Inside the hollow, Jiāng Liú floated quietly, the dark gold liquid surface flowing with silver light, like a galaxy under the night sky. The surprise battle with the Lightning Pattern Cloud Leopard had consumed considerable energy, but it also gave him a clearer understanding of his newly acquired strength. The solidity and resilience brought by the earthfire, and the swiftness and explosiveness endowed by the thunder fire, these two completely different characteristics were slowly merging within him. Though far from seamless, their power was already beginning to show.
He "looked" towards the depths of the canyon, where the thunderclouds churned like boiling ink, unceasingly rolling. Lightning didn't strike down one by one, but almost formed a continuous sheet, illuminating the entire core area into a dazzling white glare. The booming thunder was no longer an intermittent roar, but had transformed into a continuous, deafening rumble, as if heaven and earth were raging in that particular area.
Just by extending his senses to the periphery, he felt a soul-shattering pressure, and a terrifying power that seemed capable of completely ionizing and decomposing his very "liquid" form. The lightning there was incomparable to the outer regions, containing a purer, more ferocious will of destruction.
"I must go..." a voice echoed in the depths of Jiāng Liú's consciousness. The effect of the thunder fire remnants in the outer regions had weakened. To complete this "Thunder Fire Body Tempering" and truly harness the power of lightning, the extreme lightning domain of the core area was an unavoidable hurdle. Risk and opportunity were amplified to the extreme there.
He did not set off immediately. Instead, he spent an entire day adjusting his state to the fullest. The energy of the Earthfire Crystal was slowly absorbed, nourishing his liquid form and consciousness. The trace of lightning power within his body was repeatedly guided and familiarized, striving for complete control at critical moments. He maintained himself in optimal condition, his volume small but condensed to the current limit.
The next day, as the first light of dawn barely penetrated the heavy leaden clouds, Jiāng Liú quietly left the relatively safe hollow. He did not choose to fly at high altitudes (which would undoubtedly make him a target for lightning), but instead hugged the scorched ground, like a stream of flowing mercury, stealthily moving towards the canyon core area where the thunder was densest and the lightning most fervent.
The deeper he went, the more adverse the environment became. The ground was no longer scorched earth, but vast expanses of vitrified rock, smooth as glass, reflecting the dancing electrical serpents in the sky. The air was scorching and dry, the charge so intense that the film of water on his surface emitted faint crackles, requiring continuous energy expenditure to maintain. The immense thunder caused his liquid form to ripple incessantly, and his consciousness had to divert a portion of its focus to resist the pervasive sonic shockwaves.
He saw strange stone forests repeatedly bombarded by lightning, completely carbonized and then vitrified; he saw deep, bottomless ravines torn open in the ground, with faint flashes of lightning within; he even saw some Lightning Spirits, briefly existing and condensed entirely from lightning energy, leaping and annihilating in the lightning like cheerful sprites (or perhaps grim reapers), emitting a pure and dangerous aura.
Jiāng Liú carefully avoided these obvious dangers, searching for a relatively "safe" foothold. Finally, he chose a recessed area at the base of a massive vitrified rock wall. Protected on three sides by the wall, only one side faced the lightning zone, which could slightly mitigate direct strikes.
He had just stabilized himself and had no time to sense carefully when a sudden change occurred!
It wasn't a lightning strike directly at him, but a patch of seemingly calm vitrified ground in front of him suddenly ionized without warning! The charge in the air condensed under some unknown law, transforming into a dazzling white electric net covering an area of tens of zhang, swiftly engulfing the recessed area where he was located! Its speed was beyond imagination!
This was a naturally forming lightning field in the core area of the Lightning Valley, unpredictable and unguardable!
Jiāng Liú's heart trembled violently! He couldn't dodge! The electric net covered too large an area and was too fast!
"Endure!" At the brink of life and death, he unleashed his full potential! The dark gold liquid form instantly contracted to its extreme, its density increasing to an unprecedented level. The silver light on the surface flowed frantically at an unparalleled speed, forming a dense shield of interwoven lightning and water! Simultaneously, he fully activated the energy of the Earthfire Crystal, a heavy earth-yellow glow emanating from his core, integrating into the shield to increase its stability!
"Sizzzle sizzzle sizzle sizzle!"
The electric net fiercely struck the shield! A harsh sound of energy friction and tearing erupted. The white glare of electricity clashed violently with the dark gold and silver light, annihilating each other! Terrifying currents instantly coursed through Jiāng Liú's entire body, bringing extreme numbness and burning pain far beyond any previous thunder fire tempering! His consciousness felt as if it had been thrown into a lightning furnace, every inch of his "body" being torn and ionized by the ferocious energy!
The shield fluctuated violently, flickering in and out of existence. It lasted for less than a breath before shattering with a bang! The residual energy of the electric net poured fiercely into Jiāng Liú's liquid form!
"Ah—!" Jiāng Liú let out a silent roar from the depths of his consciousness. His liquid form was instantly scattered by more than half, leaving only a small core cluster desperately holding together. Its color had dulled to the extreme, the silver light almost gone, and the glow of the Earthfire Crystal was as faint as a candle in the wind. The intense pain and energy impact had almost completely taken his consciousness.
It was on the verge of annihilation that his instinct, which had been "needing burning" to the extreme, and his resilient will forged through multiple desperate situations, came into play. The shattered liquid did not completely dissipate. Relying on the unextinguishable spark of light at its core, and the last protection of the Earthfire Crystal, it forcibly maintained a sliver of connection.
The shattered plasma floated in the ionized energy field, each drop enduring the baptism and destruction of the lightning. Yet, miraculously, within this extreme destruction, some purer, more elemental lightning particles were more easily captured and absorbed by the still partially active liquid fragments in this "crushed" state...
This was a passive and perilous process, like drawing life from the tip of a knife. The vast majority of the liquid fragments were completely vaporized and annihilated in the lightning, but a small portion, at the very moment before annihilation, succeeded in imprinting a trace of the purest lightning essence.
After an unknown period, the sudden lightning field finally dissipated. On the scorched vitrified ground, only a small pool of liquid, the size of a baby's fist, nearly gray in color, and extremely weak in aura, remained. This was Jiāng Liú's surviving core.
He had "fainted." His consciousness sank into the deepest darkness, with only his most instinctive desire to survive and the connection with the Earthfire Crystal maintaining the last glimmer of life.
Time slowly passed. The Earthfire Crystal at the core, like the most loyal companion, continuously emitted faint but steady energy, slowly nourishing the severely damaged liquid and consciousness.Those water fragments that had absorbed the lightning essence on the brink of destruction also began, under the guidance/traction of the core, like］ tired birds returning to their nests, to re-gather bit by bit, extremely slowly...
This was a long and fragile recovery process. Any external interference could cause this last spark to be completely extinguished.
Fortunately, this area had just experienced a lightning field eruption, and for a short time, it had formed an energy vacuum, so other dangers did not approach for the time being.
Sun rose and set, the thunder still rumbled in the distance, but it seemed to have nothing to do with this pool of water struggling on the line between life and death. In absolute silence and weakness, Jiāng Liú was undergoing the most thorough... Nirvana he had experienced since becoming a liquid.