Having made up his mind, Yang Chen wasted no more time.
With one step, he left the cave abode and appeared atop Kunlun Mountain.
The mountain wind was bitter, whipping his robes, yet unable to disperse the almost tangible heat surrounding him.
The Ancestral Dragon Essence Blood within him surged and roared.
Every inch of his sinews and bones, every drop of blood, brimmed with an overbearing force that had nowhere to vent—a force that wanted to tear apart, destroy, and conquer.
The exhilaration brought by this power was a hundred times more real than sitting idly in his cave abode, breathing in that bland, watery innate spiritual qi.
He needed a hunt.
A hunt worthy of his current status and strength.
The Witch Clan.
The name circled through his mind, quickening the flow of blood within him.
Yang Chen had no intention of concealing his whereabouts.
What he wanted was an open and aboveboard "visit."
The next moment, he shot into the sky, transforming into a streak of golden light. Rather than tearing through space, he crossed the heavens in an extraordinarily flamboyant manner, heading straight toward Buzhou Divine Mountain, the pillar supporting heaven and earth at the heart of the primordial land.
He no longer restrained the power of his blood and qi.
How terrifying was that body fused with the Ancestral Dragon Origin?
Wherever he passed, the void twisted beneath his immense blood and qi, while rolling waves of heat rose into the air.
He was like a moving ancient furnace, brazenly passing above the primordial land and announcing his arrival to every powerful being in this world.
It was a naked provocation.
Before long, the scenery around him began to change dramatically.
The graceful aura of immortal mountains gradually faded, replaced by boundless desolation and savagery.
The earth turned crimson, the mountains became rugged and imposing, and the air was filled with a unique scent of soil, blood, and sweat.
This was Witch Clan territory.
One unimaginably massive tribe after another sprawled across the vast land like giant beasts.
The tribes were built from enormous stones and beast bones. Their style was crude to the extreme, yet they carried an imposing grandeur capable of shaking heaven and earth.
Countless terrifyingly burly figures moved about within the tribes.
They bared their upper bodies, their muscles knotted, their skin branded with all manner of profound totems. Explosive power lay hidden within every one of them.
They trained, hunted, and tempered their bodies in the most primitive ways.
Roars shook the heavens, and the clash of weapons rang without end, merging into a war symphony filled with iron and blood.
When Yang Chen's undisguised blood-and-qi furnace, blazing as fiercely as the sun, descended above this region—
In an instant.
Every sound came to an abrupt halt.
The Witch People who had been training stopped moving, the hunting parties halted in their tracks, and even the children laughing and playing within the tribes fell silent.
Tens of thousands of gazes shot upward from the earth below in unison.
There was no fear in those gazes.
Only vigilance.
Curiosity.
And beneath that, the invasive scrutiny and battle intent of beasts spotting either their own kind or their prey!
On Witch Clan territory, there were only two possibilities for anyone bold enough to release their blood and qi so recklessly.
Either they were a top Great Witch of the clan returning from travels.
Or they were a mortal enemy who had come to provoke them!
Yang Chen hovered in midair, looking down at those faces brimming with primal strength. Feeling the gazes that seemed ready to tear him apart, the curve of his lips grew increasingly amused.
Not bad.
This was exactly the feeling.
Compared to scheming against those two old foxes, Phoenix Ancestor and First Qilin, this simple and direct atmosphere delighted every cell in his body.
He was just about to pick the strongest-looking tribe and head down to "ask for directions."
At that moment.
Rumble—
A violent tremor suddenly came from the center of the grandest tribe before him, a colossal settlement nearly comparable to a giant city.
The earth split apart, and dust surged into the sky!
At the center of the tribe's vast square, twelve enormous stone statues, each ten thousand zhang tall and carved from unknown divine stone, suddenly erupted with blinding crimson light!
The light was as dense as real blood. It shot into the heavens, dyeing the sky for tens of thousands of miles blood-red!
The twelve statues took different forms. Some had human faces and bird bodies; some had human faces and serpent bodies; some were covered in bone spurs; some controlled wind and lightning... Every one of them radiated supreme majesty, as though they ruled heaven and earth and controlled the laws themselves.
They were the totems upon which the Witch Clan relied to suppress the fortune of their people, as well as the foundation of their spiritual faith.
The Twelve Ancestral Witches Stone Statues!
At this moment, these twelve statues, silent for countless epochs, seemed to awaken at the same time from an ancient slumber!
Hum—
A dull hum, so heavy it seemed capable of shaking the Divine Soul, erupted simultaneously from within the twelve stone statues!
