Chapter 315 – Heavenly tribulation appears again
Ye Xiwen began to refine the corpses of baby dragons one after another, and kept on adding their essences into the flag array. It could be said that there was a huge difference between his current and previous strength levels; even the degree of restoration of Tianyuan mirror was quite significant this time, which was also the reason why the refining of ‘Poisonous Dragon Water Control Flag’ took only one day.
This also included offering the ‘blood of flood dragons’ to the flag, which ultimately led to the evolution of all deepwater black snakes into flood dragons.
The wolf cub had been guarding Ye Xiwen during this period. He didn’t even budge one step away from Ye Xiwen since this Dragon Tomb was a dangerous place. Although they had obtained a lot of benefits here, there was still a possibility of encountering some unexpected situations; just like the sudden appearance of those flood dragons. If Ye Xiwen had not moved into action at the right time, then his team wouldn’t have come out alive of that ambush.
Ye Xiwen placed the flag back into his stock. Considering the enhanced power of Poisonous Dragon Water Control Flag, it could be said that his strength had also increased multiple times. In fact, he would now be able to deal with the expert of legendary third stage quite easily.
After Ye Xiwen was done leveling up the flag, he and the others continued to venture deeper into the tomb.
As they went deeper and deeper, they could feel the gradual rise in the intensity of Yinqi, as it was blowing against their faces and assaulting all their senses at once. Clusters of Deadqi could be seen surging high inside the hall, intertwining into layer upon layer of clouds.
The entire hall seemed like it was built at the edge of some cloud district. They could also see a primitive looking cavern on the other side of the thick Deadqi clouds.
On the other side of the clouds, there was a seemingly endless pile of dragon skeletons lying on the floor. Each of the skeletons appeared like a small mountain. In fact, the original flood dragons used to be even bigger in stature. Not to mention that the real dragons were incomparably massive, almost rivaling the size of the stars.
During their lifetime, dragons were known to possess supernatural powers to manipulate their own size. However right now, their skeletons were lying motionless on the ground.
“Haha, I never thought that we would come across so many skeletons of the flood dragons. Was an entire group of flood dragons buried here?” Ye Mo said.
Taking a broad view ahead, there were thousands of skeletons of flood dragons in the Dragon Tomb; some were small while the others were larger in size. It could be said that these skeletons definitely belonged to a large ethnic clan of flood dragons, but now they all had perished completely. Perhaps, those baby flood dragons were the last surviving members of the flood dragon clan which had already faced destruction, or they would have never left their precious tomb unattended.
In fact, their sacred family tomb had been turned into the foundation of a martial arts school. Of course, there were no explanations behind the presence of all these ladders and halls inside the tomb, besides accepting the fact that the downfall of entire flood dragon clan had already taken place at an earlier date. Later on, the Wang Heavenly faction must have constructed its school here using this Dragon Tomb as foundation. But even they met with deterioration and complete downfall with the passage of time, leaving behind a bunch of ruins for others to explore.
Since these dragons had died tens of thousands of years ago, their tyrannical bodies couldn’t survive the impact of time. Even though they were such powerful creatures, their flesh and blood had long been absorbed into the ground, acting as nourishment for the spirit grasses, which had been growing in the vicinity for thousands of years.
Only a mountain of snow-white skeletons had survived till now, still exuding an unusual white glow that hadn’t disappeared for all those years. This was certainly a sign of successful cultivation, not to mention that even the skeletons of most inferior quality, in the pile, belonged to Sage realm flood dragons. If alive, just one would be enough to spread chaos throughout the Ming Empire.
“Ha ha ha, we are really lucky!” The wolf cub laughed and galloped towards the mountain of skeletons. The lingering traces of Dragon Power simply did not have any effect on him.
Even though the flesh and blood of these flood dragons had dissipated into the earth, the precious dragon scales were still intact. Moreover, these scales could be turned into full-body armors and helmets; their value was simply unquantifiable.
In short, these dragon bones were priceless treasures.
“Rumble!” The flood dragons’ skeletons began to shake suddenly along with the entire Dragon Tomb. A strange green light suddenly lit up in their empty eye sockets, as these beasts of Sage realm actually came back to life.
“Damn!” Ye Mo suddenly said in a loud voice. “It seems like this place still has the remnants of dragon souls which are bringing all these skeletons back to life!”
Some traces of consciousness were still left in these skeletons, which usually stayed in a latent state, unless someone tried to rob their clan’s tomb. The formidable race of dragons simply couldn’t be underestimated no matter what.
One after another, the dragon skeletons flew up in the air while issuing frightening roars. Dragon Power began to rush wantonly in all directions, and in the blink of an eye, the dragon skeletons rushed towards Ye Xiwen and the others.
The dragon skeletons were flying in the air and appeared just like dragon spirits. However, flesh and blood began to congeal out of nowhere, slowly and gradually filling their ghostly shadows; their loud roars were shaking the world.
“Let’s get out of here, hurry up!” Ye Mo shouted.
There was no need to say that, since Ye Xiwen and the others had already begun speeding all the way to escape. Ye Xiwen had opened his devil wings behind his back to escape at an extremely fast speed; the Mo siblings escaped together and flew directly out of the cave. Although the wolf cub wasn’t as fast as Ye Xiwen, he had started to run earlier than Ye Xiwen. The wolf cub’s agility skill was amazing, and so was his speed.
