Chapter 622: Healing Wounds

As Di Nufeng's blazing phoenix wings spread open, divine fire filled the sky, making it look like the end of the world.

"

Hah,

" the Celestial Master chuckled, his aged face revealing an amused smile. "Why don't you come with me? You seem like you were born to wreak havoc unto the world."

"Why?" Di Nufeng retorted coldly. "Are you missing a mother?"[1]

The Celestial Master laughed again. The cruder Di Nufeng's remarks became, the more delighted he was. Then, without another word, he turned and left swiftly.

"You think you can leave?" Di Nufeng said, scowling.

She leaped into the air again, transforming into a soaring phoenix. Then she threw a vicious punch toward the Celestial Master!

However, the Celestial Master took one step, and he vanished into the void.

Boom!

Di Nufeng's fully charged punch struck nothing but air in the end.

Her slaying technique reigned supreme in the seventh realm, but she was unable to utilize her power against the Celestial Master—a top eighth-realm cultivator and the master of a Great Dao.

After landing back on the ground, Di Nufeng looked at her father.

Mingde could tell that Di Nufeng was blaming him for the Celestial Master's swift escape.

So, Mingde preemptively explained, "The Great Dao of Chaos and Separation is enigmatic and unpredictable. He has tied his fate to that of the city's populace. I can't take action against him—at least, not here in the capital of Yu."

"But how will you track him down once he leaves the capital?" Di Nufeng asked.

Mingde could only let out a sigh.

***

Ever since that night eighty years ago, he harbored hatred for the Celestial Charm Sect that ran deep into his bones. Then after he became the Imperial Guardian, he had been working hard in secret, pushing for the Celestial Charm Sect's eradication.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Mingde's role as the Imperial Guardian prevented him from leaving the imperial city, but the Seven Guards of the Night Dragon Hall had been scouring everywhere for traces of the Celestial Charm Sect. Whenever leads surfaced, they acted immediately, executing the members of the Celestial Charm Sect without mercy.

Many years had passed since that fateful night, and the Seven Guards of the Night Dragon Hall had managed to eliminate some of the Celestial Charm Sect's outer members. However, its core members remained untouchable. On the contrary, the imperial city—the base of the Seven Guards of the Night Dragon Hall—had been infiltrated again, nearly leading to another catastrophe.

Ultimately, it was simply impossible to defend against the Celestial Master's manipulation ability. It would be extremely difficult to put an end to his influence as long as people continued to exist.

The Celestial Charm Sect eventually amassed enough power and began stirring up chaos again in recent years. That was when the identities of some of its core members were exposed, and the Seven Guards of the Night Dragon Hall finally managed to deal the sect some substantial damage.

Lu Chengchou, Chi Menshen, Empress Wu, Yu Tuoluo—the downfall of these key members of the Celestial Charm Sect could truly be credited to two people.

They were the teacher-disciple duo of the Mount Shu Sect's Silver Sword Peak.

***

After a moment of silence, Mingde added, "At the very least, he probably didn't lie to you that Chu Liang's still alive. That much should be true."

"Then, where did he go? Even you and the Guardian Ruler couldn't find any traces of him."

"Perhaps he used a secret life-saving method."

"I am his esteemed teacher. What life-saving method does he have that I don't know about?" Di Nufeng said. Yet, she suddenly paused in a moment of realization and then muttered to herself, "It seems I truly don't know about it."

She wondered,

How did I end up stumping myself with my own question...

Mingde found his daughter's expression amusing and couldn't resist letting the corners of his lips raise into a small smile.

"What are you laughing at?" Di Nufeng snapped, looking at him with a fierce gaze. "My disciple is missing, and you're laughing?"

Mingde wiped the smile off his face. "I'm not."

"You certainly were!" