The surroundings fell into dead silence, with only the silent, surging water ripples churning.
The Dragon Lord suddenly turned its head, its gaze like a torch, landing directly on White Mirage. Within those enormous eyes, a flicker of scrutinizing assessment flashed by.
“The aura on you… it gives me a feeling of disgust. You’re from that bizarre sect again.”
Being glared at by the Dragon Lord like that, White Mirage suddenly felt an inexplicable pressure crashing down on him, as though the entire riverbed’s currents had frozen solid in that instant.
The Dragon Lord’s pressure was as heavy as a mountain, pressing directly on White Mirage’s Divine Mansion, causing it to stall.
The speed at which White Mirage’s spiritual sense operated abruptly slowed, and even breathing became difficult.
At the same time, the primordial spirit within White Mirage’s Divine Mansion trembled slightly, as though gripped tightly by an invisible force, making even his thoughts sluggish.
Under the influence of the Dragon Lord’s immense pressure, White Mirage’s face instantly turned pale. Fine beads of cold sweat seeped from his temples, sliding down his cheeks and merging into the surrounding currents.
White Mirage’s heart tightened. He hurriedly suppressed the alarm and trembling in his heart and, with extreme reverence, bowed deeply to the Dragon Lord.
Then, White Mirage’s voice slightly trembling yet doing his utmost to remain steady, he quickly stated his purpose for coming: “Lord Dragon, I am a member of the Pure World White Lotus Sect.”
“I have come this time with absolutely no ill intent.”
Having said that, White Mirage paused, took a deep breath, and continued.
“To be honest, I was ordered by the Supreme Grand Elder of our sect to come specifically to free you, Lord Dragon. I beg you to see my sincerity!”
After White Mirage finished speaking, the Dragon Lord’s gaze remained icy cold, as though looking at an insignificant ant.
Its head tilted slightly forward, its scales gleaming with a cold luster in the dark water.
“The Pure World White Lotus Sect?”
The Dragon Lord mused inwardly for a moment, staring intently at White Mirage before it.
The aura radiating from this person was exactly the same as the martial cultivators of the Pure Ultimate Holy Sect from the Boundary Realm.
However, after a brief moment of thought, the Dragon Lord did not voice the doubt in its heart.
After all, to it, the authenticity of a human sect was not the point.
As long as they could help it break free from the damn seal set by that human—Xia Ritian.
The Dragon Lord couldn’t care less where this White Mirage before it actually came from. Thinking this, the Dragon Lord slowly withdrew the piercing coldness from its eyes.
The powerful pressure that had inadvertently leaked from its body also quietly receded.
With the Dragon Lord’s terrifying, bone-chilling pressure gone—
White Mirage, a Primordial Spirit True Person at the advanced stage of the Divine Mansion realm, suddenly felt as though a crushing weight of ten thousand jun had been lifted from his entire body. An unprecedented sense of relief washed over him.
“What terrifying power!”
White Mirage couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly. Recalling that pressure that had nearly suffocated him moments ago, he still felt lingering fear.
This Dragon Lord was not only sealed by the power left behind by Emperor Tianqi, but was also suppressed by that mysterious Nine-Veined Moon-tier artifact, the Dark Bird Heaven Lock.
Yet even in such a desperate predicament, it could still release such powerful pressure—truly unbelievable.
“Could it be…”
A bold guess suddenly surged in White Mirage’s heart, and his heartbeat began to race uncontrollably.
“Could this Dragon Lord before me… be a supreme existence at the Cave Void realm?”
This thought took root and grew wildly in White Mirage’s mind, plunging his entire being into extreme excitement and tension.
If it was truly as he suspected, then White Mirage would have no regrets in this life!
You see, a supreme existence at the Cave Void realm—that was a mythical realm that existed only in the vast, sweeping history of the Great Xia Dynasty.
It was a martial realm that countless martial cultivators could never reach in their entire lives.
Now, this legendary Cave Void True Lord was right before his very eyes—how could White Mirage not feel his heart surge with excitement?
The golden giant lion at the side had ignored White Mirage from beginning to end, focusing entirely on condensing its primordial spirit power.
As time quietly passed, the golden giant lion’s primordial spirit phantom grew dimmer and its form gradually began to shrink.
Only at this moment did White Mirage snap awake, suddenly turning his head to look in the direction of Lord Lion.
What met his eyes was Lord Lion’s massive primordial spirit phantom, which had already transformed into a fist-sized golden rainbow light—dazzling and brilliant.
At the center of this golden rainbow light, a mysterious black drop of blood was wrapped within.
That black drop of blood was as deep as an endless abyss—dark, serene, and pure beyond compare, without a trace of impurity.
“Dragon Lord, this is a drop of essence blood from Ancestor Feather Emperor.”
