Chapter 78: Nightfall
The heart gave a timely reminder—my brain's reasoning was correct: lightning could indeed ignite the totemic fire within the phoenix.
Then, like a debt collector, it began hounding my mind for the promised forty grams of gold.
“What’s the rush?” the black dragon grumbled impatiently. “I haven’t even lit the fire yet—there’s no reason to pay in advance! Even with online shopping, there’s at least a ten-day grace period before the goods are automatically marked as received. And frankly, I trust you less than a random seller on Taobao, so don’t expect payment for at least two weeks!”
“…”
“How about this—never mind two weeks. The brain is always busy; who has the time to haggle over every penny? I’ll settle accounts with you at the end of each month from now on!”
“As for you, just keep working hard and performing well. Don’t let it weigh on your mind. As long as you remain loyal and diligent, following the brain’s commands, I’ll definitely raise your trust level in the future!”
“But if you try to pull any tricks again… well, in that case, you’ll just have to prepare to be dismissed!”
“…”
The heart paused for over ten seconds, nearly quitting on the spot just to spite that wretched brain!
But in the end, an arm is no match for a leg. Without any legal oversight, labor will always lose to capital. So, it quietly returned to its duties, continuing to pump blood and energy to the body like a beast of burden.
“Now that’s more like it!” The black dragon, satisfied with its victory, began to gather strength, channeling the electric energy stored in the heart, preparing to unleash a thick, powerful bolt of lightning upon the phoenix.
Only lightning can ignite the totemic fire…
This feels oddly similar to the tribulation crossing in cultivation novels…
The black dragon mused to itself—in those tales, once a cultivator or spirit beast grows strong enough, heavenly tribulation descends, and they’re barraged with thunder and lightning.
If they survive, they’re reborn, ascending to immortality; if not, they perish and return to dust…
If this world follows the same rules, why hasn’t the phoenix’s heavenly tribulation arrived?
Was it delayed by some irresistible force, grounded by air traffic control?
Or has the phoenix clan long since been blacklisted, stripped of the right to be struck by lightning?
The black dragon didn’t have time to ponder further. The voltage within it had reached its peak. With a furious roar, it unleashed a bolt of lightning as thick as a barrel, which crashed directly onto the phoenix’s head.
A barrel—now that’s thick!
The black dragon was quite pleased with itself. Though somewhat drained, it had enjoyed the spectacle and marveled once again at the power of its own heart.
That lightning wasn’t just thick—it was fierce. By conservative estimate, the voltage reached at least ten million volts—a true man-made thunderbolt!
Especially considering they were in foreign territory, with no free electrons in the air, and no storm clouds to amplify the strike…
In other words, all the electrons and potential differences had to be generated by the heart alone—a monumental task.
As a result, while a normal lightning bolt might consume two or three hundred kilowatt-hours of energy, the black dragon had expended over four hundred thousand for this single strike, nearly a quarter of the heart’s reserves.
But the effect was immediate. As the lightning struck the phoenix’s head, the black dragon witnessed a true union of heaven’s thunder and earth’s fire.
Like a hydrogen-filled balloon ignited, the phoenix exploded, black flames erupting from every inch of its body!
And this blackness was not the iridescent kind, but pure darkness—so dense it seemed almost tangible, so deep it appeared to devour light itself!
Huang Ze was a black dragon and had always been fond of black, yet the sight of these flames made his skin crawl with revulsion.
His heart, however, remained unfazed, its hunger unabated…
The black dragon began to wonder if anything in the physical realm was beyond its heart’s appetite.
If not for the fear of it growing out of control, the dragon might have considered feeding it several kilos of uranium-235 just to see if its bite was truly that formidable.
Fortunately, the flames enveloping the phoenix did not last long. Soon, the black turned to violet, violet to blue, blue to green… cycling through all seven colors, finally ending in red before extinguishing.
Perhaps much like steel being tempered, the phoenix’s ordeal left it entirely transformed—its feathers longer and more brilliant, its form more elegant and commanding…
Its strength was hard to measure for now, but its beauty had certainly increased by fifty percent!
Then the black dragon suddenly noticed how deep the night had become. No, that was wrong—the night wasn’t beautiful, it was impenetrably dark!
He remembered there had been moonlight at first, but at some point, darkness had swallowed everything, black as ink.
If not for the dragon’s eyes now glowing with their own light, he might not have been able to see his own claws.
Who was behind this?
The black dragon grew alert, a suspicion forming in its mind.
Crossing tribulation was no small matter. In a world where the gods held absolute power, an event like this would usually require filing with the relevant deity before proceeding.
After all, many extraordinary beings, lacking powerful patrons, dared not linger in the material world for long—why? For lack of safety, out of fear of being hunted or slain!
Thus, the black dragon’s act of unauthorized assistance in the phoenix’s tribulation was a grave violation—fraught with danger!
If the interested deities caught wind, retribution would surely follow.
The dense night that masked the moon had actually been a tremendous help to the black dragon.
After all, the Moon Goddess’s allegiances were well-known. Like the Sun God, she was a radical reactionary, fiercely promoting divine worship and strictly forbidding the spread of knowledge—a principal architect and enforcer of the old order.
If she had seen the black dragon conjure lightning by hand, helping a bloodline-cursed phoenix ignite its totemic fire, her fight-or-flight response would have been triggered instantly, and a crushing divine blow would have followed.
Fortunately, some mysterious presence had covered for the black dragon, shielding it from the Moon Goddess’s gaze.
This being, having done a good deed without leaving a name, quickly dispelled the cloak of night after the black dragon and phoenix were done, restoring everything to normal as if it had never been there.
“Playing at ghosts and gods!” the black dragon muttered, displeased.
It resented being manipulated and watched from the shadows, feeling like nothing more than a pawn on someone else’s board.
It turned to interrogate the heart, asking if it knew who the visitor was, but the heart remained silent.
The black dragon couldn’t tell whether it truly didn’t know, or if the matter was too deep and it was simply not yet convenient to reveal the truth.