Though the poisonous dragon was small, it seemed vividly alive, exquisitely crafted to a breathtaking degree. Layer upon layer of dark golden scales shimmered with an undying luster, as if forged from the most precious metal. Each one glinted with a mysterious, profound light. Violet radiance flowed through its body like living veins, like mysterious rivers brimming with endless secrets.
A pure, restrained, yet seemingly world-destroying aura spread from the poisonous dragon, rippling outward in invisible waves. The rule fluctuations of poison it gave off were fierce and sharp, faintly forming a standoff with the surging Corrosive God Poison Miasma in the Ancient River of Buried Gods, as if two peerless experts were facing off from a distance, neither yielding an inch.
"This is..." Xiao Yan's eyes widened as he stared dumbfounded at the miraculous sight before him. Shock surged through his heart like a tide.
"Using the origin of my Poison Pill as a catalyst, I gathered the power of ten thousand poisons to temporarily transform it into the 'Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon'!" Xiao Yi Xian's voice carried a faint, barely perceptible weakness. Clearly, summoning the dragon had cost her a tremendous amount of energy. Her face was slightly pale, but her gaze remained resolute. "This dragon can temporarily shield us from the Ancient River's poisonous miasma, and its poison can also counter some of the spatial rending force! But it can't fully withstand the fragments of law! We have to get across as fast as we can under the dragon's protection!"
"Understood!" Xiao Yan nodded firmly, determination filling his eyes as if he were already prepared to face any challenge.
"Get on!" Xiao Yi Xian called, then lightly leaped onto the dragon's back. Xiao Yan followed close behind, gripping the reins that had formed from concentrated poison power along the dragon's back. The reins felt cold to the touch, yet carried a resilient strength.
"Go!"
Xiao Yi Xian's thoughts stirred, as if she and the dragon were of one mind.
ROAR—!!!
The dark gold and violet Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon let out a silent roar that shook the soul. Like an ancient battle hymn, it brimmed with power and majesty. Its body whipped forward, a streak of dark purple-gold light tearing through the night as it plunged into the surging, murderous Ancient River of Buried Gods.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!!!
The moment it entered the river, countless tiny fragments of space rushed toward the dragon, like man-eating fish scenting blood. They glinted with icy light and razor-sharp edges, as though they meant to tear the dragon to shreds. The distortions caused by the fragments of law made the scene around it turn bizarre in an instant: space warped, time ran amok, and everything became illusory and unreal.
VMMM!
In an instant, dark golden light blazed across the Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon's body like a scorching sun. A condensed barrier of poison power, nearly solid, spread around it, enveloping the dragon in a vast transparent shield. Countless tiny fragments of space slashed against it like sharp arrowheads, sending sparks flying in a dense shower and setting off a shrill scraping sound, as though countless blades were grating against one another. The barrier shook violently, its light flickering like a candle in the wind, ready to go out at any moment. The dragon's speed also faltered under the tremendous impact, as if it had sunk into a mire.
"Hold on!" Light blazed from Xiao Yi Xian's violet eyes, like a shooting star streaking across the night sky, filled with unshakable resolve. She urged her Poison Pill to its utmost. It spun madly inside her like a mysterious machine running at full speed, continuously refining the purer, more violent Corrosive God Poison Miasma absorbed from the Ancient River and turning it into an endless stream of power to replenish the barrier.
Xiao Yan wasn't idle either; he knew how critical their situation was. He pushed his soul power to its limit, sending invisible tendrils probing into the darkness ahead. He strained to sense the relatively stable spatial nodes, like someone searching a vast sea for a guiding lighthouse, directing the dragon onward and carefully avoiding the most violent currents of law fragments.
Under the relentless onslaught of spatial fragments and poisonous miasma, the dragon rocked like a tiny boat in a storm-tossed sea, on the verge of capsizing. Each impact from the spatial fragments made the barrier flicker violently like lightning in a storm. Xiao Yi Xian's face grew paler with every blow, and tiny beads of sweat covered her forehead, but she gritted her teeth and held on. Xiao Yan's heart was in his throat. He kept his eyes fixed on the way ahead, not daring to let up for an instant.
Just then—
RUMBLE—!!!
