NovelPantheon

Lei Chen

Dark Mountain hunter and BerserkerAbyss Builder heir and vessel of the Seed of Life ExterminationDark Mountain Tribe

Lei Chen is Su Ming's closest childhood friend and the biological son whom Su Xuan Yi prepares as the future leader of the Abyss Builders. His life begins with uncomplicated loyalty in Dark Mountain, but later revelations place his body and soul at the center of a plan involving the Seed of Life Extermination, Old Man Extermination, and the survival of his race. The contrast between the boy who promises to protect his friend and the exhausted will who ultimately chooses an imagined home makes him one of the novel's clearest casualties of inherited schemes.

Biography

Dark Mountain and the Berserker awakening

Lei Chen grows up in Dark Mountain Tribe as a sturdy, rough-skinned youth whose open expression and silly laugh match his direct manner. He is already one of Su Ming's few friends when the story begins. His loyalty is practical rather than rhetorical: after hearing that Su Ming needs Sable Deer blood for medicine, he chases one and returns late so that he can bring the blood to him. He also hunts with the tribe's adults, giving him a responsibility within the community before most boys of his age. (Chapters 3–5)

He possesses a Berserker Body from the enlightenment rite he underwent at seven. By Chapter 5 he is at the fourth level of Blood Condensation with twenty-three blood veins, enough to join the tribe's main hunting team. Yet cultivation does not replace his attachment to ordinary tribal life. He tells Su Ming that he wants to become Dark Mountain's Grandpa one day and promises that he will always protect him; Su Ming, in turn, gives him Heavenly Rock Grass. On their journey to the Wind Stream marketplace, the two share watch duties and cultivation time, presenting their friendship as cooperation between equals rather than dependence by either boy. (Chapters 5–21)

That aspiration is broken by the attack on Dark Mountain. Lei Chen fights during the tribe's desperate migration, suffers wounds, and grows numb with grief as the people around him die. The elder's sacrifice and the intervention of stronger companions allow the survivors to keep moving, but Lei Chen is later pushed close to death by an enemy beyond his level until Su Ming intervenes. His limitations are decisive: courage and an awakened Berserker Body make him useful, but neither can preserve the childhood future he imagined for himself. (Chapters 79–99)

After Dark Mountain falls, Su Ming's encounters with Lei Chen become entangled with illusion. A figure wearing Lei Chen's form attacks during the trial on the Chains of Han Mountain, only to halt when Su Ming calls his name. The scene confirms the emotional force of Lei Chen's memory but not the real boy's later whereabouts or agency. Later revelations therefore make the early uncertainty more painful: Lei Chen has not simply vanished from the narrative, but has been taken into a design far beyond the tribe. (Chapter 183; Chapters 1364–1371)

The Shamans and the World of Nine Yin

During Su Ming's travels among the Shamans, Lei Chen persists principally as a wound in memory. The vision on the Chains returns alongside the words about death and burial, making Su Ming question whether the people of Dark Mountain were ever real. When another false Dark Mountain is offered as a three-day encounter with fate, Su Ming knows that its inhabitants are fabrications, yet spends his final day laughing and play-fighting with the Lei Chen before him. The choice shows what their friendship represents to Su Ming: not merely a person to recover, but the ordinary youth he can no longer inhabit. (Chapters 497–527)

Lei Chen himself does not make a confirmed present-day appearance in this phase. The false elder and reconstructed tribe instead use his familiar face to test whether Su Ming will abandon his past, and Su Ming refuses to settle the question by killing those images. His later grief over whether Lei Chen, Bei Ling, Wu La, and the others were real makes the consequence explicit—uncertainty about Lei Chen becomes part of the bond that prevents Su Ming from treating Dark Mountain as disposable. (Chapters 527–583)

Divine Essence and Ecang

In Divine Essence Star Ocean, a voice calling itself Lei Chen reaches Su Ming during an assault of familiar voices and asks whether they should go gather herbs. It is another intrusive manifestation rather than evidence that the real Lei Chen is present. Its phrasing deliberately returns to their simplest shared routine, demonstrating how easily an enemy or illusion can use Lei Chen to reach Su Ming beneath his cultivated composure. (Chapter 867)

The episode does not advance Lei Chen's own cultivation or disclose his location. Instead, it preserves the gulf between the living person and the image Su Ming carries: while Su Ming rises through the Ecang conflict, his best friend remains fixed in memory as the boy from Dark Mountain. That unresolved absence motivates Su Ming's later hope that he may find traces of Lei Chen after returning to True Morning Dao World. (Chapter 867; Chapter 1049)

The Fifth Furnace and Morning Dao

When Su Ming returns, he expects True Morning Dao Sect to contain some trace of the friend he has not found for nearly two thousand years. He also cites Lei Chen's childhood conduct when confronting Su Xuan Yi: whenever other children mocked Su Ming for having no parents, Lei Chen fought them for him. That memory sharpens the contrast between a boy who gave immediate protection without calculation and the supposed father who watched from afar while arranging Su Ming's life. (Chapters 1049, 1097–1098)

