Response of the Golden Silver Dragon King

Near Life Lake, in the core region of the Great Star Dou Forest.

The lake's surface was calm as a mirror, reflecting the eternal sky.

The Silver Dragon King, Gu Yuena, had originally been sitting cross-legged atop a blue stone in the middle of the lake, her silver hair cascading down as a silvery-white glow lingered around her.

Her eyes were closed, her breathing long and steady, as though she had become one with heaven and earth—until that dragon roar suddenly pierced through from the distant horizon without warning.

That sound crossed thousands of miles, penetrated layer upon layer of Soul Beast barriers, and crashed directly into her sea of consciousness.

Gu Yuena's eyes snapped open, her pupils abruptly contracting into two silver slits.

She heard the bloodline resonance echoing within that dragon roar. She heard the ancient tremor of shared origin contained in that call.

At that instant, the fragments of memory deep within her sea of consciousness, shattered and worn away by time, suddenly churned violently.

She saw a nine-colored giant dragon coiled above the clouds. She saw it tightly clutching a shriveled dragon corpse in its foreclaws. She saw tears, each as large as millstones, fall from its dragon eyes and shatter in the void into a sky full of glowing motes.

That mournful cry traveled across the long years and overlapped with the clear dragon roar from moments ago, making even her soul tremble.

"My child..." Gu Yuena murmured, her voice as soft as a sigh, though its trailing note trembled beyond her control.

Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, rolling down her pale cheeks before falling onto the blue stone and bursting into crystalline splashes.

Her fingertips dug tightly into the stone beneath her, her knuckles turning white.

That dragon roar had awakened the things hidden deep in her mind—the part of the Dragon God's memories that belonged to blood relatives.

That life which should have completely perished in the ancient calamity, that child whom she believed she would never see again, had now been reborn into this world.

"My lord?"

Di Tian, kneeling by the lakeshore, raised his head. A trace of astonishment flashed through his dark-gold vertical pupils.

He had followed the Silver Dragon King for many years, yet he had never seen his lord reveal such an expression.

In his understanding, his lord had been healing and accumulating strength in Life Lake ever since she was born. She had never left, nor had she ever had any... child.

Yet the tear tracks crisscrossing his lord's face could not be faked, nor could the mingled grief and joy in that "my child."

"What my lord meant... could it be!" Di Tian suddenly thought of something, and his pupils shrank sharply.

That was a memory from when he had still been young. At the time, the Dragon Clan had been the undisputed overlord of the Dragon God Realm. The Dragon God ruled all realms as the supreme God King, while the Dragon God Crown Prince, the Dragon God's bloodline heir, had reached the pseudo-God King level at a young age. The entire Dragon Clan sang praises of the Crown Prince's talent, saying that he might surpass the Dragon God within his lifetime.

Di Tian still remembered seeing the Crown Prince from afar back then. That seven-colored dragon silhouette had coiled at the center of the realm, its dragon might vast as the sea.

But later, everything changed. Di Tian did not know what had happened that day. He only remembered the Dragon God suddenly going mad, scarlet baleful energy winding around his nine-colored dragon body as the Nine Dragon Kings fell one after another beneath his rage.

Dragon blood dyed the skies of the entire realm red, and the wails continued without end for days.

The human gods took advantage of the chaos. When the wall fell, everyone pushed it. The once-unrivaled Dragon Clan was nearly wiped out in that battle.

The supreme God King, the Dragon God, was cleaved in two by Asura God's divine sword. One half became the Golden Dragon King and was sealed away, while the other half became the current Silver Dragon King—his lord—who had slumbered in Life Lake for countless years.

And now, if the long-dead Dragon God Crown Prince had been resurrected—

"My lord... heaven truly wishes to restore our Dragon Clan!" Di Tian could not help raising his head, blazing light burning in his dark-gold pupils.

He had suppressed himself for too many years, lurked in hiding for too many years, all for the day when the Dragon Clan's glory could be restored.

And now, the Crown Prince's reincarnation had appeared. What did that mean?

Gu Yuena slowly rose from the blue stone, the hem of her silver dress brushing the water and sending ripples spreading outward.

