On his floating cloud platform, Elder Han Gu dragged himself upright. He grabbed his hollow chest with bloody fingers. A frantic, cracked sneer broke across his pale face.
“THE Sky-trial!” Han Gu screamed, spraying flecks of black bile into the wind. “The Nine-Fold Black Annihilation Thunder! The heavens themselves can’t tolerate your existence, you shapeless monster! Strike him down! Burn him to vapor! Let the lightning avenge my cooking pot!”
Down on the safe hall walls, the beastfolk held their breath. Tie Shan gripped his hammer. Xiao Hei lowered his stance, both prepared to leap between their master and the dropping heavens.
Lin Xiao, however, simply floated in the sky, tilting his round sapphire crown upward to look at the churning storm.
“Oh, look at those clouds,” Lin Xiao thought, his sense nodes tingling with mild curiosity. “Very dark, very dramatic. Smells a bit like burnt toast and ozone. Dao Spirit, is that thunder going to be sour or salty?”
“Sky ionization indicates ninety-eight percent pure Yang-Thunder essence,” the Dao Spirit answered dryly. “However, hostile discharge is exactly improbable.”
As if to prove her words, the first massive bolt of black heavenly lightning peeled itself from the thunderhead. Thick as a temple pillar, it plummeted straight toward the little blue slime with the roar of an enraged dragon.
Fifty paces above Lin Xiao’s head, the lightning struck his climbing aura.
There was no explosion.
The moment the heavenly thunder made contact with the nine-colored radiance of the Primordial Chaos Core and the shimmering golden shield of five hundred thousand units of karmic merit, the thunder stopped.
The destructive fury in the lightning melted away. Recognizing the entity below not as an arrogant mortal stealing heaven’s laws, but as the living wellspring that had just liberated one hundred thousand souls into Samsara, the Heavenly Dao paused.
Then, the black lightning turned pure, liquid gold.
The eight tiers of terrifying sky-trial clouds didn’t unleash doom. They softened into billowing, pastel clouds of pink, peach, and lavender. The violent thunder softened into the distant, rhythmic rumble of festive temple drums.
Instead of annihilating lightning, a sweet, warm drizzle of sky nectar began to fall across the valley. It was the legendary Auspicious Dewfall of Heaven and Earth. That divine phenomenon occurred only once every ten thousand years upon the birth of an enlightened Saint.
On his cloud, Elder Han Gu’s knees buckled.
He stared at the pink clouds, at the golden lightning that had dissolved into sweet rain, and at the round blue slime bouncing comfortably in the drizzle.
“The... The Heavenly Sky-trial... Was tamed?” Han Gu whimpered, his voice trembling so wildly that he could barely form words. “It didn’t strike? It... It blessed him?!”
The mental shock was too great for Han Gu’s already destabilized foundation.
CRACK.
Within Han Gu’s chest, his own twisted, blood-drenched Nascent Soul developed seven spiderweb fissures.
“PFFFT!”
Han Gu vomited three in a row mouthfuls of black, curdled blood. His Early Nascent Soul realm wildly collapsed, tumbling backward into late Golden Core, then middle Golden Core, before screeching to a halt at the edge of Foundation Establishment. His eyesight blurred, his demonic spirit veins snarled like knotted hemp. He collapsed face-first onto the thinning blood cloud, twitching in the throes of full-blown Qi Deviation.
Meanwhile, beneath the sweet rain, the sacred True Name links flared to life.
Lin Xiao had bound his core companions through the Dao of Bestowing True Names. Because of that, his ascension to the Primordial Chaos Golden Core sent a massive wave of ringing feedback cascading through the spiritual cords.
On the castle walls, Xiao Hei threw his head back with a ringing roar. The sky wolf king’s ten-foot frame swelled to twelve feet, his pitch-black coat becoming as lustrous as polished black glass. The silver star-pattern runes along his ribs flared with brilliant moonlight. It climbed his physical power to the peak of the Fourth Tier.
Beside him, Su Ling’er gasped as pure golden-azure warmth flooded her spiritual veins. Behind her vermilion robes, her three snowy tails glowed with brilliant ruby light, and with a soft, ghostly chime, a fourth and fifth tail sprouted from her spiritual dantian, fanning out like five radiant silk ribbons in the morning breeze.
Tie Shan let out a loud belly-laugh that rattled the low roof wall stones. The star-iron grafted onto his right arm began to hum. It took in the surrounding star-bronze deep ring. That turned from dull grey iron into lustrous, sun-forged titan gold.
Four miles away at the border trade depot, Patriarch Lu Feng and five hundred mortal artisans stumbled out of their wagons into the open courtyard. They tilted their faces up into the sweet, golden dewfall. They cupped their calloused hands to catch the fragrant drops. Old scars from stonemason chisels faded. Weary backs straightened. And coughs that had stayed in their chests for twenty winters dissolved into clean breath.
“The heavens themselves bow to him,” Lu Feng whispered. He dropped to his knees upon the damp timber deck, tears of respectful wonder streaming down his weathered cheeks. “In fifty years of traveling the great empires, I’ve seen emperors crowned and sect masters climb, but never have I seen the Heavenly Sky-trial lay down its thunder and cry sweet nectar like a devoted servant. We’re not trading with a monster... We’re standing in the presence of an enlightened Saint King.”
High in the clouds, Xiao Long’s jade scales thickened into iron-hard dragon plate, his nascent horns sprouting two sharp golden branches as he danced through the rainbow mist.
And down in the mud, Lin Xiao gently floated downward. His round blue body glowed with easy, supreme majesty.
“Ahhh,” Lin Xiao sighed happily, bouncing once upon the damp clover turf. “Now that’s what I call a proper breakthrough. No screaming, no broken bones, and the rain washed all the soot off the turnip leaves. What a lovely morning.”
“Congratulations on your ascension, Host,” the Dao Spirit announced, her voice carrying a rare, subtle note of genuine pride. “You have officially attained the Primordial Chaos Golden Core Realm. As a consequence of your core consolidation, a major evolutionary power has become accessible.”
“Oh?” Lin Xiao blinked his curved white eyes. “What power?”
“The power of macro-atom-deep shapeshifting,” the Dao Spirit replied. “[Human Shape Mimicry] is now fully unlocked.”