Perched atop the ancient stone idol’s head, Wang Lin knew. The restoration of Cang Songzi’s flesh, and the lightning mark emblazoned upon his brow, held a profound connection to this very effigy.

One of Cang Songzi’s blood infants, lost in meditation, had cultivated within the echoes of the lightning sigil upon the statue’s brow. With ninefold the ordinary grasp, he had barely managed to glean a fraction of the idol’s inheritance.

And now, that fragment of power, unleashed in the second clash between Wang Lin and Cang Songzi through the manipulation of celestial thunder, had been largely absorbed, coalescing within Wang Lin’s right eye.

Now, he drew a deep breath, his spirit unfurling to encompass the idol’s surroundings. Lightning crackled in his right eye, then erupted forth from his very being. At that moment, the lightning mark upon the stone giant’s brow pulsed violently, a surge of raw electricity filling the air, accompanied by snapping sounds and the resonance of hidden conduits.

Wang Lin’s eyes closed, his divine sense weaving around the statue. His entire being shimmered with electric light. For within him dwelled the soul of a Primordial Thunder-Dragon, the very master of heavenly lightning. All thunder obeyed his command!

Yet, the lightning coiled within the idol’s brow possessed an ancient, defiant spirit. It danced around the stone form, colliding with the thunder summoned by Wang Lin in a furious clash.

From afar, the scene was one of pure lightning majesty, arcs of electric energy scattering in all directions, the air rent by thunderous roars.

It was an entanglement of lightning, a furious outcry between raw lightning and refined thunder, and above all, a battle for dominion over the very essence of lightning.

Wang Lin would not emulate Cang Songzi, seeking enlightenment, yielding to the idol’s lightning sigil, deciphering its meaning, bowing before the stone totem as a mere servant, begging for lightning to borrow and understand.

As if pleading for charity, to acquire the fading lightning force residing within the ancient stone, transforming it into personal power, perhaps even summoning the Seventh Spirit of the Sealed Realm, a being capable of harming even Wang Lin’s Ancient God flesh!

Cang Songzi had chosen a path of submission, placing the idol as a god within his heart, using a mere blood infant to cultivate its echoes through diligent worship. This path held no danger, only demanding sufficient talent to succeed.

But Wang Lin? He would never tread such a path. He dared to defy even the Heavens. A lifetime spent traversing the cosmos, dominating winds and storms, daring to battle fate itself, forging his path against all odds, shining even brighter than celestial tribulation!

He would never bow before this mere stone idol, no matter how earth-shattering its inner lightning, or its power to call forth the Seventh Spirit!

He sought to break the lightning within, to force its submission! It would kneel before Wang Lin! He would not seek the idol’s wisdom, but instead wrest all lightning from its stone prison! It would worship him! This was his pride, the pride of a defiant cultivator, the dignity of an Ancient God! Among all the primordial races, who could stand against the might of the Ancient Gods?

Even the mighty Moon Devourer, as Wang Lin knew from Ling’er, had once been nothing more than a servant to the Ancient Gods. If the Moon Devourers bowed, so too would whatever race held dominion over this lightning sigil, forced to kneel before him!

Wang Lin opened his eyes, a chilling dominance burning within. With a cold snort, he raised his right hand and slammed it against the idol’s head. The earth trembled, but the statue remained, instead unleashing a heaven-shattering burst of pure lightning. It shot towards the skies, transforming into a dragon of pure energy, roaring towards Wang Lin!

As it surged forth, it devoured all ambient lightning, imbued with madness and ferocity, drawing ever closer to its prey!

The electric dragon was fierce, but Wang Lin was fiercer. The dragon was mad, but Wang Lin held within him ten, a hundred times the madness!

As it roared, Wang Lin’s right eye crackled with unrestrained power, exploding outwards. His very soul followed, bursting forth from his brow, a Primordial Thunder-Dragon descending upon the Colorful Realm! With a deafening roar, Wang Lin’s Thunder-Dragon soul collided with the electric beast, devouring it with unbridled hunger.

As the devouring raged, the ancient god star point faintly emerged within Wang Lin’s brow. The power of the Ancient God surged through him, and his right hand shot forward, a colossal, spectral arm of an Ancient God materializing, gripping the electric dragon, crushing it!

The electric dragon, still locked in battle with Wang Lin’s soul, shuddered violently. It roared, struggling to break free, but the Ancient God’s grasp was unyielding, its grasp forcing out torrents of raw lightning.

In that instant, Wang Lin’s soul swept forward, consuming the electric dragon in a single gulp, returning to his body.

The lightning in his right eye intensified tenfold, blurring his form, until all that remained was that single, blinding eye!

“All lightning in the heavens and earth must obey my command!” Wang Lin spoke with calm authority, yet an invisible pressure crushed the air, forcing the scattered lightning to converge upon him, gathering within his right eye, forming a lightning sigil!

As the mark of lightning burned into Wang Lin’s right eye, the stone idol beneath him erupted with deep cracks, tearing through the stone from feet to head like lightning-wrought fissures, heading straight for Wang Lin, perched atop its brow.

The earth shook, and a blinding light shone from within the fissures as the statue came apart at the seams yet strangely stayed in one place, its form never crumbling.

The crackled lightning of the breaks came closer to Wang Lin. BOOOOM!!! In the air that separated Wang Lin and the idol, a sphere of lightning was formed, reaching a hundred zhang in width.

And within that sphere, Wang Lin was caged, a prisoner of the wild lightning. The lightning struck, as if to escape the command of Wang Lin, forcing itself together like a rabid animal.

But the lightning was never caged. Wang Lin would become one with it. He would become the master of the lightning itself. Perhaps his current state would not stand against this idol’s will, but with the will of the Ancient Thunder Dragon, none could stand.

That was the final roar of defiance, the thunderous roar of the Dragon from above.
From the dawn of time, the Thunder Dragon reigned, a celestial being tasked by the Heavens to wield the power of storms. But Wang Lin, defiant of such ordained fate, sought to usurp this right, to claim the very essence of thunder as his own, forging a path where *he* was the Heaven, and the skies bowed to his will.

Before him stood a weathered effigy, a relic of the Shimmering Bolt Clan, an ancient people born from lightning itself. Though long since deceased, the ancestral spirit, intertwined with the thunder’s heart, lingered as a mark of celestial fire upon the stone brow. Whispers echoed of their progenitor: a rogue thunderbolt, unbowed by the Heavens’ decree. To venerate him was to court the thunder’s embrace, to defy him, to be branded by its wrath.

But Wang Lin was unyielding. Solar flares erupted from his right eye as the primal Thunder Dragon spirit unfurled from within him, its spectral form coiling around his mortal shell. A roar of defiance shook the chamber, laced with the command to control the thunder of creation.

A sphere of crackling lightning constricted, yet at arm’s reach from Wang Lin’s flesh, it shuddered to a halt. Thunder bellowed, but the energy failed to trespass the final inch. Wang Lin rose to his feet, his form now a conduit of divine lightning.

An aura of Ancient God radiated from him. Were the blood of gods and the essence of thunder to merge, he would become a Thunder God of Old.

“Bend, or be broken!” Wang Lin sent his spirit ablaze. He knew the swirling lightning was no mere energy, but living will, a storm given sentience, the lingering echo of the stone’s soul. These were Lightning Spirits, remnants of the ancestral spirit’s dying wish.

The chamber shuddered as the sphere trembled under the twin assault of Wang Lin’s thunderous presence and the might of the Ancient God. The resistance shattered.

With blinding speed, they yielded, transmuting into bolts of pure energy and surging towards the Thunder Dragon spirit. The spirit swelled, its roar splitting the air as the stone effigy convulsed, teetering on the edge of collapse.

Wang Lin strode forward, planting his feet upon the void. Turning, his eyes blazed as he fixed his gaze upon the fading lightning mark etched into the stone brow.

“Your kin, henceforth, shall be stripped of the right to command the thunder before me!” Wang Lin’s right eye blazed anew. The Thunder Dragon spirit roared, enveloping him, merging with the lightning within his gaze. In a blinding flash, a lightning sigil tore from his body, aimed directly for the ancient mark upon the stone.

The sigil struck, and the stone erupted in violent tremors. But in that instant, as the lightning branded the effigy, the stone eyes burst with light. Within their depths, Wang Lin saw the expanse of a star-strewn sky.

Within this cosmos, a vast, encompassing array choked the very stars, imprisoned within its unyielding grip. Beyond the array stood legions of otherworldly beings, their garb strange and alien. Cold indifference and mockery filled their gaze as they stared into the prison.

Within, a swirling vortex of celestial energy and unearthly despair, countless ancient cultivators and immortals hurled themselves against the barrier, desperate to break free.

The array remained unbroken. Not even self-destruction could dent the barrier, the immortals’ hopes fading into bleak despair.

Nine radiant beacons shone within the array. One was an axe of epochal power, cleaving through anything that dared impede its path. Another was a bolt of living lightning, striking down cultivators and immortals.

The observers outside the array watched, their contempt growing, like nobles gazing upon wretched insects.

“We will not yield! The day will come when our descendants shatter your prison! Your alien races shall drown in oceans of their own blood!” A desperate cry echoed from an immortal struck down by lightning, a promise etched in the face of death.