"This... this is really mine?" Tears shimmered in Qi Luo's eyes.
"I, Fang Yun, never shortchange those who sincerely help me. You risked your life to bring me here swiftly and helped me recover losses beyond measure. This is the reward you deserve," Fang Yun said.
Qi Luo immediately descended to the seabed and declared in a ringing voice, "From this day onward, Qi Luo willingly serves as Your Majesty the Literary Star Dragon Noble's hound and steed!"
"All right, hurry and take it."
"Yes!"
Qi Luo swallowed the Sea-Swallowing Shell in one gulp, then drew out a drop of great sage blood from within it.
His aura climbed steadily, breaking through his realm in an instant and reaching the peak of the fifth realm.
Qi Luo gritted his teeth and swallowed all the sacred blood at once. His body swelled and contracted repeatedly, only stabilizing after more than a dozen breaths.
Before long, he opened his mouth and let out a cry of pain. Golden light flickered all around him, growing ever denser before suddenly bursting outward into a pillar of light nine hundred meters tall that pierced heaven and earth.
Soon, the pillar slowly dispersed. Qi Luo's fins fell off, and the scales covering his body began to peel away, taking great quantities of filth with them and giving off an unbearable fishy stench.
As his scales continued to fall away, Qi Luo's body became riddled with wounds, growing uglier by the moment.
At last, every scale had fallen off, and he let out an even more agonized cry.
A faint golden light shone outward from within his body. New scales slowly began to grow, while the fin on his back shot upward like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Finally, all his fins had grown back.
Compared