Seal Complete

Within the Sea of Spirit, the situation changed by the instant!

Watching the Golden Dragon King laugh wildly as it regained control of all its divided power, Huo Yuhao's spiritual phantom sharpened his gaze and made a snap decision!

"Retreat!"

Without the slightest hesitation, his spiritual phantom was erased from Tang Wulin's boiling golden sea of spiritual fire as if by an eraser. He instantly withdrew, severing the deep connection and leaving only a faint channel of perception. In reality, Huo Yuhao's body swayed violently, and a thread of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. The backlash from forcibly cutting off a deep spiritual connection was no trivial matter.

"Hahaha! Huo Yuhao, are you afraid? Do you think you can escape? Once I completely devour this brat's soul and seize this perfect body, you'll be next! Your Undead Plane will become my finest nest!" The Golden Dragon King's wild laughter came through that faint channel, filled with triumphant arrogance and venomous hatred.

Yet before its laughter could fade, the Dark-Gold Dragon King, which had just condensed into form and possessed slightly weaker aura, suddenly let out an uncertain growl. "Jin... no, that's not right!"

On the Dark-Gold Dragon King's dark-gold body, forcibly pieced together from fragments, circles of incredibly ancient and obscure gray runes had appeared at some unknown point! The runes moved slowly as though alive, and every flicker made the Dark-Gold Dragon King feel a suppressive and binding force from the depths of its bloodline, one that made its soul tremble! Its movements became sluggish, its power circulation obstructed, as though invisible shackles had been placed upon it!

"This is... the Forbidden Dragon Curse?! Impossible!" The Golden Dragon King's laughter froze on its face, transforming into incredulous terror. Its resolve was nearly shattered. The Forbidden Dragon Curse was one of the supreme authority incantations granted by the ancient Dragon God to certain dragon-clan enforcers, specifically meant to punish and suppress powerful dragon clans that rebelled or lost control! How could Huo Yuhao, a human, possibly wield it? Could it be that when he analyzed the Golden Dragon King's power, he had even deciphered forbidden knowledge from the era of the Dragon God?

That was not the case. This incantation had not been analyzed by Huo Yuhao from the Golden Dragon King's power—the Golden Dragon King governed destruction and did not command such laws. Its source was Di Tian! The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King clan had been among the dragon clan's enforcers during the Dragon God's era, passing down some knowledge of the Forbidden Dragon Curse through generations. Though incomplete and retaining only its suppressive effect, and though activating it required a tremendous price, it was now an unexpected trump card against the divided and unstable Golden Dragon King consciousness! Over the past three years, Huo Yuhao and Di Tian had discussed and studied it, quietly setting up this contingency long ago, waiting for the moment the Golden Dragon King's power divided or became unstable!

"Dark Gold! Hold back this curse for me! I'll immediately give everything I have to seize his body. Once I take the lead, all suppression can be reversed!" The Golden Dragon King swiftly calmed down, realizing it had to race against time. It ignored the newborn body's predicament and gathered all its consciousness into a dark-gold torrent, charging fiercely toward the fragile point of light deep within Tang Wulin's Sea of Spirit that represented his true consciousness, preparing to devour him and seize his body by force!

However—

"Buzz!"

Its charge was like crashing into an invisible yet incomparably resilient wall. No matter how it drove its divine power, it could not advance even half a step! It felt as though it had sunk into the thickest swamp; the harder it struggled, the tighter the restraints became.

"What now?!" The Golden Dragon King was nearly going mad. The successive twists had driven it into a furious rage. Just how many layers of preparations had that damned Huo Yuhao made?!

"Jin! Watch above!" The Dark-Gold Dragon King's cry came with even deeper terror.

The Golden Dragon King abruptly looked up and saw that the sky above the Sea of Spirit had, at some point, been enveloped by nine vast and magnificent nine-colored halos containing the laws of the universe's deepest emotions and truest nature! The halos slowly revolved, scattering endless rosy radiance. Every ray carried an intent to cleanse, soothe, and ultimately imprison! They were the projections of the nine Divine Rings belonging to Huo Yuhao's origin godhood—the God of Emotions!

