Ch. 425 - Dragon Transformation

The dragon's roar shook the mountains as yellow sand turned into a wavy sea and dark clouds covered the sky and the sun.

Clang---

The ringing in her ears made the whole world in Xiao Yunluo's eyes turn deathly silent.

Yun Yiyi, who was hiding behind the boulder with her, was tightly pulling Xiao Yunluo's shoulder at this moment, lest Xiao Yunluo, who had poked her head out to check on the situation, be blown away by the raging wind brought by Yinglong's leap.

"Miss Xiao! Miss Xiao!!..."

Yun Yiyi almost yelled calling Xiao Yunluo's name, but Yunluo did not respond at all.

Under the bangs that had been ruffled by the strong wind, those pale purple eyes revealed a blank stare, reflecting the mountain-sized yellow dragon.

Xiao Yunluo had read many books about dragons in the Black Star Sect's library.

To sum up, it was nothing more than two words, "auspicious" and "fortune":

---In the minds of ordinary people, dragons can fly above clouds and mist and can do anything. Therefore, the Emperor of ordinary people calls himself the True Dragon Son of Heaven.

---In the eyes of cultivators, the dragon also symbolizes benevolence and spiritual energy, protecting the mountains and rivers, and is also one of the auspicious beasts.

She also agreed with what was written in the book.

After all, she had seen the second idiot's Holy Emperor Dragon Body many times.

Most of the descriptions were the same as the second idiot's golden dragon--- horns like a deer, body covered with feathers and scales, eyes like stars, surrounded by gentle rain, and body containing the vitality of all things.

However, what she was seeing now...

Yinglong?

In the book, when the mountains and rivers were dry, the immortal dragons brought down rain; when the floods were raging, the dragons stopped the rain and calmed the waves.

So why did it look like this?

The scales on half of its body had disappeared, revealing pits that looked like rotten meat. There was no dragon's majesty in its dragon eyes. Instead, there was endless desolation and anger.

If the second idiot's golden dragon reflected in its eyes the beautiful rivers and mountains of the Western Region in spring and autumn, then this earthy yellow Yinglong's eyes reflected the endless sea of ​​sand in the Central Region, where birds and beasts were long gone.

She watched as Yinglong swallowed dozens of Core Formation stage demonic cultivators in one gulp...

Watched the Nascent Soul stage demonic cultivator leading the rest of the group to form an array in an attempt to kill the dragon...

Watched Ye Anping rush in between them and destroy several knots of the Formation...

Watched Ye Anping acting as a Dragon Ball, attracting Yinglong to move and roll between heaven and earth and finally biting the Nascent Soul demonic cultivator to pieces...

And then, watched that Yinglong looking toward Ye Anping with extreme anger...

...

Ye Anping had not told her how to deal with the pursuers in Seven Dragon Valley. He just asked her and Yun Yiyi to take the disciples of the Justice Division to set up spirit-breaking formations in twelve places on the map, waiting for him to raise the sword and activate all the formations.

Xiao Yunluo could see that Ye Anping seemed to want to awaken something here, but she never expected it to be a Yinglong who seemed to have been dormant in this valley for a thousand years...

Yes! Under Ye Anping's guidance, the group of demonic cultivators chasing after them turned into dust in Yinglong's mouth.

But what's next?

What to do now?

Yinglong, who had the strength of a Deification-stage cultivator but whose foundation far exceeded that of a human Deification cultivator... This was definitely not something that she, Ye Anping, and the rest of the Foundation Building stage disciples could handle.

This gap in cultivation was something that no magic artifact or divine technique could make up for.

Swish---

A gust of wind brought along a slightly larger piece of gravel as it brushed past Xiao Yunluo's cheek. Although it was blocked by the protective formation that had been set up in advance, it still left a faint bloody scratch on her face.

Xiao Yunluo stared blankly, her mind empty, until---

"Yunluo!!!"

The voice of the young man who seemed to have been injured and was falling freely from a thousand feet high in the sky spread with spiritual power and entered her ears.

At this moment, Xiao Yunluo seemed to remember that she still needed to breathe. She inhaled deeply and took out a magic tool from her storage bag in a panic.

But in the next moment, she froze again.

Confusion and helplessness spread in her heart...

---What should I do?

---Rush forward to help slay the dragon?!

---Who am I kidding, how can I possibly do that?

---I'm just an early-stage Core Formation cultivator.

---I can't even beat the second idiot! How can I possibly deal with this dragon?!

---Even when it comes to snatching men, I can't compete with Lianxue and the others. If Anping hadn't pitied me, I would have...

---How can I possibly do this!!

"I... I..."

...

Roar--!!!

The earth-shattering dragon roar stirred up thousands of feet of dust as if it had escaped gravity and settled around Yinglong.

