Chapter 297: The Palace

Kael attacked first.

WHOOSH.

He surged forward—the special grade gauntlet materializing on his right fist—hummm—aura amplifying his speed. The first storm wolf, Mana Heart Rank 5, lunged at him with jaws wide. Kael met it mid-air.

BOOM.

His gauntlet-covered fist connected with the wolf’s skull. The Impact Nullification absorbed the recoil. The Aura Amplification tripled the force. The wolf’s head exploded—shatter—bone, brain, and lightning fur spraying across the canyon floor.

Thud.

The rest of the pack howled—AWOOO!—and their howls summoned lightning. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! Bolts descended from the storm clouds above, striking the canyon walls and floor. The pack charged.

Twelve became twenty-four. More wolves poured from side passages—Rank 5 to Rank 7. Their bodies crackled with electrical energy.

Kael fired Lightning Fangs. ZZZT-ZZZT-ZZZT! The strikes hit the wolves—but most were partially immune. Their lightning-affinity bodies absorbed the energy, as most of them stood unharmed. They countered with their own strikes—CRACK-CRACK—blue-white bolts slamming into Kael’s chest.

He didn’t flinch. The attacks barely left marks on his Tier 5 body.

The alpha wolf—Rank 8, larger and darker than the rest—lunged with blinding speed. WHOOSH. Its jaws aimed for Kael’s throat.

"Gravity Field."

WHUUUM.

The field erupted around Kael—a ten times gravity in a ten-meter radius. The alpha hit the field and its speed crashed. Screeee. Its momentum died—legs trembling, body pressing downward. Kael flicked his hand. The alpha was launched sideways—SLAM—crashing into the canyon wall.

The other wolves hesitated.

Kael smirked. "Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure your alpha won’t go down with just a single strike."

He activated Lightning Body. CRACKLE. His form dissolved—ZIP—and reappeared behind the pack.

What followed was a massacre.

SLASH-SLASH-SLASH!

Shadow Slayer blades sang through fur and flesh. Shing-shing-shing. Bodies dropped—thud, thud, thud. Wolves that tried to flee were caught by gravity pulls—whuum—and dragged back into range. Those that fought back found their lightning strikes useless against his body.

In less than two minutes. Twenty-four wolves. Twenty-four corpses.

The alpha recovered—grrrr—pulling itself from the crater in the wall. Its white eyes blazed with rage. It opened its maw and fired a concentrated lightning strike—FWOOOOSH—a beam of pure electrical energy aimed at Kael’s chest.

Kael raised his left hand. A dark shield materialized—vvvm— Darkness compressed into a barrier. The lightning beam struck it and was absorbed—sizzle—consumed entirely.

Kael rushed forward. His right fist—gauntlet glowing—hummm—cocked back. Aura concentrated into his first two fingers. The vibration activated—bzzzt—Shatter-Point Strike.

He drove his fingers into the alpha’s skull.

CRACK.

The wolf’s cranial structure shattered from the inside. The Aura vibration detected the weak point in the bone and exploited it. The alpha’s eyes went blank. Its body collapsed—thud—dead before it hit the ground.

Kael pulled the Netherworld Soul Locking Flag from his system storage. Flutter. The cloth unfurled over the alpha’s body. The wolf’s large and dense soul emerged crackling with residual lightning. The flag absorbed it and the soul settled into the pocket dimension.

Soul Flag: 16/100.

Kael knelt and harvested the alpha’s Storm Core—a fist-sized crystal of condensed lightning energy embedded in the beast’s ches. He pulled it free. The core pulsed with power.

This could be very useful for rune formations.

He stored it and stood.

Guess that’s that.

Kael assessed his current power. Three cultivation paths—mana, body, and soul. Combined with his techniques, treasures, and abilities, he could easily defeat any Rank 8 Mana Heart cultivator and even fight against Peak Mana Heart.

The soul path was the farthest behind. His soul power was at Early Soul Tempering—impressive for sensory purposes, but his soul attacks barely affected Mana Heart realm cultivators. Unless he reached the Soul Manifestation realm, his soul power wasn’t really useful offensively. He could compensate with the Netherworld Soul Locking Flag, but still.

No matter. It’ll come with time.

Kael continued through the canyon.

Thunder Lizards.

He encountered the first one an hour later. Massive—five meters long, covered in thick grey scales that conducted lightning. Mana Heart Rank 7. It was solitary, slow-moving, but its tail strike was devastating—enhanced with enough electricity to shatter stone.

Kael killed it in three moves. Gravity held it in place—whuum. Lightning Blade severed its spine—slash. Shadow Slayer pierced its skull—shhk.

He also harvested it’s Storm Core harvested. Click.

Fifteen more Thunder Lizards fell over the next two hours. Ranks 6 and 7.

Five Storm Cores total. All stored in his system storage. After all, not all of them have unique cores like the storm cores.

Deep in the canyon, Kael’s soul sense detected something unusual. A narrow alcove—hidden behind a rock formation, concealed by residual lightning energy. He pushed the rocks aside and entered.

Inside, the walls glowed. Crystalline formations jutted from the stone pulsing with compressed lightning energy.

Fulgurite. Glass formations created by lightning striking sand, compressed over millennia into solid crystal.

But these weren’t ordinary fulgurite shards. Kael’s Spirit Eyes confirmed it—flicker—each shard contained compressed lightning laws. The fundamental rules governing lightning as a force of nature, distilled into crystalline form.

Absorbing these grants partial comprehension of lightning-based rule power.

Kael carefully extracted the largest shard—a forearm-length crystal that blazed with inner light. He stored it in his system storage alongside the Storm Cores.

This will be essential for comprehending lightning rule power.

He exited the alcove and continued through the canyon. The passages widened gradually until they opened into a vast clearing.

Kael stopped.

Before him stood a palace.

It was enormous—carved from the same black stone as the canyon, but polished to a mirror finish. Lightning veins ran through every surface illuminating the structure in blue-white light. Towers rose from the corners. The entrance was massive—twenty meters tall, framed by pillars of solid fulgurite.

Before the palace stretched a huge stairway. Wide—fifteen meters across. Long—extending upward for what seemed like a hundred steps. And surrounding the entire stairway was a translucent barrier—hummm—pulsing with energy.

Five people stood before the barrier.

They were all facing the stairway, waiting.

Whirrr.

The mechanical voice echoed through the clearing. Kael wasn’t the only one who heard it.

[WELCOME, GUEST. WAIT FOR THE SEVENTH INDIVIDUAL BEFORE COMMENCING THE TRIAL OF THE LIGHTNING EMPEROR.]

The five people didn’t react with surprise. They’d heard the voice before—probably when they first arrived. They’d been waiting for the remaining candidates to appear.

Kael was the sixth.

One more to go.