Cheng Xiao's consciousness was like a small boat adrift in a raging storm. The roaring, icy waves had just slapped him across the left side of his face when a hurricane laced with scorching heat struck him across the right.
The two forces relentlessly ravaged Cheng Xiao's consciousness, yet he gritted his teeth and held on to the last shred of clarity, determined to remain unmoved no matter what storms came his way.
His consciousness drifted unsteadily, yet the final ember within it never went out.
No one knew how long passed before Cheng Xiao's consciousness suddenly seemed to transcend time and space. The endless darkness around him faded away, replaced by blinding light.
When his vision returned, Cheng Xiao saw two gigantic dragons circling high in the sky. Their terrifying power dyed the heavens red and blue. Scorching heat and bitter cold intertwined, turning all living things between heaven and earth into ice sculptures and ashes beneath their devastation.
Rumble!
A blood-red figure stood in the sky, his entire body brimming with baleful aura. Behind him floated halos utterly unlike soul rings—nine of them in total. He held a blood-colored greatsword over two meters long, its slender yet broad blade covered in dark golden demonic patterns and radiating an incomparably sharp aura of slaughter.
Looking closer, that figure did not seem to be in this world at all, as though he stood within a layer between spaces. Yet his imposing presence still made one's heart tremble with fear.
The blood-red figure lightly swung his longsword. Wherever its edge passed, space itself shattered.
"Descending to the lower realm without authorization violates the laws of the God Realm. I sentence you to death!" the blood-red figure said coldly.
**"Roar! You killed our king and seek to imprison us. Must our Dragon