bookpub Chapter 32 The Lightwing Lion's Full Power
Chapter 32 The Lightwing Lion's Full Power
The sound of the wings flapping echoed through the cave, like countless thin metal sheets vibrating in the wind, crisp and rhythmic. Each feather flowed with a light that intertwined gold and silver, with fine dust of light scattered at its edges, leaving a fading trail of light in the darkness behind it.
Karen hovered five meters above the water, cradling Dawn in her arms. The cub's front paws rested on her shoulders, its amber eyes fixed on the shaft above—the place where they had fallen, and the path they had to return to.
"Are you ready?" Karen asked in her mind.
Xi Guang's response was firm and warm: "Anytime is fine."
Karen took a deep breath—even under contract, his heart was racing at his first real flight. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on the light wings behind him.
【Light Wings Manifestation - Fully Materialized】
The moment the command was given, the spiritual energy within his body surged forth like a flood. The illusory wings behind him fluctuated violently, rapidly solidifying from a semi-transparent state, each feather gaining substantial weight and texture. Intricate natural patterns appeared on the surface of the feathers, like works of art sculpted on gold leaf with the most precise engraving knife. The wingspan expanded from three meters to four meters, and the airflow generated by a gentle flapping motion rippled across the entire lake.
The consumption of fully materializing far exceeded expectations. Karen felt her psionic energy reserves decreasing at a rate of two percent per second; at this rate, she could only sustain flight for a maximum of eight minutes. And that was without engaging in high-intensity combat.
"That's enough." Karen opened her eyes, golden light flowing deep within her pupils—it was the light energy of the Dawn influencing her visual system. "Let's go up first."
The light wings suddenly pressed downwards!
boom--!
It wasn't a gentle ascent, but a cannonball-like vertical sprint! Karen, carrying Xiguang, shot straight towards the forty-meter-high cave ceiling like a golden meteor traveling in reverse. The air whistled past their ears, the speed so great that the surrounding scenery was blurred into streaks of light. In three seconds, just three seconds, he had gone from the lake surface to the bottom of the shaft.
Slow down, hover.
Karen gripped a protruding rock at the edge of the shaft with one hand, securing himself below the opening. He looked up—the shaft was pitch black inside, but his spiritual vision allowed him to clearly see the structure of the shaft walls: smooth crystalline surfaces, a few cracks and protrusions formed by the previous collapse, which could serve as footholds for climbing.
But there's no need to climb anymore.
The light wings flapped again, and Karen plunged into the shaft.
This time it was a spiral ascent. He flew close to the well wall, the edges of his light wings occasionally brushing against the crystal surface, sending up a string of sparks. The ascent speed wasn't much slower than free fall; ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds—
Light appeared above.
A dark red, unsettling, polluted light.
There were also sounds of battle.
The sounds of metal clashing, rocks shattering, wind blades whistling through the air, dwarves roaring, and countless crystal devourers crawling about.
The moment Karen burst out of the shaft and returned to the upper cave, the sight before her made her gasp for breath.
The battle was more brutal than he had imagined.
The cave floor was riddled with holes and cracks of all sizes, scattered with the remains of at least twenty Crystal Devourers—some sliced into pieces by wind blades, some smashed by warhammers, and some torn apart by some kind of sharp claws. Dark green slime and black blood mixed together, forming nauseating scum on the ground.
Leah leaned against a massive shard of crystal, her right leg wound re-bandaged, but the bandage was completely soaked with blood. Her face was ashen, her lips cracked, and her hands trembled as she maintained a semi-transparent wind shield. Outside the shield, five small crystal devourers were frantically ramming into it, each impact causing the shield to tremble violently, and fine cracks appeared on its surface.
Grom's situation is even worse.
The dwarf stood three meters in front of Lyra, facing the burrower alone. The burn bandages on his left arm had fallen off, revealing charred and festering skin. His right hand still gripped the warhammer firmly, but the runic light on the hammerhead had dimmed to the point of being almost invisible. The dwarf was covered in wounds—a deep, bone-revealing claw mark on his chest, his right knee raw and bleeding from acid corrosion, and blood streaming from his forehead blurring the vision in his left eye.
The burrower was almost completely unharmed.
Its massive body lay across the center of the cave, three pairs of rotating drills turning slowly, emitting a low hum. The seven or eight fragments of the Soul of the Mineral Vein embedded in its midsection were still entangled in dark red energy, emitting painful pulses of white light. Half of its dozen or so tentacles were attacking Grom, while the rest swept through the cave, clearing away the corpses of the smaller, dead guards—it was devouring its own kind to replenish its energy!