Lord Lion’s wisp of primordial spirit power had never intended to return to its main body from the moment it entered the Great Xia Dynasty.
All of this scheming was solely to deliver this drop of Ancestor Feather Emperor’s essence blood safely into the Dragon Lord’s hands.
In an instant, that fist-sized golden rainbow light erupted with a vast, majestic force.
This powerful force immediately blasted open layer after layer of surging water waves, forcibly carving out a vacuum channel through these waters.
Immediately after, the golden rainbow light, carrying an unstoppable momentum, shot precisely and swiftly toward the Dragon Lord’s location.
Wherever the golden rainbow light passed, only a fleeting golden afterimage was left behind.
Seeing this, the Dragon Lord’s thousand-zhang serpent body, which had just stabilized, suddenly quaked.
The ink-colored scales along its serpent body each projected eerie black radiance, radiating a heart-stopping chill.
Every ink-colored scale trembled slightly, like countless eyes secretly peering out—utterly terrifying.
At the same time, the nine chains bound tightly around the Dragon Lord’s body, which should have been heavy and stable—
Now, however, they were pulled taut by the Dragon Lord’s suddenly erupting power.
The nine black chains emitted continuous, harsh “creak, creak” sounds, as though they could snap at any moment.
The heavenly patterns on the Dark Bird Heaven Lock had originally been emitting only a faint glow.
However, under the Dragon Lord’s violent struggle, those heavenly patterns suddenly blazed bright.
It was as though an invisible force had been awakened.
Immediately after, the nine black chains erupted with dazzling light. All the chains rapidly tightened, suppressing the Dragon Lord’s massive body with deadly force.
The dark light from the nine black chains interwove into a single mass, forcing back the black radiance around the Dragon Lord, as though trying to completely seal away its power.
In this fierce confrontation, the nine black chains pressed tightly against the Dragon Lord’s scales, producing a metallic “clang, clang” of friction.
The Dragon Lord’s head suddenly whipped around, letting out a low, deep roar, its voice filled with extreme fury.
“Damn you, Xia Ritian! I will never let you go!”
Amid its rage, the Dragon Lord’s body did not give up resisting, constantly writhing violently, attempting to fight against the Dark Bird Heaven Lock.
But the power of the Dark Bird Heaven Lock was as immovable as the laws of heaven and earth.
The more the Dragon Lord struggled, the tighter the nine black chains constricted.
The next moment, the Dragon Lord’s head reared high, its eyes like two cold, eerie blood moons, radiating endless majesty and fury.
Its thousand-zhang serpent body gave a mighty thrash, and the nine black chains trembled violently along with it.
The currents at the riverbed were whipped into ceaseless chaos, as though the entire body of water was trembling before the Dragon Lord’s power.
“Little Gold, hurry and enter!”
Before the words even faded, the Dragon Lord’s thousand-zhang serpent body surged, instantly shooting out countless bone-chilling, icy lights.
The heavenly patterns on the nine black chains were frozen in an instant, then cracked apart one by one with a harsh shattering sound.
At the same time, endless black radiance, like a surging tide, madly burst forth from the Dragon Lord’s scales.
In the blink of an eye, it had dyed the surrounding clear waters into a deep, bottomless ink-black—sinister and eerie.
Under this terrifying power, even the rocks at the riverbed cracked under the Dragon Lord’s pressure, shattering into countless fragments that scattered with the currents.
The two powerful forces—the Dragon Lord and the Dark Bird Heaven Lock—collided, triggering a storm of monstrous waves.
Endless currents churned violently, as though stirred wildly by an invisible giant hand.
Rock fragments and sediment from the riverbed were swept high up, interweaving and mixing together, forming a scene of utter chaos—leaving one unable to discern direction or see clearly what was real and what was not.
What was astonishing was that the already-broken Dark Bird Heaven Lock, in just an instant—
All the chain fragments unexpectedly reassembled, then quickly merged back together.
In the span of a single breath, the Dark Bird Heaven Lock was restored to perfect condition, as though it had never suffered any damage at all.
At the very moment the Dark Bird Heaven Lock was restored, a golden rainbow light, at extreme speed, slammed into the outer black curtain.
This golden rainbow light was very small and inconspicuous, yet it headed straight toward the Dragon Lord’s direction.
The reason the Dragon Lord had just struggled with all its might against the Dark Bird Heaven Lock was precisely for this moment.
Lord Lion’s wisp of spiritual sense, containing only the power of a Primordial Spirit True Person, was far from enough to break through the Dark Bird Heaven Lock’s seal.
Therefore, the Dragon Lord had to first find a way to weaken the Dark Bird Heaven Lock’s power—
Then, working from both inside and outside, striking simultaneously—only then was it possible to create a flaw in the Dark Bird Heaven Lock’s seal.
