Shi Yang's footsteps echoed lightly as he moved through the ruined halls, each step measured and unhurried. Broken glass crunched beneath him, scattered displays and spilled blood forming a trail behind. He drifted past overturned kiosks and barricades, as if he were walking through a garden instead of a battlefield.
The atrium opened wide before him.
Hundreds of hostages sat huddled on the polished floor, hands bound, eyes wide with terror. The fountain at the atrium's center still trickled, its soft sound almost mocking against the cries and muffled sobs.
And there—seated cross-legged atop the fountain's dry marble edge—was the leader. His eyes opened slowly as Shi Yang approached, cold and steady. Water shimmered faintly along his skin, rippling as though his body itself were a tide pool.
The surrounding terrorists froze, guns trembling in their hands. The hostages dared not move, their breaths caught.
"You've made quite the mess," the leader said at last, voice calm, almost amused. "But you've only been dancing with my dogs. Now you face their master."
Shi Yang's gaze lingered on him, sharp and unblinking. His spirit body shimmered faintly, translucent rain running down his shoulders.
"Dogs, master… makes no difference," Shi Yang replied, voice low and edged with amusement. "You bleed the same."
The leader rose to his feet. Ripples cascaded across his flesh, water beading into blades that hovered at his sides. "Then drown in me."
The air tightened. Hostages whimpered as droplets lifted from every nearby surface—soda cups, puddles of blood, even the fountain's trickle—coalescing into floating spheres.
Shi Yang's grin sharpened. "Finally… someone worth striking."
And then the atrium erupted.
The leader thrust his hand forward, and a volley of liquid lances shrieked through the air. Shi Yang blurred, his body vanishing in a streak, reappearing inches from the man's chest. His palm struck—crack!—but the leader dissolved into a cascade of water, reforming behind him.
A spinning kick whipped through the air, water trailing from the leader's leg like a scythe. Shi Yang ducked low, his hand shooting up to seize the calf—his fingers burned as the water coating it seared like acid, forcing him to release.
The crowd of hostages screamed, pressed tighter against one another, while terrorists shouted in panic, not daring to fire for fear of hitting their own leader.
Shi Yang straightened, acidic water cascading down his arms, eyes bright with manic joy. "Good," he said, flexing his stung fingers. "This is what I wanted."
He blurred again, a storm in human form, surging straight back at the watery figure.
"Let's see if I can comprehend you~." Shi Yang's eyes lit up, his three Dao lights flaring in tandem. Behind him, the twin elemental koi spiraled into existence, one of fire and one of water, circling like a halo. Power rippled through his veins, surging to his hands.
"Featherless Palm!!"
His strike connected—his arm tore straight through the terrorist leader's torso, the body bursting into a spray of water. But then—
Hiss!
Fire roared across Shi Yang's forearm. His translucent flesh sizzled, bursting into flame. His strike hadn't broken the man—it had ignited him.
The leader reformed behind, his watery flesh shimmering, but this time lined with steam. His grin was sharp. "So you too have tapped into the elements,"
His body pulsed—shhhk!—jets of boiling water erupted outward, slicing through the marble floor. Hostages screamed as steam clouded the atrium, the air thick and suffocating.
Shi Yang staggered back, arm smoldering, then laughed. A harsh, wild sound. "Good… very good."
The koi spun faster, their forms expanding, flames and currents twisting together. His aura shook the walls, rattling windows until glass burst outward.
The leader did sit idle, he slammed both palms down. Water gushed from the fountain, coiling upward into serpents of water that lunged at Shi Yang, their hissing jaws snapping.
Shi Yang lifted his burning hand, smirking through the pain. "Then I'll burn you dry!"
Boom!
His palms clashed with the water serpents, fire exploding through his strikes, steam erupting outward in choking waves. Flames coiled with mist, each collision rocking the atrium. Marble cracked, banners tore, and hostages cowered with their heads buried in their arms, sobbing.
The leader charged, his water-body bubbling like mineral springwater, his very presence searing into acid. "Take this!!!" he roared, his fist arcing toward Shi Yang under the cover of writhing serpents.
Shi Yang's eyes flashed. His foot slammed into the marble, shockwaves racing underground. Roots deep in the earth heard his call. With a thunderous crack, they burst upward from the lowest basements, tearing through concrete until they exploded into the mall's foundation.
The leader's eyes narrowed. A halberd, sharper than steel, rippled into his grip, cleaving through the roots. Hiss! Hiss! Vegetation melted the instant it touched him, shriveling in streams of corrosive steam. Even when the roots tried to bind him, his mineral body let them phase through, dissolving on contact.
"This is truly incredible," Shi Yang said, brushing away the last water dragon with a sweep of his palm. He turned to the leader, eyes burning with excitement. "To wield Dao in such a way… you really are talented."
His gaze tracked the shifting, liquid form of his opponent. Then his Qi shifted—flames dimming, currents of water stirring around his limbs.
"I don't know how you're melting my roots, but…" Shi Yang's voice dropped to a murmur as his hands interlocked in a mudra. "I've seen enough of how you bend your water."
The leader froze mid-motion. He had been about to summon another serpent, but his body felt suddenly alien, sluggish, and restrained.
"!!?"
Panic flickered across his features. He forced his arm down, the halberd cleaving one root, but when he tried to conjure a new weapon with his empty hand—nothing came.
"How did you—?!" His voice cracked with strain, his movements faltering, slowing with every heartbeat.
Shi Yang clenched his fingers tighter. From below, roots surged like constricting chains, coiling around the leader's neck, shoulders, and ankles. With a guttural creak, they dragged him down, tearing through marble, concrete, and asphalt.
"I'll leave the rest up here to you, officers," Shi Yang called toward the stunned police units still gathered at the barricades. He lifted a hand in a casual salute, then dove into the gaping hole after his prey.
His flames reignited, the fiery koi spinning fiercely around him as he descended.
Boom!
The leader's body slammed through the first basement floor, concrete bursting in waves of dust. Another floor shattered under his weight. By the second basement, his form dissolved into a torrent of water, slipping into a puddle and escaping the roots' grip.
But Shi Yang followed like a meteor, fire trailing. His arm stretched wide, palm blazing. "Blazing Koi Palm Strike!!!"
The flaming koi flared, its maw opening wide around his arm, a roaring inferno pouring down. The underground lit up in molten brilliance, every shadow banished by fire.
"Die!!!" the terrorist leader bellowed, his form surging upward, reforming into a colossal water dragon. Steam and flame clashed in the airless basement as dragon jaws snapped toward Shi Yang.
—
The Blazing Koi roared, its flaming jaws clamping down as Shi Yang's palm strike descended. The terrorist leader answered in kind, his body swelling into a colossal dragon of liquid force, jaws of churning water snapping upward.
BOOM!
Fire met flood. The explosion shook the underground, shockwaves ripping through concrete pillars and tearing pipes apart. Steam blasted outward in suffocating torrents, filling the basement in a storm of heat and hiss.
Shi Yang pressed forward, his muscles straining, flames bursting from every pore. Yet the water dragon refused to yield, its body wrapping around him, smothering his fire in suffocating waves.
Hsss—!! The flames guttered. For an instant, Shi Yang vanished inside the crushing torrent.
The hostages above screamed as the mall quaked, sections of the atrium collapsing into the basement below.
"Blazing… Koi… Palm… STRIKE!!!"
The cry tore out of Shi Yang's lungs, and the flames erupted—not just from his arm, but from his entire being. The koi of fire swimming as the yang symbol behind him shattered into streams of light, circling his body, spiraling tighter and tighter until—
Enlightenment bloomed.
His consciousness cracked open. He felt it—the true nature of fire, not only to burn, but to transform, to refine. His Dao stirred violently, and the koi split apart and reformed—scales flashing, fins unfurling—until a massive flaming dragon coiled around his body.
Shi Yang himself was no longer just a man. His limbs elongated, his frame cloaked in searing scales of flame, wings of fire beating as the dragon's roar echoed from his throat.
The water dragon thrashed in answer, its body stretching upward through the ruins of the basement. Their roars collided, vibrating through the shattered mall like a storm caught in a cage.
"COME!" Shi Yang bellowed, his voice layered with the dragon's cry, eyes burning like molten gold.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The flaming dragon coiled and clashed against its watery counterpart. Every strike tore holes in the walls, melted steel beams, and shattered stone into rubble. Water flooded through broken pipes, only to be boiled into steam the instant it touched Shi Yang's flames.
Then, with a final crash, their struggle burst upward.
Concrete split apart, rebar twisted, glass shattered.
The mall's roof exploded open in a thunderclap of fire and flood.
Two dragons tore into the sky—one blazing with molten fury, the other thrashing with rolling tides. The city skyline lit up, skyscraper windows reflecting the war of elements above.
Hostages and police alike gazed upward, frozen in awe and terror.
The flaming dragon's roar shook the heavens as Shi Yang soared higher, wings of flame beating against the night. His body thrummed with new understanding—his Dao advancing, reshaping, becoming something more.
And the water dragon lunged in answer, jaws wide, the clash between them promising to shatter the skies themselves.
The two dragons clashed above the ruined mall, tearing into the night sky. Fire churned against flood, but as their struggle carried them higher, the battlefield itself shifted.
The water dragon burst into the storm clouds overhead. Rain fell in heavy sheets, and the dragon drank it in greedily. Its coils swelled, its body expanding with every surge of moisture. And then—
CRRRRRK! BOOOOOM!
Lightning streaked down from the heavens, striking directly into the watery beast. Instead of dispersing, the bolts raced through its body, fusing with the tide. Its scales shimmered with electric veins, eyes flashing with thunder.
"Not good…" Shi Yang hissed, his flaming wings beating hard as the storm answered his foe.
The terrorist leader laughed within the dragon's throat, his voice booming across the skyline:
"Do you see, little cultivator? The heavens themselves feed me! Your flames will be drowned!"
