Chapter 2189.1: Old Tree
Bi Chen and Lang Ye hacked their way through the waters, alarming the gray jiao guarding the cavern as soon as they entered the lake. The two monster spirits glimpsed a majestic pale-gold dragon egg hovering in the water the moment the jiao withdrew its head.
“Why is it a dragon egg? Isn’t it supposed to be Dragon Transformation Grass?” Bi Chen asked blankly. “Or has a scaled-dragon with draconic bloodline eaten the grass and turned into a dragon egg?”
Bam!
In the split second they spent gaping at the egg, the jiao slammed its tail at the two interlopers. The spirit beasts in the lake were remnants of pureblood jiao, the equivalent of this one’s descendants. It flew into a rage at seeing a great number of them slaughtered by the two impudent trespassers.
“What?!” Lang Ye gasped with dismay, never imagining that something so terrible would be present beneath Jade Ice Lake. He and Bi Chen could match human empyrean immortals because they possessed the bloodlines of divine beasts. The gray jiao in front of them, however, was a bonafide divine beast.
“I’m leaving!” Bi Chen left without hesitation. A pureblood divine beast was frightening enough, to say nothing of one that was an empyrean immortal.
More importantly, the Human Emperor of Great Xia had already shifted the heavenly book and decreased its hold over Jade Ruins Realm. That meant this jiao was invincible throughout the land.
Splash splash splash!
The lake’s waters bubbled and frothed as the spirit beasts with draconic bloodlines flung themselves out of it just as eagerly as they’d dived in moments ago. After scrambling to shore, they split off in every direction.
The surrounding cultivators watched with jaws agape, having no idea what was going on.
BOOM!
A tremendous explosion rang out before they could grasp the situation. The waters suddenly exploded in a geyser of water three hundred meters high.
“AOOOUU!”
Two bedraggled figures fell from the sky while a massive gray entity three hundred meters long rushed out and coiled over the waters.
“That’s a… scaled-dragon!” several cultivators called out.
“A scaled-dragon the level of an empyrean immortal! What’s this terrifying thing doing here?!” The crowd was dumbfounded. Never had they imagined that such a beast would appear within the borders of a mere fourth rank empire!
“AOOOUU!” The jiao snarled at the sky and regarded the collapsed Bi Chen and Lang Ye with crimson eyes. They were just awakened level monster spirits, completely impotent before an empyrean level divine beast.
“Senior, this junior didn’t know that you were in seclusion here! I beg you forgiveness for the offense!” Lang Ye spat out purple blood and regarded the jiao with deep fear.
Humm!
Jade green light rose from the north of Fallen Leaf Mountain and shot toward the horizon. Trepidation appeared in the gray jiao’s eyes when it saw the radiance and it retreated into the lake after a glance at Fallen Leaf City to the south.
The cultivators heaved a collective sigh of relief and dispersed. Lang Ye and Bi Chen looked askance at each other.
“I saw a young human male next to the dragon egg just now!” A sharp look flashed through Bi Chen’s eyes. “If my guess is right, he’ll claim the egg…”
“Surely not!” Lang Ye knew what Bi Chen was planning from his expression alone. “Are you still not giving it up?”
“Give up?” Bi Chen licked his nose with a long and slender tongue. “I bear the bloodline of the hornless dragons. While the hornless dragons aren’t true dragons, they are still an offshoot. That egg holds a fatal attraction for me. If I can refine it, I will fully activate my bloodline and even transform into a real dragon!”
Greed shimmered in his eyes. It was impossible to suppress his inner desires given the pull of his bloodline.
“The young man was standing next to the dragon egg, so he’s certainly going to take it!” Bi Chen murmured to himself as he looked at Jade Ice Lake.
Lang Ye shuddered when he saw how fixated the other was. “I say, Old Bi, let it go. You’ll never succeed with that thing guarding it.”
“The young man won’t stay in the lake forever. I’ve already committed his appearance and presence to memory. He won’t escape my grasp when he emerges from the waters!” Bi Chen leered.
“Really, I recommend you forget it. He might not bring out the dragon egg with him.” Lang Ye had no desire to provoke the gray jiao—it was too horrifying. If it hadn’t been for it standing down due to reservation of something, both of them would already be annihilated despite being the strongest of the realm.
Although Lang Ye also had divine beast bloodline, he was no dragon. He didn’t care very much about the dragon egg. It’d be nice if he could obtain it, no big deal if he couldn’t.
