Chapter 231
“A true dragon... sleeps in the Lesser Realm...?”
Baek Cheong touched several glyphs with her fingertips, deliberately breaking up her speech.
She also pretended to study the strokes before and after them for a long while so as not to reveal that she had read the inscription at a glance.
Profound Void Perfected Person stared blankly up at the pillar before abruptly turning his head.
“Cheong-ah, what did you just say?”
“It seems to say that a true dragon sleeps in the Lesser Realm.”
Baek Cheong tilted her head and pointed to the final line.
“This part means ‘to sleep,’ and the section in front of it refers to the Lesser Realm, doesn’t it?”
Profound Void Perfected Person could not answer rashly.
He followed the shapes Baek Cheong had indicated with his eyes, but after only a few strokes, he could no longer read them.
He had been able to vaguely read the inscriptions in the ruins because they were related to the True-Text Diagram, but the ones before him were entirely different.
Yet Baek Cheong had accurately read their hidden meaning, even if she had only groped her way toward it.
“Huh.”
Profound Void Perfected Person looked back and forth between Baek Cheong and the pillar in astonishment, then calmly nodded.
He had known for some time that Baek Cheong’s insight was extraordinary, but his surprise showed no sign of fading.
But before long, a different light appeared in his eyes.
The content of the inscription was more important than the fact that she had read glyphs even he did not understand.
“If part of the Spirit Realm fell and formed the Lesser Realm, then everything would make sense. It would explain why its land is so vast that it cannot be compared to the four continents, and why spiritual energy comparable to that of second-tier spirit veins flows throughout the entire region.”
The more Profound Void Perfected Person spoke, the more excitement entered his voice.
“There has long been speculation that spirit veins surpassing the fifth tier exist in the central region. If this land originally belonged to the Spirit Realm, that would not be strange at all.”
Baek Cheong widened her eyes naturally.
She had already heard something similar from her Second Elder Brother, but she nodded as though she were hearing it for the first time.
“Above all, the existence of a true dragon is not something even Soul Transformation Venerables can take lightly.”
The explanation that had been pouring out only moments ago suddenly stopped.
Profound Void Perfected Person started to say something, then closed his mouth.
Afterward, he merely gazed toward the interior of the audience hall and added a few vague words.
“If this record is the complete truth, the situation in the Lesser Realm may change greatly before long.”
He never revealed exactly what would change or how.
Rather than question him, Baek Cheong gazed up at the inscription on the pillar with an innocent expression.
‘This must concern ascension.’
There were not many matters serious enough for Profound Void Perfected Person to be cautious about mentioning and for Soul Transformation Venerables to move all at once.
The earlier inscription had said that after part of the Spirit Realm fell, the path of ascension was blocked.
The following record said that a true dragon slept in the fallen land.
The inscriptions that followed one another were far too explicit to view the two events separately.
‘Could the path of ascension be opening again?’
That plausible speculation was quickly blocked by another question.
She did not even know whether the true dragon said to have slept since the ancient era was still alive.
Even if it was alive, she could not begin to guess how Soul Transformation Venerables would confront it.
‘They might aim for ascension.’
The more she thought about it, the farther it drifted beyond anything she could comprehend.
She was only at the third star of Foundation Establishment and had never even visited the Lesser Realm.
Whatever those Soul Transformation Venerables who had failed to ascend were plotting, it was unlikely to affect her forum activity or cultivation anytime soon.
Baek Cheong cast the thoughts aside without hesitation.
Profound Void Perfected Person seemed to have sorted out his thoughts around the same time and stepped away from the pillar.
“Let’s examine the other records first.”
Baek Cheong and Profound Void Perfected Person continued walking around the expansive audience hall.
Ancient inscriptions densely covered every wall and pillar, but nothing as unsettling as the record they had seen earlier appeared.
One story told of the Fish Dragon summoning heavy rain to soak parched land.
Another told of the Crouching Dragon pressing down a mountain and sleeping to stabilize the earth veins in every direction.
There was even a tale of the Tortoise Dragon enduring the passage of time and guarding the audience hall.
Most of the records described sacrifices offered to the five dragons, who were revered like gods.
Many passages even recorded what was offered on a particular day and what rituals were performed in a particular season.
“They recorded even the most trivial details.”
Profound Void Perfected Person stepped away from the final wall with an expression of dwindling interest.
The only place remaining was the throne he had deliberately postponed from the beginning.
The stone statue of the Flood Dragon sat with its body coiled long, still looking down at Baek Cheong and Profound Void Perfected Person without a trace of life.