Ye Mo’s warning was unnecessary because everyone already knew about the severity of situation. The resurrection of Sage level dragons was no joke. In fact, even the resurrection of the flood dragons of legendary eighth or ninth stage would be a terrible event. Even Ye Xiwen had to flee at the mere sight of Sage level dragon skeletons.
They were dealing with dragon skeletons of sage realm, and that too more than one or two; one could easily imagine the tyranny of the situation. No wonder even the Wang Heavenly faction had been unable to lay their hands on these dragon skeletons, which had remained untouched for thousands of years in a huge hall, located on the other side of Deadqi clouds.
The rattling sound of bones colliding with each other was accompanied by terrifying screams of the resurrected flood dragons, resounding everywhere inside the underground tomb. Both Ye Xiwen and wolf cub were afraid to turn their heads back, but couldn’t help doing so. One thing was sure – they needed to get out of there as fast as possible.
“Whoosh!” With a shrill piercing sound, Ye Xiwen directly turned into a golden streamer of light and escaped from the underground tomb.
The wolf cub closely followed him while escaping, and stopped only after having exited the underground tomb. At this time, he was breathing heavily. He was only a bit slower than Ye Xiwen, but almost had his back bitten by one of the dragon skeletons.
That skeleton dragon’s agility skill was not superior to that of the wolf cub, but its cultivation level was far above his.
This was a clear demonstration of the saying, ‘If you cannot run faster than the enemy, then at least run faster than your companion’.
“These old fogies have died long ago, why cannot they just stay dead? Geez, they just had to come back to life and cause such ruckus.” The wolf cub was still gasping for breath as he said these words in an irritated tone. The intermittent roars and screeches of those skeleton dragons could still be heard arising from inside the underground tomb. The peculiar screeches of these dead creatures reminded Ye Xiwen of those terrifying screams, which used to haunt the demon island every night.
However, the skeleton dragons continued to pace back and forth near the entrance of the tomb but did not dare to come out, because stepping out of the tomb would actually suppress their consciousness, turning them into nothing more than a pile of bones.
Their responsibility was just to guard this place from strong raiders. As soon as they realized that Ye Xiwen and the others had already gone out of their reach, they could only roar bitterly a few times before returning to the depths of the tomb.
“It’s such a pity, those skeletons are priceless treasures but...” The wolf cub said with a trace of regret appearing on his face.
“But we’ve obtained great benefits this time; don’t be greedy and learn to be satisfied with whatever you already have.” Ye Xiwen said while indirectly referring to the priceless medicinal herbs.
“Well, I’m planning to take on the heavenly tribulation. You invoke a protective barrier around me.” Ye Xiwen said. His cultivation had already reached the peak of half-step legendary realm’s first stage, and including the non-stop massacre of demon beasts at his hands, which had continued for a period of half-a-month; his foundation had already reached a profound level, exceeding all basic requirements for a breakthrough. Not to mention, he had diligently studied the Ancient Scriptures for two whole weeks as well.
He was only missing a turning point. In fact, he had noticed the need of having a breakthrough right before sacrificing the baby flood dragons to his flag, but he just wanted to finish the tomb exploration first.
At present, he should be able to contend with the experts of legendary third stage with the help of Poisonous Dragon Water Control Flag. Hence, after having a breakthrough by successfully crossing the heavenly tribulation, he would be able to easily beat the experts of legendary fourth stage; at that time, his self-defense capabilities would also increase significantly.
Choosing to cross the heavenly tribulation here was beneficial to Ye Xiwen since the skeleton dragons couldn’t step out of the tomb’s entrance, while the heavy presence of Dragon Power in the vicinity kept the demon beasts away. In short, he could face the heavenly tribulation without worrying about being disturbed while doing so. In addition, the wolf cub was also going to use a protective barrier to isolate Ye Xiwen during the breakthrough process.
With Ye Xiwen no longer concealing his true cultivation, his energy broke free and spread out. In the sky, the heavenly tribulation clouds started to gather slowly. At this time, he suddenly felt as if the heavenly tribulation had firmly locked onto him body.
The dark clouds were getting denser and stronger, as the electric snakes suddenly began to shuttle back and forth across the clouds.
“Huala!” There sounded a loud and shrill noise as the thunderclouds activated all of a sudden. Hundreds of electric snakes dived down from the clouds, rushing all the way towards Ye Xiwen.
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
A series of explosions occurred right above Ye Xiwen as soon as those electric snakes pounded upon his divine clothing.
“Crash-Bang!” At that very moment, there began a downpour of thunderbolts which crashed upon him one after another.
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
Those thunderbolts had crashed upon the gilded tyrant body of Ye Xiwen.
(To be continued)
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(NT: Sorry guys for the slow release pace of MGS recently. As part of the Novel Saga Team, I have been busy making preparations to move MGS to the new Qidian International’s site, which also includes the retranslation of the first 16 chapters (already done!)
Those 16 chapters will soon appear on Qidian International’s site along with all other chapters. Of course, you can expect regular and faster releases for MGS there, as well as for the other novels which are moving.
For those who don’t know, Novel Saga is moving MGS, OEM and TTNH to Qidian International Site as per their request.)