Under Dugu Bo's silent, contemplative gaze, Xiao Yan unfurled his Purple Cloud Wings and floated above the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. He sat cross-legged, his presence withdrawn, and had already entered a meditative state to cultivate. His soul power lifted the icy and fiery water from the pool, forming a hollow sphere of red and white water around him. With a thought, Xiao Yan drew out the pure power within the spring water, transforming it into sparkling crystals of energy that he swept into his body like a gale sweeping away clouds.
Dugu Bo focused his gaze, piercing through the water sphere to see the entirety of Xiao Yan's cultivation. With every wave of energy crystals Xiao Yan absorbed, his flesh grew stronger. His limbs and bones seemed to contain boundless power, and the glittering crystals appeared to melt into his blood and bones. With every breath he took, light could be seen flickering deep within his body.
"This kid is actually using my Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well to temper his body... I've never heard of such a cultivation method," Dugu Bo marveled. But how could he have known that tempering his body was simply a measure Xiao Yan had been forced to take? With his current abilities, Xiao Yan could not yet put his body into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well to cultivate. He had no choice but to use this indirect method, drawing in small amounts of pure energy at a time with his soul power. As he improved his body so he could absorb it faster, he also sought to perceive the presence of the ghastly white flame through absorbing the ice and fire energy.
"Hm...?" Yan Xiao was examining Xiao Yan's body from within, guarding against irreversible harm to his flesh from absorbing such violent natural energy. At first, everything had been normal, but as Xiao Yan absorbed more and more energy crystals, Yan Xiao was shocked to discover that more than half had been absorbed by Xiao Yan's blood. As energy continued to pour into it, the once-bright-red blood was subtly changing. Deep within it, a violet-gold light seemed to flicker in and out, yet it conveyed a supreme power capable of destroying heaven and earth. Not daring to delay, Yan Xiao immediately used his soul power to draw a drop of blood containing that violet-gold light out of a blood vessel. Fortunately, the Bodhi Heart Xiao Yan had absorbed beforehand supplied an endless stream of vitality, which not only improved his physique but also replenished his life force and repaired his body as he tempered it. The blood vessel Yan Xiao had damaged was repaired by the Bodhi Heart in an instant, so quickly that even Xiao Yan himself had not noticed what Yan Xiao had done. Yan Xiao pressed the violet-gold blood to his head and sensed the information it contained. Suddenly, the blood burst apart! The information within it merged into Yan Xiao's soul, every bit of it intact. "So that's how it is, so that's how it is..." Yan Xiao murmured.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yan's body continued to absorb the energy of the icy and fiery pool water. He kept visualizing the ghastly white flame in his mind. For some reason, it always felt terribly familiar, and amid its rising tongues, an aged figure, someone especially close to him, seemed to be watching him. Beads of sweat the size of beans dripped down Xiao Yan's face. His body had clearly been refined to the utmost perfection attainable at his current strength, but perfection was also a limit. Reaching that state meant that his advancement had reached its limit for the time being.
Xiao Yan clenched his teeth. They could sense that he was only a single step from the seal on the ghastly white flame, but that one step was like an impassable chasm. No matter what he did, he could not reach it. "No! Even if my body is utterly destroyed, I have to break through that seal!" Xiao Yan trusted in the power of the Bodhi Heart. With his current physique, even if he were reduced to skin and bones, it would not be difficult for the Bodhi Heart to restore him. The pain, however, would indeed pierce his heart, and no one could bear it for him. Xiao Yan did not know why he was so fixated on the flame, but he had always felt that it represented someone very, very important. To Xiao Yan, whose memories were incomplete, everything from his past was a most precious treasure. Even if he had to die once, he would find all of that lost past again, because he believed that someone would surely be waiting for him to return.
"Xiao Yan!" Seeing that Xiao Yan had made up his mind, Yan Xiao naturally knew what he was thinking. After a moment's consideration, he suddenly shouted, "Look within yourself. You can sense the blood in your body that contains violet-gold light, can't you? Set all of it in motion! Right now, only it can lend you a hand." Xiao Yan understood at once. The blood throughout his body surged, and his heart began to beat three times faster than usual. Each beat was like the sound of thunder splitting the air, deafening to the ears. Without the Bodhi Heart protecting him, Xiao Yan would have died long ago from pushing his body so hard. Fortunately, under that pressure, drops of violet-gold blood were squeezed from his heart into his limbs and bones. Boundless power gradually transformed his body, causing it to grow once more. His bones cracked, his blood raced like a furious horse, and even his hair continued to grow, reaching his waist before long. In an instant, the violet-gold blood had pushed Xiao Yan's body beyond its limits once again, taking it to a new level.
