The True Dead Zone of the Western Primordial World

Before leaving, Yellow Dragon bestowed sweet rain upon the Ginseng Fruit Tree for three consecutive days.

At last, Yellow Dragon took out a low-grade postnatal Ginseng Fruit Tree sapling successfully cultivated from a side branch and gave it to Qingfeng and Mingyue. "Raise this Ginseng Fruit Tree to maturity, and you'll be able to eat Ginseng Fruits often."

Qingfeng and Mingyue were both shocked and delighted. At the thought of being able to eat Ginseng Fruits regularly, drool streamed from their mouths uncontrollably, and they both repeatedly thanked Yellow Dragon.

Qingfeng suddenly called out to stop Yellow Dragon, asking him to wait, then hurried off toward the rear courtyard. Before long, he returned carrying a jade box and handed it to Yellow Dragon.

"Master instructed us before he entered seclusion. He said that if you wished to leave, Senior Brother, we were to give this to you."

Yellow Dragon opened the jade box. Ten Ginseng Fruits lay quietly within. Helplessly, Yellow Dragon accepted them and bowed toward the temple.

After bidding Qingfeng and Mingyue farewell, Yellow Dragon summoned an auspicious cloud and departed Wuzhuang Temple.

The boundless Primordial World. Since he had come to Longevity Mountain, Yellow Dragon wanted to see for himself just how barren the western Primordial World, ravaged by the Devil Ancestor, truly was.

Longevity Mountain happened to lie at the border between the western and central regions of the Primordial World.

Yet after traveling westward for less than a hundred million li and leaving the territory of Longevity Mountain—

The sight before him left even Yellow Dragon, who had long grown accustomed to the countless peculiar regions of the Primordial World, unable to believe his eyes.

An enormous barrier, countless millions of li high, stretched across before him. Like a sheet of transparent glass, it separated the two lands. Looking west through that barrier, he saw all things within withered away, earth, fire, wind, and water in turmoil, and the laws of the Great Dao thrown into chaos.

After passing through the barrier and continuing onward for tens of millions of li, an even more horrifying world, like hell itself, came into Yellow Dragon's sight.

"This is the true western world of the Primordial World—a world utterly different from the Primordial World."

Yet the sight before him sent even a trace of bone-piercing chill through Yellow Dragon's steadfast Dao heart.

There was not a scrap of green left here. The sky was shrouded in dense Sha Qi and black clouds formed from the resentments left behind by countless living beings after death. Sun, moon, and stars were nowhere to be seen.

Across the earth, wisps of black gas that gave even Yellow Dragon a faint sense of danger seeped out from time to time. They were the demonic qi left behind by Devil Ancestor Rahu.

A fierce wind swept past, carrying strands of demonic qi that collided with and eroded the protective immortal radiance cast down by the Pure World White Lotus above Yellow Dragon's head.

"Sizzle, sizzle."

"Sizzle, sizzle."

Watching the demonic qi dissipate, Yellow Dragon's taut mind relaxed slightly.

"Good thing I have the Pure World White Lotus. Otherwise, this would have been troublesome."

Extinction!

A land of death!

A true apocalypse! Compared to this place, Penglai Immortal Island after it had been destroyed by the great battle, and the hundreds of millions of li of land created by Hongyun's self-destruction, were like a petty shaman before a great shaman.

Yellow Dragon had previously thought that claims of Devil Ancestor Rahu detonating the western ancestral veins, severing the western spiritual veins and wiping out all vitality, were merely exaggerations. With the supreme divine abilities of sages, restoring it should have been effortless.

Only upon seeing it with his own eyes did he realize that the words "utterly destroyed" truly meant destroyed beyond all measure.

This was severance at the very root. The Great Dao did not descend, the laws did not manifest; the entire western region seemed to have been abandoned by the Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World.

"And I wanted to restore vitality here? What a fool's dream."

Yellow Dragon muttered to himself. He had once thought that restoring life to the western Primordial World would earn enough merit for a living being to become a Merit Sage without Primordial Violet Qi.

Now that he thought about it, he had been too young, too inexperienced, and far too naive.

