Coiling Dragon

by welyjesch

  “It’s too late for regrets. We have to face reality!” Beirut’s gaze was hard and calm. “If he succeeds, his potential will be limitless. If he fails…that will not be our fault.”

  Time flowed on. The Planar Battlefield was very quiet, with a few rare major battles. Almost everyone was awaiting the final battle’s arrival.

  The thirty third day of Linley’s coma Reisgem and the others were gathered within the cave.

  Bluefire walked out from Linley’s stone room. Reisgem, Reihom, and Bebe hurriedly went to welcome him. “What is it, Mr. Bluefire?” Bebe was the first to ask. Bluefire glanced at them, then shook his head and said, “Although the Fate-type Sovereign power of Magnus’ attack is gone, it used up a large amount of the energy of the Soulstone. Today, the Soulstone’s energy was completely used up!”

  “Are you saying…?” Bebe was shocked.

  “From today onwards, no outside force can help Linley.” Bluefire sighed. “In the past, with the assistance of the Soulstone, he was able to hold on. But now that the Soulstone is unable to help him…he will have no one but himself to rely on against the soul mutation.”

  “But the Boss’ soul is so weak. Will he be able to hold?” Bebe was so worried, he was about to cry.

  Bluefire, Reisgem, and Reihom were all silent.

  Not long ago, when Bluefire had investigated Linley’s soul, he discovered that during the soul mutation, Linley’s soul was like a tiny flame that encountered a mighty wind time and time again. Fortunately, the black stone’s energy constantly replenished him, restoring energy to Linley’s soul, allowing him time and time again to hold fast against the clashing powers of the soul mutation process.

  “Who knows?” Bluefire shook his head.

  The atmosphere within the cave seemed so cold, so gloomy…

  The thirty fifth day of Linley’s coma.

  Bluefire emerged from the stone room. He shook his head somewhat disbelievingly. “I didn’t dare believe it. Linley’s soul, even without the assistance of the Soulstone, has been able to endure for three full days…but it seems as though the process is still quite early. Who knows how long the soul mutation process will take!”

  Bebe, however, knew.

  Originally, when Olivier had undergone the soul mutation process, he had been unconscious for multiple months. And Olivier had only two types of energy; there was no way his soul mutation could be compared to Linley’s. A soul mutation involving three types of divine clones was far more complicated than Olivier’s. As for a soul mutation involving four divine clones…

  It probably wouldn’t end in just a matter of a few short months.

  Bluefire and Bebe, along with Beirut, Delia, and the others in the Yulan continent, had been prepared all along, but the amount of time Linley spent in this coma surpassed their expectations.

  Olivier had succeeded within a few months, but Linley would probably need several years.

  Several years?

  Linley remained in this coma…and quite quickly, more than ten years passed.

  The eighteenth year of Linley’s coma.

  Within the cave in the Planar Battlefield. Bluefire inspected Linley once every seven days now. Linley’s long coma had caused Reisgem and Reihom to no longer be as constantly worried about Linley as they had been; they were able to calm their minds and train and rest. As for Bebe, he paid attention to Linley’s situation every day..

  “The situation is not good. Over the past eighteen years, Linley’s soul has been weakening slightly this entire time. Although he’s been able to resist this entire time, the weakening process has never slowed.” Bluefire said with a frown. “Although Linley’s soul is incredibly tenacious, and has never given up and has continued to endure…his soul is now too weak. I have the feeling that if this continues, he won’t be able to last for more than three more days.”

  Bebe’s face instantly turned ashen.

  “Three days. Just three days. Either the situation will improve, or he will die if it does not. Let’s see how things are these next three days.” Bluefire said, shaking his head.

  Bluefire had the feeling that eighteen years ago, if Linley’s weak soul could be described as an ‘tiny flame’, then now, it was barely an ember.

  “He definitely will be fine. Definitely.” Bebe said repeatedly.

  These three days were quite hard for Bebe to endure. Originally, Bluefire thought that Linley would only be able to resist for three more days, but who would have imagined…that despite his soul having been weakened exceedingly, he was able to hold for eighteen days. Bluefire, too, felt that this was inconceivable.

