The ice-blue and crimson rays of light vanished.
Zi JI was swallowed by boundless darkness.
All fell silent.
All she could hear were her own heartbeat and breathing.
All she could feel was the pure dragon blood flowing within her.
It was resonating on a deeper level with some presence in this realm.
A speck of ice-blue light entered Zi JI's eyes.
Zi JI instinctively beat her dragon wings and sped toward it.
The ice-blue light spread.
An enormous outline emerged bit by bit, and Zi JI finally saw exactly what it was...
It was the corpse of a dragon as massive as a mountain!
Ice-blue scales covered its body.
Each scale was roughly the size of a millstone, overlapping in layers like undulating glaciers.
Its head hung low, its enormous horns resembling two inverted ice peaks.
The dragon's corpse still held the posture of a forward lunge.
A hideous gash in its abdomen ran through its entire body.
The moment Zi JI saw that gash, she sensed it.
That gash was the fatal wound that had brought this dragon down.
Cold air continuously seeped from the enormous dragon corpse. Tiny ice crystals condensed out of thin air and settled on the surrounding rocks, reflecting ice-blue light.
Zi JI fluttered her wings and slowly landed. "To think there's a whole other world beneath the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well..."
The cavern realm began to tremble.
Startled, Zi JI instinctively stepped back. "What's happening?"
A red light lit up on the other side.
It was crimson as lava, heavy as embers.
Zi JI looked toward its source. "Is that... a second dragon corpse?!"
This dragon corpse bore dark-red scales, with patterns of fire that had yet to cool flowing across their surfaces.
Its entire body lay coiled together like a volcano that might erupt at any moment.
Its head was raised, its mouth open.
Within it still burned a mass of divine fire that had not gone out for untold years!
Half of a severed, enormous dragon wing lay silently beside the corpse, preserved to this day.
One ice-blue, one crimson.
Both enormous dragon corpses still emanated divine auras that had yet to dissipate!
One ice, one fire, the two divine corpses lay facing each other.
Ice and fire met and tore at each other within this space, yet also held each other in balance.
The sight before her stirred the deepest inheritance and images within Zi JI's bloodline.
Her red lips parted slightly as she murmured, "So... this wonder of the world, this treasure land, originated from you two..."
Zi JI raised her head and looked at the ice-blue dragon corpse. "Ice Dragon King..."
Her gaze shifted and settled on the crimson dragon corpse opposite him. "Fire Dragon King..."
With Zi JI's two soft murmurs, something happened.
Both dragon corpses shuddered at once.
Deep within the eye sockets of the Ice Dragon King's remains, two wisps of spectral blue soul fire lit up.
A mass of crimson-gold flame surged from the mouth of the Fire Dragon King's remains.
The dragon kings, silent for so long, revived the instant a successor arrived here...
Ice-blue and crimson streaked from the two dragon corpses.
They hovered in the air, their radiance reflecting off each other.
Those were two dragon souls... the souls of the Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King, two of the Nine Great Dragon Kings!
At first, the two dragon kings' souls were wary and brimming with aggression.
When they noticed Zi JI, the successor whose bloodline resonated with theirs, their gazes turned appraising.
Zi JI immediately felt as though all her secrets had been exposed beneath the eyes of these two dragon kings' souls.
There was nowhere to hide...
Zi JI spread her dragon wings and lowered herself to the ground, bowing her head. "Hell Demon Dragon King Zi JI pays her respects to the Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King."
The way the two dragon kings looked at Zi JI shifted from appraisal to complexity, then to pity.
There was much they no longer remembered...
But their remaining fragments of memory told them that the dragons had lost.
The dragons had fallen into utter decline.
The Ice Dragon King spoke slowly. "I never imagined that descendants with such pure dragon blood still existed in this world..."
"Have our dragons truly become this feeble... a pure-blooded true dragon, with only two hundred thousand years of cultivation?" The Fire Dragon King's voice brimmed with fury and unwillingness.
"Dragon Kings, the rules have become chains wrapped around every Ferocious Beast, making breakthroughs in cultivation difficult." Zi JI raised her head. "Apart from reaching one hundred thousand years of cultivation, which requires no tribulation lightning, every additional hundred thousand years means facing a trial of tribulation lightning sent down by heaven and earth."
She then told the two dragon kings everything about the current circumstances of the Silver Dragon King, Di Tian, and the Soul Beast Clan.
"..."
"..."
The more the Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King heard, the quieter they became.
Only after a long silence did the Ice Dragon King speak softly. "Zi JI, how did you find this place?"
"This is what happened..." Zi JI then told the two dragon kings about Jin Jiuxiao's unusual qualities.
At the end, she added, "Little Brother Jiuxiao can also spare us Ferocious Beasts the suffering of tribulation lightning, allowing us to increase our cultivation without any burden."
"But according to the Beast God, the limit is probably one million years."
"Even if we reach the million-year realm, we still cannot ascend to the Divine Realm."
"The path for Soul Beasts to become gods has yet to open..."
The Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King exchanged a glance.
There was Zi JI's description of Jin Jiuxiao, and his decision to take human form and enter the Human World without hesitation as soon as he reached one hundred thousand years.
Combined with that unusual ability, it made the Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King sigh for a long time.
The Ice Dragon King filled in many things in his mind and sighed. "Taking human form to fight for a chance to ascend to the Divine Realm once more...?"
Prompted by the Ice Dragon King's words, the Fire Dragon King recalled Zi JI's description of Jin Jiuxiao, and thoughts likewise raced through his mind.
Once a Soul Beast became human, their lifespan would be the same as a human's.
With Jin Jiuxiao's talent, reaching seven or eight hundred thousand years of cultivation would only have been a matter of time.
Yet Jin Jiuxiao had still done this without looking back...
"If only, back then..." The Fire Dragon King sighed as well. "These little ones should never have had to suffer this calamity."
A gleam flashed through the Ice Dragon King's draconic eyes. "Zi JI, you're currently protecting that little fellow at his side, correct?"
The Fire Dragon King instantly understood what the Ice Dragon King intended.
The two of them were dead anyway.
What could these ruined bodies of theirs do?
Rather than decay through endless time, they might as well become a source of strength and give these younger generations a push.
Let them go farther!
"Yes, I'm currently protecting Little Brother Jiuxiao at his side." Zi JI nodded in acknowledgment.
"Your current cultivation isn't nearly enough." The Fire Dragon King spoke far more bluntly than the Ice Dragon King.
Zi JI lowered her dragon head, looking somewhat dejected.
Her cultivation was indeed a little low.
At Jin Jiuxiao's current cultivation speed, it was hard to say whether she could even reach four hundred thousand years by the time he broke through to Title Douluo.
Before long, Jin Jiuxiao would be protecting her rather than the other way around...
She had thought about the future.
She, too, wanted to be someone who stood beside Jin Jiuxiao and walked shoulder to shoulder with him.
Suddenly, Zi JI felt something merging into her body.
"Wait... Dragon Kings, what are you doing?!"
The Ice Dragon King and the Fire Dragon King exchanged a glance and laughed. "We are merely remnants of an old era. Rather than rot and decay in this realm, we might as well lend you a hand."