"It...it's eating them..." Leah's voice was hoarse and desperate. "With each one it eats, its wounds heal a little more...the more we kill...the stronger it becomes..."
Grom smashed one of the attacking tentacles with his hammer, but another tentacle seized the opportunity to wrap around his right leg. The suckers on the tentacle contracted, and bone spikes dug into his flesh. The dwarf groaned, and his warhammer nearly slipped from his grasp.
"Damn it... this thing... it's never going to end..." Grom gritted his teeth and tried to pull the tentacles off with his left hand, but more tentacles surrounded him.
Karen saw all of this.
From rushing out of the shaft to seeing the battle situation clearly, the whole process took less than two seconds.
Within two seconds, he had completed the battlefield analysis, threat assessment, and action plan.
"Dawn," Karen said in her mind, "maximum output, shortest time."
"Understood." Xi Guang's response was concise and firm.
Karen's wings of light suddenly expanded to their limit—a full four-meter wingspan, each feather beginning to glow, transforming from a soft gold to a fiery white-gold. The psionic energy in the air was drawn in by the wings, forming a visible vortex that converged towards Karen.
All the creatures in the cave—Leah, Grom, the burrowers, and the remaining small guards—sensed the sudden, massive surge of psionic energy.
Leah looked up and saw Karen floating in mid-air, the incredibly magnificent wings of light behind him, and the Dawnlight radiating the same light in his arms.
"That's...Karen?" Her voice was filled with disbelief.
Grom saw it too. The dwarf was taken aback, and the tentacles that were wrapped around his right leg took the opportunity to tighten, the bone spikes digging deeper into the muscle.
"Kid!" Grom roared, "You're still alive—watch out behind you!"
The driller sensed a threat.
It abandoned its attack on Grom, all its tentacles rose simultaneously, and all its eyes locked onto Karen in the air. It recognized this aura—just minutes earlier, this very aura had killed its "brother," the ancient being lurking at the bottom of the lake, in the underground cavern.
Hatred overwhelmed hunger.
The burrower let out a deafening roar, its three pairs of drills simultaneously accelerating their rotation, and its massive body began to move towards Karen. A dozen tentacles, like a giant net, sealed off all of Karen's escape routes from every angle.
"You've come at the perfect time," Karen said softly.
He loosened his grip on Xiguang.
The cub didn't fall; instead, it hovered in front of him, its four tiny paws hanging naturally, its golden fur moving without wind. Xi Guang closed his eyes, and the royal markings on his forehead shone brightly, like a small sun rising in a cave.
Karen placed her right hand on Xiguang's back.
[Psionic Synchronization Rate: 100%]
[Contract Connection Depth: Soul Level]
[Combined Technique Preparation -]
All information was exchanged in an instant. Karen didn't need to think or give commands; every thought he had was immediately understood and executed by Xiguang, and every perception Xiguang had was instantly fed back into his consciousness. They were like a sophisticated war machine, with two consciousnesses jointly controlling the same "body"—a war machine using Karen's human body as a vessel and Xiguang's light psionic energy as its power source and weapon.
The burrowers' attack has arrived.
Seven tentacles stabbed from seven different directions, moving so fast they left afterimages in the air. Each tentacle's tip was spun with fine bone spikes, like seven high-speed drills, aiming to pierce Karen and Xiguang together.
Karen did not dodge.
He didn't even move.
But the wings of light on its back gently closed forward.
It wasn't a defensive closing, but an offensive one—two enormous wings of light collided in front of him like two palms!
boom!!!!!!!
An indescribable roar.
At the moment the light wings collided, what erupted was not a shockwave, but a visible golden halo composed entirely of light psionic energy. The halo expanded outwards from Karen in all directions at a speed exceeding the speed of sound.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment where the halo passed.
Then, all seven tentacles exploded simultaneously.
It wasn't severed or shattered, but rather "decomposed" at the most microscopic level. The tentacles' skin, muscles, bones, suckers, and bone spurs all melted and vaporized in the platinum light, turning into the most basic fragments of spiritual particles, which were then further purified into harmless light dust that drifted in the air.
The burrower let out a scream of extreme pain.