Filled with endless anger, Yinglong pressed down on the youth who was currently hanging upside down and falling downward.

Ye Anping almost felt his heartbeat stop, and his chest like it was about to burst. He was in extreme pain. The injuries he received from Gui Qinghe just now made him vomit another mouthful of black blood.

"Cough--"

Ye Anping looked at Xiao Yunluo who was hiding near the rocks in the distance. She still seemed to have no reaction. He felt a little disappointed and couldn't help but ask in his heart:

---Yunluo, don't you even have the courage to look directly at this stupid dragon?

Yinglong opened his mouth wide...

Roar--!!

Roaring, Yinglong, with its dragon body wrapped in sand waves, turned toward him.

The disappointment in Ye Anping's eyes quickly dissipated, and he moved his gaze from Xiao Yunluo to the dragon's eyes. His right hand behind his back also clenched the palm-sized Nine Dragon Heavenly Seal.

It was true that the gap in cultivation between him and Yinglong was something that no magic artifact or divine technique could make up for.

But just like the demonic beasts created by the dragon race, all dragons and all beasts followed the bloodline.

The end of the demonic beasts' cultivation was the Dragon Transformation.

Now, the person closest to becoming a dragon was the Demon King from Heavenly Gate City, the fox Hu Mu.

It was precisely because of this that all the Demon Clan tribes bowed before him and did not try to rebel against their superiors like humans did.

---Among the beasts, Hu Mu, the half-fox, half-dragon, was supreme.

---Between demonic beasts and dragons, dragons were supreme.

---Among dragons, the Black Dragon was supreme, followed by the Yellow Dragon.

This was also the reason why Si Xuanji handed the Central Region over to the Demon Clan.

After all, Xiao Yunluo, the only Black Dragon in existence, was the key for Si Xuanji to control the Demon Clan.

If Xiao Yunluo could transform into a dragon, she would surely be able to dominate this Yinglong...

But now, Ye Anping could not wait any longer.

If he were half a breath slower, he would be swallowed by Yinglong, and his soul would be destroyed.

The Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal was a token given by the Yellow Dragon to the Central Region's ruler. He couldn't fully use it now that he was in the early Core Formation stage, but it wouldn't be a problem for him to scare off this Yinglong.

Ye Anping slowly closed his eyes and placed his left sword finger in front of his lips. He whispered,  "Nine Dragons Heavenly Light..."

Just as he opened his eyes again and prepared to use the Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal to release Yinglong...

Xiao Yunluo's back blocked the ferocious head of Yinglong in his eyes.

The hair bands on her four ponytails had disappeared, and her lavender hair fluttered wildly behind her thin shoulders in the strong wind.

Xiao Yunluo stood in front of Ye Anping, clasped her hands together, and released all her spiritual power, forming a spiritual starlight wall, which wrapped around her and Ye Anping.

There were no deer-like antlers, nor feathers and scales...

Xiao Yunluo's mind was blank at this moment. She didn't know how she could save Ye Anping and the disciples of the Justice Division from this Yinglong.

She also didn't know what Ye Anping meant when he said she was a "Black Dragon".

But she knew that she couldn't just watch Ye Anping fall into the dragon's mouth.

Even if she was scared to death! She had to do something.

What she feared more than dying in the dragon's mouth was watching the person she loved die in front of her.

If the person she liked was in danger, and she just stayed there and watched stupidly, what kind of love was that?

She was the Young Master of the Black Star Sect.

The only daughter of the Immortal Matriarch Red Moon.

And she was Ye Anping's cultivation partner!!

Xiao Yunluo gritted her teeth, her fringe covering half of her eyes. She stared at the dragon's mouth approaching her without dodging, full of determination.

Lianxue could protect Ye Anping, and the second idiot could break formations shoulder to shoulder with Ye Anping...

"I can too!"

Pah---

Two small hands clasped together.

The wind that stirred up thousands of miles of sand turned to silence in an instant.

The sound of the hands clasping reached the ears of all the disciples of the Justice Division who were hiding in the caves of the Seven Dragon Valley.

Five-colored spiritual energy spread out from Xiao Yunluo's chest like a galaxy, sweeping over a hundred miles and dispersing the dark clouds and sand blown to the sky.

A pair of glazed antlers appeared above her temples.

Scales loomed like feather belts, wrapping her whole body and forming a seven-colored silk immortal robe.

It was as if heaven and earth had just been born. Greenish vines immediately stretched out from the yellow sand in the Seven Dragon Valley and weaved into a huge net, wrapping Yinglong within.

Roar--!!

The anger in Yinglong's eyes instantly turned into fear.

The hundred-foot-long dragon's body kept wriggling like a fish in a fishing net, trying to break a hole and escape back into the water. However, this seemingly fragile vine net was unbreakable.

It couldn't even fight to the death...

