Prologue: The Silver Dragon Awakens

Towering ancient trees blotted out the sun.

Layer upon layer of branches and leaves formed a rotten, heavy net, shutting daylight out of the forest. As far as the eye could see, the world lay in damp, oppressive gloom. The air carried the mingled scents of earth, decaying leaves, and decline, as though this forest, which had once nurtured countless powerful lives, was now inching toward its own end.

In the deepest reaches of the forest lay a lake.

Its waters should have been the last wellspring of life in this heartland, but now the lake had sunk frighteningly low. The water that should have reached the banks had largely receded, leaving the exposed edges of the lakebed riddled with cracks, like a body slowly bleeding out. Only at its center did a pool of clear azure remain, as translucent as a single crystal embedded in the earth, reflecting the last spark of life that refused to go out in this shadowed world.

Yet even that spark had grown pitifully weak.

A man in black robes stood beside the lake.

He was tall and lean, with handsome features and a face sharply defined as though carved by blade and axe. Yet that face, which should have been proud and fierce, held only an inescapable weariness and desolation. He gazed silently at the lake, an unrelenting darkness settled deep in his eyes, as though he were looking at a dying old friend—or an age that could never be saved.

A lock of golden hair hung beside his brow, still strikingly conspicuous in the dark forest.

"Beast God."

A soft voice came from behind him.

A woman in an emerald-green gown approached quietly and stopped a few paces behind him. Her features were gentle and lovely, but her eyes held the same barely concealed worry.

The black-clad man called the Beast God remained silent for a moment, then an utterly bitter smile curved his lips.

"Beast God?" he repeated under his breath, his voice hoarse. "How many soul beasts are left in this world now? All that remains of the Star Dou Great Forest is this little sanctuary, barely clinging to life. Whose god am I supposed to be?"

The woman in green looked downcast. After a long while, she said softly, "Ten thousand years. It has been ten thousand full years since Huo Yuhao founded the Spirit Pagoda. The Spirit Pagoda still stands, human cities keep multiplying, and soul guidance technology keeps growing stronger. But we... we really are nearing the end."

Di Tian did not answer.

Because what she had said was simply the truth.

Ten thousand years was enough for a race to pass from prosperity into decline. Soul beasts had once been the true masters of this continent. Now they were hunted, replaced, penned up, and studied. In the end, even the last forest where they could make their home was shrinking, drying up, and withering day after day.

And those who had once stood at the pinnacle of all soul beasts could only guard this shattered sanctuary, watching their kind edge toward extinction with every passing day.

Just then, several figures stood silently on the other side of the lake.

There were men and women, tall figures and short ones, some cold and stern, some imposing, some brooding, some uncanny. However different their appearances, they all bore the same silence and oppression. It was not the arrogance of the powerful, but the numbness of survivors from a bygone age who had watched their world collapse before their eyes.

The woman in green said softly, "If our sovereign still cannot awaken..."

She never finished.

Because in the very next instant, Di Tian jerked his head up!

Two nearly tangible beams of light burst from his once utterly dim golden eyes. His gaze was like a sword piercing the sky, like a sudden flame at the end of the night. At the same time, an unimaginably terrifying aura surged from his body. The surrounding air grew heavy, as though the entire world had shuddered faintly at that moment.

Humm—

The ground beneath their feet trembled.

At first, it was only the faintest tremor. Then the shaking grew stronger with every beat, like a heartbeat rising from the depths of the earth. Ripples spread across the lake, followed by countless tiny bubbles welling up from its bed, faster and faster, more and more. In just a few breaths, what little water remained seemed to boil!

"What is happening?" the woman in green cried out. "Is it the humans?"

"We'll fight them to the death!"

A roar erupted, shaking the ancient trees around them. A man built like a mountain strode forward, dark-gold light blazing around him. In the next instant, he transformed into an enormous dark-gold bear dozens of meters tall, his savage, violent aura sweeping outward like a hurricane.

"Xiong Jun, calm down!" Di Tian barked.

There was neither shock nor anger in his voice. Instead, it held an irrepressible, wild joy.

"It isn't the humans."

"It's our sovereign... our sovereign is awakening!"

As though answering him, a deep, ancient voice rang out from every direction without warning.

"It is over..."

"At last... it is coming to an end..."

The voice betrayed neither man nor woman, nor could anyone tell whether it came from the heavens or beneath the earth. It seemed to have crossed countless dust-shrouded years, carrying a majesty and weariness that made the soul tremble as it slowly echoed through the forest.

The next instant—

Boom!

The earth split apart!

The lakeshore burst apart inch by inch, and the entire great forest shook violently. The remaining water surged backward into the fissures, exposing the lakebed completely in an instant. At the center of that bare pit, a blaze of dazzling silver light suddenly broke through the earth and slammed onto the shore with a force that seemed capable of tearing heaven and earth apart!

It was a claw.

An enormous silver claw, so immense it stole their breath.

Hexagonal scales covered it densely, each reflecting a cold, mysterious silver radiance, as though bearing the laws of space itself. The moment that claw struck the ground, every living creature in the forest felt a shudder rise from the deepest depths of its bloodline. It was as though this were no mere claw, but the first finger a true monarch had extended upon waking from slumber.