“Hmph!” Bi Chen flicked a sideways glance at Lang Ye and then sensed the petrifying aura again. Blood drained out of his face as he quickly vacated Jade Ice Lake.
Lang Ye swallowed hard as well, knowing that their continued presence here was irritating the monster in the lake. He swiftly took his leave.
……
Lu Yun breathed a long sigh of relief as the Eye of Nullification told him that the two monsters on shore had left.
“Thank goodness for the gray jiao, or all of my hard work would’ve benefited another!” He could tell with a single glance that Ancestor Bi Chen possessed the bloodline of the hornless dragons and could refine the egg with the nine-clawed golden dragon. If Long Aotian hatched, she would firmly suppress Bi Chen through her bloodline alone.
But currently, she was an egg. Who was afraid of a zygote?!
The way things developed slightly surprised Lu Yun as his refinement of the Dragon Transformation Grass was within his calculations, but his advancement in cultivation was unexpected. It’d caused the grass to soar in power and raise the ensuing ruckus.
His Dragon Transformation Grass was far beyond regular specimens of its kind.
“Roar!” The gray jiao returned to the cavern and shrank itself to three meters long. It swam up to Lu Yun and roared softly at the human.
“You mean you want to take this egg to the bottom with you?” Lu Yun understood its words.
“Roar roar!” The jiao nodded. Although it was unable to take human form, it was highly intelligent—being an empyrean immortal. It would’ve known long ago if there was Dragon Transformation Grass in Jade Ice Lake. There wasn’t, so it came from the human male.
While jiao and dragons were close to each other, they were two different species after all. The gray jiao was not able to refine the egg and with its strength, it could take the egg from Lu Yun without the young man being able to do anything.
It sought Lu Yun’s approval and he didn’t sense any malice from it, so he didn’t refuse. Who knew when Long Aotian would hatch? He neither knew how to hatch a dragon egg nor had the time to look after it.
It was perfect that a babysitter had presented itself. He’d left his mark in Long Aotian’s body—she would be deathly loyal to him once she hatched. There was nothing to worry about.
The gray jiao jerked with shock when the human male tossed the dragon egg to it. It hastily reached out with foreclaws and caught the egg. Nodding to Lu Yun, it turned out of the cavern and dove into the depths.
“An empyrean immortal level divine beast! I’ll bet even regular true immortals aren’t a match for it!” Lu Yun appreciatively watched it go before walking out of the cavern and plunging back into the arctic waters.
“There must be something unusual below. Too bad my cultivation is so low that I’d be frozen to death if I head another hundred kilometers down.” Lu Yun knew full well where his limits were. The lake was very uncanny—there were pureblood jiao in residence! He even suspected that where the gray jiao lived wasn’t the bed of this bottomless lake.
He blurred into a shadow and broke through the water’s surface, but was in no hurry to emerge. Although he didn’t know what Lang Ye and Bi Chen had discussed, he’d seen the look in Bi Chen’s eyes. The monster spirit would never give up the dragon egg.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if I had an All-Hearing Ear ability? I’d know everything they were plotting.” [1] Lu Yun looked beyond the waters. He walked out only when he confirmed that there was no sign of Bi Chen and Lang Ye within fifty kilometers.
There wasn’t a cultivator to be found either. All of the spirit beasts had left. The only thing to be found in the vicinity were hundreds of dead black spirit beasts.
Overawed by the gray jiao’s aura, nothing dared approach within a dozen kilometers of the lake. Jade Ice Lake would turn into another forbidden zone sooner or later.
After thinking for a moment, Lu Yun moved the several hundred corpses into a storage ring. These spirit beasts bore the bloodline of the jiao. Perhaps he could use them and the logic he’d utilized for the Dragon Transformation Grass to refine a Jiao Transformation Grass.
Being descendants of the gray jiao, they laid untouched when the cultivators and spirit beasts departed. Thus, all of it benefited Lu Yun in the end.
He flew with Immortals Restriction after collecting everything and rapidly left the range of Fallen Leaf Mountain. The mountain was so eerie that he wasn’t willing to stay another second. He’d also detected the pillar of jade green light that’d made the jiao wary. It came from the zone forbidden to immortals.
“It’s him, the young man wanted by the Black Tortoises!” Some cultivators surrounded him as soon as he left the mountain.
1. Shunfeng'er is a Chinese sea and door god. The name literally translates to "Wind Accompanying Ears", a reference to his ability to hear any sound carried upon the wind. ☜
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