Heavenly Dao Suppression

The Dragon Clan's numbers had grown explosively in a short time, but that had brought an unavoidable drawback: the dilution of their bloodlines.

Aside from the Ancestral Dragon's direct descendants, who could still maintain a pure Dragon Clan bloodline, the bloodline purity of the other dragons declined with each passing generation.

Vast numbers of lesser dragons appeared, including Jiaolong, Chilong, and Qiulong. Though they too belonged to the Dragon Clan, their strength and potential were nowhere near those of true dragons with pure bloodlines.

Without the Ancestral Dragon Pearl to purify their bloodlines, even if they cultivated the Ancestral Dragon Nine Transformations, they would struggle to advance to Great Unity Golden Immortal.

The Ancestral Dragon knew all this perfectly well, but he did not care. What he needed was numbers, enough to make up for their lack of quality.

In the coming war, these dragon sons and grandsons would be his most reliable cannon fodder.

As long as he could win the war and preserve the Dragon Clan's supremacy, sacrificing some bloodline purity was entirely worthwhile.

As long as he, the Ancestral Dragon, was still around, he could have as many dragon sons and grandsons as he wanted. What was there to regret about losing a few?

As long as he won and could rule the Primordial World, there would be plenty of time to purify their bloodlines slowly.

In contrast to the Ancestral Dragon's domineering ruthlessness, the Primordial Qilin and Primordial Phoenix took entirely different approaches.

The Primordial Qilin sought not numbers, but the continuation of his legacy.

As the progenitor of an auspicious clan, the Primordial Qilin had a faint premonition that if war broke out among the three clans, the Qilin Clan would very likely suffer a grievous loss of vitality and might even fall into decline.

So he had to leave behind a spark to keep his bloodline and legacy alive.

In an exceptionally secret cave abode, the Primordial Qilin forced out the core of his essence—the Primordial Qilin's Heart.

Using that heart as a foundation, he poured an immense amount of effort and cultivation into nurturing a new life.

It had a deer's antlers and a rabbit's ears, with both scales and fur covering its body. Small and delicate, it bore more than a little resemblance to a deer. This was the legendary Sibuxiang.

As for its appearance, how should one put it? It looked a little as if it had grown however it pleased when nobody was watching, with an emphasis on doing whatever it wanted.

You could not see the slightest trace of a qilin in Sibuxiang. It was more believable to say that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Qilin Clan, and that it was a dragon offspring produced by some impure-blooded dragons and another race.

And perhaps that was precisely what the Primordial Qilin had intended. By making him so unremarkable, he could cross the sea under heaven's eyes, openly repairing the plank road while secretly slipping through Chencang.

He had made his own son look like a mongrel, just another foot soldier by the roadside. Who would have imagined that this was the Qilin Clan's crown prince?

The Primordial Qilin really did have some ideas, playing the pig to eat the tiger. But it looks like he screwed over his own son and really turned him into a pig.

Xiang Dong could not help giving the Primordial Qilin's handiwork a thumbs-up.

Xiang Dong found it hard to believe that the Primordial Qilin had gone to such great lengths just to produce an unremarkable-looking descendant.

He thought the Primordial Qilin must have had a contingency that could awaken Sibuxiang's Primordial Qilin bloodline and allow the Qilin Clan to rise again. To that end, he had even entrusted Sibuxiang to Yuanshi Tianzun, asking him to help look after him.

He just did not know whether the contingency had been lost halfway through and ultimately never put into effect, or whether something had been missing, preventing it from being realized.

Or perhaps Yuanshi Tianzun had not been very honorable and, instead of helping, had handed Sibuxiang over to Jiang Ziya as a mount. Sibuxiang muddled through the Investiture of the Gods Calamity without making a name for himself and was ultimately buried in obscurity.

By comparison, the Phoenix Clan's descendants had made names for themselves, though neither had met a good end.

The moment the thought arose in Xiang Dong's mind, the "camera" automatically shifted to the Immortal Volcano.

Xiang Dong thought the Primordial Phoenix was a little like an artsy young woman. She had neither pursued numbers nor employed any flashy disguises, choosing instead to focus on quality.

She had combined the Innate Five Elements Qi and Yin-Yang Qi she had obtained by chance with her own essence to nurture two eggs.

Looking at the two eggs shimmering with brilliant colors, Xiang Dong could not help clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

These were the future Peacock and Golden-Winged Great Peng. Both had tremendous potential, especially Kong Xuan, who had been nurtured from Innate Five Elements Qi and slaughtered everyone in sight with his Five-Colored Divine Light.

With no Sage taking the field, almost no one could stand against Kong Xuan. He could be called the foremost Quasi-Sage.

Unfortunately, he ran into the thick-skinned Daoist Zhun Ti. His Five-Colored Divine Light came up against the Seven-Treasure Wonderful Tree, which could likewise brush away anything, and he was ultimately defeated and converted to the Western faith.

The Golden-Winged Great Peng met the same fate. They really were a pair of brothers in misfortune, and so the Phoenix Clan had no hope left either.

After thinking it over carefully, Xiang Dong decided that the Dragon Clan's strategy of having many children for many blessings was somewhat better. After all, of the three clans, only the Dragon Clan was in slightly better straits after the war. At least they still lived by the sea and held the titles of Dragon Kings of the Four Seas, so they had not fallen into complete decline.

While the three clans were making frantic preparations for war, the Primordial World itself was also undergoing a silent change.

Xiang Dong was the first to notice it. How should he describe the feeling? It was order. An indescribable sense of order had appeared between heaven and earth; it could also be called the refinement of the world's underlying rules.

Before this, the Primordial World had been chaotic, disorderly, and savage. The strong preying on the weak was the first rule, and whoever had the bigger fist was in the right. That was the Primordial World.

Now, the underlying logic of the strong preying on the weak and survival of the fittest had not changed, but an orderly set of rules and clear restraints had been established.

Making rules, establishing order, and bringing the development of all living beings onto a controllable course—that was the Heavenly Dao.

The Heavenly Dao... had the Heavenly Dao already been perfected to this extent at this time?

The Heavenly Dao was the first to come into being, and it had been continually perfected through one Kalpa after another, but Xiang Dong did not know exactly when it had come into being.

What could not be denied, however, was that none of the Primordial World's living beings could ignore the Heavenly Dao's existence. It was growing stronger and stronger, like a vast invisible net hanging over the heads of all living beings.

The vast majority of living beings could not perceive this change, because they were not qualified to perceive the Heavenly Dao's existence.

They merely felt that the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth seemed to have grown somewhat gentler. When cultivating, they gained a vague insight, as though there were a clear path leading upward, and they no longer had to feel for stones to cross the river as they had before.

But for the powerhouses standing at the pinnacle of the Primordial World, it was another matter entirely, and not a friendly one in the least.

To them, the Principles of heaven and earth felt increasingly clear, and increasingly... sturdy.

The barriers to their realms, which had already begun to loosen, had now been reinforced and secured by a force. Some had been sealed with cement, while others had been welded shut.

The Heavenly Dao: "Want to break through? No way. Did you ask what I thought?"

Xiang Dong: "Oh, isn't this just a level cap?!"