Chapter 687: Shadow Fox Lady's Emotions Fluctuated Greatly! A Day Trip to Heaven and Hell!
Boom!
The sound was not merely a noise; it was a physical blow to the world itself.
The Heavenly Thunder crashed down again, a pillar of blinding violet radiance that connected the heavens to the earth.
Shadow Fox Lady stood at the epicenter, her silhouette flickering like a candle in a hurricane. With a guttural roar, she opened her mouth—a void of darkness forming within—and swallowed the lightning whole.
As the energy coursed through her meridians, her expression twisted. It was a bizarre mix of ecstasy and bewilderment.
"Why... is there still more?"
She panted heavily, steam rising from her skin. This was already the thirtieth bolt of Heavenly Thunder.
By all logic, it should have stopped long ago. Heavenly Tribulations were tests, not executions—usually. If it were any other powerhouse in this world, even the Demon Emperors of the Fox Clans, they would have been reduced to ash by the tenth strike.
If she didn't possess this unique, heaven-defying ability to devour energy, she wouldn't have withstood even half of this barrage.
But she had survived. And not only had she survived, she had thrived.
A surge of raw power flooded her veins. The pain of the impact was quickly replaced by the intoxicating rush of growth. The Shadow Fox Lady's worry was instantly washed away by a wave of pure, unadulterated excitement.
She could feel it. Her cultivation base was rising. Her demonic energy was condensing, becoming purer, denser.
"Hah... Hahaha!" She laughed, wiping a streak of energized blood from her lip. "It's good! It's good to get stronger! Come on! Keep feeding me!"
High above, floating casually amidst the roiling thunderclouds, Ren looked down with a serene expression.
"Keep eating," Ren whispered, a small, amused smile playing on his lips. "Don't waste a single drop."
Just as he spoke, the invisible screen before his eyes chimed with a series of notifications.
[System: Ding! Detected that the Doomsday Factor in the world of group member Tushan Honghong has escalated!]
[System: The Doomsday Level has changed!]
[System: Ding! Abnormal Doomsday Level has been adjusted from 5-Star to 6-Star!]
[System: Warning! Doomsday Companion cannot be changed during the active period. However, Doomsday Companion personnel can choose to withdraw and re-derive the mission parameters.]
[System: Ding! Special Clause Activated: If Doomsday Companion personnel forcibly resolve this escalated Doomsday, the doomsday points reward will be increased to 10 times the base value of the new level!]
Ren's smile widened slightly. The gamble was paying off.
Meanwhile, the Chat Group was exploding with activity. The live stream of the event was being broadcasted to all members, and the realization of Ren's plan was starting to dawn on them.
[Tatsumaki: Hiss! I saw that! I saw that evil smile on Ren's face! He's definitely plotting something nasty.]
[Mikoto Suoh: This... looking at the escalating energy readings... this should be the Administrator's objective from the start.]
[Aqua: Ah? What objective? Wasn't this just a mukbang performance? I saw that Shadow Fox Lady eating quite happily! She looks like she's enjoying a buffet! Hahaha, eating_melon.JPG.]
[March 7th: Ugh, people often say I'm stupid and oblivious, but even I can tell something is wrong here. Now I feel a bit confident in my deduction skills!]
[Stelle: I understand too. Ren-kun is cultivating a prey, right? Like farming enemies in the Simulated Universe to get maximum blessings before the boss fight.]
[Tsunade: You are indeed very bad, Ren. Giving her hope just to crush it later?]
[Kushina: I love it, anyway! It's thrilling!]
[Esdeath: Heh heh, he is indeed the person I fancy. To think he'd use such a method... It's not just about killing the enemy; it's about squeezing every last drop of value from them before discarding the husk. Magnificent.]
[Silver Wolf: Isn't this just standard RPG mechanics? You don't kill the mob until it evolves into an elite for better loot drop rates. It's basically raising pigs.]
[Bronya: ...Although the description is peculiar and slightly disturbing, it somehow fits the facts perfectly.]
While the veterans of the group discussed strategy and loot drops, one member was visibly confused.
[Misaka Mikoto: ...Wait, what are you all talking about? What is Doomsday escalation? Raise pigs?]
[Misaki Shokuhou: Thumbs up sticker]
[Misaki Shokuhou: Oh my, I was just about to ask that. Great minds think alike, or perhaps fools seldom differ?]
[Tokisaki Kurumi: Ara ara, Tsk tsk. Little Railgun, Doomsday escalation means the enemy has become stronger due to external stimuli. But, the System rewards for resolving a higher-level crisis are significantly higher. High risk, high return.]
[Misaki Shokuhou: I see. No wonder Silver Wolf called it raising pigs. Feed the pig until it's fat, then slaughter it for more meat.]
[Tingyun: Simply put, Benefactor sent down thunder not to kill her immediately, but to allow that Shadow Fox Lady to devour it and grow stronger. He is nurturing her power, waiting until she reaches the peak value before harvesting.]
[Misaka Mikoto: Huh?!]
Standing on the floating platform next to Ren, Misaka Mikoto's eyes went wide as she read the chat log.
"Those continuous lightning strikes... were intentionally caused by him?!"
She had been watching in a daze, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the electrical discharge. As a Level 5 Electromaster, she was sensitive to electromagnetic fields. The static in the air right now was enough to fry a normal person's nervous system, yet Ren stood there calmly.
Stunned, Mikoto instinctively reached out and grabbed Ren's collar, shaking him slightly.
"Ren! What are you thinking?!" she questioned, her voice cracking with anxiety. "If the enemy becomes stronger, won't it be even harder to defeat them? That thing down there is already monster-class! If she gets any stronger..."
"Are you aiding the enemy? Are you crazy?!"
Ren didn't dodge. He simply looked down at the girl clutching his shirt, her brown eyes trembling with genuine concern.
"..."
Ren sighed, his expression one of playful speechlessness. "Biribiri, are you an idiot?"
"Huh?" Mikoto blinked, taken aback by the sudden insult.
"Do you think," Ren said slowly, pointing a finger towards the sky where the thunderclouds swirled like a galactic vortex, "if I have the power to create those lightning strikes and feed her... that I'm not strong enough to crush her whenever I want?"
"Uh..."
Mikoto froze.
The realization hit her like a physical slap.
She looked at the sky. The clouds were not natural. They were summoned. They moved according to his will. The lightning that was terrorizing the world below was just... birdseed he was tossing into a cage.
Those lightning strikes were created by him.
So Ren was really... that strong?
She had completely overthought it. She had applied her own logic—where battles were desperate struggles for survival—to a being who viewed this as a farming simulator.
Her face flushed a deep crimson. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she released her grip on his collar. She smoothed the fabric down with trembling hands, awkwardly averting her gaze.
"I... I see. Ahem." She rubbed her hands together, sparks of blue electricity jumping nervously between her fingers. "Please... continue."
Ren chuckled and turned his attention back to the ground.
Below, the feast continued.
Boom!
The sixtieth bolt fell.
When Shadow Fox Lady swallowed the sixtieth bolt of Heavenly Thunder, her excitement began to wane, replaced by a strange calmness.
It was the calmness of saturation.
She felt invincible. The power coursing through her was intoxicating, yes, but she also felt... full.
A slight bloating sensation pressed against her diaphragm.
And the key issue was that each subsequent bolt of Heavenly Thunder wasn't just repeating the previous power level. They were scaling up.
The sixty-first bolt was heavier than the sixtieth. The sixty-second was sharper.
[System: Ding! Doomsday escalated!]
[System: Abnormal Doomsday Level adjusted from 6-Star to 7-Star!]
The air grew heavier. Gravity seemed to warp around the Shadow Fox Lady.
When she swallowed the hundredth bolt of Heavenly Thunder, the calmness vanished.
It was replaced by solemnity. A cold drop of sweat trickled down her forehead, instantly evaporating from the heat of her skin.
She truly felt that she was getting too full. Her energy meridians were stretched to their limit, vibrating like guitar strings about to snap.
Rumble...
But the sky showed no mercy. The thunderclouds churned, glowing with an ominous purple light.
The Heavenly Thunder continued to fall.
Crack!
"Guh..."
She gritted her teeth, forcing her jaw open. She had no choice. She couldn't dodge; the lightning was locked onto her aura. She could only brace herself and continue to swallow.
One hundred and ten.
One hundred and thirty.
When she swallowed the one hundred and fiftieth bolt of Heavenly Thunder, the Shadow Fox Lady no longer possessed even a shred of her previous composure.
She looked monstrous.
Her entire body had swelled several times in size, her silhouette distended and pulsating with unstable light. Her elegant dark robes were shredded, revealing skin that was covered in dense, intricate lightning patterns—tattoos of pure destruction carved by the energy she couldn't fully assimilate.
Her hair was disheveled, floating wildly around her as static electricity arced from her scalp.
Zzzzt! Crackle!
Thunder crackled and surged around her body, forming a cocoon of violent energy.
She had swallowed to the point where she could no longer digest the power. It was backing up. It was leaking out.
If she continued, she wouldn't need Ren to kill her. She would undergo spontaneous combustion. She would be annihilated by the very energy she sought to control.
In the corner of the Shadow Fox Lady's eye, she saw the sky flash again. The thunderclouds were still rolling. They looked infinite.
Her eyes instantly widened with fury and genuine terror.