  On the eighteenth day.

  “Bebe, come quickly, quickly.” Bluefire called out.

  Bebe, Reisgem, and Reihom immediately entered Linley’s stone room. Bebe, terrified and nervous, looked at Bluefire. “What is it? What’s going on with my Boss?”

  Bluefire turned his head, staring at Bebe and Reisgem in disbelief. “Inconceivable. Inconceivable! Linley’s soul is now beginning to strengthen. To strengthen! It is like an infant which is growing up. It is strengthening at a speed that I can palpably sense! It is growing!”

  Bebe, Reisgem, and Reihom had looks of amazement in their eyes.

  “Ahhhhhhh!!!” Bebe jumped up violently, so high that his head smashed into the stone roof, so hard that several rocks were knocked loose. Bebe hurriedly stretched his hand out, moving it in a blur and preventing the stones from falling.

  “Wonderful, wonderful!” Bebe was utterly overjoyed.

  The Yulan continent. Dragonblood Castle.

  Delia and Sasha were together.

  “Mother, is Father alright?” Sasha said, rather worried. “It is quite rare for Father to go into solitary meditation. Why is it that this time after he went into solitary meditation, he didn’t come out?”

  “He’s fine.” Delia forced out a smile.

  Linley’s situation was something he and Delia had not told their children. They didn’t want their children to worry.

  “Huh?” Delia suddenly saw a figure emerge from the courtyard gate and walk towards them. It was the fire-type ‘Linley’.

  “Father.” Sasha said hurriedly.

  The fire ‘Linley’ smiled and nodded, and Delia looked expectantly towards Linley. “Are you done?” The nearby Sasha, hearing this, was puzzled and confused.

  “I can sense…that things are improving.” The fire ‘Linley’ had a rare smile on his face. Divine clones could sense each other’s souls. Although the other four souls had lost consciousness, Linley was still able to sense that they still existed. Over the past eighteen years, they had constantly weakened, weakened to the point where even the fire-type soul was almost unable to sense them. But today, however, the four souls were growing stronger.

  Linley’s souls had been weakening for eighteen years, and were extremely fragile. Now that they began to strengthen, however, the strengthening speed was far greater than the previous weakening speed. They rapidly gained in strength.

  The Planar Battlefield. The cave estate. Linley’s thirty fourth year in a coma.

  “Mr. Leylin, why hasn’t my Boss woken up yet?” Bebe was rather impatient now. Bebe was now no longer too worried, because he could clearly sense how powerful Linley’s soul had become. It was far greater than Linley’s soul had been prior to his injury. If Linley’s soul, prior to his injury, could be described as a lake of water, his soul now was a fathomlessly deep ocean.

  His soul was so powerful, but Linley still didn’t wake up.

  “Don’t be impatient!” Bluefire laughed. “He will definitely wake up.” Actually, Bluefire had a hint of worry in his heart as well. Linley’s soul was already so terrifyingly great; would it actually suddenly collapse at a critical moment? No one knew what a soul mutation with four divine clones would be like.

  That same point in time, within the stone room.

  Outside the room, Bluefire and the others were chatting. Within the stone room, Linley lay there quietly by h
imself. He had already quietly lain there for thirty four years, and his body no longer had elemental essences surrounding it.

  Suddenly…

  Linley’s closed eyes…

  Opened!

  Book 19, Metamorphosis – Chapter 51, Metamorphosis – Breaking Through the Cocoon, Becoming a Butterfly!

  At this moment, Linley’s original body and his three divine clones all regained their consciousness. Linley’s first thought was: “What happened? I’m not dead?” He had no awareness of what had happened in the past thirty four long years. Actually, to Linley’s original body and three divine clones, it was as though just a second or two passed.”

  But in the next instant, when Linley communicated with his divine fire clone, he understood that he had already been in a coma for thirty four years.

  “Where am I?” Linley looked at his surroundings, then sat up.

  When he sat up, Linley sensed that he had changed.

