Chapter 2360: The Figure on the Throne!
One of the figures had a somewhat savage and wicked face, long and disheveled hair, and a robe adorned with cloud patterns on his body. A blue light radiated from his body, an enormous energy surging out from his body and disappearing into the ground beneath him.
Next to him was a beautiful woman wearing armor. Vortices swirled around her body, which was radiating intense pulses of spatial energy.
The last person was over seventy years old and had an honest and sincere face. He seemed like a very moral and virtuous person, and his body was also brimming with immense amounts of energy. But unlike the others, Wang Chong felt an intense Ice Element energy from him.
The three of them stood in a row, motionless like statues. Wang Chong could sense no signs of life from them. They had clearly been dead for some time.
“On the right is Da Hong. He can control the weather and lightning, and was an important official serving Little Grass. He was also called the Thunder Duke. The lightning storm we saw earlier was probably his doing. The one in the middle is Feng Hou. She was once Little Grass’s enemy, but she was subdued by Little Grass. She can also control the weather. On the left is Yu Shi. The ocean we saw was very likely the work of him and Feng Hou,” Little Nightmare sorrowfully said.
It had seen them laugh and talk, had watched them fight alongside each other for the sake of Little Grass, but now, they were all dead.
“Li Mu was also one of Little Grass’s officials. He was part of the Kuafu Tribe, so he had a large body. He was once my best friend.”
Little Nightmare’s words made Wang Chong internally sigh, and on the side, Li Xuantu was also sorrowful.
For them, these people were simply ancients from more than one thousand years ago. Neither of them understood them or had interacted with them. But for Little Nightmare, they had been friends, comrades in battle, a part of its life.
But all of them were now dead, leaving only Little Nightmare.
For it, this was undoubtedly exposing the darkest and most painful page in its life.
The three people standing here were guarding this place, and Wang Chong gradually understood that this entire dimension had been created through the combined efforts of them and that man within the Celestial Emperor Palace, those six pillars at the edges of the ocean serving as proof.
“Little Nightmare, do you really not know what happened back then?” Wang Chong said after a few moments of silence.
Little Nightmare shook its head.
“At the time, Da Hong and Feng Hou backed my exile. As our relationship had been good before this, I was extremely angry at the time. After that, I was sealed in that bottomless pit. Now that I think about it, they probably ran into problems not long after I was sealed.”
Wang Chong lowered his head in thought.
Though he had not personally experienced anything, Wang Chong sensed that before this incident, whether it was Little Nightmare’s former master or Da Hong, Feng Hou, and Yu Shi, they had all probably sensed something. Thus, they had joined together to put on an act to seal Little Nightmare in that bottomless pit.
If not for this, then given Little Nightmare’s affection for that man, it also would have been standing here in the Celestial Palace.
But Wang Chong had no plan to tell Little Nightmare this, as this would only add to its sorrow.
After bowing to Da Hong and his comrades, Wang Chong walked around their bodies and continued forward.
The scene before them was exceedingly resplendent and grandiose, like a dream. Heaven had gone to great lengths to construct this false Celestial Domain.
Walking past the resplendent nameboard, they soon saw something new.
This was an enormous body, tens of thousands of feet in length.
In the middle of the restless sea of mist, they saw a savage and majestic dragon head, its drooping whiskers as thick as an arm and a hundred and sixty feet long. The dragon head also sported two dazzling golden horns.
“This!”
Though they had mentally prepared themselves for such sights, especially after seeing that giant green bird, when they saw this ten-thousand-foot divine dragon, they were still given a massive shock.
In all of the myths of the Central Plains, no creature had a greater status than a dragon, but everyone knew that dragons were mythical and did not exist.
Li Xuantu was a member of the imperial household, which had always regarded itself as descendants of dragons, and the Emperors even claimed to be nine-clawed golden dragons. But in reality, Li Xuantu had never believed such things.
Yet this was clearly a real and authentic dragon.
“This is the Azure Dragon!”
Li Xuantu slowly stepped close, staring at the massive dragon head in shock.
“I didn’t think that Heaven would even be hiding a real dragon inside the Celestial Palace. It’s no wonder he’s been able to control the Emperors of the Central Plains for so long. The imperial household considers themselves to be dragons, and if a dragon appeared in the realm below, any imperial authority would lower its head.”
Heaven’s methods were far beyond their imagination. With this divine dragon at hand, no matter what dynasties rose and fell, they would always be playthings in his hands.
Wang Chong looked up at the giant dragon and said, “But it’s clear that this divine dragon is imprisoned here, and Heaven can’t reach his hands into this place. That’s why he had to go to such great lengths to create the green bird to try and lure Emperor Wu in.”
The Celestial Emperor Palace was covered by that golden barrier that rejected all of Heaven’s power. In this way, the divine dragon had been sealed.
