The Elven Cultivator

”It’s over?”

Staring at the lead-gray clouds that had closed up again overhead, Anton couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.

For the past three days, he had been enduring lightning strikes almost nonstop.

Rampant energy surged through his entire body. Every bolt of lightning that fell felt like a red-hot iron skewer scraping through his bone marrow. Waves of agony washed over him, one after another, nearly tearing his consciousness apart.

The sensation was worse than ten thousand ants gnawing at his bones, more intense than death by a thousand cuts.

But in contrast, the rewards were extremely gratifying.

After three days of this baptism of lightning, he had managed to refine a full fifty percent of the Pill Poison.

Under normal circumstances, even with the aid of an Evil-Transforming Pill, a Nine Transitions refining formation, and a Spirit Vein, it would have taken him at least twenty years to achieve such results.

Adding the ten percent he had already refined, he had now dealt with sixty percent of the Pill Poison.

The once-thick, five-colored mist enveloping his Golden Core had visibly shrunk.

His Magical Power had more than doubled since his breakthrough.

More importantly, by bathing in the lightning and personally experiencing its destructive might, Anton had gained a deeper understanding of the Thunder Law.

The sliver of life hidden within that rampage of destruction, the subtle balance between chaos and order—he had benefited immensely from it all.

This experience would surely be a great boon when he cultivated any thunder-related Divine Techniques in the future.

He had to admit, while using the Power of Thunder Tribulation to refine Pill Poison was dangerous—a single misstep could lead to severe injury—the results were ridiculously good.

At this thought, Anton’s gaze fell upon the ground not far away.

One of the seven Thunder Prison Pillars had shattered into dozens of fragments of varying sizes. The broken ends were scorched black, with faint, tiny arcs of electricity still crackling across them.

The other six had likely met a similar fate.

’It’s a shame the Thunder Prison Pillars are completely destroyed,’ he thought. ’Otherwise, once Wulei Valley’s energy has recovered, I could set up another Thunder Cage and perhaps break through the Shell Barrier directly.’

’I wonder where I can find more Thunder Prison Pillars?’

Anton mulled over the possibility of acquiring more.

The things were exceedingly rare; even top-tier and first-rate factions might not have any in stock.

Gathering a full set of seven would be even more difficult.

Just then, a low groan interrupted Anton’s thoughts.

He looked toward the sound and saw that it came from the Earth Element Giant.

The behemoth was currently curled up on the ground, its grayish-yellow body covered in a web of cracks, like a piece of crude pottery that had been shattered and haphazardly pieced back together.

It looked like it was at the end of its rope, as if a few more blows would finish it off completely.

Anton knew, however, that this was merely for show.

An Earth Element Giant that had fused with an Elemental Origin Crystal was nowhere near this fragile.

For elemental creatures, an Elemental Origin Crystal was like a super-tonic.

The crystal would continuously replenish the elemental creature’s energy and heal its injuries.

Right now, the damage and energy drain the Earth Element Giant had sustained simply outpaced the Elemental Origin Crystal’s replenishment rate, which was why it appeared so weakened.

But give it half a day, and the Elemental Origin Crystal would restore it to its peak condition.

You could say that an elemental creature with an Elemental Origin Crystal was as difficult to kill as a player using cheats.

If not for the Thunder Cage this time, it would have taken Anton a great deal of effort to take down this Earth Element Giant.

As he was pondering, Anton’s expression suddenly shifted, and he turned to look toward the valley entrance.

With most of Wulei Valley’s thunder energy depleted, the flow of power had calmed considerably. The previous ’oppressive’ feeling was gone, and the range of Anton’s Divine Sense had mostly recovered.

His Divine Sense now detected more than a dozen figures dressed as Adventurers moving quickly in his direction.

Before long, the newcomers appeared in his line of sight.

A single glance was all it took for Anton to see that these people were no Adventurers. The familiar, chilling aura they exuded was all too potent, immediately bringing a certain secret organization to mind.

”The Ring of Annihilation.”

Xavier and his men had just stopped, not yet having spoken a word, when they were all stunned to hear those four words from Anton’s lips.

Their first reaction was that their plan had been leaked and Anton was here specifically for them.

But they quickly realized that wasn’t right.

’If Anton knew our identities and our plan, why would he have walked right into our trap?’

”You know who we are?” Xavier frowned, staring at Anton.

Anton gave a scornful laugh and ignored the question.

He had only been guessing, throwing out a bluff to test them. He hadn’t expected to be right.

’It seems my intuition and experience haven’t gotten rusty,’ he thought.

Seeing Anton ignore his question, Xavier’s expression darkened for a moment, but his gaze quickly turned calculating as he sized Anton up.

”To survive in the Thunder Cage for three full days... the Fallen Dragon Sword Saint’s strength is indeed as formidable as the rumors say. But I don’t believe you can still be in peak condition.”

”After a three-day baptism of lightning, your reserves must be running quite low, wouldn’t you say?”

Anton smiled faintly. ”Why don’t you try and find out?”

Even setting aside the grudge between him and the Ring of Annihilation, the simple fact that they both now targeted the Earth Element Giant meant a fight was inevitable.

