Beast Domain

"The Beast Domain? Tsk." Upon hearing this, the Dragon Guard could not help but click his tongue. The Beast Domain was the safest place, but simultaneously the most barren; going there was equivalent to giving up on improvement and just waiting for death.

Just imagine, the Void Ancient Dragon Clan abandoned the Beast Domain to retreat into the Void Land, which proved that the resources within the void were far more abundant and important, while the Beast Domain was merely a place for those inferior magical beasts. Although the Void Ancient Dragon Clan was now fractured, the Void Ancient Dragons still looked down upon the magical beasts in the Beast Domain, considering them low-class.

Over seventy percent of the magical beasts on the Dou Qi Continent were concentrated in the Beast Domain, a place where all sorts of creatures mingled. To put it simply, the void was heaven, while the Beast Domain was the mortal realm. Only cowards afraid of death would choose to go to the Beast Domain; within the Void Ancient Dragon Clan, going there was considered a fall from grace.

Zhu Jin did not bother to explain. He was the one who knew the Dragon of Destiny; how could these ordinary, mediocre dragons comprehend its greatness?

How can the sparrow know the ambition of the swan? Zhu Jin felt a sense of disdain in his heart, but he naturally dared not speak it aloud. The fifteen-meter-long Void Ancient Dragon before him possessed at least the strength of a Dou Huang. He was likely even stronger than Queen Medusa in her early days.

The Dragon Guard formed seals with his hands, and a mark flew into the passage. He did not say another word to Zhu Jin, wearing an expression that clearly said, "You are on your own."

Zhu Jin turned his gaze toward the passage. A pitch-black hole, fully a hundred zhang wide, was slowly rotating. Waves of astonishing spatial power overflowed from it. There were hundreds of such transport passages on North Dragon Island, and this was merely the nearest one.

"Tsk tsk tsk, space wormhole technology; this really is heaven-defying." Zhu Jin stared at the pitch-black hole, examining it closely. Scenes that only existed in novels were now appearing vividly before his eyes. The passage emitted a strange suction force, and all that could be seen was an endless void of darkness and a soul-shaking, eerie whistling sound.

Zhu Jin did not hesitate any longer and dove straight into the passage. Normally, one would need a space ship to enter a space wormhole, but that applied to ordinary cultivators. The Void Ancient Dragon Clan was born with the ability to traverse the void, and their own dragon scales were the best space ships.

The passages of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan were stronger and faster than those created by ordinary Dou Zuns. In just one day, Zhu Jin left the Void Land and descended into the Beast Domain.

"This is the Beast Domain. This is the true Dou Qi Continent." Standing on a high mountain, Zhu Jin took a deep breath of the air—the same air shared by the Flame Emperor Xiao Yan—and exhaled slowly as he gazed into the distance.

"The air of the Dou Qi Continent is truly sweet."

Although the area of the Beast Domain could not compare to the Central Plains, it still occupied the southern part of the continent. Mountains were layered upon mountains, and endless ranges stretched as far as the eye could see, enough to make one feel the wild, untamed atmosphere of this place.

The Beast Domain was known as the land of a hundred thousand mountains, but that was merely a rough estimate; if one were to truly count, the number would far exceed that. These mountain ranges stretched to the distant reaches where dragon power could not reach, and the passage of time had left countless treasures hidden within these endless peaks.

"The ancient ruins mentioned in the book containing the Dragon-Phoenix Origin Fruit are in the Skeleton Mountain Range, but it will be a long time before those ruins emerge." Zhu Jin recalled some information from the book, then with a thought, he opened his storage space and took out a yellowed piece of parchment.

It was an ancient map from before the Void Ancient Dragon Clan had split and before Zhu Kun had been sealed in the Tuoshe Ancient God Mansion. It was a map of the Beast Domain that the Dragon Island had possessed, or rather, a map of their territorial borders. Although this map was essentially obsolete, it was the only map of the Beast Domain that Zhu Jin could find after scouring the entire North Dragon Island at his level.

