The paranoid, beautiful, noble and cold Sea Blue Flag Lord Lan Qi was dead.
It was not until the moment before her death that she finally revealed her secret. She had once betrayed the rules and regulations of the Witch Kingdom, had a secret affair with someone, and had given birth to a child.
It was also only when she was dying that she revealed Lan Mei’s true identity.
She was actually the biological mother of the little witch Lan Mei.
In an instant, the little witch Lan Mei felt as though her heart had been torn apart.
All along, she had always prided herself on having extraordinarily high talent. She was extremely playful and only trained sporadically. Flag Lord Lan Qi had always indulged her. When she said she did not want to compete to become a Flag Lord, Lan Qi let her have her way. Even when she said that after reaching adulthood, she would travel the world and wreak havoc among men, Flag Lord Lan Qi would still look at her with both indulgence and reproach.
Sea Blue Flag Lord Lan Qi was an extremely cold person who rarely got close to anyone, but she could almost be described as doting on little Lan Mei.
Therefore, all along, little Lan Mei had regarded Lan Qi as her mother in her heart.
And now, she really was her biological mother. Under normal circumstances, little Lan Mei would have been overjoyed, then become even more demanding, acting spoiled and throwing tantrums to leave the Sea Blue Flag territory early and go to the Savage Wilderness to wreak havoc among men.
But now, she had only just discovered that this was her biological mother. Oh no, they had not even recognised each other yet, and this mother had already left, had already died.
The mother who loved her the most had been killed.
The Captain of the Heavenly Guardian Knights, White Wolf, rescued Ji Xiuning. The three hundred Heavenly Guardian Knights he brought with him had already been reduced by half by the anti-air snake cannons at the very beginning.
During the fierce battle that followed, nearly half of the surviving one hundred and fifty Heavenly Guardian Knights were killed or wounded.
The remaining eighty or ninety people all successfully withdrew from the Sea Blue Flag territory, following behind White Wolf as they headed north towards the human kingdoms.
The short but devastating battle was over.
……
Next, all the warriors in the Sea Blue Flag territory would hold a magnificent funeral for Flag Lord Lan Qi.
After three days of mourning, they would report back to Witch City.
Then, under the guidance of the Witch Kingdom’s Queen, a new Flag Lord would be selected.
During the funeral, Lan Qi’s body would be completely burned, and her demonic bloodline would be extracted. This tube of demonic bloodline would then be placed on the altar in the Sea Blue Flag territory.
The only thing she could probably leave behind was a crystal statue.
Throughout the entire funeral, Lan Qi’s biological daughter, Lan Mei, did not shed a single tear or say a single word.
She watched as her biological mother’s beautiful body was stripped clean, then consumed by raging flames, until a tube of demonic bloodline was extracted.
As for Lan Qi’s crystal statue, little witch Lan Mei personally carved it.
Little Lan Mei worked for several days and nights without sleep or rest. She finally finished the carving, creating a lifelike Lan Qi.
This Lan Qi looked very similar, yet also somewhat different. That was because half of the appearance was Lan Qi’s, while the other half was little Lan Mei’s own appearance.
“Revenge, we must have revenge. Report this to Her Majesty the Queen and ask the entire Witch Kingdom to send out its forces. Even if it means going to war with the Divine Dragon Temple, we must avenge the Flag Lord.” The demonic sect experts and elders of the Sea Blue Flag territory were filled with righteous indignation. They all insisted on taking revenge, even if it meant the entire clan going to war with the Divine Dragon Temple.
Little Lan Mei knew that her mother, Lan Qi, had always hated the Divine Dragon Temple deeply, regarding it as a mortal enemy. However, she had never said why.
When they discussed how to take revenge, little witch Lan Mei remained silent.
The next day, after the funeral ended, little witch Lan Mei also disappeared, leaving behind a short letter.
“I want to become stronger. I want to personally avenge my mother. I’m leaving!”
And just like that, the little witch who had been the most cherished person in the entire Sea Blue Flag left.
……
At the summit of Heaven-reaching Peak, five days remained before the duel!
During the past month or so, Lan Ling had spent the first twenty days comprehending lightning.
His spiritual domain had even penetrated into the deepest depths of lightning.
Not only that, his spiritual power had also entered the instant when dark clouds collided, after which he used spiritual techniques to slow his vision down dozens of times, personally watching how lightning was formed.
All kinds of lightning, ordinary lightning, ball lightning, blood-coloured lightning and so on. Lan Ling had already seen the internal energy patterns of these forms of lightning clearly.
He understood every scene involved in the birth of lightning.
Combining this with the knowledge he had learned on Earth, Lan Ling had gained an incomparably thorough understanding of the principles behind lightning.
Once he felt that he had mastered all the theoretical knowledge, he began putting it into practice, using the magical energy within his body to create lightning energy.
