North of the Great Marsh.
The mountains were steep and treacherous, beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.
Peaks stood arrayed like halberds, their towering heights spread like a vast screen.
Spirit Mountain was not a single mountain, but a continuous chain of countless great mountains.
Among them stood ten main peaks, like ten fingers holding up the heavens, thrusting straight into the skies, with clouds and mist reaching no higher than their waists.
These ten peaks housed the abodes of the Demon Emperors of Spirit Mountain's first ten caves.
And deep within the third-highest of those mighty peaks...
Clouds veiled it, mist wreathed it, and a sinister chill hung thick in the air.
Inside the enormous cavern, there was not a glimmer of light. Only the stalactites hanging from its ceiling dripped water, drop by drop.
In the deepest recess of the cave abode lay a colossal creature.
A hundred zhang long, his body was gray-black, his scales as large as millstones, gleaming with a cold, iron sheen in the gloom.
This was an Old Flood Dragon.
A Gray-Black Old Flood Dragon who had lived for untold ages.
His eyes were closed, as though he slept.
With each exhalation, two streams of white vapor coiled like dragons, stirring gusts of rank wind through the cavern.
With every breath, the entire peak seemed to tremble faintly.
Suddenly...
The air at the cave entrance warped slightly.
Several drops of water condensed out of thin air, suspended in midair.
Yet they dared neither fall nor take form.
They simply hung there, quivering in terror.
As though, without a nod from the cave's master, they could only remain suspended forever, until they dried away.
A long while passed.
The eyelids of the Gray-Black Old Flood Dragon, coiled like a mountain, stirred faintly.
Whoosh-
His