She roared at the sky, her voice distorted by the energy leaking from her throat.
"Damn heavens! Why?! Why hasn't the Heavenly Thunder ended yet?!"
"I've passed the tribulation! I've proven my strength! Why are you targeting me like this?!"
[System: Ding! Doomsday escalated!]
[System: Abnormal Doomsday Level adjusted from 7-Star to 8-Star!]
The notification rang out only for Ren, but the effect was felt by everyone.
The Shadow Fox Lady's power increased once again, forcibly pushed to a new realm by the sheer density of energy inside her.
She felt a barrier shatter within her soul.
Shadow Fox Lady felt that she already possessed power that surpassed the world itself. The laws of this planet could no longer bind her.
Her eyes lit up with a brilliant, desperate gleam.
"I... I can leave."
The realization was like a lifeline.
"I have surpassed this dimension! I can go beyond this world! I can escape!!!"
She didn't hesitate.
With a sonic boom that shattered the surrounding mountains, she launched herself upward.
She didn't run across the land. She ran straight up.
She pierced through the atmosphere, a streak of black and purple light tearing through the clouds.
The air thinned. The blue sky turned to the black void of space.
She broke through the exosphere. Silence engulfed her.
"Hahahaha! Hahahaha!"
Floating in the vacuum of space, looking down at the blue marble of the planet, the Shadow Fox Lady laughed wildly. Her laughter made no sound in the vacuum, but her mental projection screamed with relief and arrogance.
"I knew it! That was just the Heavenly Thunder of that world! It is bound by the planet's laws! How could it restrict me here, in the endless void?!"
"I am free! I am a god—"
Rumble!
The sound of thunder echoed.
In the vacuum of space.
Where sound should not exist.
The Shadow Fox Lady's laughter cut off abruptly, as if she had been choked.
Her pupils constricted to pinpoints. Slowly, terrified, she looked up steadily.
Even in the depths of outer space...
Thunderclouds still appeared above her head.
They were not atmospheric clouds. They were nebulas of cosmic energy, swirling with a judgment that transcended physics. They had followed her.
Or rather, they had never left her.
"No..."
Crack!!!
Just then, the universe seemed to split open.
A powerful bolt of lightning, thicker than any before, struck straight down. It was strong enough to crack the fabric of the universe itself. It didn't look like electricity anymore; it looked like a tear in reality, a jagged line of white deletion.
"Why..."
Despairing, the Shadow Fox Lady had only this one question left in her mind.
Why?
I have already transcended beyond the world. I have left the planet. Why can I still not break free from the Heavenly Thunder's lock?
She didn't understand. The one controlling the thunder was not the planet's will. It was Ren. And Ren's reach was not limited by something as trivial as an atmosphere.
The next moment, her vision went white.
Her body was completely enveloped by the Heavenly Thunder.
This time, she couldn't swallow it. Her mouth wouldn't open. Her core was already full.
Her body, bloated with the power of 150 previous strikes, finally reached its critical mass.
It couldn't hold on.
BOOM!
She exploded.
It was a supernova on a miniature scale. She had reached a power level equivalent to a 1-versus-8 confrontation, and the undigested energy within her was sufficiently powerful to wipe out a moon.
The destruction caused by the explosion was immeasurable. Ripples of energy distorted the starlight in the background.
Fortunately, Ren was already there.
He stepped out of a spatial rift, standing calmly in the vacuum without a spacesuit, his hair floating gently.
He looked at the expanding sphere of destruction.
He casually waved his hand.
Whoosh.
Like wiping dust off a table, invisible forces clamped down on the explosion. The energy that could have destroyed satellites and impacted the planet below was simply... erased. Compressed into nothingness.
"Alas," Ren's voice was transmitted directly to the minds of the viewers. "It seems this mukbang ends here. She popped."
He sighed and shook his head with mock disappointment. "What a pity. I thought she could eat a few more."
Ren turned around, stepping through space to return to the surface, back to Tushan Honghong and the others.
Back on the ground.
Misaka Mikoto remained stunned, staring at the empty sky where a new "star" had briefly flared and vanished.
She was lost in bewildered confusion.
She had seen it in the live broadcast. The camera angle had shifted to follow the Fox Lady.
Was that power... capable of making the starry sky tremble... truly something a human could wield?
She looked at her own hands, at the tiny sparks of electricity jumping between her fingers. They looked so pathetic now.
[System: Ding! Detected that the Doomsday Factor in Tushan Honghong's world has been eliminated by group member Ren!]
[System: The devoured energy has dissipated. The Doomsday threat has ended!]
[System: Calculation complete...]
[System: Ding! Ren gained 1 Billion doomsday points!]
[System: Tushan Honghong and Misaka Mikoto gained 10 Million doomsday points for participation!]
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