The nearly thirty thousand dragons were almost half the number of the fifty thousand the East Sea Dragon King had brought in last time. But in terms of overall strength, the two groups were simply incomparable.
Back then, the East Sea dragons had been suppressed far too severely by the Honghao Celestial Court, much like the other three Dragon Palaces. The cultivation techniques they had practiced since childhood were incomplete, they had not experienced enough major battles, and even their dragon bloodlines had weakened.
It was only after entering the Green Fruit Barrier, changing their cultivation techniques, and being thoroughly subdued by Lu Xiaotian and gathering the power of a totem that their overall strength had grown considerably.
But they had started from such a poor foundation that even after changing cultivation techniques, only a few with decent talent had undergone a complete transformation.
Most had made relatively slow progress. At the very least, they could not keep pace with Lu Xiaotian's rapidly rising strength or the increasingly powerful and ferocious enemies they faced.
By contrast, the nearly thirty thousand dragons in the secret realm had been immersed in battle since childhood.
Their cultivation techniques had developed into a complete system, and their inheritance was intact. They had also been tempered time and again in bloody battles against the headless white corpses and the qilin clan. In terms of sheer presence, they were a cut above most of the other dragons in the Green Fruit Barrier.
For Black Dragon, Ao Ming, the East Sea Dragon King, Zhi Jiang, and the other leaders, who were wholeheartedly devoted to strengthening their kind, this was an unexpected treasure trove.
Moreover, there were more and more Golden Immortal-level experts throughout the Green Fruit Barrier, but Golden Immortal-level dragons made up only a tiny fraction