As the Kun Ji Whip manifested, the Grand Elder of the Lightning Flash Clan snapped his eyes open, fixating on the artifact. A flicker of astonishment, tinged with disbelief, crossed his wizened features.

“This… this… No, the essence is different. It merely resembles…”

The Kun Ji Whip swelled to ten thousand fathoms in length, its wrath unleashed in a series of deafening cracks that echoed across the heavens. The eight Ancient Thunder Dragons, each a monument of raw power, were simultaneously lashed, their agonized roars tearing through the void. As they struggled to maintain their assault, Wang Lin seized the whip’s handle, coiling it around himself before unleashing a furious barrage.

The Kun Ji Whip, claimed from Suzaku, was a weapon of legend, renowned for its devastating effect on souls and spirits. To this day, it had never failed. Regardless of cultivation, any being composed of spiritual essence faced despair beneath its blows, unable to escape its ethereal grasp.

Even the ancient Sky Wraith had once been rendered helpless before it, trembling and ensnared in its coils.

Now, wielded by Wang Lin, the whip’s thunderous strikes reverberated through the cosmos. The Thunder Dragons, their roars intensified by pain, were driven back, unable to maintain their advance. With each strike, the dragons’ scales seemed to melt, as if consumed by an invisible fire.

Wang Lin’s spirit soared. Without hesitation, he poured his cultivation into the Kun Ji Whip, causing its spectral glow to intensify. Glimmers of golden light, however, leaked from the whip’s fractured surface.

At the sight of this golden luminescence, the Grand Elder’s face paled. Fear, stark and undeniable, flashed in his eyes.

“That… that golden light! Could it truly be…? Impossible! The original was said to be taken away. How could it be in his hands? It cannot be!”

“I will see what power this imitation holds! Ancient Thunder Dragons, devour it!” The Grand Elder, his gaze locked on the whip, formed intricate hand seals and spat forth a mouthful of blood. The crimson fluid dispersed, flowing into the Thunder Dragons, invigorating them and silencing their retreat. They charged forward once more, consumed by a renewed frenzy.

Wang Lin advanced, the Kun Ji Whip a blur in his hands as he engaged the dragons in a battle that defied description. The whip’s ethereal glow faded, gradually replaced by the golden light emanating from its damaged form.

Then, as if possessed, the eight Thunder Dragons abandoned Wang Lin and lunged as one toward the whip itself.

“Ancient Thunder Dragons, explode! Explode! Explode!” The Grand Elder roared, his face contorted in a mask of desperation.

His command was answered. The dragons trembled, and then, with earth-shattering roars, began to detonate. Each explosion unleashed a storm of raw lightning, an apocalyptic tempest capable of obliterating countless worlds.

The storms converged, hurtling toward Wang Lin. In this moment of extreme peril, he desperately swung the Kun Ji Whip, but the combined power of the explosions was too great. For the first time, the whip faltered.

Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. With a final, deafening crack, its tip shattered.

Wang Lin, his body battered and bleeding, staggered. It was then, as the whip crumbled, that the Grand Elder felt a surge of relief. He sensed, in its disintegration, that this was not the weapon he so dreaded. His fear subsided, replaced by a renewed thirst for battle. He surged forward, intent on exploiting the storm’s chaos to deliver the final blow.

“Die, you fool!” The Grand Elder snarled, his hand raised to strike.

But in that instant, the unthinkable occurred.

Wang Lin, battered by the storms unleashed by the exploding Thunder Dragons, found his Ancient God body on the verge of collapse, his soul weakened and trembling.

His eyes, bloodshot with pain, were resigned. He knew that his current strength was not enough to face a Transcendent. He prepared to activate the talisman that would transport him to the Seven Million Worlds, but then his eyes widened in shock.

A blinding golden light erupted from the collapsing Kun Ji Whip. It spread, consuming the artifact in an aura of impossible power. The very essence of the Thunder Dragon storms seemed to freeze in place, suspended in the golden light.

Even the celestial clockwork of the cosmos seemed to grind to a halt, locked in a silent, motionless tableau.

All sound vanished. The thunder of the dragons, the roaring of the winds, all ceased. Nothing remained but the golden light and the indescribable presence that emanated from the Kun Ji Whip.

Within the golden radiance, the ten-thousand-fathom whip began to shrink rapidly, shedding layers of its outer shell. The more it crumbled, the brighter and more intense the golden light became.

In mere moments, the Kun Ji Whip was reduced to a mere ten fathoms in length. With the final layer peeled away, its true form was revealed, a form that defied all expectations.

It was no longer a whip. It was a beam of pure golden light.

It was as if someone had drawn the light from the heavens and, through immense power, forged it into a ten-fathom-long ray. An unbearable aura of power radiated from this golden strand.

