The consciousness of the Douluo plane descended like a curtain draped across the heavens, sending ripples through the space above the training ground.
"What... is this?" Mu Ye had never witnessed anything like it in his life.
He had no idea what that thing was.
All he could feel was the soul power inside him suddenly growing restless and agitated.
His soul rings emerged on their own, spinning rapidly beneath his feet without any conscious command.
At the same time, there was a faint sensation of being suppressed, a stiffness, as though the great curtain overhead was pressing down and preventing him from fully extending himself.
Arthur's consciousness grew light in the same instant, as though some force were peeling him free from his physical body.
The training ground before him, Mu Ye's anxious expression, all of it faded in a heartbeat.
The next moment, he plunged into a boundless void. Beneath his feet flowed a river of light tracing the paths of stars, and above his head hung that vast curtain spanning heaven and earth.
Now it had taken the form of an enormous figure, its outline blurred, its entire being wreathed in a unique resonance that shared the same origin as the Douluo continent itself. Each breath it drew seemed to stir the pulse of the entire plane.
"Arthur."
There was no sound. Yet a will imprinted itself directly into the depths of Arthur's soul, gentle and heavy all at once, like the earth bearing the weight of all things.
Arthur instinctively drew his body taut.
Then everything shifted.
The power of the Red Dragon surged out from within him, and the moment it made contact with the giant, it solidified, becoming whole and complete.
The Red Dragon, in its original form, had never been a physical dragon. It was a conceptual entity, woven from the ley lines of Britain, from faith, and from destiny.
But Arthur was not in Britain. He was on the Douluo continent. The power of the Red Dragon had been like a tower built in the air, without root or source.
Now, beneath the recognition of the plane's consciousness, the Red Dragon bound itself to the ley lines of the Douluo star.
The great figure slowly raised its hand. From its palm, the power of Douluo's ley lines poured forth like a web of threads, winding themselves around the phantom of the Red Dragon.
In that instant, Arthur felt a profound sense of connection spreading outward from the very depths of his soul.
The Red Dragon's power was no longer a drifting stranger in a foreign land. It had been received by the Douluo star, bound irrevocably to the river of starlight flowing beneath his feet and to the ley lines pulsing deep within the continent.
The scarlet dragon scales, once translucent and insubstantial, grew solid and crystalline. Within the dragon's eyes, the veins of Douluo's mountains and rivers were reflected back. Threads of light from the continent's arteries wove across the dragon's body, forming a mark unlike any other.
The imprint of the plane's will sank clearly into his soul, and when the gentle voice spoke again, it seemed to carry a trace of life.
"Henceforth, your Red Dragon, rooted in the ley lines of Douluo, shall bear the responsibility of guarding this world."
Arthur could sense it clearly: the power of the Red Dragon within him was undergoing a fundamental transformation.
The Red Dragon had always embodied "the legitimacy of kingship." Now it fused seamlessly with the Douluo ley lines' power of "vitality" and "sustenance."
Which meant Arthur was now the new lord of this plane.
Still weak, still small, but already set upon that path, whether he had chosen it or not.
Faced with all of this happening at once, Arthur felt thoroughly dazed.
It had all happened so fast.
He stared at the phantom of the Red Dragon circling around him, his thoughts a tangled mess.
"What just happened?"
One moment he had been pondering whether the power inside him was truly the Red Dragon, and the next he had been bound to the Douluo star, without even a moment's opportunity to refuse.
The plane's consciousness had moved with absurd speed: binding the ley lines, granting authority, imprinting a purpose, one step flowing into the next without pause, as though it had been terrified he might not agree.
"Grow stronger, and quickly."
The plane's consciousness lightened slightly, its emotions becoming richer.
The primordial will of the Douluo plane had no concrete form and no personal desire. It existed only to sustain the plane's foundations.
Now Arthur had received its recognition, ascending as the plane's legitimate lord.
From this point forward, the plane's consciousness would begin to shift in accordance with his own.