"You... you're insane?! You're using Divine Rings as the foundation to create a godly seal?! Do you not want your Divine Core anymore?!" For the first time, the Golden Dragon King's voice held genuine shock and incomprehension. Divine Rings were the embodiment of a god's authority and strength, containing the core laws and divine abilities of their godhood. Stripping them away to use as the core of a seal could indeed produce unimaginable sealing power, but it was no different from cutting off one's own arm! Without the balancing and protection of the Divine Rings, Huo Yuhao's already shattered Divine Core, eroded by the Golden Dragon King's residual power, would be completely exposed to the direct assault of the Golden Dragon King's strength, left in dire peril! This was practically a mutual-destruction tactic!

Huo Yuhao did not answer. In the quiet room in reality, the temperature plummeted as the chill of Ultimate Ice erupted without restraint! Pale white frost spread from Huo Yuhao in an instant, crawling across the walls, floor, and ceiling and turning the entire room into an ice cave. This cold did not merely affect reality; it also seeped into Tang Wulin's Sea of Spirit through their spiritual connection, assisting the Nine-Colored Divine Rings in freezing the boiling golden sea of fire inch by inch! During ten thousand years in the Divine Realm, Huo Yuhao had never ceased tempering his Ultimate Ice. Now, combined with Emotion Divine Power, it froze not only energy, but also the activity of consciousness itself!

At the same time, in the corner of the quiet room, a strange-looking Soul Tool that had long been activated emitted a low hum. It transformed the faint but pure power of faith generated by customers' sincere fondness and gratitude, accumulated over many years at Huo Yuhao's Rain Spirit Grilled Fish Shop, into the most basic divine power. It continuously poured that power into Huo Yuhao's nearly depleted body, sustaining this mad endeavor.

Within the Sea of Spirit, the nine-colored halos suddenly contracted, becoming nine sacred shackles that layered upon one another and tightly bound the Golden Dragon King's immense phantom! The radiance of the Divine Rings intertwined with the ultimate ice chill, forming an absolute seal. The Golden Dragon King let out an unwilling roar and struggled frantically, its dragon body twisting until cracks appeared in the frozen sea of fire. Yet the nine-colored shackles did not budge. Instead, they tightened further, their radiance penetrating its phantom and beginning to suppress its origin consciousness.

"No! Why?! Why go this far?!" it roared from within the shackles.

As the main body was sealed and suppressed by the Nine-Colored Divine Rings, the pressure of the Forbidden Dragon Curse on the Dark-Gold Dragon King surged! The gray runes shone brightly and contracted tighter, like a net constantly drawing closed. The Dark-Gold Dragon King shrieked in agony. It had been forcibly condensed from fragments and was inherently unstable. Under the dual pressure of the Forbidden Dragon Curse and the external ice chill, its power began to leak away uncontrollably.

The battle had entered its cruelest and most primitive stage—a war of attrition! It would depend on whether Huo Yuhao's divine power, Soul Power, and spiritual power ran out first, leaving him unable to maintain the Divine Ring seal and the Forbidden Dragon Curse despite the Faith Soul Conduit's meager replenishment, or whether the Dark-Gold Dragon King would first be completely sealed and crushed by the Forbidden Dragon Curse!

Time passed amid the suffocating stalemate. A quarter-hour, then another... Huo Yuhao's body in reality trembled more and more violently. His face was pale as paper, and thin streams of blood began to seep from his seven orifices, signs that both his divine power and Soul Power had been overdrawn. The icy room remained freezing, but the Faith Soul Conduit's light had dimmed to the point of nearly going out.

Within the Sea of Spirit, the nine-colored halos also began to flicker uncertainly, but the shackles remained firm. The Golden Dragon King's roars had become weak whimpers, and its struggles grew smaller and smaller. The gray runes on the Golden Dragon King's body had already embedded deeply into its phantom, and its form began to blur and collapse.

Finally, after nearly two hours of stalemate—

"Roar—!" An anguished cry filled with unwillingness and weakness rang out. The Dark-Gold Dragon King was the first to fail, completely suppressed and compressed by the Forbidden Dragon Curse into a dark-gold ball of light wrapped in gray runes, losing all ability to resist.

Almost at the same moment, a fierce glint flashed in Huo Yuhao's eyes as he shouted, "Now! Golden Dragon Spear, suppress!"