Until now, they had only observed the throne and statue from a distance.
Even so, Profound Void Perfected Person did not approach it directly.
When he flicked his sleeve, dark blue banners flew out in a line and embedded themselves around the throne.
Then blue and yellow formation eyes were placed in every direction.
Hundreds of glyphs extended between the banners and formation eyes, surrounding the throne in a circle.
One flow suppressed the power within, while another blocked every path leading outward.
“Stay close to me, just in case.”
Even after completing his preparations, Profound Void Perfected Person deployed an additional small protective formation.
A round barrier enveloped Baek Cheong and Profound Void Perfected Person.
Only then did they cautiously approach the throne.
He first swept over the Flood Dragon statue with his naked eyes, then condensed his divine sense into a thin strand and brought it closer.
The instant his divine sense brushed across the statue’s brow, its closed eyes flew open.
Kuuuuung!
Dark blue light ignited in its empty pupils.
The dormant demonic qi burst out in every direction, shaking the expansive audience hall.
The blue jade covering the floor trembled, and all the night-luminous pearls in the ceiling flickered at once.
“As expected, it wasn’t an ordinary statue!”
Profound Void Perfected Person was startled, but he did not retreat.
He flicked a finger toward the banners he had planted in advance.
The glyphs around the throne blazed brilliantly and pressed down on the statue as it tried to rise.
The Flood Dragon shattered the stone coiled around its body and planted a foot on the floor.
Its stone scales scraped against one another with a shrill, ear-piercing sound.
A massive foreclaw slammed straight toward the round barrier.
Bang!
Before its claw could collide with the barrier, several dark blue banners tilted inward.
The force pressing down twisted sideways and drove the Flood Dragon’s foreclaw into the space beneath the throne.
The jade floor cracked like a spiderweb, but only a slight tremor reached the round barrier.
The Flood Dragon immediately swung its tail.
This time, the blue formation eyes lit up and divided the impact in every direction.
Even an attack powerful enough to shatter three thick pillars one after another could not reach Baek Cheong.
‘It’s really strong.’
Fortunately, the statue’s demonic qi did not reach the level of a fifth-tier demon sovereign.
There was no sign of a living Flood Dragon anywhere.
It was closer to a guardian puppet made in the likeness of one.
Even so, the power it contained was stronger than that of an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator.
But Profound Void Perfected Person was a formation master who had reached quasi-fifth tier.
Thanks to having deployed the banners and formation eyes from the beginning, he deftly deflected the Flood Dragon’s attacks and never lost the upper hand.
Above all, the protective formation surrounding Baek Cheong did not suffer even a scratch.
‘If Profound Void Perfected Person hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have even entered the ruins.’
The water pressure in the depths of Yeonha had made even the small protective formation creak.
If Profound Void Perfected Person had not accompanied her, she could not have followed the turtle down in the first place.
Even if she had somehow entered by riding on the turtle, she would have had no proper way to deal with the Flood Dragon before her.
She had cut down a third-tier Earth Dragon with Star River One Line, but she could not bring down a Nascent Soul-level puppet in a single strike.
To escape alive, she would have had to use the sword fragment Sword Venerable Pacheon had given her.
She had nearly wasted a precious protective talisman capable of cutting down a Nascent Soul cultivator regardless of cultivation on a single statue.
‘Could the fortuitous opportunity I obtained through merit have been Profound Void Perfected Person’s companionship?’
There was no need to think of the turtle’s arrival and the underwater ruins as the only fortuitous opportunities.
Her father asking Profound Void Perfected Person to escort her at exactly the right time could also have been a connection created by merit.
There was no way to confirm it, but this time the idea seemed quite plausible.
Baek Cheong stopped dwelling on it and brought the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc forward.
“Please hold out a little longer!”
“Don’t worry about me and undo the formation!”
Profound Void Perfected Person formed hand seals with both hands and tightened the flows of the banners further.
Dark blue glyphs linked together like chains, binding the Flood Dragon’s neck and forelegs.
The statue roared and broke the chains, but new formation inscriptions rose from every broken section.
Baek Cheong took her eyes off the battle and extended her divine sense beneath the throne.
A flow connecting the throne and statue quickly appeared in the Nine Palaces of the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc.
In the Central Palace was a glyph that controlled the Flood Dragon’s movements.
From the Qian and Kan Palaces, spiritual-energy channels extended throughout the audience hall.
The roots of every channel converged at the throne.
‘This formation doesn’t only move the statue.’