The storm answered him. Bolts fell like whips, arcing downward into the city.
KA-BOOOOM!
One skyscraper's glass facade shattered as lightning speared it, windows cascading in molten shards to the streets below. Cars exploded, alarms screamed, and people fled like ants beneath a collapsing anthill.
"Mommy, the sky's—!" A child cried as his mother dragged him from the wreckage.
Cameras lifted. Phones recorded. The entire city stared upward in shock as twin dragons blazed against the clouds, one of water and storm, the other of roaring flame.
"Someone call the military!"
"What is happening? How can there be two mythical dragons fighting here?"
"Gods above, the city's doomed…"
The water dragon whipped around, its body lashing through the skyline. Lightning erupted from its jaws, scything down buildings, frying entire blocks of street lamps, and leaving charred scars across the cityscape.
Shi Yang roared back, fire wings igniting brighter than ever. But the rain hammered his flames, forcing them to hiss and sputter. His body trembled under the suffocating deluge.
Too much water… My fire will be snuffed out.
And then—insight struck.
He spread his arms wide, the flaming dragon opening its mouth in tandem. Instead of resisting the storm, he inhaled it. Heat—the lightning's burning edge, the friction of raindrops evaporating—Shi Yang drank it all in.
Hssssshhhh—!!
Steam burst from his skin as his Dao shifted. His flames no longer shrank from the storm but absorbed its fury. Each bolt of lightning that struck him became fuel, his fire roaring higher. His scales blazed molten white around his neck and joints, every vein carrying rivers of flame.
"Your thunder… only feeds me." His voice was calm, yet carried a dreadful resonance, layered with a dragon's roar.
The fiery dragon's body elongated, swelling greater than before, its wings now volcanic in heat. Every beat of those wings sent waves of heat crashing downward, boiling raindrops into scalding fog before they touched the ground.
The water dragon reeled as its lightning no longer crippled Shi Yang but strengthened him.
The terrorist leader snarled, rage cracking through his composure. "IMPOSSIBLE!"
The fiery dragon lunged, maw of molten flame opening wide. "Blazing Koi… Dragon IMPACT!"
BOOOOOOM!
The night sky lit up like dawn, storm and inferno clashing in a cataclysm that cast long shadows across the trembling city.
Shi Yang's flames surged against the water dragon's body, boiling its form as it struggled to defend and reform.
"Curse you!!!" the leader's voice tore out, ragged and furious, as fire seared through his watery flesh. His draconic body writhed, shrieking, scales dissolving in the blaze until it crumbled away into vapor.
The storm raged louder, thunder splitting the heavens as if mourning the dragon's fall.
"AHHHHHHH—!!!" the leader's scream reverberated across the city, only to be drowned out by Shi Yang's roar. The flame dragon's bellow ignited the night sky, swallowing the last of that cry until silence fell.
Shi Yang clenched his jaws, the final wave of heat rolling from his body like a sigh. Slowly, he inhaled, drawing in the remnants of fire and lightning. His blazing eyes turned downward to the city below.
Tens of thousands stared up, breathless. Phones rose, recording his vast, majestic body. The halo behind him spun—an incomplete Yin-Yang of flame and water, yet only a single water koi swam. Its form shifted strangely: bone pressing outward, two horned bumps rising from its skull.
Shi Yang's breath hitched. So this is the Foundation Realm's true power…
He felt it—potential, choice. If he willed it, he could merge with the koi, let the water dragon take form, and abandon flame. Yet instead, he guided it into the fire.
The koi hissed as it touched the inferno, steam hissing from its scales. Fire consumed water, yet water cooled flame, and in that violent contradiction—
BOOM.
The two fused.
Shi Yang's body warped, scales glowing like molten sapphire, and veins burning with twin rivers of red and blue. Steam poured from his wings as they unfurled—vast and thunderous—half flame, half flood. His maw glowed with firelight yet dripped with the weight of crushing oceans.
The fusion dragon roared.
The city quaked. Civilians screamed and gasped all at once, awe and terror mingling in their throats. Police officers, dragging hostages from the mall's shattered atrium, froze where they stood, staring skyward at the godlike beast.
"By the heavens…" one officer whispered. "What… what is that?"
Above, the whirl of rotor blades cut through the storm. A news helicopter fought the winds, lights cutting through the smoke and rain. Inside, a female reporter leaned dangerously close to the open side, mic in hand, her hair whipping violently.
"This is Channel 9 reporting live!" Her voice rang clear despite the chaos. "What you're seeing right now—viewers, I promise you, this is not special effects. A flaming dragon has emerged in the skies above Central Mall after a clash with what witnesses describe as a terrorist wielding water and lightning!"
The camera zoomed in, capturing every line of his colossal form, flames hissing with water, steam pouring like storm clouds from his wings.
The reporter's eyes widened, but she didn't flinch. "Just like the live stream a week ago, I believe we are truly witnessing… something beyond human."
The dragon roared again, the sound shattering the storm, echoing across every rooftop, every street, and straight through the city's trembling heart.