“Lord White Mirage, your sect truly lives up to its reputation as one of the most prominent in the Great Xia Dynasty. Your word is indeed your bond.”
“When Lord Dragon breaks free from his seal, I will surely convey your sect’s goodwill to him in full!”
The Blue King, who ordinarily carried himself with an arrogant, domineering air, looking down on humans, now stood before White Mirage—the Second Supreme Elder of the Pure World White Lotus Sect—with none of that swagger to be seen.
It hung its head low, not even daring to breathe too loudly, looking utterly meek and submissive. It did not even dare to meet White Mirage’s gaze, and every word it spoke was dripping with flattery and obedience.
Though the Blue King was a beast at the pinnacle of the Demon King realm, comparable to a human Grandmaster of the Outer Gang at full completion—
It still understood the importance of respecting the strong.
White Mirage, a powerhouse at the advanced stage of the Divine Mansion realm, was only slightly inferior to that Lord Lion.
Even so, an old monster like White Mirage—one who hid from the world and rarely showed himself—could crush the Blue King like an ant with the mere flick of a finger.
So before White Mirage, how could the Blue King dare to be the least bit unruly? It could only rein in its usual arrogance, tread carefully, and display complete humility.
Seeing the Blue King in such a lowly, obedient state, White Mirage felt quite pleased. He raised a hand and gently stroked his beard, letting out a low sound.
“Mhm!”
“Blue King, you may rest assured. Our Pure World White Lotus Sect always keeps its word. We will do everything in our power to free the Dragon Lord.”
White Mirage’s voice was deep and powerful, every syllable landing precisely in the Blue King’s ears.
Then, a sharp glint suddenly flashed in White Mirage’s eyes. His tone shifted, becoming laden with meaning: “After all, we all share a common enemy.”
“That enemy is the Great Xia Imperial Clan!”
These words seemed to carry boundless implications, spreading through the surrounding air, faintly exuding a murderous tension, as if a storm were brewing.
This time, the Blue King did not respond as quickly as it usually did. Instead, it fell into a brief silence, as though weighing something in its mind.
After a moment, it slowly spoke: “Lord White Mirage, this matter must wait until Lord Dragon is freed before it can be decided.”
With that, the Blue King gave a slight bow, its expression full of urgency: “There’s no time to waste. I fear Lord Dragon has already waited far too long.”
“I must trouble Lord White Mirage to lend a hand. Myriad Beast Mountain will surely remember your sect’s kindness.”
The Myriad Beast Mountain that the Blue King spoke of was the place beyond the far western reaches—the world outside the Great Xia Dynasty’s seal.
The Boundary Realm!
The moment the Blue King finished speaking, an uncontrollable urgency radiated from its entire body.
Its eyes suddenly lit up with a piercing golden light, like two small suns—dazzling and scorching.
At the same time, the white robe wrapped around the Blue King’s body seemed to be torn apart by an invisible force.
With a loud “rip,” the white robe instantly burst into countless fluttering fragments, scattering in all directions on the wind.
Immediately after, the Blue King’s originally strange, thin, humanoid body began to swell rapidly before the wind, expanding at a visible rate.
In the blink of an eye, a massive green serpent nearly a hundred zhang long appeared on the ground.
The green serpent’s body was as thick as a giant pillar, and its scales shimmered with a cold, frightening green light under the sunlight.
Each green scale was as large as a millstone.
The green serpent coiled and undulated, its thick tail occasionally slapping the ground with a dull thud, kicking up clouds of dust.
Then, without any hesitation, the giant green serpent plunged headfirst into the surging, turbulent river.
The serpent’s enormous, awe-inspiring body—like a moving mountain—crashed into the water, forcefully sending up waves dozens of zhang high.
As the waves churned, it seemed as though they would drag the entire sky down into the riverbed.
The next moment, a violent earthquake struck. Even the sturdy bridge connecting to the Jinlin River began to tremble under the powerful impact.
The solid bridge started to emit continuous creaking sounds.
The small boats that had been quietly moored by the riverbank now seemed as fragile as fallen leaves before the towering waves.
One fishing boat after another was mercilessly dragged into the depths of the vast Jinlin River, vanishing without a trace in an instant.
When White Mirage saw the Blue King, transformed into the giant green serpent, causing such a massive commotion—
His brow instantly furrowed into a deep frown, and a flash of intense displeasure crossed his eyes.
However, White Mirage did not choose to reprimand the Blue King. Instead, he concealed his considerable dissatisfaction beneath a seemingly calm facade.
“Hmph!”
White Mirage let out a soft snort through his nose, secretly grumbling to himself.
“A beast is still a beast. It can never change its nature—full of wild, reckless bloodlust.”
