Both Dragon Butterfly and Long Batian looked at Lu Yun.
“It’d be a bit of a pity to not get the azure dragon blood since we’re already here.” Lu Yun thought for a moment. “I also want to see just what the first dragon of the Hongmeng is like. But there’s no rush.”
He shook his head and took a close look around. It was a hazy, foggy world on the ninth floor. Absolutely terrifying dragon power surrounded them from all sides. Legend spoke of the ancestral blood being located on this floor, but there was only the chaotic power left behind after the azure dragon fell.
The azure dragon had perished on the ninth floor of Dragonhollow Mountain, but his will remained and lingered throughout Dragonhollow Mountain, unobtrusively impacting the faction.
That the dragon lord had entered the world of immortals and taken on the identity of the Azure Dragon King was, in large part, due to influence from the azure dragon’s will. It wasn’t that the dragon lord had been under the ancestor dragon’s control, but that he wanted to break free from the azure dragon.
“The azure dragon’s will was only imperceptibly affecting Dragonhollow Mountain before, but now that he shows signs of revitalizing…” Lu Yun looked around and sank into slight contemplation.
“If the two little girls weren’t with you, they would’ve been refined by the azure dragon’s will as soon as they set foot onto the eighth floor.” The dragon lord sighed as he looked at Lu Yun. “The azure dragon’s will doesn’t dare draw close while you stand here because he is still dead for now. Since he is dead, he falls under your jurisdiction!”
Lu Yun had pulled the dragon lord to the Hongmeng through hell, so the latter naturally knew of the young man’s identity and abilities.
Lu Yun nodded.
“In actuality…” said the dragon lord. “The Hongmeng and world of immortals will not collide.”
“Hmm?” Lu Yun blinked.
“The Hongmeng, chaos, and worlds are one entity.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“No, you don’t!” The dragon lord shook his head. “All beings within the Hongmeng think that the realm is an enormous egg, that the Hongmeng is the outermost and most sophisticated layer. They think the chaos and worlds are the inner layers of the egg and thus, less advanced realms. This is a misconception.”
“Is it?” Lu Yun started. He and Qing Yu had once followed the edges of the Hadal Hell all the way to the fourth realm. According to Qing Yu’s calculations, the fourth realm was a circle surrounding another circle.
“No,” the dragon lord shook his head. “This is also the world of immortals. The Hongmeng, chaos, and world of immortals were all one entity to begin with!”
To Lu Yun’s great shock, the dragon lord opened his arms and manifested tendrils of immortal qi from the void. The qi gracefully sank into his body and he reverted back to the Azure Dragon King.
“A yin tomb and a yang tomb!” The hair on the back of Lu Yun’s neck rose with horror.
His throat was dry and his scalp tingled with numbness. This was a tomb layout—absolutely a tomb layout! It wasn’t a naturally occurring one either, someone had set it up!
“All I needed to do to easily enter the world of immortals was to drop this outer appearance.” The Azure Dragon King turned into the dragon lord again. “The Hongmeng is an enormous cage and all of us its captive birds. If we wish to soar into the skies, we must break the confines of this cage. There are countless Hongmengs in the fourth realm and each of them is in the same straits.
“But somehow, our Hongmeng is different. Someone, somehow, at some unknown point in time, turned our realm into a very, very big tomb.
“The yin tomb and yang tomb, as well as another layer of tomb, firmly entrap this Hongmeng. We must pay a million or ten million times more the price if we want to break free of our shackles!
“If we don’t do so as soon as possible, all of us might become the wild ghosts and zombies of this tomb.” The dragon lord lifted his head and looked through layers of space to the cosmos outside. “As for why the ghosts attack us in unceasing numbers, that’s because we were once a ghost region!
“Protect the world of immortals, protect the immortal dao… Facilitate the immortal dao’s return to the world of immortals and chaos so that it restores order to our own realm and help us become a normal Hongmeng again… that was the original intent of the Ten Valleys of Evil.
“That was also the mission of Dragonhollow Mountain after the azure dragon died.”
Lu Yun didn’t say a word.
“What of the Immortal Region?” Long Batian asked in a small voice. “It’s wanted to refine the world of immortals all this time.”
She’d slipped out of the Immortal Region, so she naturally knew everything about it.
“The Immortal Region… I don’t know.” The dragon lord shook his head. “It suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I don’t know where they’re from either…”
Lu Yun patted Long Batian’s shoulder, indicating for quiet. The dragon lord’s emotions seemed to be in a bit of a turmoil. Lu Yun looked at him silently and didn’t engage him in further conversation.
“Our enemy now isn’t the Immortal Region or the azure dragon, and it’s not those who oversee the orders of the realm. It’s the ghost race!” The dragon lord suddenly lifted his head. “The ghosts invade with power that violates our realm’s order. The more ghosts there are in the Hongmeng, the faster our orders collapse. Soon enough, there will come a day when we turn into a real tomb!”
The current Hongmeng was just the layout of a yin and yang tomb. But as more ghosts invaded, they would turn the layout into a true tomb. Once that took place, everything within the Hongmeng would turn into ghosts.
The tides of yin spirits in the world of immortals and ghosts of the Hongmeng absolutely hailed from the same origins.
“Alright, let us take the azure dragon blood. I’d like to see the azure dragon’s will as well and assess what’s going on.” Lu Yun stood up and looked at the ninth floor, where the only mountain vein resided.
It was also the corpse of the fallen azure dragon and his fresh blood was sealed within. If Lu Yun wasn’t using his projected body to keep Dragon Butterfly and Long Batian in check, they probably would’ve already rushed over to search for it.
The dragon lord nodded and then mentioned dejectedly, “Stop turning my dragons into soup… Who knows how long it’ll take for them to recover after you kill them?”
“I’ve only killed two for a taste of something new, it’s not like they’ve really died.” Lu Yun swept a glance at the seventh floor—the kings there remained locked in a standstill and forcing others to choose sides.
The dragon lord smiled ruefully. Since the Azure Dragon King was one of Lu Yun’s, that meant he was one of Lu Yun’s. The entire mountain was also his since the dragon lord was the absolute ruler of Dragonhollow Mountain.
