The arrival of the Demon Dragon Cult Master instantly made me realize the situation had escalated beyond our wildest projections! We still had no clue what had actually transpired, but one thing was certain: a monumental change was inevitably brewing within the Heaven's Sanctuary!
At this moment, all we knew was the Demon Dragon Cult Master was inside the Sanctuary, and we had absolutely no other leads! "What should we do now..." Hoshino and Hoshizaki instinctively looked to me!
"This location is an overlapping space between the Frozen Throne and Heaven's Sanctuary, the only place we can maintain contact with the outside world! Let's find a hiding spot nearby first!" I continued, "Then, Hoshizaki will stay behind and try every means possible, using the Thousand Mile Sound Transmission, to contact the outside and inform them of the situation here." I then looked at Hoshino, "As for the two of us, we'll continue searching for Jidu and the others." "Yes!" At this juncture, we genuinely had no better alternative.
I had expected that after a month of secluded cultivation, my greatly enhanced strength would allow me to move unimpeded even after entering Heaven's Sanctuary, yet instead, I ran headfirst into the Demon Dragon Cult Master—a massive shock to the system! None of us dared to let our guard down in the slightest now!
"That pile of small rocks over there should have a place to hide," Hoshizaki pointed toward a small hill not far ahead. "Let's go take a look." The three of us, not daring to be careless, adjusted our auras and then swiftly flew toward that small hill!
Meanwhile! The Northern part of Heaven's Sanctuary!
The ancient Demon Slaying Battlefield, Flying Fire Meteor! The surroundings were a sea of blood, littered with gruesome heaps of tattered remains and severed limbs, creating an indescribable atmosphere of gloom and terror, while the bizarre figures standing amidst it all only amplified the bleak world's savage killing intent!
"Night Luminous Pearl." A rough, strange hand, shaped like a bear's paw, gripped a crystal-clear red bead: "Find just two more, and the entire Marfa World will be ours." Behind him stood a throng of terrifying monsters, all powerfully built and sporting ferocious visages! They had heads like tigers and wolves, yet possessed human-like bodies!
These were, incredibly, a host of Beastmen! And behind them were yet another group of even more colossal, terrifying figures!
If Xingchen were here, he would be utterly astonished! Because these giants were none other than the dreaded Demon Dragon creatures from the Demon Dragon World!
The Demon Dragon Blade Soldier, the Demon Dragon Armor Breaker, the Demon Dragon Archer, the Demon Dragon Strongman, the Demon Dragon General—the most iconic of these Demon Dragon beings were present here, numbering over a hundred, arrayed in a neat formation like a human army! Like soldiers awaiting inspection.
Every face was grim, bristling with murderous intent! Blood still dripped steadily from their blades and hammers, clearly indicating that the scattered remains across the ground were their handiwork!
"Father Emperor! Dabu has caught up to that fleeing human; he should be able to snatch his Night Luminous Pearl very soon!" The Beastman speaking was noticeably smaller than the others standing nearby!
However, what was astonishing was that this small Beastman possessed a delicate face that in no way paled in comparison to a human maiden's! If not for the sharp, downy, fire-red ears sprouting from her head and the fluffy, large, fiery-red tail behind her, she would be almost indistinguishable from a human girl.
She had a pair of blue eyes, like fine jade, yet within them simmered an ineffable dynamism, sparkling with wisdom, as cunning as a sly fox! No!
She was, in fact, a fox! A fox that looked like a person!
The Foxfolk were a rare species among the Beastmen, and also the weakest branch! They were originally an oppressed minority, constantly marginalized and suppressed!
Yet, what defied comprehension was that twenty-seven years ago, after the young Beast Emperor Dalong ascended the throne in the Woma Forest, he showed immense favor to the weak Foxfolk, whom all other Beastmen disdained! He even took the Foxfolk tribe's princess as his Empress and fathered a daughter with her!
She was this small, exquisite Foxfolk maiden standing before them! The most beloved little princess among the Beastman race!
But what further confused everyone was that the little princess did not inherit the surnames of her father, Dalong, or her mother, Hu! Instead, the Beast Emperor bestowed upon her the name Daji!
As for this incredibly strange name, no one could fathom its meaning! Not even the little princess herself understood what the name represented!
Whenever the little princess asked her Father Emperor, he would always wear a strange look of yearning. The little princess could not decipher what lay hidden in her Father Emperor's gaze, but one thing was certain: among his many children, she was the most unique existence!
From childhood, her Father Emperor taught her to study the language and script of the Marfa humans, even daring to intrude into human territories to forcibly capture several human scholars to serve as her tutors! To learn so-called wisdom and strategy from human mentors and those books!
The little princess was exceptionally intelligent from a young age! Her comprehension ability was astonishingly strong; by the age of fifteen, she had already devoured every human book held in the Beastman inventory!
She then applied what she learned, helping her Father Emperor govern the entire Beastman tribe! This caused the once-declining Beastman race to enter its most prosperous era in a thousand years!