“It acts without a single thought. It could have taken the steady, low-key path, but instead it insists on making such a grand, attention-drawing spectacle.”
“Utterly foolish!”
“Not just foolish—downright idiotic!”
The bottom of the Jinlin River!
Tens of thousands of zhang below, the riverbed of the Jinlin River seemed like a boundless abyss—pitch-black and deathly silent.
Suddenly, a pair of enormous, sky-covering eyes snapped open.
Looking closely, they were a pair of massive vertical-pupiled eyes. Deep within the pupils lay endless vicissitudes and a bone-chilling majesty.
As though all things in this world were nothing but a drop in the ocean before its gaze.
The next moment, those two enormous eyeballs slowly swiveled left and right.
In an instant, a faint blue light shot out from the giant eyes.
In just a single moment, that wisp of blue light rapidly tore through the thick darkness, like a startling rainbow spanning time and space, shooting straight upward toward the surface of the Jinlin River.
Wherever the blue light passed, the icy, bone-piercing water was all dyed with a strange blue glow—dreamlike and illusory.
Immediately after, a boundless, winding dark shadow began to churn violently at the riverbed.
It was as though a long-dormant behemoth had finally awakened and returned, beginning to unleash the power it had accumulated over countless ages.
Wherever the winding dark shadow reached, the sediment settled at the riverbed was whipped into a frenzy, and massive underwater boulders were easily overturned.
Under the influence of this violent upheaval, the entire Jinlin River trembled intensely.
The waters of the Jinlin River churned madly like boiling water, with turbulent waves crashing again and again against both banks.
The Blue King, from a distance of several thousand meters away, glimpsed the Dragon Lord coiling and winding at the bottom of the Jinlin River.
Its extremely bizarre serpent head slightly raised, and it spoke human words from its mouth.
Its originally cold snake face now actually showed an expression of joy that only humans could produce.
“D-Dragon Lord!”
The Blue King’s voice trembled violently, carrying a note of incredulous delight.
Then it hurriedly said: “Qing… Qinglin, greets… greets the Dragon Lord!”
Because the Blue King was too excited, even its words came out broken and unclear.
Afterward, as if afraid of disturbing the Dragon Lord, the Blue King carefully slowed its speed and slowly swam toward the Dragon Lord’s location.
Each time the giant green serpent swayed its body, it did so with extreme restraint, as though approaching a deity it had revered its entire life.
However, when it was still over a thousand meters from the riverbed—
The Blue King’s mountain-like body suddenly froze, stiffening in the water, not daring to move forward even half a step more.
The scales all over its body quivered slightly under the impact of the currents, looking extremely eerie.
It wasn’t just the Blue King. White Mirage, who had been closely following behind it, also stopped in his tracks as if by telepathic understanding, hovering side by side with the Blue King in the deep river waters.
White Mirage’s expression changed. His eyes, which had been gleaming with cold light, now held a hint of fear and awe.
He stared intently at the darkness below, as though he had already sensed something.
Looking closely, above the Dragon Lord, a faint, elusive deep black radiance flickered in and out like a ghost, emitting an unsettling, heart-stopping aura.
This wisp of black radiance was both like an invisible barrier and a mysterious protective layer, tightly enveloping the riverbed.
At that moment, the full form of the Dragon Lord was reflected without reservation in the eyes of Qinglin and White Mirage.
The Dragon Lord’s body was nearly a thousand zhang long, with an extraordinary aura.
But what was shocking was that the Dragon Lord’s body, from top to bottom, was tightly bound by nine enormously thick black chains.
These black chains were deeply embedded into the Dragon Lord’s flesh and blood. Every terrifying mark they left made Qinglin’s and White Mirage’s hearts tremble with alarm.
White Mirage, as the Second Supreme Elder of the Pure World White Lotus Sect, was a sworn enemy of the Great Xia Imperial Clan.
When it came to the various secrets of the Great Xia Dynasty, White Mirage knew most of them inside and out—there were scarcely any secrets left.
Of course, their Pure World White Lotus Sect had also been thoroughly investigated by the Great Xia court—to the point where even their undergarments had nearly been stripped bare.
So when White Mirage saw those nine black chains, his heart couldn’t help but shudder. He naturally knew the origin of these nine black chains.
These were none other than the Dark Bird Heaven Lock!
A rare Nine-Veined Moon-tier sacrificial artifact in this world!
This was the martial sacrificial artifact of Emperor Tianqi, Xia Ritian. It had earned its fearsome reputation in his hands, striking terror into all who heard of it.
This Xia Ritian was the previous emperor of the Great Xia Dynasty—the birth father of the current Great Xia Empress, Xia Mingyue.
Back then, Xia Ritian had used this treasure to dominate the martial world, intimidating all directions.