  “Huh? What’s going on?” Linley could clearly sense the spatial ripples around him, and he could clearly visualize Bluefire, Reihom, Reisgem, and Bebe, who were seated in the nearby room. This was a sort of feeling of control, a feeling that made Linley feel as though he had control over his own destiny.

  He felt like an emperor. It was a feeling of absolute control.

  “Linley!”

  “Boss!”

  A series of overjoyed cries rang out. The movement Linley made when he sat up caused the four people outside to notice him as well. These four simultaneously entered the stone room. Linley looked at the four in front of him. Reisgem, Reihom, and Bluefire were all overjoyed, while Bebe was so excited that tears were gathering in his eyes.

  “Boss.” Bebe threw himself right into Linley’s arms.

  “Haha, Bebe, stop crying. You are like a kid.” Linley rose to his feet, leaving the stone bed and standing up. He chuckled.

  Bebe laughed through his tears, then wiped his nose and snorted. “Boss, it’s all your fault. You’ve been in a coma for thirty four years. You tell me, isn’t that terrifying?”

  “How did I end up in a coma for thirty four years?” Linley didn’t understand.

  The nearby Bluefire laughed, “Linley, thirty four years ago, you were struck by a full force attack from Magnus, but luckily, the Soulstone helped you stay alive. But who would have imagined that during the coma period, your soul began to mutate. The energy of the Soulstone was quickly used up. We were all worried that you wouldn’t be able to hold on, but you managed to survive.”

  “A Soul Mutate?!” Linley was badly startled. “Me?!”

  “Right. You. Why don’t you give it a test and see what you can find?” Bluefire laughed while urging him. “Some changes can’t be seen from the surface. Only you yourself can sense them.”

  “Right, Boss. Give it a try. Let’s see how your soul has become.” Bebe said, excited. “You are the very first person with four divine clones who underwent a soul mutation.”

  “What is it like, for someone with four divine clones to become a Soul Mutate?” Reisgem’s eyes were burning with curiosity as he looked at Linley.

  “I have four divine clones, but was able to undergo a soul mutation?”

  Linley himself could barely believe it, but he still shut his eyes, beginning a careful investigation of his current soul!

  Within his sea of consciousness.

  Above the enormous sea of consciousness floated an illusory, rainbow-like light. His spiritual energy was like an ocean of water, with waves of it rolling about. This spiritual energy seemed translucent and dreamlike, almost like glass. The most unique thing was that sword-shaped soul!

  The sword-shaped soul hovered above the sea of consciousness.

  But the current sword-shaped soul had become translucent. Only, a layer of gray energy covered that sword-shaped soul. It looked rather ordinary, and not as eye-catching as the original, rainbow-colored sword-shaped soul.

  “What a powerful, unique sensation.” Linley murmured silently to himself.

  Others, even Bluefire, who ventured into Linley’s soul, wouldn’t discover anything unique about Linley’s current soul. Only Linley himself could sense it.

  “The feeling of control. It is quite unique.” Linley said to himself.

  And then, Linley stopped thinking about it as he began to inspect other things carefully.

  “Ah, my soul-protecting Sovereign artifact!” Linley found, to his astonishment, that the hole in the soul-protecting Sovereign artifact was currently being repaired at an astonishing speed, thousands of times faster than in the past when he first became a Highgod. And this repairing process was a true ‘repair’ of the Sovereign artifact!

  In the past, what he was doing was essentially putting a bandage over it, not truly reparing it.

  But now, the hole of the soul-protecting Sovereign artifact was slowly shrinking.

  When the day came for the hole to vanish, the soul-protecting Sovereign artifact would be completely restored.

  “How…how can this be?” Linley didn’t dare believe it.

  The speed at which a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact could be repaired was correlated to the strength of one’s soul and one’s spiritual energy. Linley could sense how powerful his soul had become, but for it to be able to repair the soul-protecting Sovereign artifact at such an astonishing rate? He still felt this was inconceivable. “Given this speed, most likely in just a few years, it will be completely repaired.”

  Linliey discovered that the other souls of his other three clones had also transformed.