The great figure slowly faded. The river of starlight in the void began to flow in reverse. Arthur sensed from within it an urgency, as though something required its immediate return.
The reverse current quickened. The flow of light seized Arthur's consciousness and pulled him back.
The figure's outline grew more and more transparent, until at last it dissolved into scattered points of light and merged into the river.
The moment his consciousness returned, Mu Ye's voice came rushing in.
Arthur snapped his eyes open and found Mu Ye staring at him, filled with worry, every feature drawn tight with concern. "Arthur! Are you all right?"
"Sensei, I..." Arthur lowered his gaze, his voice trembling.
"What's wrong?" Mu Ye's heart leapt into his throat. He dreaded that something had gone seriously wrong.
"I feel absolutely incredible right now."
In an instant, Mu Ye's expression went dark.
Clearly, everything was fine.
He raised a hand and casually slapped Arthur right into the medicine pool.
There was a splash, water flying in all directions.
Arthur choked on a mouthful of the medicinal liquid and burst up from the surface sputtering, hair plastered in wet strands across his face, eyes still bright with the kind of elation that hadn't quite settled yet. "Hey! What was that for?!"
Mu Ye stood at the edge of the pool with his arms folded, rolling his eyes. "The look on your face, I thought you'd gone off the rails in your cultivation. Turns out you're just getting ahead of yourself."
Even as he said it, the worry in his eyes slowly eased. His gaze settled on the phantom of the Red Dragon hovering around Arthur, and curiosity got the better of him. "So what exactly happened just now? What is this strange power coming off you? And what on earth was that thing?"
"I'm fuzzy on it myself. I'm not sure what happened." Arthur wiped the medicinal liquid from his face and raised a hand.
The phantom of the Red Dragon dissolved into a current of light and flowed back into him. The dragon-shaped mark on his brow flickered once and vanished.
He really was baffled. Because in his memory, during the era of Dragon God's Legacy, wasn't Tang Hao the lord of this plane?
How had it ended up being him?
If he had become the future lord of the plane, where had Tang Hao gone?
"But it should be a good thing."
He stopped trying to work it out.
Arthur turned his attention inward, to the soul power that had swelled inside him until it felt ready to overflow.
With each breath, he was drawing in soul power by the torrent. The cycle of energy within him churned on without end.
The furnace heart of the Red Dragon.
He clenched both fists. The strength he felt within himself right now was frightening.
His heartbeat surged, and a red current rushed through his meridians, raising a faint luminous haze across the surface of his skin.
He could feel it with perfect clarity: every inch of his muscle was filled with explosive force.
Things that had once required his full effort and the complete mobilization of his soul power, he could now accomplish with ease through physical strength alone.
"You don't know..." Mu Ye fell quiet for a moment, watching Arthur, whose very bearing had undergone a fundamental change. He pressed his doubts down into silence.
No sense trying to puzzle through it right now.
"How do you feel?" Mu Ye asked, his tone carrying a note of anticipation. There was no question: the Arthur before him had fully awakened the latent power that had been sleeping inside him.
"Like I've never felt better."
Arthur bounced lightly on his heels and rolled out his joints. Each time he landed, the stone tiles beneath him shuddered faintly.
The sudden surge of power had outpaced his control, and what leaked out was the result.
He raised a hand, clenched it into a fist, then spread his fingers wide. Red currents wound and swirled between his palms, carrying a scorching heat.
He glanced down at his hands, turned something over in his mind for a moment.
Then Arthur planted his feet and stood absolutely still. The soul power inside him burst outward like a dam breaking, flooding out in every direction.
What had once been golden soul power was now shot through with burning crimson.
Red currents and golden radiance came pouring off him from every direction, sweeping the training ground with a powerful surge of force.
The mere act of releasing his soul power made the entire training ground tremble.
The halo around Arthur deepened and intensified, scarlet and molten gold intertwining, blazing like an open flame, engulfing him entirely within it.