She raised a hand to wipe away the tears on her face. Her silver eyes gazed in the direction of Eastsea City, her look distant and gentle.

After a long while, she spoke softly. "This is destiny, Di Tian. It seems we need to change our strategy."

Di Tian was slightly stunned. "My lord means...?"

"The Crown Prince was born in the human world." Gu Yuena's voice gradually regained its usual coolness, though the faint tremor at its end could not be concealed.

"Our infiltration target needs to change. The original plan was to gradually erode the Spirit Pagoda, but now, we need to find the Crown Prince..."

Before her child appeared, the Silver Dragon King might still have been the ruler of the Soul Beasts.

But before her child, the Silver Dragon King had long cast aside the so-called blood feud between Soul Beasts and humans. Now, she was merely a mother desperately wishing to reunite with her child.

She paused, then turned to look at Di Tian. Complex emotions surged in her silver eyes. "Di Tian, I order you to quickly head to the human cities. Focus on the eastern direction, and investigate areas where abnormal Soul Power fluctuations appeared around recent awakening days. I want to know the Crown Prince's identity in this life, name, residence, and everything around him."

Di Tian lowered his head solemnly. "Yes, my lord. I will see to it at once."

Gu Yuena looked into the distance again, unconsciously twisting the silver threads at her cuff around her fingers.

She lowered her eyes, a bitter smile appearing at the corner of her lips.

She wondered whether her child could accept the fact that his once-majestic father had become his mother.

But it was all right. The child's mother had left early, so in this life, she could take the place of the child's mother and make up for the maternal love that had arrived who knew how late.

Whether her child could accept this change or not, she would use every ounce of her strength to make up for the debt delayed by who knew how many tens of thousands of years.

At that moment, in Aolai City not far from Eastsea City, another shock was taking place inside an awakening chamber with a layout almost identical to Eastsea City's.

A little girl with a ponytail stood in the center of the awakening formation. She was around six or seven years old, small and thin, yet standing perfectly straight.

She had just experienced almost the same shock as Qi Ji—the dragon roar from the direction of Eastsea had pierced through the walls and the formation's barrier, pouring straight into her ears and making the blood in her body boil instantly.

Immediately afterward, the phantom of a golden dragon burst out from her back without warning. Its scales shone like cast red gold, while two clusters of golden flames blazed fiercely within its dragon eyes.

The golden dragon phantom faced toward Eastsea City, raised its head, and released a short yet resounding dragon roar, as though responding to something.

Then everything returned to silence. The golden dragon phantom dispersed like smoke, as though it had never appeared.

The shackle called "seal" within the girl's body was shaken open by a crack from that resonance. Traces of the Golden Dragon King's power seeped from the crack, but were tightly suppressed by another eighteen seals, unable to stir up any trouble for the moment.

The awakening master standing before her stood frozen for quite a while before coming back to his senses. His expression shifted from astonishment to wild delight, then to an almost twisted grin, changing faster than a Sichuan opera face.

He had worked in this field for half his life. When had he ever seen such a scene?

Dragon-form martial souls were already rare, let alone this golden dragon phantom, whose pressure made even a Soul Ancestor in his forties tremble in the legs.

"Little one... shall we continue awakening your martial soul? I think you might awaken a True Dragon martial soul!"

The awakening master rubbed his hands and hurried closer, his tone overflowing with attentiveness. Even the way he addressed her had changed from the cold "child" to the familiar "little one."

He hastily guided the girl to place her hand back on the crystal ball, then fumbled to retrieve a Soul Power testing device, terrified of delaying such a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy.

"Oh, right... little one, what's your name?"

The little girl, who had been stunned all this time, finally came back to herself. She blinked her big round eyes, looking somewhat blankly at the uncle before her, who was so excited that he was practically dancing, and softly answered, "Uncle... my name is Tang Wuling."

Not long after Tang Wuling placed her hand on the awakening sphere, her awakening results came out as well.

"Soft Bone Rabbit, Golden Dragon Twin Martial Souls, Innate Full Soul Power!"