Plundering the Heavens

The lotus girl pressed out her palm, and an invisible force caught the dragon girl’s wounded body as it was falling down. The lotus girl looked into the dragon girl’s eyes before softly laughing, “I’d originally intended to protect him, but he wanted to pass this opportunity of his on to you, so I am here to save your life. As for whether he lives or dies, I won’t be able to care anymore. Such a pity; he was someone I’d hoped to watch grow into something one day….”

Swoosh ….

After being forced dozens of feet back, the enraged red dragon began to fly forward once more. His face was filled with madness as though he wasn’t afraid of facing the might of the lotus girl head on—as though he wasn’t willing to stop until one of them was dead—but the lotus girl refused to fight against him head-on; a profound power appeared on her palm before she took hold of the dragon girl and rose into the empty sky, disappearing with the first step. When she reappeared, she was more than a hundred miles away, and then a second step took her yet another hundred miles. Just like this, she and the dragon girl were completely gone within only a few blinks.

“Not good. This was all just a tactic to lure us away!” The fifth and sixth prince who’d been madly chasing after Fang Xing hadn’t expected that not only did they not catch even the little demon’s shadow, when they turned to look back, the dragon girl had vanished as well. The shock they felt went without saying, and they shouted in fury before hastily flying back to search the area, but the sky was completely empty. Aside from the heavily-wounded sea-beast soldiers and the Red Convention’s guests, there wasn’t a single extra soul in sight.

“Chase! We must find and capture that bi*ch no matter the cost!” the fifth prince angrily shouted while feeling a cold shiver at the thought of his mother’s punishment.

“Don’t worry,” the sixth prince quietly replied with gleaming eyes. “Get that mad dog, he’s the one most capable of following the scent of a pure dragon!”

With that reminder, the angered fifth prince let out a cold snort and pulled out a bronze mirror. After throwing the mirror into the sky, the fifth and sixth prince bit their index fingers and splashed the blood onto the mirror’s surface, causing an eye-blinding light to shoot out and touch the red dragon’s forehead. The red dragon had been howling madly in the air after losing his prey, but he abruptly halted when that light touched him and instead became pained and confused, his body quivering as though in fear.

“Ao Lie, do you want to be the only true dragon?”

“Then tear apart all the competitors with the same blood as yours. When you’re the sole true dragon, you will become the dragon king!”

“All of those with the same dragon king’s blood have almost been cleared out by now. All except one….”

“With your true dragon blood, you should be able to sense her aura and find her….”

“Find her, kill her, eat her! With this, you will be the only true dragon of this world!”

The fifth and sixth princes’ speech was filled with temptation, and although the words weren’t part of a charm or spell, when they were coupled with the indescribable power of the mirror’s light, the dragon’s eyes became more and more muddled. After a few moments had passed, his bloodthirst once again rose to its peak.

ROAR …

The red dragon roared with his head held high and suddenly left the mirror’s light. His body shook before he shot off towards the southwest, so quickly he was dozens of miles away within only a few blinks of the eye.

The fifth prince was a bit surprised and asked, “How come he moved before we even put away the bronze mirror?”

The sixth prince was also slightly surprised and creased his brows. “Perhaps it’s because this is our first time controlling him through the bronze mirror and there are some quirks?”

The fifth prince looked at the bronze mirror and let out a sigh of relief when he saw a strand of blood moving within. “His true blood is still there, so the mirror mother gave us can still control him and there shouldn’t be any unexpected problems. Let’s hurry and catch up to him!”

The two stopped discussing it and quickly chased after the red dragon so as to not lose track of him. The red dragon was moving incredibly fast, and although they could use the bronze mirror to summon him back, there was still the possibility he would cause some unanticipated disaster with how crazed he was at the moment.

The two paused for only a brief moment to order their subordinates to clean up this area of the sea. The two were so anxious and agitated, however, they didn’t notice the direction the red dragon was headed wasn’t where the lotus girl and dragon girl had been going at all.

—

In the meantime, Fang Xing and the golden crow flew off towards the west for quite a while, and when they saw no one had managed to catch up to them, they knew the lotus girl must have done something to lure the fifth and sixth princes back. In a sense, this had saved Fang Xing’s life and allowed him the chance to finally catch his breath.

Without needing any commands, the sly golden crow immediately turned towards the south, changing directions to keep any pursuers from following the trail. As for Fang Xing, he began to relax and took out the jade scroll the lotus girl left for him to see what it was.