Seven tentacles vanished instantly, the remaining tentacles convulsing wildly, gushing out large amounts of dark green blood from their severed ends. But it did not retreat—hatred had driven it mad. It opened its central, rotating maw, and dark red energy began to gather deep within its throat, drawing in the surrounding air to form a miniature energy vortex.
"It's gathering power," Xi Guang's thoughts transmitted. "It's about to unleash a highly concentrated polluting energy blast. The destructive force is enough to melt all the crystalline structures in this cave."
"Then don't let it spray out," Karen replied.
The wings of light unfolded once more.
This time, it's no longer about defense or a simple burst of energy.
Karen, holding Xiguang, began to dive.
It wasn't a straight dive, but a spiraling, accelerating dive. He spun rapidly around the massive body of the burrower, his wings of light leaving behind golden spiral trails, like a chain of light that bound the burrower tightly.
With each rotation, the light wings scatter more light dust.
With each rotation, the concentration of light energy in the air increases.
Three laps, five laps, seven laps—
The burrower sensed danger. It tried to unleash an energy blast, but Karen's rotation was too fast and the target too small for it to lock onto. It attempted to attack with its remaining tentacles, but the tentacles were easily severed by the edge of the light wings as soon as they extended.
It tried to escape, but its massive body made it difficult to turn around in the narrow cave.
The tenth lap.
Karen's rotation speed was so fast that it was impossible for the naked eye to perceive; only a golden halo could be seen completely enveloping the burrower. Inside the halo, the concentration of light energy reached a terrifying level, causing the air to ionize and crackle with static electricity.
In the middle of the driller's body, the embedded fragments of the mineral vein's soul began to flicker violently. They sensed the pure light energy around them and instinctively wanted to break free from the shackles of the polluted energy, yearning to return to purity.
"Now," Karen said in her mind.
The rotation suddenly stopped.
Karen hovered ten meters directly above the burrower, her wings of light fully extended, each feather standing upright like an arrow ready to be released.
Xi Guang opened her eyes.
The cub's amber pupils reflected the massive body of the burrower below, as well as the shimmering white fragments of pain.
"Liberate them," Karen and Xiguang whispered at the same time.
The light wings flap downwards.
It doesn't fan out airflow, it fans out light.
Tens of thousands of light feathers detached from the wings of light, transforming into a golden rainstorm that poured down upon the burrower. Each light feather was a miniature energy projectile, precisely avoiding the burrower's vitals and the fragments of the mineral vein's soul, all striking the dark red energy veins surrounding the fragments.
Hiss hiss hiss hiss—!
A dense chorus of sounds, like cold water being poured into hot oil, filled the air.
The dark red, polluted energy rapidly dissolved and disintegrated under the illumination of the pure light. The energy veins that were wrapped around the fragments snapped one by one, like ropes that had been burned.
The first fragment broke free from its restraints.
It ejected from the driller's body, hovering in mid-air, emitting a soft, warm white light. Wherever the white light touched, the surrounding polluting energy melted away like ice and snow.
Then came the second piece, the third piece...
All seven fragments of the mineral vein's soul broke free and floated in the cave, like seven small white suns. They spontaneously formed a ring, and at the center of the ring was the massive body of the burrower.
The burrower let out a desperate roar.
It sensed the loss of power. Those fragments were not only its "trophies," but also one of the energy sources that sustained its massive body. Without the fragments, a huge void appeared in its energy cycle, and its originally balanced internal structure began to collapse.
But this is not the end.
Karen, holding Xiguang, began her second dive.
This time it's a straight line.
He held the Dawnlight in front of him, and the cub's body began to glow—not the previous white-gold color, but a purer, more intense gold, like the core of a star.
Xi Guang opened his mouth.
Deep within his throat, a golden point of light began to condense, rapidly expanding into a fist-sized sphere of light. Inside the sphere, countless fine golden runes flowed and reorganized, radiating a high temperature that distorted even space itself.
The driller realized what it was.
This is one of the Lightwing Lion's ultimate attacks—[Star Core Breath]. By compressing the light spiritual energy within its body to the extreme, it simulates the energy reaction of a star's core, spewing out a beam of light with a high temperature sufficient to melt all matter and energy.
Even an adult Lightwing Lion can only use it once a day.
However, Xiguang is just a cub, and forcibly using this level of ability would have unimaginable consequences.
But Xi Guang did not hesitate.
The cub's eyes held only determination.
The light sphere expands to its limit.
