"Fuck, how did I end up here?"
Gu Xian opened his eyes and looked at the scene before him, feeling somewhat helpless for a moment.
He had read plenty about transmigration in webnovels in his previous life, but he had never imagined he would actually transmigrate into a dragon.
And a legendary True Dragon, at that!
He was just still in his juvenile stage.
Not only that, he could even clearly sense the condition of his body now.
Gone were the constraints of hands and feet, replaced by an immense body that stretched on endlessly, its coils intertwined.
Beyond that, the most bizarre thing was that his body was currently coiled around a blue planet.
In his mind, the system's pale blue panel was still flickering faintly.
[Host: Gu Xian] [Current identity: True Dragon (juvenile stage)] [Current location: Douluo Continent] [Main quest: Remain on Douluo Star for 30 full days to receive a vast quantity of growth points and enter the next world.] [Notice: Your size has exceeded Douluo Star's tolerance limit.] [In this plane, even a sneeze from you could cause this planet to disintegrate on the spot, turning into cosmic dust.] [Host, please be sure to control your strength and sleep peacefully.]
Looking at that notice, Gu Xian could not even be bothered to complain.
Of course he knew the Douluo Continent. Its power levels were widely acknowledged to sit in the gutter.
Even the god kings of the Divine Realm could, at most, cause some large-scale destruction on a planet's surface.
And now this planet was in his embrace. With just a little force, it would be gone.
"Fine, then. Sleep it is."
In the end, with no other option, Gu Xian could only sigh and prepare to fall into slumber.
After all, for a colossal beast like him, sleeping was undoubtedly the best way to cultivate.
Meanwhile, on the Douluo Continent.
At the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest.
This was forbidden territory for human Soul Masters.
Ordinary Soul Masters did not dare approach at all, and even Soul Douluo-level powerhouses had to tread carefully here.
Yet today, two figures were swaggering through the dense woods.
One wore a magnificent silver robe, with delicate, feminine features, and was toying with a pale yellow chrysanthemum.
He was none other than Yue Guan, an elder of Spirit Hall and a rank-95 Titled Douluo.
Beside him was a flickering black shadow that radiated a chilling aura, seemingly swallowing even the surrounding light.
Ghost Douluo, Gui Mei.
"Old Ghost, His Holiness the Pope insisted we come find some Immortal Herb this time, but this damned forest has nothing but trees and mud. Where are we supposed to look?"
Yue Guan curled his lips impatiently. A little muddy water had stained his leather boots, leaving him deeply displeased.
Gui Mei's hoarse voice seemed to come from every direction. "Less nonsense. His Holiness the Pope gave the order. Just follow it."
As the two spoke, the ground ahead suddenly shook.
A Soul Beast the size of a small hill burst out of the bushes.
It was an Iron-Armored Rhinoceros with a full seventy thousand years of cultivation.
Seemingly catching the scent of strangers, it charged toward them like a heavy war chariot, its eyes bloodshot.
"What a nuisance."
Yue Guan snorted coldly, not even looking the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros in the eye.
His nine Soul Rings instantly lit up: two yellow, two purple, and five black. This top-tier configuration shone particularly brightly in the night.
The sixth ring, a black one, flashed.
"Sixth Soul Skill, Golden Stamens Spread Flowing Rosy Clouds!"
In an instant, countless chrysanthemum petals appeared and blasted straight into the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros.
Boom!
Finally, under their combined assault, a tremendous crash rang out, and the seventy-thousand-year-old Iron-Armored Rhinoceros was blasted away on the spot.
Like a cannonball, it slammed heavily into the unbroken stretch of cliff behind it.
The tremendous impact instantly kicked up dust that filled the sky.
Countless trees were uprooted, and shattered rocks flew everywhere.
Yue Guan waved his sleeve disdainfully, using Soul Power to block the dust blowing toward him.
"This beast has quite a thick hide. It actually didn't die outright."
He made the remark casually and was about to continue forward.
But just then, Gui Mei suddenly stopped beside him.
"Wait."
"What is it, Old Ghost?" Yue Guan paused, then followed Gui Mei's gaze.
As the dust gradually dispersed, the enormous cliff struck by the Iron-Armored Rhinoceros finally revealed its original appearance.
Usually, countless vines and moss covered this cliff, making it look no different from an ordinary mountain range.
But that blow had torn away the entire surface layer of rock and earth, over ten meters thick, exposing what lay hidden beneath.
It was a dark gold surface.
Yue Guan froze, nearly dropping the chrysanthemum in his hand.
"What is this?"
He strode quickly forward.
As a rank-95 Titled Douluo, he considered himself widely knowledgeable.
He recognized virtually every rare metal on the Douluo Continent, but he had never seen a dark gold material like this before.
Its surface was smooth as a mirror, yet possessed an ancient, weighty texture.
Yue Guan reached out and touched it. The instant his hand made contact, a sensation spread throughout his body.
But immediately afterward, he sensed something wrong, because the inside of this golden wall seemed far from ordinary, frightening him into hurriedly pulling his hand away.