“Heaven’s servant, Essence Supreme, has a very powerful creation ability. The Behemoth Army and that green bird were both his work. But this creation ability must have a limit, and different creatures have different levels of difficulty. This divine dragon probably belongs to the highest level of difficulty, and even Essence Supreme is probably unable to create one,” Li Xuantu sternly said.
Wang Chong nodded.
This could also explain why the divine dragons had vanished from the Central Plains. The Behemoth Creation Art had easy and difficult creations. For giant apes, lions, and elephants, it was easy to gather materials—one simply needed to extract cells from their respective animals and then culture them. Wang Chong had already seen proof of this in the Behemoth Army.
But dragons were different. Ancient texts said that dragons had the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, the neck of a snake, the eyes of a turtle, the palms of a tiger, the ears of a bull… This meant that using the Behemoth Creation Art would require the fusion of at least six different creatures, and they needed to be naturally fused together without the slightest mistake. This level of difficulty was clearly above that of the green bird.
And this was only in theory. Actually putting it into practice was definitely far more difficult.
“Does looking at this dragon remind you of anything?” Wang Chong suddenly said.
“You’re talking about… the Yellow Emperor ascending to the heavens on a dragon?”
Li Xuantu’s heart thumped in understanding.
There was only one story from the ancient era that could be associated with this blue-black dragon.
It was said that in the later years of the Yellow Emperor’s life, a divine dragon descended from the heavens, its tail concealed in the clouds as its head entered the Yellow Emperor’s palace. The divine dragon said to the Yellow Emperor that the heavens above had recognized his achievements and felt his benevolence and virtue. Thus, it had been sent as an emissary to bring him up to the heavens to serve as this world’s first Celestial Emperor, ruling over both the heavenly and mortal domains and maintaining the laws of the world.
This story was clearly noted in the records, but anyone with the slightest bit of historical knowledge understood that this was a legend fabricated afterward. It could only serve as a teatime conversation, not anything to be taken seriously.
“Mm.”
Wang Chong nodded.
Some things were now exceedingly obvious. There was no doubt that the one who had created this world in the core of the Celestial Palace and prevented Heaven from properly using the Celestial Palace was Little Nightmare’s master, the originator of human civilization in the Central Plains and the sacred sovereign venerated by countless people, the Yellow Emperor.
Whether it was Da Hong, Feng Hou, Yu Shi, or Li Mu down in the ocean, they had all been his subordinates.
And this dragon had been the divine dragon that had lured the Yellow Emperor into the Celestial Palace, the so-called divine emissary.
The truth was truly astonishing. What many people had regarded as a legend, a story to be lightly chatted about, was actually authentic history. As for those kind and gentle endings, those were the true children’s tales that existed only in the imagination of the people.
Wang Chong didn’t know the exact details, but there was no doubt that Heaven had underestimated this revered sovereign, resulting in the scene before them.
Little Nightmare was rather confused. Clearly, it did not know of the myth that Wang Chong and Li Xuantu had spoken of.
Wang Chong found it somewhat unbearable, but in the end, he decided not to speak of it.
It was fine if only he and Li Xuantu knew. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing for Little Nightmare to know.
But deep down, Wang Chong still felt that something wasn’t right. Something in this story seemed to be missing.
“Let’s go in!”
Wang Chong strode forward past the giant dragon and into the curling mists.
The Celestial Emperor Palace was before them, as was the core of the Celestial Palace. Regardless of what had happened, once they reached the core, everything would be revealed.
Taptap!
All was quiet, and the only sound was that of their footsteps echoing through the Celestial Palace. The mood grew heavier and heavier.
After traveling tens of thousands of feet, they arrived in front of an enormous palace, built on an epic scale. Even before they got close, they could feel an enormous pressure as heavy as a mountain range radiating from the palace.
Even the air seemed to be much heavier.
Not only that, as they approached the Celestial Emperor Palace, Wang Chong and Li Xuantu sensed a storm of unimaginable energy coming from within.
“So powerful!”
Li Xuantu glanced inside with shock in his eyes.
They had seen many powerful existences on their way here, but the one within the palace far surpassed all of them, even matching Heaven’s avatar.
Half-step Divine Martial!
Li Xuantu immediately understood that this person had cultivated to a level that was unfathomable to the vast majority of people. In certain aspects, this person had even surpassed Li Xuantu’s lifelong foe, Li Taiyi.
Wang Chong felt something more than that suffocating pressure, and it made his eyebrows twitch more and more fiercely.
The Xuanyuan Sword was also growing restless, as if it was being called by something.
Boom!
As they drew close, the palace gates flew open. Within, Wang Chong saw the Celestial Emperor Palace, and he saw that mighty sovereign who had created this enormous world at the center of the Celestial Palace.