Dugu Bo was shaken to the core by the sight. Golden light seemed to flicker within Xiao Yan's body, covering every part of him Dugu Bo could see. Dugu Bo did not know what Xiao Yan had done, but clearly, this was not something his Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well could have accomplished. Suddenly, Xiao Yan's Purple Cloud Wings vanished on the wind, and a pair of far larger, more powerful bone wings grew in their place. Their beating seemed capable of whipping up fierce winds, revealing a majesty like that of the king of all birds. Violet-gold dragon horns emerged from Xiao Yan's head, displaying a kingly presence, while violet-gold scales grew across his body, emanating wave after wave of draconic might. Wings aside, the Xiao Yan of this moment could have been called a walking dragon in human form. Though the wings did not match the rest of his body, a closer look revealed how they complemented each other: dragon and phoenix together, perfect and flawless.
Could this kid have awakened some kind of dragon Martial Soul? With such a presence, even the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, the supposed number one Beast Martial Soul under heaven, couldn't catch up on horseback... Wait, doesn't this kid already have Twin Martial Souls?! Dugu Bo pondered the sight for a long time before he was suddenly shaken by his own thoughts. It was no wonder. Twin Martial Souls were already a heaven-defying existence in this world, and Dugu Bo asked himself whether he had ever heard of anyone possessing Triple Martial Souls, past or present. That was utterly impossible! Twin Martial Souls were powerful, but they could also cost their possessors their lives. Only a few survived, and those who became experts were rarer still, as scarce as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. Wouldn't the vast, mixed energies of someone born with Triple Martial Souls kill them at birth? Yet the youth before him not only possessed Triple Martial Souls and survived, but had also become the most blessed prodigy of the younger generation. Seeing such talent and such fortune, Dugu Bo could no longer muster any desire to resist. In fact, a faint desire to assist Xiao Yan rose in his heart. Without realizing it, he murmured, "Xiao Yan... Sigh, Bibi Dong really did find herself a treasure. The Spirit Hall truly holds eight-tenths of the fortune under heaven..."
The moment his words fell, Xiao Yan suddenly changed his hand seals. The water sphere around him scattered, and a beam of violet-gold light shot into the sky, sweeping across the four seas and eight wildernesses. Across the entire Douluo Continent, there was no one who did not see it, no one who did not know.
Violet-gold light covered the heavens, visible to everyone on the Douluo Continent. For a time, no one was left unshaken.
As the light pulsed, a luminous figure, part dragon and part phoenix, seemed to rise and fall within it. The Dragon Phoenix soared across the heavens, unleashing a profound, ancient presence from a savage age, as though proclaiming to all that the true king and god of all beasts had finally appeared.
Within the Spirit Hall, both young Soul Masters and venerable elders gazed at the violet-gold curtain of light, discussing it among themselves. Bibi Dong said nothing, but she seemed to have an idea.
"Nana, what do you think that is?" Yan edged between Hu Liena and Xie Yue, searching for something to say. Xie Yue already knew how his old brother felt and tactfully held his tongue, but Hu Liena seemed lost in thought as she murmured:
"I... I think it looks like junior brother Xiao Yan."
"Him?" Yan's doubt slipped out before he could stop it, but he immediately covered his mouth. After all, no miracle would be surprising where that kid was concerned.
In a secluded forest, at Shrek Academy.
The Shrek Seven Devils had just finished a day's training and were discussing the violet-gold dragon silhouette on the horizon, exhausted as they were. Grandmaster, Zhao Wuji, and Flender were also debating it.
"That dragon presence is profound and unstoppable... I'm afraid another senior expert with a dragon Martial Soul has advanced, wouldn't you say?" Grandmaster speculated at length. "But though this dragon presence is powerful, it doesn't have the slightest trace of the lightning element. It isn't inherited from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon lineage. Yet if it isn't the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, what other dragon Martial Soul on the Douluo Continent could be so powerful..."
Everyone discussed it with great enthusiasm. No one noticed that Tang San remained silent, his face dark, as though he had already sensed something. He stared straight at the violet-gold Dragon Phoenix, an unfounded premonition in his heart. Though it was only a premonition, it felt utterly real to him. Tang San sighed and murmured under his breath...
"...Yan, is that you...?"
In the Star Dou Great Forest.