Karen aimed the Dawnlight at the center of the burrower's body—the intersection of all energy channels and its true core.
"Launch," Karen said softly.
Xi Guang spat out a ball of light.
No, it's not about spitting out, but about "releasing".
The moment the sphere of light left its mouth, it stretched into a golden beam half a meter in diameter, shooting straight down at the burrower below. Wherever the beam passed, the air was ionized, leaving a brief plasma channel. The light was so intense that Lyra and Grom had to close their eyes, and so intense that all the dark red light in the cave was completely suppressed.
The beam struck the center of the driller's body.
There was no explosion.
Only "through".
Like a red-hot iron rod piercing butter, the beam of light penetrated the driller's thick skin, muscles, and bones without hindrance, piercing through the dark red energy core and exiting from the other side of the body, leaving a bottomless hole with glassy edges in the cave wall behind it.
Time stood still for a second.
Then, the burrower's massive body began to glow from within.
Golden light emanated from every crack and pore of its body, growing brighter and more dazzling. Its skin began to crack, from which golden flames spewed forth. Its tentacles drooped limply, and its three pairs of drills ceased rotating.
A final, faint screech.
Then, a burst of light erupted.
It wasn't an explosion, but rather a "purification".
The burrower's entire body melted and disintegrated in platinum light, completely purified at the most microscopic level. There were no remains, no blood, no slime, only a pure speck of light dust, slowly drifting down to the ground like a golden snowfall.
The light dissipated.
Karen, holding Xiguang, slowly landed on the ground.
The wings of light on his back had dimmed considerably, but he still maintained his physical form. He knelt on one knee and gently placed Dawn on the ground. The cub looked extremely exhausted, its eyes half-closed and its breathing rapid, but it was still alive—the price of forcibly using the Star Core Breath was a huge overdraft of psionic energy, and Dawn would need at least three days of rest to recover its basic mobility.
But at least, it's still alive.
The cave was completely silent.
Only the fragments of the Soul of the Ore Vein floated in the air, emitting a soft white light, like seven bright lamps illuminating this space that had just experienced a fierce battle.
Leah deactivated her wind shield and limped over. Her eyes were fixed on the wings of light behind Karen, on the royal markings on Xiguang's forehead, and on the intricate and ornate gold and silver runes on Karen's wrist.
"This is..." Lydia's voice trembled, "A contract? A real contract?"
Karen looked up, a tired but relieved smile on her face: "Yes. A life-or-death pact."
Grom also came over. The dwarf was covered in wounds, but his spirits were not bad. He stared at Karen for a few seconds, then suddenly burst into laughter, which aggravated his wounds, and he coughed violently.
"Cough cough... Good lad!" Grom patted Karen's shoulder forcefully—though the action almost made Karen fall over. "I knew it... You're something else! Those wings... They're fucking cool!"
Karen smiled, then looked towards the depths of the cave—in the direction of the platform.
The black meteorite is still there.
Although the burrowers are dead and most of the smaller guards have been eliminated, the source of the contamination itself remains.
"We're not done yet," Karen said, her voice firm. "That rock must be removed."
Leah and Grom's expressions also turned serious.
"But you're like this..." Leah looked worriedly at Karen's pale face and Xiguang's weakened state, "Can you still fight?"
Karen took a deep breath, and the wings of light behind her slowly dissipated—the physical form dissolved. The immense drain on her psionic energy made her dizzy, but she forced herself to stand up.
"We absolutely must," he said. "If we don't go now, and it grows new guardians, we'll really have no chance."
He looked at the seven floating fragments of the mineral vein's soul.
The fragments seemed to sense his gaze and began to drift slowly over, swirling around him and Xiguang, radiating warm and pure energy fluctuations.
"They're thanking us," Karen said, holding out her hand. A shard gently landed in her palm. "And they're also... asking us for help."
The fragments conveyed a vague message: purification...the source...saving the forest...
Karen gripped the shards tightly.
"Let's go," he said. "Let's end this."
He picked up Xiguang; the cub was very light, as light as a weightless ball of light.
Leah and Grom exchanged a glance and nodded simultaneously.
The three—Karen carrying Xiguang, the injured Lia, and the equally injured Grom—began walking towards the platform.
Seven fragments of the Soul of the Mineral Vein floated around them, like a small guard, emitting a pure white light that dispelled the darkness and lingering pollution along the way.
The road ahead is still long.
But at least, they finally saw a glimmer of hope.