This was an extremely complicated yet very simple process.
It was simple because the collision of positive and negative ions formed electrical energy.
It was complicated because the question was how to make his own bloodline energy separate into Yin and Yang, positive and negative energies.
But to achieve this goal, Lan Ling spent a full ten years!
Of course, these were ten years in the meditation world.
In the meditation world, he practised again and again and studied again and again.
He modified his meridians time after time.
Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times, he failed.
The entire process could completely be described as painstaking and unbearably painful.
Perhaps this was the most difficult thing he had ever done, and also the greatest.
It was greater than taking the throne of the Chi Yan Nu Lang Kingdom. It was greater than conquering the Black Demon Flag. Compared with conquering the Centaur Tribe, it was of course ten times greater.
Because in order to create Yin and Yang, positive and negative energies, Lan Ling had exhausted almost every method and every bit of wisdom at his disposal.
For this purpose, he was even willing to split his own spirit and soul, and even had one of his souls feign death in an attempt to enter the Underworld.
Edison experimented with thousands of materials in order to find a suitable filament for the light bulb.
And in order to create Yin and Yang, positive and negative energies within his body, Lan Ling experimented with hundreds and thousands of methods.
He killed himself more than a hundred times through meditation alone.
Not only that, the formulas he wrote in his mental domain and the energy diagrams he drew probably numbered more than tens of thousands.
Even in the meditation world, Lan Ling was almost driven mad.
Those ten years in the meditation world were more than torment for Lan Ling. It was practically like placing his vitality and wisdom over a flame and slowly boiling them down.
Lan Ling even suspected that if this continued for too long, even with his Golden Bloodline and Golden Body, his vitality would eventually be exhausted and he would die.
After spending a full ten years, Lan Ling started from scratch and wrote the scroll of the “Yin Yang Formula”.
Finally, in theory, he had completed the separation of Yin and Yang energy within his body.
At this moment, Lan Ling almost wanted to look up at the sky and shed tears.
Today, the ten years in meditation had finally ended, and his scroll of the “Yin Yang Formula” had finally been completed.
Next came practical application.
At this moment, only five days remained before the duel began.
Everything depended on this one attempt.
Success meant obtaining the entire Black Demon Flag territory.
Failure meant losing everything.
……
At the mountaintop, 25,000 metres above sea level, the weather was unusually good. The moon was bright and the stars were sparse.
The three-headed Chimera Beast and Gou Li were also at the summit, witnessing this great moment.
“Master, there is a strand of white hair on your head,” Gou Li suddenly said. She then took out a mirror.
Lan Ling took a look and, sure enough, there was a strand of white hair.
Although only a little over ten days had passed in reality, a full ten years had passed in the meditation world.
Lan Ling’s spirit had also endured ten years of torment and spent ten years pouring his heart and soul into this endeavour.
Therefore, despite being not yet twenty years old and possessing the Golden Bloodline, he had actually grown a strand of white hair.
Ten years of torment, ten years of painstaking effort, and finally, a result was about to emerge.
Lan Ling took a deep breath.
He had never known nervousness or fear, yet he unexpectedly felt inexplicably nervous and afraid.
Even his excitement accounted for only a small part of his emotions. What he felt more strongly was nervousness and fear!
“Master, I firmly believe that you will definitely succeed. You will certainly create an unprecedented miracle of heaven and earth!” Gou Li said.
The three-headed Chimera Beast raised its head and let out a long howl in response, expressing its support for Lan Ling.
Lan Ling nodded.
Then he truly began to use the “Yin Yang Formula” he had written himself.
The “Yin Yang Formula” represented a tremendous breakthrough and was highly revolutionary, but it was far less complicated than the Netherworld Sword, and nowhere near as profound as Death Entanglement and Puppet Arts.
Even so, when Lan Ling circulated the “Yin Yang Formula”, modifying the meridians within his body and transforming part of his mental domain, he still consumed a considerable amount of energy.
For an ordinary person, their cultivation level would even drop by one level.
For Lan Ling, it only dropped by one fifth of a cultivation level.
Of course, the so-called cultivation level referred to the limit of the demonic bloodline energy within his heart. The limit of his meridians would not decrease.
After a full half an hour.
The “Yin Yang Formula” had been completed, and the transformation of Lan Ling’s meridians was finished.
Lan Ling also seemed to have become a person of Yin and Yang. One half of his body was white, while the other half was dark.
Clearly, the “Yin Yang Formula” still had room for improvement. He could not possibly transform into a person of Yin and Yang every time he used it. Having half his body white and half black was simply too strange and too unsightly.
Then, a stream of energy burst forth from Lan Ling’s heart and separated into positive and negative, Yin and Yang energies. They travelled along his meridians into the meridians of his left and right arms, finally gathering in his palms.