"According to this map, this place was once the territory of a vassal race of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan called the Wild Mountain Macaque Dragons." Zhu Jin confirmed a few details, shook his head helplessly, and put the map away. Given the current state of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan, what vassal families were left?

One had to know that the book recorded Xiong Zhan, a Wild Mountain Macaque Dragon—no, an Ancient Dragon Bear—who was a powerhouse in human form with the strength of a three-star Dou Zun. Yet, he couldn't even recognize the path to Dragon Island and couldn't enter the void. The Ancient Dragon Bear clan had once been a vassal family of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan, but they were later forced into independence. If not for Zi Yan, the Ancient Dragon Bear clan wouldn't even have been able to find the Dragon Island.

As for these Wild Mountain Macaque Dragons, one didn't need to guess; they were either abandoned by the Void Ancient Dragon Clan like the Ancient Dragon Bears, or they had become independent and turned into a local race of the Beast Domain. They might even have been wiped out by powerful races like the Heavenly Demon Phoenix Clan.

"Finding the Wild Mountain Macaque Dragon clan isn't realistic. Even if I found them, with my current Dou Ling cultivation and the current influence of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan in the Beast Domain, if I showed up at their door, I'd more likely be slaughtered and eaten." Zhu Jin pondered for a moment; seeking out former vassal families for intelligence was a dead end.

Although he was of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan, he was different from pure-blooded ones like Zi Yan; he was a half-breed. Relying on bloodline suppression against magical beasts stronger than himself was unrealistic. In fact, looking at his appearance, it wasn't hard to tell: small dragons like Zhu Jin and Zhu Zong looked more like flood dragons than the Eastern Divine Dragons.

The biggest difference between a half-breed Void Ancient Dragon like Zhu Jin and a vassal family with Void Ancient Dragon blood like the Ancient Dragon Bears was that the Void Ancient Dragon genes were expressed rather than hidden in him. To put it more bluntly, those who displayed the traits of the Void Ancient Dragon were half-breeds, while those who didn't were just magical beasts with a trace of Void Ancient Dragon blood. Xiong Zhan of the Ancient Dragon Bears and the Nether Sea Flood Dragon Beast of the Jia Ma Empire both possessed a trace of the bloodline, but could not be called half-breeds.

If Zhu Jin were to settle down in the Beast Domain and have offspring with other magical beasts, it was highly probable that they would not look like Void Ancient Dragons, and eventually, they would gradually turn into the appearance of a vassal family.

"My primary goal now is to improve my strength and then find the location of Canaan Academy and a way to get there." Zhu Jin felt a bit heavy-hearted as he felt the cold wind blowing through the mountains. He had once thought about just lying flat and waiting for death; after all, no matter how weak a Void Ancient Dragon was, it was still a Void Ancient Dragon. Growing to the Dou Wang level and lording over a corner of the Beast Domain didn't seem so bad.

But in the end, the ambition of the dragon race and the greed of humanity overcame his desire to just rot away.

"Since I have been reborn and possess the knowledge of destiny, if I just rot away, I am no dragon at all!" Zhu Jin roared, "The Five Emperors break through the void; the book only mentioned that among the Five Emperors were Xiao Yan, Xun Er, and Queen Medusa. The other two were never explicitly named."

"Since they weren't named, this is a variable of destiny. Why can't I be one of the Five Emperors?"

Zhu Jin knew that although the destiny of this world was fixed, variables still existed. For example, the Beast Domain was not described in detail in the book, nor was the final outcome of the Void Ancient Dragon Clan, nor was Zi Yan's fate. Since that was the case, there were still variables!

From the time Xiao Yan defeated Hun Tiandi to the moment the Five Emperors broke through the void, there was a gap of several years. The unknown meant there were variables!

"But for now... let's find a few magical beasts that are easy to bully..." Zhu Jin's gaze turned toward the depths of the forest, where several pairs of scarlet eyes were watching him covetously, as if they would pounce at any moment to devour his flesh and blood.

"It truly lives up to its name as the Savage Beast Domain. It's wild enough—I like it."