Countless Soul Beasts lay prostrate on the ground, as though worshipping the existence in the sky. The vast majority had yet to gain intelligence and acted only on instinct, but they could still sense it perfectly clearly. Though the phantom in the sky had no form or substance, with nothing to substantiate it, the pressure it exerted on them far surpassed even that of the sovereign of Soul Beasts slumbering in the Lake of Life at the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest. It was as though the Dragon Phoenix's silhouette in the sky was their true master, and the sovereign of dragon kings in this world and even the higher Divine Realm was no more than a false god.
Di Tian and the other members of the ten great Ferocious Beasts had gathered together, evidently so shaken by the Dragon Phoenix's silhouette that they did not know what to do.
"My lord, the presence within that phantom is supreme and extraordinary, but in our Soul Beast Clan today, there is clearly only you..."
"Why the rush?" On a massive wooden throne, receiving the prostrations of the ten great Ferocious Beasts, a white-haired girl with violet eyes crossed her legs and waved a hand at the dragon's silhouette in the sky. A wisp of its profound violet-gold presence drifted toward her, and she drew it entirely into her mouth.
The Silver Dragon King smacked her lips and murmured, "This feeling really is exactly the same as that blood from the other day..."
With that, the Silver Dragon King closed her beautiful eyes and explained to the Ferocious Beasts, "In this plane and even in the higher Divine Realm, the Dragon God of those days was the sole supreme beast god. Now, the Golden Dragon King is sealed in the Divine Realm, and I alone represent the Dragon God and have inherited its great power. If there were no anomaly, that would indeed be how things should stand."
"But planes are as numerous as the stars in this world, beyond counting. That Dragon Phoenix silhouette is likely the supreme dragon and beast of another world. Though I do not know why it came to this realm, since it is here and possesses pressure, presence, and power equal or even far superior to mine, it is naturally qualified to share authority over this world with me."
"You may all withdraw..."
The Ferocious Beasts bowed deeply to the Silver Dragon King and left the Lake of Life. Di Tian was the last to bow and was about to leave when the Silver Dragon King suddenly stopped him. She then said:
"Di Tian, I have sensed it..."
"The power of that Dragon Phoenix phantom in the heavens comes from the same source as the violet-gold blood that healed my injuries that day."
Di Tian was deeply shaken. Some time ago, a drop of violet-gold blood from an unknown source had sensed the Silver Dragon King's call as she healed and flown into the Lake of Life. That single drop of essence blood had healed injuries that would otherwise have taken her tens of millions of years to recover from. When the Soul Beast Clan learned the news, they celebrated together, rejoicing that their sovereign was gradually recovering. Since then, the Silver Dragon King and the ten great Ferocious Beasts had searched for the source of the violet-gold blood, but unfortunately, several days had passed without their finding it. No dragon Soul Beast of such power had suddenly appeared in the Star Dou Great Forest, or even on the entire Douluo Continent, leaving them no trace of the blood's origin.
"Do you remember what that Titan Giant Ape said?"
Di Tian fell into thought. On the same day the Silver Dragon King recovered, the Titan Giant Ape, a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, had spoken of the matter. He was the younger of the two brothers who were the nominal kings of the Star Dou Great Forest, granted authority by the ten great Ferocious Beasts, and their representative in the outside world while they provided the Silver Dragon King with power to heal. He had said that his adopted nephew, a Titan Giant Ape who had mutated to possess powerful magma energy, had been killed by a group of juniors. The Soul Beasts treated the matter as a topic for idle chatter, but the Silver Dragon King had pondered it for a long time. After all, those human children had indeed been the only outsiders to enter the interior of the Star Dou Great Forest that day.
"Do you mean, my lord, that the source of the bloodline we've been searching for so desperately might be among those human children?!"
"Precisely." Having spoken, the Silver Dragon King gazed into the distance at the Dragon Phoenix phantom.
In this world, as the sole true dragon god, she was so lonely.
"I will go to the human world and find the source of that bloodline."
The Silver Dragon King murmured the words, leaving Di Tian aghast.
"The power of a dragon from beyond this realm, and the power of humans. Now that I have come out of seclusion, I will grasp both powers in my hands."
In another world, far away, on Dragon Island...
A graceful violet-haired girl sat upright on a cliff, seemingly lost in thought...
Suddenly, the bloodline throughout her body began to pulse in a strange rhythm, as though sensing a resonance from another world...
"The Dragon-Phoenix Bloodline is responding?!"
In this world, there was only one other person besides her who possessed that bloodline.
"You're still alive..."
"Xiao Yan..."
The girl hugged her legs, sobbing too hard to speak, yet smiling radiantly.