In truth, a so-called sign of defeat was nothing more than showing fear.
Though Balz disliked conflict, he understood clearly that right now he had to be fiercer, more violent, and more terrifying than his opponent.
The two sides tore into each other in a mad frenzy, ripping chunks of flesh from one another. In the blink of an eye, the flesh on both their skeletons was mostly gone. Yet Balz's aura did not waver in the slightest; on the contrary, it was his opponent who was cowed in that moment.
That fleeting instant of fear was perceived by the watching monsters as a sign of defeat. In the very next second, the horde swarmed forward and tore Balz's combatant limb from limb. As the victor, Balz naturally claimed the lion's share of the flesh and blood.
He gulped down the flesh by the mouthful, his aura climbing continuously. At this moment, he felt he had grasped the true meaning of life: to struggle, to slaughter, and then to triumph.
Over the next few months, he began taking the initiative to attack. As long as he showed no fear, he emerged victorious every single time.
Having fought and triumphed more times than any other monster, his size began to swell drastically. The flames on his back solidified into armor across his body, and at the same time, he vaguely sensed a will connecting to him, causing all kinds of strange, esoteric knowledge to dawn upon him naturally.
"Blazing great sun, flaming scorching sun; Dongjun by dawn, Crimson Sovereign by dusk."
One day, standing at the summit of Four Seasons Red Island and feeling the will conveyed through the void, Balz muttered to himself.
Then, a wisp of golden flame streamed from the corners of his eyes and spread over his entire body in an instant. The originally red flames swiftly turned golden, while a flaming crown took shape atop his head.
At this time, Leng Dajing also noticed Balz's anomaly.
He had actually taken note of Balz when the creature grew increasingly keen on fighting, even designating Balz as a key subject of research.
He just hadn't expected Balz to evolve so quickly. Seeing the fiery crown atop Balz's head, an expression of wariness appeared on his face, and in the end, he did not dare move to capture Balz.
"Something is wrong with this monster."
"The power of other monsters is mottled and chaotic, yet he has already perfectly fused two powers to form an entirely new one."
"Did someone else interfere with my experiment, or... have I unwittingly become someone's pawn?"
Leng Dajing watched Balz gradually rise into the air, countless thoughts flashing through his mind.
He was in no hurry. If this experiment failed, there was always the next; as long as he was alive, the possibilities were limitless. The situation this time was rather suspicious, so it was best to play it safe for now.
Having made up his mind, Leng Dajing immediately stepped back, his body turning transparent until he vanished completely.
As Leng Dajing vanished, Balz cracked his eyes open slightly. His golden pupils glanced at the spot where Leng Dajing had disappeared, before he tilted his head back and closed his eyes once more.
He was the sun. He was the King of the Great Sun.
After chanting the ancient ballad, he obtained a vast amount of knowledge from the Abyss and knew who he was.
The powerful often possessed countless different identities and wore innumerable faces, and Balz was actually one of Feng Laixian's pseudonyms.
Within the Abyss existed countless chaotic memories, grievances, rages, and resentments belonging to Feng Laixian. Originally, these extraordinarily chaotic memories and emotions could never have coalesced on a grand scale, meaning a rational Abyssal monster could never have appeared.
Yet the proliferation cells Leng Dajing brought made the impossible possible.
In reality, every single monster on Four Seasons Red Island was constantly growing stronger, madly proliferating a certain attribute, and what Balz proliferated was Feng Laixian's memories.
Thus, he successfully completed all the memories of a certain period of Feng Laixian's life, and thereby gained a name: Balz.
And now, he finally understood the meaning of "Balz."
Feng Laixian had once visited a world that possessed a super sun taking up eighty percent of the universe's space, around which countless planets revolved.
That sun had been named Balz by its worshippers, meaning King of the Great Sun, the Eternal Sun God.
Balz had inherited Feng Laixian's power of the Great Sun. His body temperature continued to rise as golden flames burned everything. The cascading sunlight refined the entirety of Four Seasons Red Island in an instant, turning all matter on the island into fuel that merged into Balz's body and underwent infinite proliferation.
The barrier Leng Dajing had erected shattered the very next second after Four Seasons Red Island was refined. Balz slowly ascended like a miniature golden sun, his radiance spreading to the surrounding islands.
Because Leng Dajing had submerged Four Seasons Red Island into the sea, Balz's light first illuminated the undersides of nearby islands before rapidly creeping upward. By the time the living creatures on the islands sensed the crisis, it was already too late.
On Ginseng Island, countless Elves were tending to stalks of underforest ginseng when they suddenly felt nature lamenting. They took up their weapons to search for the source of danger, but in the next second, every living thing suddenly burst into flames.
"Aaargh!"
"Moon God above, save—"
"No, protect the Mother Tree—"
Countless Elves struggled in agony, but even the strongest among them lasted less than three seconds before being reduced to charcoal. In the end, the entire island was enveloped in flames, burning furiously.
Ginseng Island, Fleeceflower Island, Balabala Island, Green Lotus Island, Bearkin Island...
As Balz destroyed more and more islands, the once miniature sun expanded continuously, swelling to the size of an entire island in the blink of an eye. Then it kept ballooning until it was even more massive than the Moon, and the reach of its illumination grew wider and wider.
Throughout this process, the number of perished souls climbed steadily: one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion...
At the same time, countless Transcendents sensed the danger and began fleeing frantically from the reach of Balz's light. The news swiftly spread across the entire Death Calamity Sea.
In the God Vault Space, at Salty Fish Studio, within the small pavilion on Salty Fish Lake, Yu Xian sat in a rocking chair with a slice of watermelon in one hand and a feather fan in the other. He gently waved the fan while eating watermelon and browsing news on his Star Ring.
Just then, Niu Kaitian sent him a news article. He tapped it open at once: [Fatal Sun Appears in Death Calamity Sea; Any Being Touched by Sunlight Burned to Death].
"Tsk, the Death Calamity Sea really is plagued with disasters. Feng Laixian just finished pissing blood, and how long has it been? Now he's got urinary stones?" Looking at the news, Yu Xian couldn't help quipping.
Truth be told, the photo in the news was very blurry, likely because whoever took it was terrified of being illuminated and had to resort to all sorts of roundabout tricks to capture Balz's image. To Yu Xian, it really did look like an orange-yellow urinary stone.
Niu Kaitian's intention in sending this news was plain as day: he hoped Yu Xian would step in to save the day. But Yu Xian had zero desire to intervene; he simply hadn't felt like moving lately.
The Death Calamity Sea wasn't Earth, so what the hell did it have to do with him?
Chapter 418