Without another moment's hesitation, Di Tian stepped forward and dropped to one knee.

"We welcome our sovereign!"

As he knelt, every figure around him changed expression and bowed. Even Xiong Jun, whose ferocity could fill the heavens, could only lower his proud head.

Boom—

The ground exploded once more.

An indescribably vast silver figure rose fully from beneath the earth. She was a dragon over three hundred meters long, her scales brilliant silver, her wings blotting out the sky. Radiance flowed over her body as though she could command the elements of heaven and earth. Her very existence seemed to embody a law above all living beings. The instant she appeared, the surrounding space twisted and shook without cease. Even the towering ancient trees were uprooted beneath her pressure, as though all of Star Dou were bowing its head.

Every soul beast prostrated itself, not daring to look up.

They trembled with reverence—and wild joy.

For their sovereign had finally awakened.

The Silver Dragon King slowly lowered her head. Her brilliant silver gaze swept over the beasts before her, and her voice rumbled like thunder rolling through the deep sea.

"He is dead."

A single sentence plunged the entire forest into deathly silence.

"But I am still alive."

Her voice held an anger she could not suppress, and a sorrow that had endured through long ages without fading.

The Dragon God had fallen.

The former glory of the Dragon Race had long since been buried at the end of the divine war. The Golden Dragon King was dead, and humanity had driven the soul beasts to the brink. The world that had once belonged to them was being dismantled, devoured, and crushed, little by little, by another force called "civilization."

"Despicable humans..." The Silver Dragon King's voice grew colder. "They use soul rings as shackles and soul guidance devices as blades. Their cities devour mountains and rivers, and their steel blankets the forests. Have they finally decided to erase us from this world entirely?"

No soul beast dared answer.

Because it was simply the truth.

Di Tian raised his head, his eyes burning with fervor and deep resentment. "My sovereign, the humans of today are utterly different from those of ten thousand years ago. They no longer rely solely on the power of soul masters. Their strongest Soul Guidance Mecha, their Fixed Soul Cannon Shells, and the cities and armies covering the entire continent... even I cannot face too many of them head-on. They have all but buried the age of soul beasts."

The Silver Dragon King fell silent.

She lifted her enormous head slightly, as though sensing this world.

She sensed the forest dying, the land declining, the elements falling out of balance, and the bloodlines of soul beasts growing thinner by the day. She also sensed the swiftly expanding presence of the human world, like countless torrents forged from steel and flame, crossing mountains, plains, and oceans to spread across the entire world.

Yet as her perception continued to spread, she suddenly paused.

For the first time, a faint trace of something unusual flickered in her brilliant silver eyes.

Somewhere unimaginably distant and indistinct, she seemed to catch an exceedingly strange aura.

It was so faint that it barely existed, so weak that it seemed pinned in the deepest depths beneath countless layers of power. Even so, in that instant, she sensed a thread of familiarity that made her instinctively tremble.

It seemed like the aura of the Dragon Race.

Yet it did not belong entirely to the Dragon Race.

There was violence in that aura, defiance, and a frenzied instinct that seemed ready to tear through every restraint. Yet in its deepest reaches, something exceedingly gentle, ancient, and heavy held it firmly down—as though an evil dragon that should have swallowed heaven and devoured earth had been forcibly locked inside a cocoon that had yet to split open.

The Silver Dragon King's gaze sharpened slightly.

But that flicker of perception lasted only an instant. A moment later, it sank completely into nothingness, beyond her reach.

Di Tian noticed the change in her and asked respectfully, "My sovereign?"

The Silver Dragon King withdrew her gaze without explaining.

For even she could not be certain what she had sensed in that instant. It seemed like an illusion, yet also like a glance cast by fate from somewhere far away.

Yet for some unknown reason, as she awakened for the first time after ten thousand years of slumber, an inexplicable ripple quietly stirred within her heart.

She slowly lowered her head, her silver eyes turning cold once more.

"To destroy them, we must first understand them."

Her voice once again resounded throughout the forest, calm yet carrying unquestionable authority.

"Since they have remade this world into what it is today, we shall go and see their world."

"If there is no longer any place beneath these heavens where soul beasts can survive—"

She paused slightly, an icy edge flashing in the depths of her eyes.

"Then I shall rewrite its order."

Di Tian shuddered from head to toe. Light blazed in his eyes as he bowed his head firmly to the ground. "Your command shall be obeyed, my sovereign!"

The other beasts bowed in unison. Low, stifled roars rose one after another in the depths of the forest, like the final cries of a bygone age—or the first signs of a new era about to tear through the night.

The Silver Dragon King turned and slowly walked toward the edge of the forest.

With every step, her body grew smaller.

Her three-hundred-meter dragon form shrank to dozens of meters, then to a few. Her brilliant silver scales gradually receded into a human outline. By the time her retreating figure vanished beyond the layered shadows of the ancient trees, the Dragon King whose presence had weighed upon heaven and earth had become a tall, slender, utterly solitary human figure.

In the dark forest, only the faint sobbing of wind through the leaves remained.

And a deathly silence from which there was no turning back.

The sovereign of the soul beasts had finally awakened.

And from that moment onward, fate slowly began turning in another direction that no one could foresee.