Just as all the Beastmen assumed the young Dalong was preparing to unleash his might and invade the human-occupied Marfa Continent, Dalong soberly realized that the Beastmen's current strength was wholly insufficient to contend with the humans! If war broke out, the Beastmen would inevitably be defeated!
Not only that, but it might even reignite the humans' hatred for the Beastmen, leading them to annihilate the Beastman race at any cost! How could the Beastmen be strengthened to become the true rulers of the continent!
At this moment, Dalong recalled the near-mythical, utterly absurd story that human had once told him! Did fox spirits truly exist in this world!
If they could be found, defeating the humans would no longer be a distant dream! After careful consideration!
Dalong issued another bizarre decree! Mobilize the entire strength of the Beastman race and, using the knowledge acquired from human texts, construct a colossal ship!
No one understood what Dalong intended to do! But within the Beastman tribe, the Beast Emperor was the supreme existence; his command was divine will, which no one could defy, nor did anyone wish to defy it!
It must be said, these Beastmen had truly simple minds! Dalong's orders were executed without hindrance!
Soon, the ship was built, and Dalong personally organized a contingent of the bravest warriors in the tribe, assigning them a secret mission! It was only then that the Beastman race understood the purpose of young Beast Emperor Dalong's risky voyage!
It turned out Dalong intended to search for another landmass besides the Marfa Continent! And to seek the true gods of the Beastman race!
No one knew what Dalong based his deduction on—that another land existed beyond Marfa, and that the true deities of the Beastmen resided there! Equally unknown was that the young Beast Emperor's astonishing undertaking was spurred by a wonderfully fantastical story he heard from a human!
This led him to believe that the legendary fox spirits, capable of saving the entire Beastman race, must exist! (I believe many friends already know who this Dalong is; yes, he is the Half-Beast Leader that Xingchen encountered in the Woma Forest back then!) The Beast Emperor’s command was absolute!
It had to be obeyed! Thus, the Beastman race embarked on the grandest maritime expedition in their history!
The fleet sailed steadily eastward! No one could imagine the terrifying adventures the Beastman warriors endured on this voyage across the ocean!
This voyage lasted a full ten years! Dalong and his subordinates even thought they had reached the very edge of the world!
Yet, they never discovered the legendary Eastern Continent! Just as despair began to set in!
They finally found a massive island never seen before!! However, what awaited them was not the delicate, charming fox spirits Dalong had imagined, but an exceedingly enormous, terrifying creature—it was the Demon Dragon Cult Master, who had nearly destroyed the entire Marfa Continent in its history!
Though, at this moment, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was trapped within a massive formation, imprisoned on the island, unable to move! If not for the Cult Master's astonishing magical power and incredibly tenacious vitality, it would surely have perished long ago!
In the eyes of Marfa humans, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was undoubtedly a terrifying, wicked demon king, but in the eyes of the Beastmen, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was an omnipotent god! Yes!
The Demon Dragon Cult Master was the most supreme deity of the entire Beastman race! Only then did the Beastman warriors realize why their Beast Emperor had risked everything on this voyage—it was to find the Demon Dragon Cult Master!
At least, that was how they perceived it! The Beastman warriors were utterly awestruck by the brilliance and might of their Beast Emperor!
But only Dalong knew the truth! Damn it, I was looking for the legendary charming fox spirit, not this behemoth that looks like a mountain!
However, the current situation did not allow Dalong to argue further; he could only play along with the mistake! And so!
The Demon Dragon Cult Master, who had been imprisoned for fifteen thousand years, finally welcomed the rescuers who brought him back into the light! The emotion, the tears flowing freely!
Of course, freeing the Demon Dragon Cult Master was no easy task! The confining magic formation had to be completely dismantled first!
This was an extremely dangerous and delicate operation! The magic technology of the Divine Dragon Empire was far beyond what people today could imagine!
How could the formation that trapped the Demon Dragon Cult Master be simple? In addition to its terrifying containment capabilities, numerous bizarre defensive arrays had been set up to prevent the Demon Dragon Cult Master from being rescued!
The most terrifying of these was the final layer: a self-destruct formation! If triggered, the resulting magical explosion would be enough to turn the entire island to dust!
And the feedback was extremely high! Disarming this formation was no less difficult than defusing a primed time bomb!
One misstep, and the entire island would shatter; then, forget about saving anyone, there wouldn't be a single fragment left to find! Yet, despite this, Dalong decided to risk rescuing the Demon Dragon Cult Master!
So, Dalong and his subordinates spent a year, enduring countless adventures, before finally dismantling the magic formation confining the Demon Dragon Cult Master on the island! Daji’s knowledge, gleaned from books and human tutors, proved immensely useful in this process!
The Demon Dragon Cult Master finally regained freedom, and the excitement was indescribable! When he learned that Beast Emperor Dalong had risked sailing across the boundless Dead Sea just to find and save him, the Cult Master was overcome with emotion!