In reality, the Golden Dragon Spear that he had been holding suddenly flew into the air, and the spear tip erupted with an unprecedented suction force! This force did not merely target ownerless energy; it now targeted the Golden Dragon King's consciousness, which had been sealed and suppressed! The ball of light formed by the Dark-Gold Dragon King was drawn in first, helplessly flying toward the Golden Dragon Spear. Immediately afterward, the Golden Dragon King's phantom, locked by the Nine-Colored Divine Rings, let out a terrified shriek. Its power and fragments of consciousness also began to be slowly pulled out and absorbed by the Golden Dragon Spear!

This was a terrifying vicious cycle! The Golden Dragon Spear's attraction to the Golden Dragon King's power now reinforced the sealing effect—because to resist the suction, the Golden Dragon King's consciousness had to become more concentrated and more tangible, which gave the Divine Ring seal and the Forbidden Dragon Curse clearer points to exert force upon, making the seal tighter! The tighter the seal became, the weaker the Golden Dragon King's control over outside power, and the more easily it was drawn to the Golden Dragon Spear... A vicious cycle with no solution!

If the one being sealed had been the Golden Dragon King in its complete form, the Golden Dragon Spear might eventually have returned to its original owner and fallen under its control. But now, it was in a divided and suppressed state!

In reality, the golden scales on Tang Wulin's body had already fallen away and dissipated piece by piece during the freezing and extraction of power. His body temperature returned to normal, though he remained unconscious. Only at his abdomen could two faintly glowing spheres of differing brightness be vaguely seen flickering.

Huo Yuhao forcibly drew upon his final breath, raised his hands, and aimed them at Tang Wulin from afar. "Separate!"

Two dark-gold Divine Cores, one large and one small, dim in radiance and covered in cracks, slowly emerged from Tang Wulin's chest. The larger one accounted for roughly seventy percent and was wrapped in nine-colored radiance; the smaller one accounted for roughly thirty percent and was enveloped by gray runes. Both emitted an aura that was terrifying yet weak.

"To be safe... another layer of sealing!" Huo Yuhao's voice was hoarse. He drew upon his own shattered Emotion Divine Core, which had been heavily locked within his body by undead magic and the Sword of Life. He spat out a mouthful of origin blood, mixing it with his last remaining undead magic power and the Sword of Life's guarding sword aura, forming a complex Triangle Seal formation that enveloped the two Golden Dragon King's Divine Cores together with the phantom of his own Emotion Divine Core!

"Threefold Seal: Suppress!"

With a flash of light, the two Golden Dragon King's Divine Cores were forcibly drawn into Huo Yuhao's body. Together with his Emotion Divine Core, they formed an extremely unstable triangular sealing structure that had nonetheless temporarily achieved balance, jointly suppressing them deep within his soul. At this point, the Golden Dragon King's Divine Core origin had been temporarily stripped from Tang Wulin's body!

"Pfft!" Huo Yuhao could no longer hold on and violently spat out a large mouthful of blood, flecks of golden light mixed within it. He collapsed to the ground, drenched in blood, his clothes torn and his aura weak to the extreme. His divine power and Soul Power had been completely exhausted, and his spiritual power was overdrawn. Everything he had done had only amounted to sealing it. He could feel that the triangular seal inside him was fragile and unstable, while the external Nine-Colored Divine Rings had already returned but were dim and lifeless. These seals could probably last no more than fifteen years.

"Fortunately... your father... prepared thoroughly enough..." Huo Yuhao said, trembling as he took a deep-blue diamond-shaped mark from his chest, as if it had condensed from the purest seawater—it was the Sea God's Mark left behind by Tang San. With great difficulty, he pressed it against unconscious Tang Wulin's forehead.

The instant the mark fused into him, the immense ownerless Golden Dragon King's power within Tang Wulin, which had remained behind and run rampant from the fierce struggle, seemed to find a home. Eighteen azure, rippling sealing patterns emerged beneath Tang Wulin's skin. Like the gentlest embrace and the strongest dam, layer upon layer, they gently but firmly sealed, compressed, and stored those berserk powers in Tang Wulin's limbs, bones, and deep within his dantian, leaving only tiny threads to slowly nourish his body.

The crisis was temporarily resolved.

"It's finally... over..." After saying this, Huo Yuhao's vision went dark, and he nearly fainted. Only sheer will kept him conscious.