As Wang Lin held it in his hand, his mind reeled. He felt a strange and terrible sensation, as if he held the souls of countless billions within his grasp. These souls, somehow interwoven with the light, had created this Kun Ji Whip, the bane of spirits.

A dawning comprehension washed over him. He raised the ten-fathom golden strand and, with a gentle flick of his wrist, unleashed its power. Instantly, the light writhed like a serpent, striking out at the storms unleashed by the exploding Thunder Dragons.

In the moment of its release, the golden strand stretched, growing exponentially, reaching hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of fathoms.
A wave of golden light, relentless and vast, swept across the battlefield, cleaving through the tempestuous storm of lightning that raged around Wang Lin. The storm, once a raging torrent, shuddered and groaned, its thunderous roars swallowed by the approaching brilliance, before erupting in a cataclysmic collapse!

From the heart of the unraveling storm, the spectral forms of eight Ancient Thunder Dragons materialized. Their colossal bodies, rent asunder by the golden light, split into two, their anguished roars echoing as they teetered on the brink of dissolution, poised to return to the lost realm of ages past, the very essence of Thunder itself.

The Grand Elder of the Flash Thunder Clan, his eyes wide with primordial terror, recoiled as the golden light bloomed. He staggered backward, yet the whip’s residual force grazed him. He spat a mouthful of blood, his face ashen, and cried out in disbelief, “The World-Binding Soul Lash! That relic was taken away long ago! It cannot be! It should not exist in this realm!”

“Who are you? From whence do you hail? How do you possess the artifact of the leader of those celestial cultivators who aided our ancestor in the ancient wars?” The Grand Elder, who had fought with furious zeal until that moment, now found himself consumed by terror. The whip… he had witnessed its power with his own eyes!

In the days when their ancestor still reigned supreme, the Grand Elder was but a nascent cultivator. He had seen those enigmatic cultivators’ leader wield the Lash. With a single stroke, they rent the heavens asunder, twisted the very flow of time, carved chasms in the starry sky, and tilted the balance of creation itself, forming seven million new dimensions!

He had watched as the cultivator unleashed a second strike, tearing open the void, and drawing forth countless souls from the inky darkness. These souls were then flung into the newly formed dimensions, becoming their first inhabitants!

He also remembered, as those souls were ripped from the void, a furious bellow, and a palpable aura of dread that burrowed into his very marrow. From the broken reality emerged a shadowy figure, consumed by rage.

But with the cultivator’s third lash, that terrifying specter was obliterated!

“They are gone! They took the Lash with them! How can this artifact, once wielded by that celestial leader, appear again… in the hands of this being?! Could it be… could it be divine will? Could it be the spirit of our ancestor guiding this champion here, to deliver to me the World-Binding Soul Lash!” A ravenous greed ignited in the Grand Elder’s eyes.

Wang Lin paid no heed to the Grand Elder’s frantic thoughts. His own gaze burned with singular purpose, his heart pounding in his chest. He fixed his stare on the fragmented souls of the eight Ancient Thunder Dragons, poised to vanish into the ancient realm of lightning.

“Ancient Thunder Dragons… even as spirits, they are the true essence of Thunder itself! I consumed but a fraction of one in my youth. I cannot squander this chance!”

His eyes blazing, Wang Lin watched as the souls faded further, their essence slipping away. He knew that such an opportunity might never arise again. He plunged into action, his eyes snapping shut as a vortex erupted between his brows. His nascent soul shot forth, a pure spirit energy of immense power!

His soul was not of a Thunder Dragon, but its form shifted with incredible speed. In an instant, it morphed into a swirling mist, expanding without limit!

Wang Lin’s nascent soul, now a spirit of ravenous hunger, stirred with dark power. He had consumed a portion of a Thunder Dragon in his youth because on the Vermilion Bird Star, he had become a Soul Devourer! A being capable of consuming any spirit or soul in existence!

Though he had rarely used it in recent times, he unleashed it once more!

“Consume! Devour! Swallowing these eight Ancient Thunder Dragon souls! Consume them, and my mastery of thunder shall surge forth!” Wang Lin’s will poured forth with frenzied intensity, guiding his soul as it morphed into a monstrous maw. With a ferocious inhale, he began his soul-rending feast!

The souls of the Ancient Thunder Dragons trembled, their light wavering as a portion of their essence was sucked into Wang Lin’s ravenous spirit!

In that instant, Wang Lin’s nascent soul swelled beyond measure, crackling with energy. Lightning surged within him, its power amplified to levels he had never experienced before!

The Grand Elder, watching from afar, gaped in horror, his eyes widening with abject disbelief. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that Wang Lin would dare… that he could consume… Ancient Thunder Dragons!