Lan Ling held a Black Gold Sword in his hand!
“Boom!” The two streams of Yin and Yang, positive and negative energy converged inside the Black Gold Sword and suddenly collided…
Success or failure depended on this one attempt!
At this moment, Lan Ling had almost stopped breathing.
If lightning burst forth, Lan Ling would succeed.
Otherwise, he would fail!
“Crack…”
A bolt of blue lightning burst forth. In the dark night sky, it appeared particularly dazzling and brilliant.
“Long live… Long live the Master…” Gou Li immediately cheered, looking at Lan Ling with incomparably proud eyes.
Her Master had actually created terrifying electrical energy out of thin air.
One had to know that electrical energy was the power of heaven and earth, the exclusive energy of heaven and earth. Neither demons nor humans could create it.
Yet her Master Lan Ling had broken through this limitation and created electrical energy.
How extraordinary was this!
At the instant the lightning appeared, Lan Ling was truly incredibly excited, wildly overjoyed and intensely thrilled, because he thought he had succeeded.
He had actually created lightning.
However…
Soon, he was deeply disappointed.
Because the lightning he had created had very low attack power, even far inferior to the Netherworld Sword.
Secondly, its attack range was extremely short.
In short, the lightning Lan Ling had created had an energy utilisation rate of less than ten per cent. It was completely a flashy display with no practical combat function.
As for blood-coloured lightning and hell lightning, they were even more out of the question.
If he relied on this kind of lightning to duel the Black Demon Flag Lord, it might attract some amazed looks, but it had absolutely no combat power. He would undoubtedly lose!
Therefore, Lan Ling had done something extremely great.
During the first twenty days, his spiritual power penetrated deep into lightning, studying exactly how it was produced.
During the following ten days, he spent ten years in the meditation world studying and writing the “Yin Yang Formula”. He created Yin and Yang energy within his body and made them collide, thereby producing lightning.
There was no doubt that this was extremely great, a groundbreaking achievement.
However, for Lan Ling’s current situation, it was completely meaningless.
This kind of lightning had no practical combat value at all.
Why did Lan Ling want to comprehend hell lightning?
It was because his cultivation level was far too low compared with the Black Demon Flag Lord. He needed to rely on hell lightning as his ultimate trump card for a fatal strike, penetrate the Black Demon Flag Lord’s energy defence, and ultimately achieve the feat of defeating the stronger opponent despite being weaker, creating a miracle.
However, the lightning he had created was less than one tenth as powerful as the Netherworld Sword. It was completely meaningless.
Lan Ling fell silent.
Gou Li gently leaned against Lan Ling’s arms and silently shed tears.
Only five days remained before the duel, and it would take another two days to fly to Black Demon City. Therefore, when everything was taken into account, Lan Ling had only three days left to comprehend hell lightning.
What was the most painful thing in this world?
It was taking the wrong path and continuing further and further down the wrong road.
Especially for scientists, if their research direction was wrong, the further they went, the more mistakes they made.
And the most frightening thing was achieving a certain degree of success while travelling down the wrong path. At that point, one could even lose the courage to start over. They might not even be able to readjust their research direction, because they had already achieved results before, so the impression left by the previous direction was too deep. It became impossible to overturn everything and start again.
What was more, the previous time Lan Ling had spent more than a month on his comprehension, and now it had already been declared a failure.
Now, only three days remained.
The hope of success could no longer be described as slim, nor could it be described as extremely remote. It could completely be said to be nonexistent.
The key was that Lan Ling had no direction left in his heart.
He only had Plan A, with no Plan B.
Now that Plan A had failed, there was simply no way forward.
Suddenly, Lan Ling raised his head and looked at Gou Li.
“What do you want to say now? Anything is fine, as long as it is what you most want to say.”
Gou Li was silent for a moment before saying, “Master, you are a great Demon King, a great Lord of Heaven and Earth. You should make heaven and earth adapt to you, rather than you adapting to them. If something can be solved with strength, do not use wisdom. If something can be solved with talent, do not use strength. If something can be solved with fate, do not use talent. And I firmly believe that you control fate!”
Gou Li’s words were extremely domineering. They were words that could only be spoken when one’s faith had reached its absolute peak.
Lan Ling nodded and said, “I understand!”
Then he suddenly thrust the Black Gold Sword into the mountaintop and slowly said, “In that case, there is no need for three days. Let me put myself in a desperate situation and find a way to survive. Either I comprehend hell lightning in an instant, or… I will be completely reduced to ashes!”
At this moment, the sky darkened.
Blood-coloured dark clouds began to gather, completely enveloping the entire mountaintop, as if the end of the world had arrived.
An unprecedentedly powerful and terrifying hell lightning was about to descend!