Boom! A mountain peak exploded, turning into countless fragments of rock that sprayed outward as dust billowed skyward.
Di Tian dodged the golden silhouette's attack and immediately launched a counterstrike. In an instant, he appeared right in front of the golden silhouette, slammed his fist into its chest, and sent it flying hundreds of meters away.
The golden silhouette shot straight out, crashing into another mountain and embedding several meters deep. The mountain trembled and rocks tumbled down.
Following right after came five golden claw marks—each hundreds of meters long, curved, slender yet solid, and so sharp they made one's breath catch, as if they could slice through anything.
Even space itself could not bear their sharpness; wherever the claw marks passed, they left behind spatial rifts that slowly healed on their own.
The golden silhouette escaped its self-made crater at maximum speed, but had no time to evade. It could only lift its trident horizontally to block in front of itself.
Clang…! A sharp metallic clash rang out, reverberating, followed by a crash, then the sound of collapse.This was Di Tian's true trump card—the Dragon King's Claw, also called the Dragon God's Claw. It was a technique once passed down by the Dragon God itself, its might extraordinary.
When unleashed at this moment, its power truly felt unstoppable, capable of tearing apart anything. The golden silhouette was effortlessly knocked away again, crashing into yet another mountain.
The claws drove the golden silhouette backward. As the mountain tried to resist, five clean cross-sections appeared in an instant, the center pierced through, and then the whole thing began to collapse.
The golden silhouette was sent flying hundreds of meters again. When it finally steadied itself, it was in a pitiful state, panting heavily, its hands trembling as they gripped the trident.Visible cracks had appeared on the trident—just a little more and it would have shattered into pieces, on the verge of disintegration.
This was partly because this trident was not the true divine artifact, but merely condensed energy, imbued with only a trace of the original weapon's power.
Earlier attacks might have been minor scuffles, but once the Dragon God's Claw was unleashed, the damage dealt was no small matter—it directly left the golden silhouette gravely injured.
It was only because the golden silhouette was formed from divine sense, not true flesh and blood, that there was no bleeding or broken limbs.
Otherwise, it would now be drenched in blood, possibly missing arms or legs, in an even more miserable state.
Though no blood flowed and no body parts were severed, its aura alone made its dire condition clear.
Over ten minutes of fierce combat had drained both sides heavily, and after taking the Dragon God's Claw head-on, the golden silhouette was now a spent arrow, on the verge of collapse.
The time wasn't long, but their fight had been too intense. Half of the surrounding mountain range had been destroyed; more than a dozen peaks leveled. The ground was littered with craters and fissures, the air so turbulent it felt like it had just endured a ninth-level fixed-mounted soul cannon bombardment, with several spatial rifts slowly knitting back together.
Both had fought with everything they had, and naturally the drain was immense. Those ten-plus minutes equaled what would normally take many tens of minutes in battle.
In the distance, Tang Wulin was spat out by the golden dragon, his body intact, undamaged, and clean—no disgusting fluids clinging to him.
His internal blood energy was almost the same as before entering; all the Golden Dragon King essence he had absorbed had already been extracted, his blood vitality weakened to the extreme.
Now it remained the same. The divine core was still inside him, but no trace of Golden Dragon King energy leaked from his body.
Before and after, no Golden Dragon King essence remained within him; naturally, his blood vitality showed no changes.
The golden dragon had no interest in drawing out Tang Wulin's own bloodline.
From the fact that the dragon had spit Tang Wulin out, it wasn't hard to tell that the eighteenth-layer divine core seal had now had ten layers undone.
Those ten layers of energy had all been absorbed and refined by the dragon, not a drop wasted.
Starting from the eleventh layer, the seals involved fragments of the Golden Dragon King's remaining soul. Yun Ze had no plans to touch them for now, and thus stopped breaking seals.
At the moment Tang Wulin was spat out, the golden silhouette turned its gaze toward him, and upon sensing his changes, its fury burned even hotter.
"You will pay the most painful price for this. All of you will!" the golden silhouette nearly growled, teeth clenched.
"Hmph, you don't have that ability," Di Tian snorted coldly, striking out directly—today he would scatter this light-form no matter what.
"Make us pay? Later, I'll make sure you pay," Gu Yuena said with a pout.
Yun Ze simply ignored these exchanges, extended his palm toward the golden dragon, and gestured. The once-dominant, ferocious dragon obediently flew over.
Xiong Jun moved aside, allowing the golden dragon to hover before Jing Xuan, its giant mouth opening to release a golden bead that floated out slowly.
The bead was only fist-sized, crystal-clear, smooth and round, with ten tiny dragons swimming inside.
Calling it "swimming" was putting it lightly—more like frantically ramming about. Judging from their behavior, it seemed they were trying to smash through the barrier and escape.
Seeing the bead, Gu Yuena's throat worked, her breathing turned rapid, her eyes fixed unblinking, filled with a fierce desire to absorb it.
This was a craving born from the depths of her bloodline, impossible to suppress.Yun Ze reached out and caught the dragon bead, examined it for a moment, then handed it to Gu Yuena, saying: "Put it away."
The only thing about it that interested him was its pure energy; as for its bloodline significance, he had no interest whatsoever.
Gu Yuena blinked in surprise, then came to her senses, took the bead, and as it touched her hand, her soul power automatically began circulating, starting to absorb the dragon bead's bloodline power.
She didn't let excitement make her lose reason; knowing now was not the time to absorb, she immediately suppressed her soul power, halting the absorption.
"Our goal is accomplished; we can leave—" Yun Ze suddenly cut off mid-sentence, not finishing his words, his gaze shifting to the left.
Seeing Yun Ze abruptly fall silent, Gu Yuena's heart tightened. She too sensed something, simultaneously putting the dragon bead into her storage ring while following Yun Ze's gaze.
Not only Yun Ze had noticed the anomaly; Xiong Jun, who was on guard, and even the golden silhouette and Di Tian, who were still fighting, had also sensed it.
All their eyes turned toward a spot where the ground was relatively flat—a circular spatial passage suddenly appeared, expanding from a point to a full ring in an instant.
Three figures flew out from within, hovering in mid-air about ten meters from the spatial gate. The man in the middle fixed his gaze first upon Di Tian.
"You?" Yun Ming frowned, recognizing Di Tian, feeling surprised. Clearly, he hadn't expected to meet the deputy palace master of Dragon Phoenix Hall here.
Di Tian also frowned; he too hadn't expected to encounter this man here—things had just gotten more complicated.
More than five months ago, during an auction, while trading for a pill, he had seen Yun Ming, who had simply introduced himself then as being from Shrek Academy.
Yun Ming's eyes turned toward the golden silhouette opposite Di Tian, surprise flashing across his face as he saw through its nature—it was a soul imprint?
(End of Chapter)