"Repairing the western Primordial World may be even harder than becoming a sage."

At last, he understood why the two sages born in the West, Jieyin and Zhunti, had never restored this place even after becoming sages. It was not that they were unwilling, but that they could not.

"No wonder those two kept going to the East to catch autumn breezes even after becoming sages...!"

The western Primordial World had become a forgotten, despairing dead realm unto itself.

Such utter destruction could only be reversed by reopening heaven and earth and recreating earth, wind, water, and fire...!

"Recreating earth, wind, water, and fire...!" A bolt of lightning split the dense mist, and Yellow Dragon suddenly recalled the final battle of the Investiture of the Gods, when the sages fought and ultimately recreated earth, wind, water, and fire in the Primordial World, remaking it and forming the Four Great Continents.

The Western Ox-He Continent occupied by the two western sages was better than both the Southern Jambu Continent and the Northern Kuru Continent, though it still could not compare to the Eastern Victory Continent...!

Yellow Dragon shook his head and buried these thoughts deep within his heart. These were not matters he could consider now.

He stood silently for a long while, observing this world in silence. In the end, he merely sighed softly, turned, and left.

This was not a place to linger.

After crossing the barrier, tens of millions of li wide, once more, Yellow Dragon returned directly to the territory of Longevity Mountain.

The moment he stepped back into the vibrant Primordial World, his mind suddenly felt light. Heaven and earth, all things, the Great Dao, and its laws were all still there.

Dense, pure innate spiritual qi instantly enveloped him. He could not help taking a deep breath. The qi was pure and sweet, carrying the fragrance of immortal herbs.

"Even the air of one's homeland is sweet!" Yellow Dragon could not help recalling those words.

He drew another deep breath. "It really is sweet..."

After lingering briefly, Yellow Dragon continued eastward.

He did not travel at full speed. Instead, he spread out his Primordial Spirit like a precise radar, sweeping every place where spiritual qi was unusually dense along the way.

He suddenly recalled that, apart from the five innate spiritual veins of the five elements within his Mysterious Yellow World, all his other spiritual veins had been transplanted to the place where Hongyun had fallen.

The Mysterious Yellow World was utterly empty now.

The primordial wilderness was vast and rich in resources. Though it had endured several great calamities, its foundations remained deep.

Wherever Yellow Dragon passed, enormous spiritual veins vanished from where they lay, along with veins of refined gold and spirit iron rich in deposits. There were also immortal herbs and spiritual medicines growing in blessed mountains and sacred lands rarely visited by immortals and gods.

Anything he saw was fated to be his.

Before long, Yellow Dragon's Mysterious Yellow World had recovered, even surpassing its former state by a measure.

"Transplanting a little more from this wealthy primordial land into the Mysterious Yellow World—surely Lord Heavenly Dao won't blame me. After all, I've rendered merit...!"

Thus, flying and stopping all along the way, searching for spiritual treasures and comprehending the laws of heaven and earth, several hundred years drifted quietly by.

At some unknown point, the scenes Yellow Dragon encountered began to change.

The mountains and rivers, once handsome and beautiful, and the great rivers that flowed without end, began to bear enormous claw marks and bottomless craters. Half-mountain peaks had been forcibly wiped away, while rivers ran dark red, dyed by blood.

Now and then, huge beast bones covered in bite marks could be seen scattered about—nothing but white bones, without a shred of flesh.

Yellow Dragon put away a hundred-zhang-long leg bone as hard as divine iron. Judging from the aura it gave off, he determined that it had belonged to a Golden Immortal-level ox.

Dao patterns densely covered its surface. Though much of its spiritual energy had dissipated, in Yellow Dragon's eyes, it was still fine material for artifact refining.

"With a little tempering and the addition of some supplementary materials, it could be forged into a decent spiritual treasure—more useful than some innate divine iron." Yellow Dragon thought happily.

The farther east he traveled, the more densely such scenes appeared. Yet some places had already brimmed with life once more; without a careful look, one might have thought they had always been that way.

Grass and trees growing from soil steeped in blood were even more luxuriant than those elsewhere.