“In the period of travel together, a total of seven people searched for you. Be very careful. Qi is of the same origin as the heavens and earth; if you wish to protect yourself, the Qi you use must be very minimal. You may be within the seas away from land, but the heavens and earth have its own aura and others with powerful cultivation can use it to find you. I have sensed it myself with my soul light; at the end of the South Sea is a realm you can hide from all of this. It will provide for you a safe haven. I hope you will be cautious; do not fall halfway!

“You have the techniques of the Great Demon Ancestor, allowing you to temporarily hide from all. If you find yourself in any danger, it can be used to save yourself. Unfortunately, your golden core has yet to form and you are not yet able to use it to its maximum potential, else you would be able to hide all traces. If you are able to work diligently, it is not impossible for you to achieve this level of self-protection!”

After hearing just these few parts, Fang Xing realized these were the final words of advice the lotus girl had for him and he was filled with nothing but gratitude. That damned girl might have had him and the golden crow as her slaves and she might have commanded them to search all over the place for delicious food, but it looked as though she still had some manner of conscience.

“I have looked at your techniques and found branches that are still very weak within a very lush potential. Although you might be able to walk unhindered for the time being, it cannot help you understand the great Dao. The nine coffins contain unlimited mysteries, yet their roots are within Tianyuan. Through the evolution of my soul light, I know that within the area of the South Sea, a scripture is hidden. If you are able to obtain it, you shall be able to form the golden core and study the ways of the Great Dao. Three hundred years later, when the great tribulation will come, atop the platform of the immortals, I hope you shall have obtained all the opportunities by then so you shall battle alongside me for thirty-three days….”

There was a more detailed description of something else within the jade scroll as well, mostly warnings about the path of cultivation. The situation earlier must have been too hurried for her to carefully go through everything in detail, so she left it all in the jade scroll using spirit sense. Fang Xing quickly listened to it all, but it was difficult for him to understand everything with how urgent the current situation was; all he could really get out of it was that she placed a rather large amount of importance on the area of the South Sea.

After sweeping his senses across the spirit sense the lotus girl had left behind in the jade scroll, he immediately asked, “Goldy, at the end of the South Sea, is there a place that can hide all things of the heavens and earth in the realm?”

“End of the South Sea?” The golden crow gave it some thought before he started shivering and suddenly shrieked. “It’s not… it’s not that damned place, right?!”

“You know about it?” Fang Xing quickly asked with a shaken heart. He somewhat understood his current situation thanks to the lotus girl’s words, and he believed things would be much easier if the golden crow knew of this place. Those who were trying to find him were actually so powerful they were still able to find him by using the heavens and earth of this realm despite him not even being on the lands of Jambu. The only way he’d be able to escape their notice was if he hid like a rat and never used his Qi.

That being said, the lotus girl had mentioned he was practicing some kind of technique of the Great Demon Ancestor, which should be the unnamed technique he obtained from the large black sword. The technique to cover his traces was able to block the heavens and earth, it was just his current level of cultivation was too low for him to understand much. Only after he’d formed the golden core would he be able to use this skill to its full potential to avoid the tracking efforts of Budding Soul cultivators and completely avoid anybody searching for him. What he needed to do now had actually become very simple: he had to temporarily find a safe place and form the golden core before anything else.

When the golden crow heard him, however, he was so fearful he shouted out, “You’re not really thinking of going, are you?”

“What exactly is that place?” Fang Xing curiously asked. “Is it very dangerous?”

The golden crow sighed. “Dangerous, it is naturally a dangerous place, but that’s nothing to be afraid of. Ever since I—Uncle Goldy—began hanging around you, which day hasn’t been dangerous and exciting? Dangerous or not, I’m more than used to it. What’s frightening about that place is that it can be easily entered but it’s difficult to leave. Why does the little miss want you to go to that place? Does she want to lock you inside and torture you alive?”

“Easy to enter, difficult to leave?” Fang Xing hadn’t expected the golden crow to say this and was a bit surprised.

“Saying it’s difficult to leave is being rather generous. Most people believe the damned place is a place that simply cannot be left at all. Once inside, it would be no different from locking yourself away, and you wouldn’t be able to come even if you tried for your entire life. Ever since that place appeared, only those who’d been left without any other options by their enemies would go inside, and they would have gone inside fully prepared never to leave again!”

Fang Xing’s brows creased even more when he heard this. “What the hell is that place exactly?”

“It is a place rumored to be cut off from the heavens and earth. A land of shackles for those with no hope for the future: the South Sea’s Guixu Ruins!”