"Old Ghost, we might have struck gold this time."
Yue Guan swallowed, a trace of greed flashing in his eyes.
"This is definitely some supreme divine iron we've never seen before!"
"If we dig it out and bring it back to Spirit City, His Holiness the Pope will surely reward us handsomely!"
As he spoke, Soul Power surged in Yue Guan's hand, condensing directly into a sharp golden flower blade.
It was formed from a Titled Douluo's Soul Power, capable of slicing even a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast's bones like tofu.
Gripping the flower blade tightly, he slashed forcefully at the dark gold surface.
He intended to cut off a sample first and take it back.
Clang!
Yet a sharp ring sounded, and Yue Guan felt the web of his hand go numb. The golden flower blade in his hand actually snapped apart.
As for the dark gold wall, never mind cutting it open; he had not even left a pale mark.
"Holy shit! It's this hard?"
Yue Guan could not help swearing, all traces of his usual feminine bearing vanishing.
He was a rank-95 Titled Douluo!
And a casual strike from him could not even leave a scratch?
Gui Mei drifted over as well, his brow tightly furrowed.
"Move aside. Let me try."
Gui Mei spoke coldly, and his eighth black Soul Ring abruptly lit up.
"Eighth Soul Skill, Gui Mei and Monsters!"
As his words fell, countless pitch-black ghostly shadows surged from his body, forming an enormous black ghost claw that struck at the dark gold wall once more.
This was one of Ghost Douluo's strongest single-target attacks.
Even a Titled Douluo of the same rank would not dare take this move head-on.
Boom!
The black ghost claw smashed into the wall, yet the expected spray of shattered stone still did not appear.
The dark gold wall remained utterly motionless.
Instead, at the instant of contact, a faint streak of light flashed across the wall.
A backlash so immense that resistance was impossible surged straight back along the ghost claw.
Bam!
Gui Mei gave a muffled grunt and was sent flying backward.
He tumbled through the air several times before barely managing to stop, his already illusory figure becoming even more unstable.
"Old Ghost!"
Yue Guan's expression changed drastically, and he hurried over.
"Are you all right?"
Gui Mei shook his head, his eyes filled with horror.
"There's something wrong with this thing."
"Not only is it absurdly hard, it can also absorb Soul Power."
The two exchanged a glance, each seeing a trace of fear in the other's eyes.
What on earth was this thing?
Refusing to believe it, Yue Guan took a high-powered illumination crystal out of his Soul Tool.
He hurled the illumination crystal into the air with all his strength.
Dazzling white light instantly illuminated an area several thousand meters around them.
By that powerful light, Yue Guan and Gui Mei finally saw the true face of this "mountain range."
The moment they raised their heads and saw it in full.
The two Titled Douluo, who had roamed the Douluo Continent unchallenged for years, were completely stunned.
Their mouths hung open, and they even forgot to breathe.
This was no mountain range at all!
Under the white light, the dark gold surface revealed an extremely slight curvature.
It was covered in natural, incomparably profound patterns.
Looking left, they could not see its edge.
Looking right, they still could not see its end.
It lay quietly embedded in the earth, as though supporting the foundations of the entire Star Dou Great Forest.
And at its edges, it was as thin as a cicada's wing.
That shape, those patterns...
This was clearly a scale!
Gulp.
Yue Guan swallowed with difficulty, his voice even trembling for a moment.
"Old Ghost, I-I'm not seeing things, am I?"
"This thing looks like a scale?"
Gui Mei said nothing, but his constantly trembling hands had already betrayed the terror within him.
If this was only a scale, how large must the creature bearing it be?
And just how many fucking years old would this Soul Beast have to be?
A million years? Or ten million?
Would even the whole of Spirit City stuffed inside it be enough to fill the gaps between its teeth?
"A million years? Ten million?"
Suddenly, Yue Guan's voice shot up a full octave, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Old Ghost, have you lost your mind?!"
"Since records began on the Douluo Continent, the strongest has been that beast, the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King, approaching a million years old!"
"But that beast is only a little over two hundred meters long at most!"
"Now look at this thing in front of us!"
As Yue Guan shouted, he extended a trembling finger toward the dark gold surface ahead, whose end remained out of sight beneath the white light.
"This is just one fucking scale!"
"A single scale is bigger than a mountain! What level would its actual body have to be?"
"Ten million years? Pah! Could a ten-million-year-old Soul Beast grow this big?"
Yue Guan had truly lost his composure now, his usual elegance and calm long since flung beyond the highest heavens.
Gui Mei did not argue, because his mind was utterly blank as well.
As a Titled Douluo who cultivated both the agility-attack and control systems, he was even more sensitive to auras than Yue Guan.
What frightened him most was not how hard this scale was.
It was that he could sense no Soul Power fluctuations whatsoever from this dark gold scale!
Not even a trace!
It was as though the thing before him did not exist at all.
Yet it plainly stretched across their path. Could it be dead?
"Fly up and take a look."