Yinglong, who had slept for nearly a thousand years, seemed to have just come back to its senses from the confusion after it woke up.

It stopped its body and looked up at Xiao Yunluo, who was clearly below it, through the gaps between the vines with a gaze filled with endless respect.

As far as dragons were concerned, there was no up and down between heaven and earth.

The position where the Black Dragon was standing was the sky!

The dragon's eyes which had previously looked at Ye Anping and Gui Qinghe as if they were ants, gradually showed a pleading look, as if a child who had made a mistake begged for forgiveness from its mother.

Roar...

The dragon's roar was no longer ear-piercing but sounded rather like a lost lamb...

Roar... Roar...

Even though it knew that the Black Dragon in front of it was only a baby dragon.

If it released spiritual energy at this moment, it could easily burn all the vines around it, but...

"It's like punching your own mother..."

Ye Anping muttered and let out a deep breath, looking at Yinglong, who was looking pitifully at him in the sky. He then shifted his gaze to Xiao Yunluo's back.

With his right hand behind his back, he slowly put the Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal into the storage bag.

"Yunluo..."

He reached out and gently put his hand on Xiao Yunluo's shoulder, turning her toward him, yet what he saw was a blank face that seemed to be on the verge of crying.

"...Eh?"

It seemed that Xiao Yunluo herself did not know what had happened. She probably thought that she was going to die...

Ye Anping felt like laughing for some reason. Just as he was about to speak, a dragon roar suddenly attracted their attention again.

Seemingly due to Xiao Yunluo's distraction, the green vines that extended from the vast sand, in an instant, turned into rays of spiritual light that scattered and gathered on Yinglong's body.

The traces of a thousand years on the hundred-foot-long dragon's body were erased by this spiritual light at a speed visible to the naked eye.

New skin grew on the rotten flesh bitten by insects.

On the skin that shed its scales, dots of feathery scales appeared.

Roar...

A deep dragon roar shook the mountains and the earth, and a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

Dark clouds gathered...

Drip drip---

A drop of rain fell on Xiao Yunluo's forehead, slid down her nose, and flowed into her lips.

Then, the rain fell.

Clatter---

Clatter...

Yinglong raised its head, spread its wings, and leaped into the sky, circling around the dark clouds like a puppy with a bone, and then carried the small rain cloud to the east.

Ye Anping controlled his body with his spiritual energy and hovered in midair. Looking at the dark clouds that were raining and leaving, he felt it was a little funny.

This was a scene that never happened in the game.

However, after the players worked together to kill this Yinglong and obtain the dragon heart, they could see this description:

"It once brought tens of thousands of rains to the Central Region, moistening the soil for tens of thousands of miles, but now, it hides in this desolate valley and lives the rest of its life as a demonic beast."

Just like the Nine Dragons Heaven Seal.

Nangong Cheng said that the Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal was a token given by the Yellow Dragon to the ruler of the Central Region. The one who got it would be the Master of the Central Region.

This statement was true.

But thousands of years ago, the Nine Dragon Heavenly Seal was only passed down between dragons.

As for why it ended up in the hands of human cultivators...

According to what Ye Anping had seen in the Heavenly Dao Scroll before, it seemed that a former owner of the Heavenly Dao Scroll had stolen it without anyone's knowledge...

However, this had nothing to do with the decline of the dragon race.

All living creatures in the world competed for resources to survive, but the human race was slightly better than the dragon race in the past...

"Phew..."

Ye Anping heaved a sigh of relief. Looking down at the Seven Dragon Valley, where branches and leaves were growing, he felt his consciousness gradually leaving. He had just sent all his spiritual energy into the Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal, and he had no strength left.

Then, his body fell back slightly as the spiritual energy that supported him in midair slowly dissipated.

Ye Anping freely fell downwards once again.

"Anping..."

Xiao Yunluo stared at the dark clouds in a daze, still not realizing what had happened. She slowly turned her head to look at Ye Anping, but he wasn't there.

"Eh?"

Looking down, she realized that Ye Anping was falling, and she immediately dived after him.

"Anping!!"

Xiao Yunluo hugged Ye Anping and wanted to use the flying technique to take him up, but she found that she seemed to have no spiritual energy left. She quickly turned her body and hugged Ye Anping, wanting to use herself to cushion his fall.

Ye Anping, who was still vaguely conscious, saw Xiao Yunluo trying to use her scales plate as a shield for him. Feeling that perhaps the injury he would suffer from falling to the ground was less serious, he hugged Xiao Yunluo's body and twisted it to stay below...

"Ah? Anping..."

But at this time, Yun Yiyi's voice came from below.

"Husband!!"

She made a hand seal and used a ribbon-like magic tool to catch the two people in mid-air. Then, before the two were about to hit the ground, she waved her hand to slow down the ribbon so that the two people holding each other landed on the ground as gently as possible.

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