Without warning, a terrifying wave made of pure spatial turbulence rose in the middle of the Ancient River ahead. Towering like a mountain reaching into the clouds, it surged toward them with the force of an avalanche. Within the wave was a fragment of law as large as a millstone, its edges wreathed in Chaos Demon Flame. Like a burning meteorite, it radiated a terrifying aura of destruction. Space split apart inch by inch in its wake, revealing dark voids like wounds in the world.
"Not good! We can't dodge!" Xiao Yan's pupils contracted to pinpoints, and his shout was full of panic and unease. The terrifying danger pressed down on him like an invisible mountain, leaving him unable to breathe.
"Defend with everything you've got!" Xiao Yi Xian cried, her voice ringing like clashing blades, filled with unyielding resolve. The Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon seemed to understand her command. It coiled its body at once, protecting them both at its center like an impregnable fortress. The dark gold and violet barrier of poison power instantly solidified to its limit, its shifting light seemingly holding boundless, mysterious power.
BOOM—!!!
In an instant, the spatial wave, carrying the law fragment wreathed in blazing demonic flames, slammed into the barrier around the coiled dragon like a rampaging primordial beast. The impact sounded like the first crash of heaven and earth at creation, shaking the entire space.
The impact was beyond description—like two stars colliding violently in the cosmos, unleashing power capable of destroying the heavens and earth.
CRACK—!!!
A shrill cracking sound rang out, like the death knell tolling in their ears. The Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon's once-impregnable barrier was struck by the fragment, which contained the laws of space and Chaos Demon Flame. Like fragile glass, it was instantly covered in a web of cracks. They spread like demonic tendrils, racing across the entire barrier in the blink of an eye. It was about to shatter completely.
"Pfft!" Xiao Yi Xian jolted as if struck by a heavy blow, and a mouthful of blood flecked with seven-colored sparks sprayed from her lips, tracing a tragic arc through the air. Her Poison Pill shuddered violently within her, its light instantly dimming like a star on the verge of going out. The power sustaining the dragon rapidly ebbed, like an unstoppable tide receding.
Outside the barrier, the spatial turbulence and Corrosive God Poison Miasma sensed blood and went mad, surging through the cracks on the verge of bursting like a flood. Their terrifying aura seemed like demons from hell, ready to devour them both.
"Xiao Yi Xian!" Xiao Yan's eyes bulged with alarm, his gaze full of terror and concern. He watched helplessly as the terrifying spatial turbulence and poisonous miasma were about to swallow them whole, yet he could do nothing. Despair surged through his heart like a tide.
At this critical moment, with life and death hanging by a thread—
ROAR—!!!
A majestic, unyielding dragon's cry that seemed to pierce the soul did not come from outside. It suddenly erupted from the deepest part of Xiao Yan's soul! Like lightning tearing through darkness, it instantly illuminated the abyss of despair. The ancient, mysterious black ring on the index finger of his left hand, pushed to its limits by the threat of death, seemed like an awakened primordial artifact. It once again blazed with brilliant, chaotic dark-gold light, seemingly imbued with the primal chaos of heaven and earth at creation, mysterious and profound.
A dark golden halo spread in an instant like a gentle stream. It wasn't grand or imposing, but carried an unrivaled will to protect. Soft yet incomparably resilient, it quietly covered the inside of the dragon's barrier, which was on the verge of shattering completely, giving the tottering shield one last glimmer of hope.
SIZZLE—!!!
The spatial turbulence and Corrosive God Poison Miasma that poured in crashed against the dark golden halo like raging waves. The collision sounded like a demon clashing with an angel, ringing with a sharp, shrill hiss of dissolution, like a red-hot iron brand plunging into ten-thousand-year-old ice. The halo shook violently, its light flickering as if it might go out at any moment, yet it stood its ground like an unyielding warrior. The spatial turbulence and poisonous miasma were held back by this seemingly fragile glow. It could not purify them completely, but it bought the two of them a precious moment to catch their breath—like the last grain of sand slipping through an hourglass.
"Go!!!" Xiao Yan's eyes blazed with resolve. Seizing this one-in-a-million moment, he began burning the Dou Qi in his body without hesitation. It surged through him like a roaring blaze. At the same time, he poured his soul power into the dragon's reins like a bursting flood. Xiao Yi Xian endured the agony of the backlash, pain stabbing through her like ten thousand arrows, and forced herself to endure as she squeezed the last of her Poison Pill's power, as if she were giving everything she had to this final charge.
