The Corrupted Dragon
“Elder! At this rate, the Evil Dragon will break completely free from the seal!”
“Summon the Patriarch at once! Mobilize every warrior we have alongside him!”
The sorcerers reinforcing the binding barrier collapsed one after another, coughing up blood. Preserving the seal was no longer an option.
The Evil Dragon was waking. Across an eternity of ages, a maw steeped in unbridled hatred was about to tear into the Ak Family. Despair gnawed at the elder’s heart; now that its release was inevitable, remaining here meant certain death.
Yet he was a man who had dedicated his entire life to keeping the ancient calamity bound. Even if his bones turned to ash upon this stone, he would burn every shred of his being to hold the seal until his final breath.
“This place shall be our grave! Expend your vital energy to the very last drop, delay the Evil Dragon’s release for as long as—!”
Squelch!
Just as the elder sought to rally the sorcerers’ crumbling resolve, an obsidian talon broke through the barrier wall and drove clean through his midsection. At the horrific sight unfolding in a split second, the sorcerers turned pale as corpses.
Even in his dying throes, the elder desperately gathered his true qi to sap the monster’s strength. Yet as if mocking his sacrifice, the Evil Dragon devoured every scrap of his vital energy, converting it into fuel for its own resurrection.
What had once been a venerable elder collapsed into a pile of desiccated white bones. Seeing a grandmaster of the mature Profound Realm slaughtered without mounting even a shred of resistance crushed whatever remained of the sorcerers’ will to fight.
With that feral roar snapping the sorcerers’ minds like dry twigs, the Evil Dragon shattered the remnants of the binding array and thrust its colossal bulk into the world.
“All units! Halt the beast’s advance!”
The vanguard of the Ak Family rushed forward to meet the horror. Any martial artist below the Harmonious Realm had already been evacuated beyond Mount Tai. Several hundred masters of the Harmonious Realm swiftly encircled the dragon—a staggering gathering of power that would leave the rest of the jianghu speechless. Mingled among them were nearly a hundred experts who had attained the Profound Realm.
Yet every warrior present knew that even this mighty host was woefully insufficient. According to the ancient records, the Evil Dragon had once held its ground against thousands of elite martial artists without flinching.
“Hear me, children of the Ak Family!” their commander bellowed. “If this beast breaches our ancestral grounds, the Central Plains will fall with us! Even should our family be wiped out this day, not a single step must this demon take beyond our borders!”
“Loyalty!” the warriors roared in unison.
“All units, attack!”
The clash erupted into violence. The Ak Family elites kept their distance, raining long-range martial arts upon the monstrosity. The foul, demonic qi radiating from the Evil Dragon was lethal to mortals; maximizing distance was paramount.
There was good reason the Ak Family Spear Art was celebrated across the land. The spear was the only weapon capable of exerting peerless lethality across long, mid, and close ranges alike, making it uniquely suited to their sworn duty. Archery was formidable at a distance but utterly helpless up close; swords, sabers, and fists thrived in melee, yet their lethal reach waned precipitously with distance. In that respect, the spear stood supreme.
As the battle caught fire, Ak Bi-hon, who had been speaking with Ryeong, shot like a lightning bolt toward the front lines. Now that the seal was broken, halting the calamity took precedence over everything else.
Meanwhile, Ryeong felt her heart thumping violently against her ribs. She could not shake the bizarre sensation that her core was resonating with the beast. Had Immortal Hyeok foreseen even a catastrophe like this?
The malevolent miasma is suffocating. At this rate, even masters in the Profound Realm won’t be able to fight at full strength.
Ryeong unfurled her Fire Wings. The brilliant vermilion plumage blazing through the gloom drew a brief look of wonder from Ak Bi-hon. But the moment vanished as quickly as it came; the instant he arrived on the front lines and came face-to-face with the dragon, a grim groan escaped his lips.
Ryeong felt no different. Confronting the gargantuan bulk of the Evil Dragon in the flesh—a creature she had only heard of in legend—the sheer, crushing dread it radiated nearly stole her breath away.
Skreeeech!
Inside her dantian, the Vermilion Bird Qi flared furiously, radiating a fierce, unyielding intent to slaughter the creature at all costs. Never before had the divine bird’s spirit asserted its will with such vivid fury.
Then, the Evil Dragon made an unexpected move. Ignoring the flurry of strikes pouring from the Ak Family, its slit-pupiled gaze locked onto Ryeong. A twisted grin curled the corners of its maw.
“So the descendant of the Four Gods is here.”
Ak Bi-hon realized by sheer instinct that the dragon was fixated on Ryeong. Bracing for the peril about to engulf her, he unleashed a tempest of true qi with all his might.
At the same time, his voice rang inside Ryeong's mind via sound transmission:
“Fall back with Gui-yu. He will guide you to where the Yellow Dragon Scale rests.”
Ryeong did not hesitate to accept. Witnessing the dragon's overwhelming might, she knew her direct involvement here was not what was needed right now. She understood clearly what demanded her focus.
Touching the Yellow Dragon Scale would grant her an audience with Immortal Hyeok. To stop this monster, she had to speak with him. Escaping the dragon’s immediate strike zone was the vital first step.