But what left everyone utterly dumbfounded and incredulous was—
That Xia Ritian would actually use this Dark Bird Heaven Lock to bind this Dragon Lord.
The reason behind it—likely only he himself knew.
Because Xia Ritian’s strength was unfathomable. According to what White Mirage knew, he seemed to have already broken through to that realm.
And with a Nine-Veined Moon-tier artifact in hand, killing the Dragon Lord should have been an easy matter.
Yet he had merely locked the Dragon Lord at the bottom of the Jinlin River—and used the Nine-Veined Moon-tier Dark Bird Heaven Lock, no less.
How strange.
The power contained within the Dark Bird Heaven Lock was nearly capable of overturning heaven and earth, reversing the cosmos, and changing the very colors of the world.
Because within a Nine-Veined Moon-tier artifact, there was not only endless heaven-and-earth origin energy, but also the incredibly terrifying power of heavenly laws.
That’s right—the power of heavenly laws that only martial artists at the Cave Void True Lord realm could wield.
A martial artist possessing a Nine-Veined Moon-tier artifact could, for a very short time, unleash power comparable to a Cave Void True Lord.
Though it was only a brief moment of glory, that alone was enough to look down upon the entire Great Xia Dynasty.
After all, the power of a Cave Void True Lord could already be described as a living deity.
Therefore, among the various top-tier powers of the Great Xia Dynasty, a conclusion had circulated:
That is—beneath the Cave Void realm, all are ants!
The Dragon Lord at the riverbed slowly raised its majestic head.
Unlike the head of the giant green serpent—
The Dragon Lord’s serpent head was pitch-black as night, its scales tightly arranged, each one seeming to have been tempered a thousand times, gleaming with a cold, dark luster.
The pitch-black serpent head rose slightly, shaped like a crown, constantly exuding an inviolable majesty.
Most astonishing of all, on both sides of the Dragon Lord’s serpent head, faintly protruding bone spurs were visible—like unformed dragon horns.
The Dragon Lord’s nostrils flared slightly, each breath carrying a low tremor.
Its forked tongue flicked out—crimson and slender, flickering in the darkness like a flame, carrying a lethal allure and danger.
It possessed both the coldness of a serpent and the dominance of a dragon, as though it were a terrifying existence stepped straight out of ancient myth—awe-inspiring to behold.
The Dragon Lord’s gaze locked tightly onto the Blue King, a complex emotion flashing through its eyes—perhaps surprise, perhaps nostalgia.
“Little Qinglin, I never expected it to be you who came.”
“And you, Little Gold!”
“After all these years, you’ve actually broken through to half-step Demon Lord. You’re just one step away from the Demon Lord realm now, aren’t you?”
The Dragon Lord’s voice echoed at the riverbed, the water rippling gently, as though even the currents were listening to its words.
The beast realm hierarchy is divided into: Spirit-Intelligence Beast, Spirit-Intelligence Great Demon, Demon King, Heavenly Demon, Demon Lord, Demon Emperor, Demon Saint!
These correspond respectively to the martial artist realms of:
Blood Refining, Inner Qi, Outer Gang Grandmaster, Divine Mansion True Person, Cave Void True Lord, Earth Venerable Realm Master, Heavenly Origin Dao Immortal.
The moment the words “Little Gold” fell, Qinglin’s massive, winding serpent body suddenly erupted with a dazzling, piercing golden light.
In the blink of an eye, a majestic, awe-inspiring golden lion phantom—radiating a fierce, murderous aura—slowly emerged beneath the shimmering water surface.
The golden giant lion stood towering in the water. Every strand of its mane was like burning golden flames, emitting a suffocating pressure.
Even the golden giant lion’s eyes were like two blazing suns—everywhere its gaze reached, even the water seemed to evaporate.
After the golden lion appeared, it moved with extreme speed. Its front limbs crouched, its massive head bowed low, and it respectfully saluted the Dragon Lord below.
This gesture was full of submission and reverence.
“Dragon Lord!”
The Dragon Lord acted as though it hadn’t seen the golden giant lion’s respectful salute. Instead, it slowly spoke.
“Even your primordial spirit power can enter this Great Xia Dynasty.”
“Is this that one’s intention?”
The moment the Dragon Lord’s words fell, the golden giant lion above hurriedly responded.
“Yes, Dragon Lord.”
“Ancestor Feather Emperor—it wants this world!”
“However, Ancestor Feather Emperor cannot act now to forcibly break through this world’s confinement.”
“So…”
Though the second half of the sentence was left unspoken, the golden giant lion’s meaning was already clear to the Dragon Lord.
Ancestor Feather Emperor wanted to know—how had it entered this Great Xia Dynasty?