  “Unfortunately, my divine fire clone wasn’t here to transform as well. Still, the results will be the same; in the future, when the divine fire clone merges with my main body and joins with the other four souls, they will exchange energy with each other and it will slowly transform as well.” Linley understood that it was like his original body’s soul; actually, his original body’s soul was just the soul of a Saint.

  But it was with together his other souls. His main soul and the souls of the other divine clones were a part of a whole, and over a long period of time, the various souls replenished each other, causing his original body’s soul to naturally grow powerful as well. After all, they were all one to begin with.

  “A Soul Mutate? Doesn’t that mean that I can fuse four types of divine power?” Linley couldn’t help but begin to test it. He first used three types of Highgod power; earth, wind, and water.

  Within Linley’s body, three surges of divine power began to swirl around like watery dragons. Once they touched each other, it was as though they were one family; there wasn’t a hint of repulsion at all. The three surges of Highgod power, under Linley’s control, merged into a fused whole, and then as they did, the color changed as well.

  Formerly, they were earthen yellow, light green, and azure-green; now fused together, they were an inky jade color, so dark as to be nearly black.

  This inky jade divine power roiled about within Linley’s body.

  “So powerful.” Linley grew excited.

  At the same time, Linley also used a hint of God-level fire-type divine power to fuse with it. Once the fire divine power touched that powerful surge of inky jade divine power, it too fused with it!

  “Eh? The power actually grew weaker?” Linley could sense that after the inky jade divine power fused with the divine fire power, it seemed to have become internally impacted, with the power weakening slightly. “Can it be because I have yet to reach the Highgod level in fire?” This was Linley’s guess.

  It wasn’t just random, as though fusing more would be better.

  It was like an army; if an elite corps had some weaker soldiers added to it, it would actually lower their combat effectiveness.

  “Right. When Olivier reached the God level, he said that when both of his divine clones reached the God level, only then did his power increase greatly.” Linley now completely understood.

  In fusion, a balance was necessary.

  Earth, wind, water;
these three sources of divine power were at the Highgod level. As for fire, it was only at the God level, rather weak.

  “Linley, Linley!” Reisgem’s voice rang out, interrupting Linley’s line of thought.

  Within the stone room, the other four were staring at Linley. Reisgem urged, “Hey, Linley, what’s going on? Stop just standing there like a fool; tell us what happened.”

  “Let’s talk in the main hall.” Linley laughed as he spoke.

  Linley’s group of five entered the main hall, surrounding the long table and sitting down.

  “Linley, you successfully mutated your soul?” Bluefire said with a calm laugh.

  “Right.” Linley nodded.

  Bluefire’s eyes lit up, and he sighed in praise. “According to legend, if two types of divine power fuse, the power would increase tenfold. If three types fuse, the power will increase a hundredfold! If four types of divine power fuse…no one knows for sure, but it probably will strengthen a thousandfold. Even using Sovereign’s Might only allows a person to be a few hundred times stronger than when using Highgod power.”

  “Linley how about you? You fused four types of divine power. How is your strength? Is it even stronger than when you use Sovereign power?” Reisgem asked expectantly.

  Sovereign power was strong, but there was a limit to it. It made someone a few hundred times stronger than when they used Highgod power.

  “I feel…” Linley said with a laugh. “That after fusing three types of divine power, my strength is indeed a hundred times greater. I sense…that it is comparable to when I use Destruction-type Sovereign’s Might!” Linley was skilled in the Laws of the Earth, and so when he used Destruction-type Sovereign’s Might, it naturally wasn’t completely effective, only increasing his power a hundred-fold or so. It was comparable to a triple fusion of divine power.

  Bluefire nodded slightly. It was all as Bluefire had expected.

  “Then four kinds?” Reisgem said hurriedly.

  “I’m not sure either.” Linley laughed.

  “How can you not be sure?” Reisgem stared, and the nearby Bebe began to laugh. “Reisgem, my Boss’ divine fire clone is only at the God level. If God-level divine power fuses with Highgod divine power, I imagine the strength wouldn’t increase that much.”