A True Dragon Descends Upon the Mortal World

Shrek City, inside the East Gate Street.

It was lunchtime.

The busiest restaurant on this street is called "Old Zhao Hotpot," a simple name that has become incredibly popular.

During lunchtime, the restaurant's twenty-odd tables are full from 11 a. m. to 2 p. m., and customers are always waiting on the benches outside. Old Zhao is counting money behind the counter, grinning from ear to ear.

Today is no exception.

The table by the window was occupied by three Soul Master from out of town. Judging from their clothes, they were probably guards from a merchant caravan coming from the Tiandou region. The table was laden with four plates of Soul Beast rolls, a dish of handmade fish balls, and several kinds of seasonal vegetables. The red soup in the pot was bubbling away.

The man sitting by the aisle was dipping a piece of meat into the pot, muttering about going to the Shrek City Soul Fighting Arena that afternoon to see if there were any good matches.

Then the piece of meat on his chopsticks fell off.

He was completely stunned.

The red broth in the pot was still bubbling, but he couldn't feel that it was hot anymore.

An indescribable sense of oppression was pressing down on us from the center of Shrek City.

It felt like the air itself had suddenly gained weight.

It's not pressure on the body, but a tremor from the depths of the soul that presses directly on the mental level.

All the Soul Master in the shop froze.

That kind of suppression, originating from mental instinct, transcends all rational judgment, causing your muscles to lock up on their own before they receive instructions from your brain.

A Soul Master, who was pouring wine into a glass, remained motionless with the bottle tilted, unaware that the wine was overflowing from the rim and spilling all over the table.

The waiter carrying the dishes remained rooted to the spot, his tray trembling slightly.

Old Zhao stood up from behind the counter, his expression changing from confusion to horror.

"What happened? What happened?!"

No one answered him.

Then there was a huge earthquake.

It wasn't the continuous shaking of an earthquake, but rather an extremely brief and violent tremor, as if something had crashed into the ground from a great height.

The hot pot broth splashed out of the pot, the bowls and plates on the table clattered and bounced, and the menu sign hanging in the corner was shaken and fell down, hitting the waiter's foot, but the waiter didn't even feel any pain.

Then they saw the light.

A beam of light shot into the sky from the center of Shrek City.

The color of the beam of light is difficult to describe in words.

Its main body is silvery-white, the kind of pure, non-glaring silvery-white that only appears when moonlight is condensed to its extreme.

But silver-white is not its only color.

At the edge of the pillar of light, a thick, almost viscous, dark purple halo Entanglement. The two colors Entanglement, permeated, and chased each other as they rose toward the sky, like two giant dragons mating.

As the beam of light shot into the sky, the dust and gravel on the ground were lifted up by an invisible force, suspending in mid-air and slowly rotating.

The air vibrated, emitting a deep, continuous hum, as if the entire city was resonating with the beam of light.

Then came the dragon's roar.

The dragon's roar doesn't enter through the ears, it enters through the bones.

That deep, resonant sound, almost reaching the limits of internal organ resonance, pierced through flesh and blood, through bones, through the walls and glass of the Soul Guide Hot Pot restaurant, exploding directly in the chest cavity of everyone who heard it.

The glass windows of the hot pot restaurant were covered with numerous cracks.

The Soul Master at the table by the window finally realized what was happening.

His reaction was to fall backward, chair and all, onto the floor. He pointed at the towering beam of light outside the window, his lips trembling as he managed to squeeze out a complete sentence.

"Shrek... Shrek... that direction leads to the Shrek Academy!"

His companion's reaction wasn't much better. He didn't even bother to pick up the dishes he accidentally swept to the ground. He just stared wide-eyed at the increasingly thick and bright beam of light outside the window, and subconsciously swore.

"What level of Soul Master could create such a commotion?!"

There is no answer.

Because the answer was beyond their comprehension.

The streets are in chaos.

Pedestrians stopped in their tracks, all looking up at the towering pillar of light.

A vendor selling roasted chestnuts tilted his head back so much that his hat fell off, and chestnuts rolled out of the tilted pot and spilled all over the ground, but he didn't notice.

Two Soul Master dressed in Shrek City Enforcement Team uniforms stood in the middle of the intersection. According to regulations, they should maintain order, but they were so stunned by the beam of light that they forgot what they were supposed to do and just stood there blankly, looking up like all the passersby.

A woman holding a child instinctively crouched down, shielding the child in her arms. She didn't know what was happening, but every cell in her body was telling her.

Something is over there; something extremely powerful is awakening.

A businessman who had just crawled out of Soul Convergence taxi suddenly collapsed, grabbing the car door to keep from kneeling. His face was deathly pale as he stared at the sky, his voice trembling.

"What is that?!"

No one could tell him.

An elderly Soul Master with white hair stood on the side of the street. He was the oldest person on the street. It was said that he had entered the Inner Court Shrek Academy when he was young, but he retired because he could not break through the bottleneck.

He had lived for a very long time, witnessing life-and-death battles between Titled Douluo and the tides on Sea God Lake.

But at this moment, his eyes were also filled with shock.

His muttering was drowned out by the hum of the beam of light; only he could hear it.

"... Soul Spirit Contract... This means someone is forming Soul Spirit Contract with a true dragon... and it's Ferocious Beast..."

As he spoke, his voice began to tremble.