“Mortals,” the dragon rumbled, its voice grinding like crushing boulders. “Eons have passed, yet you still understand nothing. You can never halt this body. Surrender that woman to me, and I may grant you a temporary reprieve.”
“Do not heed the demon’s lies!” Ak Bi-hon’s shout thundered across the battlefield. “That young lady may very well be our final hope! We protect her even if it costs our lives!”
“Pointless struggles,” the dragon sneered. “Then be annihilated.”
Rumbleeeee!
The dragon unleashed a cataclysmic barrage upon Ak Bi-hon, the linchpin of the Ak Family defense. Yet the octogenarian grandmaster—a titan who had stepped into the Life-and-Death Realm and stood as the undisputed peerless master of the era—did not buckle. Meeting the monstrous blows head-on, he parried the brunt of the onslaught and hurled back ferocious counterattacks.
Taking that opening, Ryeong spun on her heel. Having received the sound transmission as well, Ak Gui-yu already knew where to lead her. The trouble was that the dragon had no intention of letting them leave.
“Did you think you could escape me, descendant?”
Fwip-fwip-fshhhh!
The dragon hurled volleys of its razor scales like a storm of javelins. Though the Fire Wings curving behind Ryeong deflected the surprise bombardment, the scales plunged into the stone and earth, absorbing the surrounding debris to mutate into grotesque, chitinous aberrations.
The Ak Family warriors were too hard-pressed to clear this secondary swarm for her. But Ryeong required no assistance. Minor obstacles of this caliber needed only to be severed.
“Haaah!”
Conjuring a cluster of crackling thunder bullets, Ryeong hurled them in all directions. Now was hardly the time to hoard her internal energy. There was no telling how long Ak Bi-hon and the Ak Family could hold out against the ancient monstrosity.
Straining every sinew, Ryeong stayed locked onto Ak Gui-yu's heels. When they finally reached the vault where the Yellow Dragon Scale was enshrined—
“This is bad,” Ak Gui-yu gasped, skidding to a halt. “The entrance is choked with demonic miasma. We can't push through.”
“Step aside.”
Anticipating Ryeong's route, the Evil Dragon had preemptively sealed the repository behind a dense wall of corrupt qi. Ak Gui-yu thrust his spear multiple times, but each strike was deflected backward by a repellent astral barrier.
Ryeong retracted her Fire Wings and closed her eyes in deep concentration. Her inner energy surged like tidal waves into the Red Cloud Divine Sword, slowly purifying the ambient foulness.
The Celestial Immortal Divine Art began to expand outward from her core.
“I will hold them off,” Ak Gui-yu vowed, planting his feet. “Pay no heed to your surroundings!”
True to his word, Ak Gui-yu intercepted every tendril of corrupted qi attempting to invade her space. Meanwhile, Ryeong gathered her strength as though drawing upon the absolute limits of the Celestial Immortal Divine Art.
KABOOM!
The humidity in the air surged violently. As the moisture evaporating from her skin coalesced into thick mist, Ryeong snapped her eyes open. Her azure-glowing irises burned with the fully unchained power of the Black Tortoise Water Qi.
“Esoteric Art.”
The divine beast of the north descends, carving through the demonic miasma with supreme sacred qi.
ROOOOAAAR!
From the tip of her blade, the sacred guardian of the northern heavens materialized. Forged from pure, high-density sacred qi, the Black Tortoise tore through the wall of demonic energy in a single breath.
A straight, open path to the Yellow Dragon Scale unfurled before them. The displaced miasma swirled back with ravenous fury, lunging straight for Ryeong, but Ak Gui-yu stepped between them without hesitation.
“Go!!”
“Thank you, Commander Ak!”
Fwoooosh!
Blending the explosive drive of the Vermilion Bird Killing Qi with the untraceable footwork of the Ghost Soul Steps, Ryeong propelled herself forward like a launched bolt. Crossing the breach in the blink of an eye, she burst into the inner chamber where the Yellow Dragon Scale rested.
Just as the pursuing miasma reached out to rip her apart, Ryeong's fingers brushed against the Yellow Dragon Scale.
Instantly, the world washed out into monochrome ash.
With Immortal Hyeok’s manifestation, the flow of time around them ground to a complete standstill.
“So the Evil Dragon has broken its seal and resurfaced in the mortal realm after all,” Hyeok murmured, his presence shimmering into form.
He seemed to grasp the crisis the moment he appeared. From his cadence and tone, Ryeong could tell he had foreseen this calamity long ago.
There was only one question she needed to ask.
“How are we supposed to bring down a monster like that? No matter how many monsters the Ak Family boasts among their ranks, that dragon is in a league of its own.”
“There is a way,” Hyeok replied calmly. “However, it requires your consent.”
“My consent?”
“I must possess your body. But should that occur, the Celestial Immortal Divine Art will reach complete culmination.”
“In plain speech, you’re telling me to kill the dragon and die with it.”
Then who is supposed to deal with the Demon Blood Divine Cult? The words rose to Ryeong’s throat, but she swallowed them back down.
If her sacrifice brought down the Evil Dragon...
The martial world would preserve hundreds of living masters in the Profound Realm. Backed by such an overwhelming host, the chance of the Central Plains falling to the Demon Blood Divine Cult was virtually zero.
If one weighed only what benefited the realm, laying down her life here was undoubtedly the correct choice.