"Brother Yuhao!" Demon Spirit, who had been anxiously sensing the situation outside the door and could no longer bear it after hearing the disturbance inside subside, pushed open the door and rushed in. When she saw Huo Yuhao collapsed on the ground, covered in blood and barely breathing, her amber eyes instantly filled with tears and boundless heartache. "Brother Yuhao! How are you?!" Completely ignoring the unconscious Tang Wulin nearby, she threw herself beside Huo Yuhao and clumsily yet carefully tried to help him up. She took out the healing herbs specially made by Myriad Demon King and the gentle restorative potion prepared by Bi Ji, intending to feed them to Huo Yuhao.

"S-son!" Tang Ziran and Lang Yue rushed in right afterward, first hurrying to Tang Wulin, who lay quietly on the ground as though merely asleep. Seeing their son breathing steadily and the terrifying scales gone from his body, the weight in their hearts finally lifted by half, and they wept with joy. But then they saw Huo Yuhao lying in a pool of blood nearby and Demon Spirit's utterly anxious expression, and overwhelming guilt and worry instantly flooded their hearts.

"M-Mr. Huo! You... you..." Tang Ziran's voice trembled. Looking at Huo Yuhao's miserable state, he did not know what to do. They had never expected that in order to save Wulin, Mr. Huo would pay such a terrible price!

Na'er entered last. Her gaze first swept rapidly over Tang Wulin, confirming that he was unharmed. Even the Golden Dragon King's origin aura that had made her heart tremble had vanished from within him, leaving only immense power under a gentle seal. Then her violet eyes fixed on Huo Yuhao, particularly the faint nine-colored afterglow of the Divine Rings that had yet to fully dissipate beside him, as well as the lingering divine fluctuations and the aura of a dragon clan enforcement incantation that she could vaguely sense in the air.

A god? He was a god? And he recognized me?! Na'er's heart was thrown into a stormy sea. Huo Yuhao had actually concealed such an identity! The calm yet unfathomably deep look he had cast at her before seemingly closing his eyes in exhaustion was clearly both a warning and a declaration—Tang Wulin was under his protection. The Silver Dragon King, including her avatar, should not dare entertain any crooked thoughts.

I must inform Gu Yue immediately! The situation has changed. An unexpected god has intervened! And he stands on the side of the Golden Dragon King's inheritor!

"Sigh... I'm fine... I won't die for now." With Demon Spirit's help, Huo Yuhao swallowed the potion and recovered a breath. His voice was weak yet clear. Looking at Tang Ziran and Lang Yue, whose faces were filled with guilt and fear, he forced out a reassuring smile. "Don't be afraid... Tang Wulin is fine. The power of that golden dragon... has mostly been sealed by me. This time... I was fulfilling a responsibility entrusted to me by his biological parents... years ago. I have... deep ties with them."

"You mean... Wulin's... biological parents?" Tang Ziran and Lang Yue exchanged looks. Understanding dawned on them, accompanied by complicated emotions. So Mr. Huo had fought so desperately for an old friend's child.

"Don't worry..." Huo Yuhao caught his breath. "Tang Wulin... will always be your child. I won't... take him away. His biological parents... are facing even greater trouble. It isn't safe for him to return now... so don't tell him the truth yet. I need to... rest first..." He gestured for Demon Spirit to carry Tang Wulin onto the simple bed nearby.

Then Huo Yuhao shakily took a sheet of paper already covered in writing from his chest—actually from his storage Soul Tool—and handed it to Tang Ziran. "This... give it to him after he wakes up. It contains... some heavenly treasures that can help him gradually absorb and control the remaining power in his body... along with precautions. The things he needs to know... someone will naturally tell him... at the appropriate time." His meaning was clear as his gaze once again drifted, seemingly casually, toward Na'er, who stood silently nearby.

"All right... I... need to meditate and recover." After saying that, Huo Yuhao seemed to have exhausted the last of his strength. Supported by Demon Spirit, he slowly closed his eyes and entered a state of deep self-recovery. Only the faint sounds of melting frost and several people's heavy, complicated breaths remained in the room.

Na'er clenched her small hands. Her violet eyes deeply regarded unconscious Tang Wulin, then Huo Yuhao, who seemed to have run dry but still radiated an aftershock that made her heart tremble. One thought became incomparably clear in her mind: she had to contact Gu Yue immediately! The situation had completely spun out of control!