ROAR—! The Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon let out a mournful, anguished cry, seeming to carry endless pain and unwillingness. Taking advantage of the brief but crucial reprieve provided by the dark golden halo, it wrenched its body forward like an arrow released from a bowstring. With desperate, fearless resolve, it narrowly forced its way past the spatial wave and fragment of law, which were about to close around them like the jaws of a giant beast. That perilous instant was like the tautest note on the strings of fate; the slightest misstep would have snapped them and ended their lives.
RUMBLE!!!
In an instant, the spatial wave and fragment of law crashed into each other behind them, like two stars colliding, unleashing an energy storm capable of destroying heaven and earth. Like a raging beast, the storm devoured everything around it. Space tore open into a series of savage fissures, and the power of law tangled together like a snarled mess, shrieking sharply.
The Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon carried the two of them like a meteor that had burned itself out, trailing a dim but stubborn tail of flame as it finally escaped the most violent heart of the Ancient River of Buried Gods. Like an exhausted warrior covered in wounds, it slammed into the hard ground at the foot of the Demon Peak of Bones on the opposite bank, where dark red crystals covered the earth. The impact sounded like the earth's pained groan.
Thud! Thud!
The two tumbled from the dragon's nearly crumbling back and slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. The Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon let out an unwilling whimper, as if reluctant to part with this world, then dissolved into a sky full of dark purple-gold sparks, like a dazzling yet tragic firework fading into the air thick with demonic flame.
Xiao Yan struggled to his feet. It felt as if every bone in his body had been taken apart and put back together, and pain surged through him like a tide, leaving him barely able to stand. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose, and his soul felt as if thousands upon thousands of silver needles were stabbing into it at once, bringing unbearable agony. Xiao Yi Xian looked even paler than paper, as though every last trace of color had been drained from her. Her aura had weakened to the extreme, and blood flecked with seven-colored sparks kept seeping from the corner of her mouth. Summoning the Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon by force, then suffering the backlash of the law fragment, had wounded her very essence and left her life flame trembling on the verge of going out.
Yet fate's scales had ultimately tipped ever so slightly in their favor—they had succeeded! In the life-or-death waters of the Ancient River of Buried Gods, they had charged against the current, broken through layer upon layer of deadly shackles, and reached the Demon Peak of Bones!
Xiao Yan slowly raised his head. Through the demonic mist before him, he gazed at the terrifying peak that inspired awe. It was piled from countless enormous bones, like a mosaic of the remains of primordial beasts, rising into dark red demonic clouds and radiating boundless murderous energy and demonic flame, like a colossal gate to hell. Meanwhile, the ring on his left hand throbbed like a rapid drumbeat, pointing clearly toward the summit, as if guiding him to seek the unknown treasure.
The third Bronze Immortal Palace fragment was right there at the summit!
But just as a flicker of excitement at having survived the ordeal rose in his heart, like a ray of light suddenly appearing in the darkness—
"Ke ke ke... What a moving and spectacular performance!"
A hoarse, dry voice rang out of nowhere above them, like bare bones scraping together in the dark. Thick with mockery and greed, it shattered the brief calm like a cold bolt of lightning.
Xiao Yan and Xiao Yi Xian snapped their heads up, their eyes filled with wariness.
Beneath the dark red sky, where demonic flames roiled, a thin, hunched figure hovered silently like a ghost. He was shrouded in a wide black robe, a patch of darkness that swallowed light and blended into the surrounding demonic flames. He leaned on a twisted Skull Bone Staff, as if it were a curse from hell. Pale green soul-fire flickered silently at its tip, like two ghostly green flames. Those flames pierced the hood and locked onto the two weakened figures below like a venomous snake about to strike, as if ready to devour their very souls.
It was none other than You Lao, one of the Nether Duo of Soul Hall, who had been gravely wounded by Xiao Zhan and had fled in a sorry state! Like a venomous snake lying in wait, he had followed them here and lurked at the foot of the Demon Peak of Bones, waiting for his prey to arrive.
"Two little insects, hand over the Bronze Fragments on you, along with the origin Poison Pill of that Woe Poison Body... and I might... let you die quickly!" You Lao's voice was like a frigid wind from the netherworld, carrying bone-piercing murderous intent as it echoed beneath the demonic peak, seeming to freeze the air around them.
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