To repay Beast Emperor Dalong's life-saving grace, and simultaneously seek revenge against the Divine Dragon Empire that imprisoned him for fifteen thousand years, the Demon Dragon Cult Master resolved to destroy the entire human civilization of the Marfa World! However, as the saying goes, bitten by a snake once, one fears a rope for ten years!
Despite his terrifying fame, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was surprisingly simple-minded, prioritizing brawn over brains, and prone to impulsiveness. What was even more unexpected was that this terrifying behemoth was extremely obedient to Daji!
In her presence, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was as docile as a little lamb! The universe holds endless wonders!
The ancients once uttered a profound truth: one thing subdues another! Who could have imagined that the delicate Daji could command such a furiously untamed giant?
It was only at this moment that Dalong seemed to grasp the meaning—wasn't the fox spirit described by that human exactly like his own daughter, controlling the mightiest force of humanity, making the entire world revolve around her? The Demon Dragon Cult Master’s power, paired with his daughter Daji’s extraordinary wisdom!
It was truly an unparalleled, exquisite combination! No wonder the human world always circulated the saying: beauty paired with the beast!
And so! The most wonderful misunderstanding in Beastman history began!
It gave rise to the most formidable and terrifying combination the Beastman race had ever known: the power of the Demon Dragon Cult Master and the wisdom of Daji! At least, that was Dalong's belief!
So this was the true power of the fox spirit! It was only now that Dalong mistakenly believed he had grasped some profound, mysterious principle!
Demon Dragon Cult Master equals Power; Daji equals Wisdom! Now that both power and wisdom were secured, the Beastman race was surely destined for a grand revival!
Dalong, filled with confidence, finally embarked on his great plan to revitalize the Beastman race! Of course, for humanity, this was simply the beginning of a disaster!
Perhaps Xingchen could never have imagined that a lie concocted in the Woma Forest to escape a difficult situation would create such a terrifying duo! In reality, Daji’s wisdom was by no means an empty title!
Although her reputation only spread within the Beastman world of the Woma Forest, her methods were remarkably meticulous! As the ancient saying goes: know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles!
To defeat the enemy, one must first understand their strength! And Daji was very eager to know exactly how the Demon Dragon Cult Master had been defeated in the past!
Although bringing up past defeats was a loss of face, the Demon Dragon Cult Master reluctantly recounted everything that had happened in response to Daji's inquiry! Naturally, for safety reasons, Daji handled the questioning alone!
Through Daji’s efforts, the Demon Dragon Cult Master finally revealed the true side of his history, buried by time for over fifteen thousand years! Fifteen thousand years ago, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was defeated and imprisoned by Fengtian War God during the era of the Divine Dragon Empire—though that was the version circulating externally!
In truth, the facts were largely similar! However, there was one detail the Divine Dragon Empire had concealed!
When he first breached the Nine Dragon City, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was met by a combined assault from the City Guardian Divine Beast and Fengtian War God! It must be said that the Nine Dragon City was the Divine Beast’s territory; even a formidable figure like the Demon Dragon Cult Master had to yield to its sharpness!
Every time this was mentioned, the Cult Master seethed with indignation! That little octopus was clearly bullying him!
The victory was unjust! Regardless of the reason, no matter how despicable the little creature was, or how shameless those cunning human warriors!
The fundamental point was that the Demon Dragon Cult Master failed in that invasion, and he was beaten severely, almost dying! Fortunately, the creature was excellent at escaping!
He managed to flee in the end! On the other hand, although the Divine Dragon Empire defeated the Demon Dragon Cult Master, they only managed to defeat him; they could not destroy him!
The thought that such a terrifying giant was constantly poised to cause trouble for the Divine Dragon Empire was hardly reassuring! Because of this, the Divine Dragon Empire decided to hunt down the Demon Dragon Cult Master!
But once he left the Nine Dragon City, even Fengtian War God was no match for the Demon Dragon Cult Master! Left with no choice, the Divine Dragon Empire deployed its final trump card!
Awakening the slumbering Heroes! They used the Heroes' strength to defeat the Demon Dragon Cult Master!
Ultimately, the Demon Dragon Cult Master was critically wounded by the Heroes awakened by the Divine Dragon Empire! He was then imprisoned and became a primary subject for research by the priests of the Divine Dragon Empire!
Those days were absolutely the darkest and most miserable period in the Demon Dragon Cult Master's life! Several times, he nearly died from their experiments!
However, this creature’s vitality was no joke! In Daji’s words, this guy was absolutely an unkillable cockroach!
This was the historical truth Daji uncovered from the Demon Dragon Cult Master! But when Dalong inquired about what the Heroes awakened by the Divine Dragon Empire looked like!
The Demon Dragon Cult Master told him: "If this world is ever to be destroyed, it will surely be by those Heroes. They are the most terrifying beings in this world, the root of all destruction." Fortunately, these Heroes seemed to have been hidden away by the Divine Dragon Empire; they were probably still fast asleep!
If he could eliminate them while they slept, then he could live without worries! This was the true reason why the Demon Dragon Cult Master, Dalong, Daji, and the others appeared in Heaven's Sanctuary!