Hua Yang Zhenjun's robes hung in tatters as he scrambled across fractured jade tiles, the dragonbone leviathan's shadow swallowing what remained of his dignity. Ice crystals still clung to his eyebrows from the last glacial breath attack, each exhale from the skeletal beast frosting the air with primordial malice.
"Enough of this farce!" The True Monarch spat bloodied phlegm, his Celestial Azure Crucible sputtering prismatic death. "You're dead! Stay dead!"
The five-clawed horror answered with a sweep of its ossified tail. Hua Yang's barrier shattered like spun sugar, the impact hurling him through a petrified merfolk mural. Gold leaf and lapis lazuli shards rained down as he skidded to a halt before Zhao Rui's boots.
"Enjoying the show?" Zhao Rui crouched, fingers brushing the pulsating Ten Thousand Laws Tome at his belt. Golden motes swirled around his smirk. "You should see your face."
Hua Yang's snarl died in his throat as the dragon's shadow loomed again. The skeletal maw yawned wide, revealing constellations of crackling energy where a tongue should be - a black hole given form.
"MINE."
The word vibrated through marrow, shaking loose memories Hua Yang had buried centuries deep. For the first time since achieving Tribulation Transcendence, fear flooded his meridians like cheap wine.
Dance of Ruin
The dragon's attack came in fractal patterns no living mind could anticipate. Serrated talons carved through space itself, leaving afterimages that hemorrhaged chronal energy. Hua Yang's crucible vomited defensive arrays - spinning mandalas of molten gold that warped under each blow.
"Pathetic." Zhao Rui observed from his perch on a crumbling dragon rib. "He's treating it like a mortal foe."
Dun Che crunched sea urchin spines between molars. "Shouldn't we...?"
"Let the dead collect their debt."
As if hearing them, the dragon's spinal column arched. Glyphs older than written language flared along its vertebrae - the true language of dragons, etched in dying stars.
Hua Yang's eyes widened. "Impossible! Those sigils were..."
The hall answered with a bone-deep hum.
Reckoning Writ in Bone
Light died.
Then rebirth.
The dragon's skeleton disassembled mid-strike, each bone transforming into a screaming comet of necrotic energy. Hua Yang's final barrier lasted precisely three heartbeats before dissolving into screaming quarks.
"NO! I AM—"
The bones reassembled around him - a cage of living history. Ribs became prison bars still steaming with Hua Yang's own evaporated blood. The skull lowered until its hollow eye sockets framed his twitching face.
"Thief."
Zhao Rui's golden motes swarmed like excited fireflies. "There it is - the Dragon King's final judgment."
Dun Che scratched his mangled ear. "Thought they were extinct."
"Extinct," Zhao Rui corrected, "not gone."
A Monarch Unmade
The feeding lasted nine seconds by Zhao Rui's count.
First went the stolen cultivation - eight centuries of pillaged power bleeding from Hua Yang's pores in geysers of liquid starlight. The dragon drank greedily, skeletal frame swelling with stolen radiance.
Next, memories. Hua Yang's screams took on the voices of every victim he'd ever consumed - a choir of the damned escaping through his rupturing meridians.
Finally, the true feast.
The dragon's fangs closed on Hua Yang's golden core. For a heartbeat, the hall held its breath. Then—
Crack.
The sound echoed through time itself. Hua Yang's body went rigid as crackling energy devoured him from within. His final expression wasn't fear, but awe - the look of a mathematician witnessing a transcendent equation.
When the light faded, only his jade hairpin remained - embedded in the floor like a tombstone.
Aftermath
The dragon turned its hollow gaze on Zhao Rui.
Dun Che's claws unsheathed. "Brother..."
"Wait." Zhao Rui stepped forward, the Ten Thousand Laws Tome glowing like a lodestar. "It's not finished."
Golden blood still dripped from the dragon's talons. With earth-shaking deliberation, it extended a claw toward Zhao Rui's chest.
Dun Che moved.
"Don't!"
The claw paused millimeters from Zhao Rui's sternum. The Tome's pages fluttered open, revealing fresh sigils that mirrored the dragon's bone-glyphs.
"PAYMENT."
Zhao Rui smiled. "We had a deal, didn't we?"
The dragon's skull tilted - a gesture disturbingly human. From its maw fell two objects: the cracked amphora and a scroll case thrumming with contained fury.
As Zhao Rui caught them, the skeleton began dissolving into bioluminescent plankton.
"Wait!" Dun Che lunged. "Where's the rest of the—"
"Gone." Zhao Rui examined the amphora's single remaining drop of Golden Blood. "But not forgotten."
The last bone disintegrated. Somewhere in the lightless depths, a new leviathan stirred.