The formation of the throne was connected to the entire audience hall.
An enormous power source below continuously pushed spiritual energy upward, and the formation drew some of it into the statue.
Baek Cheong rotated the Eight Trigrams of the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc, cutting off the channel leading toward the Flood Dragon first.
But the glyph in the Central Palace immediately opened another path.
The dark blue light in the statue’s eyes, which had been about to go out, flared up again.
‘I have to stop the center entirely.’
She moved the glyph from the Central Palace to the Kun Palace and divided the channels extending throughout the audience hall between the Qian and Kan Palaces.
She rotated the Eight Trigrams in the opposite direction so that the interlocking flows would not fall out of alignment.
The Flood Dragon broke two banners at once and sprang forward.
Profound Void Perfected Person spread his sleeves wide and drew a new formation inscription in the air.
A mountain-shaped form rose beneath the Flood Dragon’s feet and pushed its enormous body back toward the throne.
“Take it slowly. Hurry, but don’t be hasty!”
Instead of answering, Baek Cheong focused on the final section.
When she inverted the center she had moved to the Kun Palace, the golden lines beneath the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc rapidly went dark.
She pushed the final piece of the Eight Trigrams with her fingertip.
Click.
The Flood Dragon abruptly stopped with its foreleg raised.
The dark blue light burning in its eyes vanished, and the demonic qi covering its entire body scattered without a trace.
Profound Void Perfected Person maintained the formation in case it moved again.
But the statue did not open its eyes again.
“You undid the formation.”
That was when Profound Void Perfected Person smiled in relief.
An ominous sound continued for a long while beneath their feet.
The glyphs engraved on the throne rapidly collapsed from the top downward.
Then the entire audience hall tilted violently.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
Cracks spread through the pillars and walls, and the night-luminous pearls in the ceiling came raining down.
The formation they had just stopped seemed to have been holding the entire ruin together while moving the statue.
“Hold on tight!”
Profound Void Perfected Person immediately drew the protective formation close around Baek Cheong.
The throne was the first thing to collapse.
The enormous dais crumbled to both sides, revealing the tremendous spiritual energy hidden beneath it.
Spiritual energy dense enough to be visible to the naked eye surged from the floor like a dragon.
“A fifth-tier spirit vein!”
For the first time, Profound Void Perfected Person could not hide his astonishment.
The power source that had driven the ruins’ formations for tens of thousands of years had been buried beneath the throne.
The fifth-tier spirit vein hidden beneath the throne writhed like a massive current.
They had little time to admire it.
The wall blocking the water outside collapsed, and a pitch-black lake poured into the audience hall.
The water pressure that had been bearing down from a depth of tens of thousands of zhang struck the ruin all at once.
From the opposite side, the spiritual energy of the unsealed fifth-tier spirit vein erupted like a storm.
Water and spiritual energy collided head-on, trapping the protective formation in the middle.
Profound Void Perfected Person retrieved the remaining banners and formation eyes and added them to the barrier.
The barrier held, but it could move neither forward nor backward.
When they tried to move in one direction, the current pushed them back, and when they tried to retreat, the spiritual energy held the barrier in place.
“Damn!”
Profound Void Perfected Person repeatedly changed the formation inscriptions, trying to create a path.
But the ruin collapsed faster than expected.
The ceiling caved in and the pillars toppled, while debris blocked the gaps leading outside.
The remaining formation eyes could not withstand the violent impacts and cracked one after another.
Baek Cheong examined the flows with the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc, but every formation that had been connected moments ago had gone dark.
The path leading to the teleportation formation had also been severed beyond the collapsed audience hall.
‘Could I escape if I used the sword fragment?’
The collapse of the ruin was a far greater crisis than the statue.
She had to find another way while Profound Void Perfected Person held on, but not even a movable formation remained around them.
In the midst of the desperate situation, the ruins’ debris shook violently.
A boulder as large as a house bounced inward, and the turtle demonic beast pushed its way through the wreckage.
Its golden eyes, each as large as a small pond, found Baek Cheong at once among the drifting debris.
The turtle powerfully paddled its limbs and approached the round barrier.
“You!”
Before Baek Cheong could say anything in delight, its enormous mouth opened wide.
The turtle clamped the round barrier enclosing Baek Cheong and Profound Void Perfected Person between its jaws.
The barrier briefly crumpled, but before force could be applied, Profound Void Perfected Person quickly changed its flow and deflected the impact.
Soon, the turtle swam outside through the falling debris, carrying the round barrier in its mouth like a ball.