He realized something even more terrifying.

Two forces coexist within this pillar of light: the chilling power of Moonlight and the corrosive power of darkness. They Entanglement within the pillar without repelling each other, indicating that the two parties to the contract merged in a completely equal and voluntary state.

This is approval.

A Ferocious Beast with at least 200,000 years of cultivation willingly travels with a human.

He suddenly realized that even after living for 180 years, he still hadn't seen enough of the world.

Spirit Pagoda, Shrek City Branch, Top Floor.

I'm in a great mood today, Qiangu Dongfeng.

How good is it?

He was so generous that he even brought out a bottle of aged apple cider vinegar that he had treasured for many years.

This apple cider vinegar is made from ice apples, a specialty of the northern snow-capped mountains of the Sun Moon Federation. Every drop undergoes at least three years of low-temperature fermentation, resulting in a refreshing and sweet taste. It is simply not available on the market and is a rare commodity that even money cannot guarantee you can get your hands on.

He propped his legs up on the desk, sank his back into the chair, held a wine glass in his left hand, and tapped a rhythm lightly on the armrest with his right.

The apple cider vinegar in the stemmed glass gleamed amber in the sunlight. He brought it to his nose, took a small sip, and savored the sweet and sour flavor with a hint of fruitiness. As it slid down his throat, a refreshing aftertaste lingered.

He sighed with satisfaction.

Today was really comfortable.

The Spirit Pagoda just submitted its financial report for the last quarter, and its performance ranked first among all businesses.

In a good mood, he crossed his legs, poured some apple cider vinegar, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to enjoy a rare moment of leisure.

Then he heard a dragon's roar.

The wine glass slipped from his hand, spilling amber liquid all over his face.

Before he could wipe his face, a sense of oppression on a spiritual level swept over him from the direction of the Shrek Academy. The intensity of the oppression was so great that his body instinctively leaned back before his brain could react.

The chair lost its balance, and Qiangu Dongfeng Feng, chair and all, tipped backward. He hit the edge of the desk on the back of his head and fell to the ground. The wine glass rolled twice on the carpet, and the remaining apple cider vinegar seeped into the carpet.

When he got up from the ground, his face still had apple cider vinegar residue on it, and the amber liquid dripped down his chin onto his shirt collar, but he didn't bother to wipe it off.

He lunged to the French windows, bracing himself against the frame with both hands, his face almost pressed against the glass.

Then he saw a beam of light.

A beam of light shot into the sky from the direction of the Core Area of the Shrek Academy, its diameter so thick that he wondered if there was something wrong with his eyes.

Silver-white and dark purple intertwined, the two colors swirling and Entanglement within the pillar of light, constantly releasing ripples of energy outwards.

The beam of light pierced the clouds, turning the clouds within a radius of several kilometers silvery-purple. The clouds slowly rotated around the beam, forming a huge, ever-expanding vortex.

The dragon's roar rang out again.

The second tone is deeper and longer than the first, carrying an ancient rhythm that sends chills down your spine.

Qiangu Dongfeng's hands began to tremble.

He certainly understood what that meant.

He is the master of the Spirit Pagoda, and his research on Soul Spirit is more in-depth than that of most people in the world.

He knew all too well what the color combination of that light, the frequency of that energy fluctuation, and the dragon's roar that directly affected the spiritual realm meant.

That's a dragon contract.

And they are not ordinary dragons.

Ordinary contracts could never trigger this scale of energy resonance; even a typical true dragon couldn't do it.

Such extraordinary celestial phenomena only occur when a dragon-type Ferocious Beast with a cultivation level exceeding two hundred thousand years voluntarily sacrifices itself and actively merges with a human.

voluntary.

This realization terrified Qiangu Dongfeng even more than the beam of light itself.

A dragon Ferocious Beast with over 200,000 years of cultivation cannot be forcibly conquered by humans. Even if all the elders of the Sea God Pavilion joined forces, they could not make a true dragon bow its head.

That leaves only one possibility.

That Ferocious Beast did so willingly.

It recognized that human being, so much so that it was willing to give up its own independent life form and become that human's Soul Spirit.

When did such a person appear in the Sea God Pavilion?

Yun Ming?

impossible.

If it were Yun Ming's aura, Qiangu Dongfeng wouldn't have failed to recognize it, especially since Yun Ming didn't have any Soul Ring slots.

That vitality of Soul Power, that youthful exuberance and sharpness, was something that a veteran Titled Douluo had lived for over a hundred years could never exude.

A young man.

A young man so young that he dared not guess his exact age.

When did another monster appear in the Sea God Pavilion?

Could it be Yun Jingheng?

Qiangu Dongfeng stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, his hands braced against the glass, his fingertips slightly white from exerting too much force.

The apple cider vinegar on his face hadn't been wiped off yet; the amber liquid reflected the sunlight, making him look extremely comical.

But he couldn't laugh.

He stared at the towering beam of light, the shock in his eyes gradually turning into a somber expression.

Then he turned around abruptly, grabbed the communicator on his desk, and dialed his secretary's number.

"Investigate it for me."

His voice was a whole tone lower than usual, each word sounding like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth, "Give me all the information that the Sea God Pavilion has been leaking in the last six months."

He ended the call and looked again at the beam of light outside the window.

"The plan... needs to be moved up."