The moment the fourth bolt of lightning dissipated, heaven and earth abruptly fell silent.
The lightning tribulation had receded, but that deep-purple, dragon-shaped spirit body still stretched across the air.
The Old Purple Sky Dragon King's spirit body was damaged beyond measure.
The cracks across his dragon body were several times denser than those on Zi Ning's spirit body.
They spread from his head to his tail, dim golden light seeping from the depths of every fissure.
Scorch marks left by the five-colored lightning still lingered on his forehead, where one dragon horn had broken off. Spiritual light peeled continuously from those burns.
Zi Ning's spirit body hovered behind him, its translucent outline trembling faintly.
More than two hundred years of hatred, more than two hundred years of imprisonment, every "he owes me" she had told herself over those two hundred-odd years-all of it caught in her throat at that moment, forming a hard stone she could neither swallow nor spit out.
"Big Brother..."
The Purple Sky Dragon King turned his head slightly. His deep-purple dragon eyes had lost most of their light, but they still held that composure unique to him, as though he had foreseen everything and arranged everything, and had only been waiting for this moment to arrive.
"Ning'er, why are you crying?"
"Your big brother's lost his body, and now you start shedding tears."
"When you were locked up in Prisoner Dragon Ridge back then, you didn't shed a single tear. I always thought you had far more backbone than I did. Why have you gone soft now? Tears have never been standard issue for our Dragon Clan. Don't let the others see. You'll embarrass your big brother."
Zi Ning's spirit body trembled again.
On a reef in the distance, Zi Yuner lay curled among the