The Heavenly Incense vision later presents Lei Chen as a baby torn apart in a battlefield, his expression mingling anguish, regret, and relief. This is a false perception, not a confirmed death or a real appearance, and it cannot establish his condition. The image nevertheless anticipates the truth that his childhood curse, body, and apparent helplessness are connected to Su Xuan Yi's long plan. (Chapters 1173–1174; Chapters 1371–1372)

By the end of the aeon, Lei Chen is physically beneath the fifth kiln while Su Xuan Yi refines him with fire and seals. Su Xuan Yi openly identifies him as his son and the intended future leader of the Abyss Builders, but his paternal pride is inseparable from instrumental use: he has prepared Lei Chen as a “drum” through which he can seize a portion of Old Man Extermination. The father's aim is racial survival and supremacy, while the son's consent is never shown. (Chapters 1364, 1368)

The mechanism reaches completion when Lei Chen is seated in the palace of the fourth True World, covered with black needles and crying as his body withers. His cultivation, will, soul, and bloodline are drawn through Su Xuan Yi, who uses his own body as the medium linking him to Extermination. What had seemed to be a fatal curse in infancy is revealed as fusion with the Seed of Life Extermination. Su Xuan Yi once extracted the Seed from Lei Chen in the Yin Death Vortex, passed it through Su Ming and Yu Xuan so it could change, and finally returned it to his actual son. (Chapters 1371–1372)

Ancient Zang and the final truth

Because the Seed and Old Man Extermination share the same origin, Lei Chen cannot simply be erased when their Dao Divinities fuse. Extermination's attempt to Possess him becomes, in effect, an act of Possessing himself, forcing the two wills to coexist. Lei Chen enters that union filled with hatred after his father and mother are destroyed, while Extermination promises that he will eventually pull the younger will out and make him despair. Their two-headed Nascent Divinity is later extracted and absorbed by Xuan Zang, carrying Lei Chen into the reality revealed as Ancient Zang. (Chapters 1371–1375)

In Ancient Zang, Lei Chen's presence is intertwined with Old Man Extermination and Lin Dong Dong in the eldest prince. The prince resembles a younger Extermination while also bearing Lei Chen's features, but their actions are not interchangeable: once the wills separate, Lin Dong Dong continues opposing Su Ming, whereas Lei Chen chooses another path. He creates or accepts a Dark Mountain that exists as the world in his eyes and waits there for four hundred years, surrounded by the tribe and family he has lost. (Chapters 1389, 1436, 1458–1459)

When Su Ming finds him, Lei Chen understands enough to know that this home is not shared reality. Empty wine pots seem full to him, yet he asks his brother to drink and explains that he is exhausted. Rather than continue through hatred, possession, and cosmic struggle, he deliberately chooses to “get lost” in the place that gives him his father, elder, and tribe back. Su Ming briefly enters his perception, shares the farewell, and respects the choice; Lei Chen's last wish is that his brother remain safe. (Chapters 1458–1459)

Lei Chen remains under Dark Mountain's lamps while changes outside his chosen world pass beyond his sight. Near the end he looks at the sky and laughs until tears come. When Su Ming's final act restores the Dark Mountain Tribe, every member is present except Su Ming and Lei Chen. The text therefore leaves Lei Chen outside the restored community and does not confirm a subsequent recovery, making his chosen illusion—not a formal victory or death—his latest source-grounded condition. (Chapters 1463, 1477, 1481)

Appearance and personality

As a youth, Lei Chen has rough skin and a broad, sturdy body nearly twice Su Ming's girth. His bright eyes and frequent silly laugh give him a guileless appearance, while the visible blood veins of his Berserker cultivation mark the strength beneath it. The Ancient Zang composite associated with him is very different: red-haired, with half his face covered and the exposed skin split by cracks, resembling a younger Old Man Extermination as much as Lei Chen himself. That later body is shared or composite evidence and should not be read as a simple adult portrait of the Dark Mountain boy. (Chapters 3, 21, 1389)

Lei Chen is loyal, talkative, and quick to act for people he regards as family. He hunts something Su Ming needs, fights children who mock him, and dreams of protecting the whole tribe as its elder. Suffering does not erase his affection, but it turns endurance into exhaustion. His hatred survives inside Extermination, yet in Ancient Zang he ultimately refuses an endless contest of wills and chooses a consoling false home with full awareness that he is losing himself. His laughter through tears captures both sides of him: the warm boy Su Ming remembers and the damaged survivor who can no longer accept reality's cost. (Chapters 3–21, 1097, 1372, 1458–1477)

Abilities and cultivation

Lei Chen's demonstrated powers come from three distinct sources: his early Berserker cultivation, his Abyss Builder bloodline, and the externally manipulated Seed of Life Extermination. The corpus does not show a complete formal advancement sequence between those states, so his later condition should not be treated as the natural endpoint of his fourth-level childhood cultivation.

Berserker Body and Blood Condensation

Lei Chen awakens a Berserker Body during his childhood rite and reaches the fourth level of Blood Condensation with twenty-three blood veins by Chapter 5. The veins provide the physical power expected of an active tribal hunter, and his build lets him take part in dangerous travel and combat. His representative uses are practical—hunting, keeping watch, and fighting during Dark Mountain's retreat—rather than named techniques. (Chapters 5–21, 79–99)

This is his only explicit early formal level. He is still vulnerable to wounds and to enemies above him, and nearly dies when facing a sixth-level opponent. No later passage traces the intermediate stages by which he acquired the cultivation Su Xuan Yi eventually extracts from him; that later reserve is established, but its realm and development are not. (Chapters 79–99, 1371)

Abyss Builder Possession

As Su Xuan Yi's biological son, Lei Chen inherits the Abyss Builders' ability to Possess other beings. The late revelation states that Lei Chen had Possessed portions of his father more than once, leaving part of Su Xuan Yi already belonging to him. This prior overlap makes Su Xuan Yi an effective medium for connecting his son's body and will to Old Man Extermination. The process demonstrates genuine bloodline capability, but the corpus does not show Lei Chen initiating a free-standing possession in combat or explain how much control he had during the earlier exchanges. (Chapters 1368–1371)

The ability's limit is starkly shown by the final target. Lei Chen cannot overpower Extermination through will alone; Su Xuan Yi must prepare both bodies, use himself as a bridge, and exploit the Seed's shared origin. Once the union forms, the result is coexistence inside a larger being, not Lei Chen's independent mastery of Extermination's full cultivation. (Chapters 1371–1375)

Seed-derived indestructibility and coexistence

The Seed of Life Extermination is an engineered, item-derived source of power rather than Lei Chen's innate cultivation. It is fused with him before or around birth, later extracted, changed through other hosts, and implanted back into him. Because it originates from Old Man Extermination, it makes Lei Chen sufficiently similar to Extermination that the older being cannot destroy his will during Possession. The practical effect is an “indestructible” second presence capable of persisting within the shared Dao Divinity. (Chapters 1371–1374)

That survival is conditional and costly. It depends on Su Xuan Yi's elaborate preparation and on fusion with the intended target; it does not make Lei Chen universally immortal or physically invulnerable. His body withers during the transfer, he loses independent embodiment, and Extermination remains strong enough to threaten eventual extraction. Xuan Zang can also remove and absorb their joined Nascent Divinity, demonstrating a clear external counter. By Ancient Zang, Lei Chen persists as one will in a composite existence, but chooses withdrawal rather than exercising Extermination's powers as his own. (Chapters 1371–1375, 1458–1459)

Perceptual refuge in Dark Mountain

Lei Chen's final Dark Mountain is a sustained world “in his eyes” where absent people and empty wine pots appear restored. The text presents it as a chosen state of being lost within Ancient Zang's layered reality, not as a named cultivation art or a demonstrated combat domain. It can admit Su Ming's perception briefly, allowing the brothers to share a farewell, but it prevents Lei Chen from seeing changes that affect the outside world. Its comfort is therefore also its limitation: maintaining the refuge costs him engagement with reality and leaves his ultimate condition unresolved. (Chapters 1458–1463)

Relationships

  • Su Ming: Lei Chen is Su Ming's closest childhood friend, defender, and chosen brother. Their bond survives separation, false worlds, and competing identities; Su Ming ultimately respects Lei Chen's decision to remain in an imagined Dark Mountain.
  • Su Xuan Yi: Su Xuan Yi is Lei Chen's biological father and intends him to lead the Abyss Builders. His pride and love are compromised by his willingness to refine his son, use his body as a “drum,” and force him into the Possession of Old Man Extermination.
  • Old Man Extermination: Extermination originally selected Lei Chen and later shares a body and Dao Divinity with him. The Seed prevents Extermination from erasing Lei Chen, turning their relationship into hostile coexistence.
  • Mo Sang: As Dark Mountain's elder, Mo Sang embodies the tribal home and protective role Lei Chen once hoped to inherit. Lei Chen includes the elder in the refuge he chooses at the end.
  • Yu Xuan: They do not develop a direct personal bond in the supplied corpus, but Su Xuan Yi temporarily uses Yu Xuan in the process that alters the Seed before returning it to Lei Chen.

Items

  • Seed of Life Extermination: Fused into Lei Chen by Su Xuan Yi, later removed and reimplanted after passing through other hosts. Its shared origin with Old Man Extermination allows Lei Chen's will to survive their forced union.
  • Fifth kiln: Lei Chen does not own or wield the kiln. Su Xuan Yi uses its fire and seals to refine him in preparation for the possession plan.
  • Rattling drum: Su Xuan Yi fashions Lei Chen into the counterpart of a ritual “drum” within his scheme. It represents his role as the intended vessel and medium, not ordinary equipment carried by Lei Chen.