Since that was the case, there was no need to play nice with these people.

However, his calm and composed demeanor actually made Xavier a little uncertain.

But soon, the greed welling up from the depths of his heart suppressed his hesitation.

The corpse of a young Legendary Sword Saint would be enough to elevate his own power to the next level. With such a golden opportunity right in front of him, he couldn’t possibly just give up.

At this point, even if Anton wanted to abandon the Earth Element Giant and walk away, Xavier wouldn’t allow it.

As for Anton’s current appearance... he was more inclined to believe that Anton possessed some method for rapid recovery. However, such a method must have an immense cost; otherwise, it would be simply too heaven-defying.

’Don’t be fooled by his calm facade; his strength is definitely not at its peak.’

’Now is the perfect time to kill him!’

His thoughts raced. No longer hesitating, Xavier decisively raised his hand and waved.

A stream of grayish-black mist instantly spewed from his palm. It twisted and swelled in midair like a living thing, transforming in the blink of an eye into a thick curtain of fog that surged toward Anton, threatening to engulf him.

Wherever the mist passed, the gravel on the ground visibly decayed and turned brittle, like rotten wood eroded by millions of years, turning to dust at the slightest touch.

A sour, putrid stench spread with it, a nauseating mixture of rotting flesh and moldy wood.

”The Erosion Law, is it?”

Anton recognized this Law at a glance.

It was a lesser Law, a subordinate of the ”Degradation” Law within the natural class.

Its core ability was to accelerate the decay and decomposition of matter.

Whether metal, rock, or flesh and blood, everything would rapidly rot and disintegrate before the Erosion Law.

In combat, it was undoubtedly an extremely troublesome Law to face.

It didn’t aim for the explosive power of a one-hit kill. Instead, it weakened opponents through continuous erosion, like boiling a frog in lukewarm water. By the time the target realized something was wrong, it was often too late to escape.

Seeing Xavier make his move, Kael and the others standing behind him all showed excited expressions.

’Lord Xavier’s Erosion Law is the perfect counter to restorative Laws.’

’Once the power of erosion invades the body, any healing effect will be greatly diminished.’

’Especially since Anton just endured a three-day baptism of lightning. Even if he’s not completely drained, he’s at the end of his rope. He definitely won’t have any extra power to resist the force of erosion.’

’The outcome of this battle is already decided!’

’The legend of the Fallen Dragon Sword Saint ends here today!’

But just as that thought surfaced in their minds, they suddenly saw an arcane-gold sun rise slowly from within the grayish-black mist.

No, that wasn’t a sun.

It was a wheel of swords, formed from countless rays of sword light!

The next instant, innumerable strands of arcane-gold sword light bloomed across the void. It was like a river of stars suddenly exploding in the night sky, or a blazing sun shattering into millions of blinding arrows of light.

Wherever the sword light passed, the grayish-black mist of erosion dissipated and vanished without a sound, like snow doused in boiling water.

In just two or three breaths, the grayish-black curtain of mist that filled the sky was completely annihilated.

Xavier’s pupils contracted sharply.

Behind him, the faces of Kael and the others all changed, their expressions filled with horror.

Before they could recover from their shock, the hundreds of arcane-gold sword lights vanished from where they were.

In reality, they hadn’t vanished. They were simply moving too fast, exceeding the limits of what their eyes could track.

Only Xavier saw the trajectories of the sword lights as they streaked past.

But seeing them was one thing; he had no time to dodge at all.

In the blink of an eye, the hundreds of sword lights were less than two meters away, the Sword Qi they radiated making his skin ache.

Xavier’s pupils contracted violently into thin slits.

He didn’t even have time to think. His body, honed by a thousand battles, reacted on pure instinct.

Grayish-black mist erupted violently from his body, blasting outward in all directions like an explosion.

BOOM!

A deafening blast echoed through the valley as the dense, grayish-black mist spread with incredible speed, instantly filling every inch of space within a several-hundred-meter radius.

The members of the Ring of Annihilation scrambled backward, creating distance.

Knowing full well how terrifying the Erosion Law was, they didn’t dare let even a speck of that grayish-black mist touch them.

Once they regained their footing, they looked up to find the battlefield completely shrouded in the grayish-black mist, making it impossible to see what was happening inside.

They could only see the mist churning violently, as if stirred by an invisible, giant hand.

Within the gaps of the roiling mist, flickers of arcane-gold light shone through.

At first, there were only a few wisps of light, faint and thread-like, flickering in and out of existence within the thick, grayish-black fog, as if they could be swallowed up at any moment.

But the light grew more and more intense, spreading through the mist like a spiderweb, dicing the once-solid curtain of grayish-black fog into countless fragments.

With each surge, the mist was suppressed by that net of golden light. The churning grew weaker, and its recovery slowed.

It was being suppressed.

As this realization dawned on everyone present, expressions of horror and disbelief appeared on their faces.

’Lord Xavier is actually at a disadvantage?’

’How is this possible?’

’Could it be that after three days of the lightning baptism, Anton barely used any of his power at all?’