It was not a sound, but the resonance of wills—the awakening of the oldest imprint buried deep within their bloodlines!
The twelve stone eyes, once dim and covered in the dust of ages, suddenly lit up!
No, they did not light up.
They burned!
Two masses of utterly pure crimson divine light ignited within each pair of stone sockets. There was no reason or emotion within them—only the most primal and pure desolation, antiquity, and endless battle intent boiling fiercely enough to incinerate the Nine Heavens!
They were no longer lifeless objects.
They were twelve ancient primordial gods and demons, casting their wills across the barriers of space and time to descend upon this world!
Twelve gazes, twelve torrents of crimson will, ignored the distance of space and tore through the barriers of law, all locking firmly onto Yang Chen, who hovered in midair.
An indescribably terrifying pressure spread from the twelve stone statues.
That pressure did not target the Divine Soul, nor did it suppress magical power.
It targeted only the flesh!
Only the bloodline!
Ancient, overbearing, and utterly unreasonable, it was the culmination of every killing intent from the ancient battlefield of gods and demons—the towering battle intent left behind after Father God Pangu opened heaven and earth!
It descended with a crash!
In the tiny space around Yang Chen, the air was instantly sucked away, the light distorted, and every law retreated before this pure will.
He was completely sealed and firmly locked in place!
If this pressure had fallen upon any Grand Unity Golden Immortal, their Dao body would have been crushed into the most primitive particles in less than a ten-thousandth of an instant, with even their True Spirit unable to escape.
Yet Yang Chen merely raised an eyebrow.
Stimulated by this pressure, the Ancestral Dragon Essence Blood within him was not suppressed. Instead, it let out a high-pitched Dragon's Roar and boiled even more violently!
An equally tyrannical and savage ancient ferocious might surged from his body into the heavens, crashing head-on against those twelve wills!
Meanwhile, the countless members of the Witch Clan in the tribe below first fell into a deathly silence upon witnessing this world-shaking phenomenon.
Time seemed to stretch at this moment.
Extreme shock and confusion froze across every Witch Person's face.
One Witch Person who had been using a giant boulder to train his arm strength froze with his arm in midair. The boulder, weighing countless tons, slipped from his grasp and crashed to the ground with a muffled boom, yet he did not notice at all.
A female witch who had been carving up prey with a beast-fang dagger stared wide-eyed. The tip of her dagger was mere inches from her palm, yet she paid it no heed.
Their minds could no longer process the sight before them, a scene that overturned the understanding they had held for hundreds of millions of years.
The Ancestral Witch stone statues were the source of their faith, the totems of their spirit, and an extension of Father God's will.
Since the tribe had been established, they had stood here—silent and eternal.
Aside from perhaps being able to trigger a faint glimmer during sacrificial ceremonies when the Twelve Ancestral Witches personally descended, they had never reacted so violently!
Never!
But the next second.
This dead silence was completely torn apart by a heart-wrenching roar filled with endless fervor!
"The Ancestral Witch stone statues!"
A top Great Witch with an aura comparable to that of a Grand Unity Golden Immortal threw back his head and roared. His bronze, knotted muscles trembled violently from overwhelming excitement, while the veins beneath his skin bulged one after another.
"The Ancestral Witch stone statues... have revealed their divine power!"
That cry was like a spark thrown into a still pan of boiling oil!
Boom!
Frenzied cheers, like mountains collapsing and seas crashing, erupted from every corner of the tribe and from the depths of every Witch Person's throat!
"Heavens! Father God above!"
"The will of the Ancestral Witches has descended!"
"This aura... this pressure... there's no mistake! There can be absolutely no mistake! The will of the Ancestral Witches is calling to us!"
All vigilance vanished into thin air.
All hostility disappeared completely.
In that instant, the primitive, savage light in those pairs of eyes underwent a heaven-shaking transformation.
The way they looked at Yang Chen in the sky was no longer scrutiny or provocation.
It was a fervor mixed with reverence, wild joy, and disbelief!
The gaze one reserved for a divine miracle!
An outsider!
An outsider whose blood-and-qi power was so formidable that even they felt alarmed!
He had actually stirred a resonance within the Twelve Ancestral Witches Stone Statues, which had lain dormant for countless epochs!
What did that represent?
Did they even need to think about it?!
"That outsider, he... he stirred a resonance within the Twelve Ancestral Witches Stone Statues!"
"He must share an immense connection with our Witch Clan!"
Before you continue