White Mirage stood in the distance, witnessing all of this, his heart filled with immense shock.
Standing a thousand meters away, he could still clearly feel—
That even a trace of power escaping from the Dark Bird Heaven Lock actually made him experience a long-forgotten sensation of death.
White Mirage was pushed back again and again by the massive shockwave, his eyes full of horror.
He had never seen such terrifying power!
So this was the Nine-Veined Moon-tier artifact, the Dark Bird Heaven Lock?
No wonder even an existence like the Dragon Lord found it difficult to easily break free from the Dark Bird Heaven Lock’s bonds.
“Lord White Mirage, your sect previously swore up and down that you would lend us a hand,”
In the water, the massive green serpent coiled and undulated.
Now, with the Dragon Lord and Lord Lion at its side, the Blue King no longer had the timidity it had shown before White Mirage.
It suddenly raised its voice and spoke human words to White Mirage.
“Now is the most critical moment, Lord White Mirage. If you don’t act now, when will you?!”
Reminded by the Blue King, White Mirage instantly steadied himself without a word.
In that instant, White Mirage’s eyes blazed with a dazzling white light—so brilliant it was almost impossible to keep one’s eyes open.
At the same time, illusory, ethereal white lotuses materialized out of thin air, slowly emerging around his body.
These lotus petals were crystal-clear and translucent, their veins clearly visible, radiating a soft, holy light that stood in stark contrast to the eerie, dark atmosphere around them.
In White Mirage’s hand—at some point—his right hand was already steadily holding a flawless white pearl, about the size of an adult’s fist.
“The Pure Spirit Pearl!”
This was a sacrificial artifact personally bestowed upon him by the Supreme Grand Elder, Lord White Flame, when White Mirage broke through to the advanced stage of the Divine Mansion realm.
“Hmph!”
White Mirage stared intently ahead at the black curtain—seemingly thin yet hiding immense terror. His eyes suddenly narrowed as he let out a cold snort.
Immediately after, White Mirage’s aura instantly climbed to its peak.
Then, without hesitation, he madly poured his primordial spirit power into the Pure Spirit Pearl in his hand.
Instantly, an extremely piercing white light burst forth—so bright that it illuminated the entire dark riverbed as though it were broad daylight.
Then, from the Pure Spirit Pearl, a thick white pillar of light violently shot out.
Within the white pillar of light was contained a devastating, powerful force of heaven-and-earth origin energy.
Along the way, the surrounding currents were pulled and distorted by this force, emitting a deafening howl.
White Mirage, a Primordial Spirit True Person at the advanced stage of the Divine Mansion realm, with the enhancement of the Eight-Veined Moon-tier artifact, the Pure Spirit Pearl, actually unleashed a full-power strike comparable to the complete Divine Mansion realm.
That white pillar of light, carrying an unstoppable momentum, slammed fiercely into the black curtain.
An instant later, a deafening, muffled boom echoed endlessly at the riverbed.
A powerful, mountain-toppling water shockwave, centered on the point of impact, wildly震荡ed outward in all directions.
At that very moment, at the center of the explosion where the white pillar of light and the black curtain collided—
Under the clash of two powerful heaven-and-earth energies, a vacuum zone was forcibly created.
The endless currents around were seemingly isolated by an invisible force—a scene of utter shock.
The Dragon Lord’s world-destroying power, Lord Lion’s condensed primordial spirit power, plus White Mirage’s all-out strike—
Three forces merged together, simultaneously striking the same point on the black curtain.
At that very moment, a faint, barely audible cracking sound slowly rang out: “Crack!”
The sound was extremely faint, but every existence present had hearing far beyond ordinary humans and could clearly hear it.
On the black curtain, a small opening suddenly appeared before everyone’s eyes.
Lord Lion, now transformed into golden rainbow light, felt a surge of joy upon seeing this.
How could it not understand—this was precisely the opportunity it had been searching for.
Lord Lion’s primordial spirit immediately seized the moment without the slightest hesitation. The golden rainbow light flashed by, shooting swiftly toward that small opening.
However, just as Lord Lion’s primordial spirit had barely probed even a sliver of distance inside—
The black curtain suddenly erupted with a dazzling, brilliant black radiance, unleashing a terrifying, bone-chilling might.
Immediately after, from that cracked opening, streams of pitch-black, profound qi extended outward.
These black streams instantly crushed Lord Lion’s primordial spirit—which had already passed through—into nothingness, reducing it to a wisp of void.
That drop of Ancestor Feather Emperor’s essence blood, at this very moment, suddenly seemed to come alive. It violently transformed into a streak of blood light, shooting at extreme speed through the black curtain.
Then, that streak of blood light, without any pause, went straight into the Dragon Lord’s serpent body.
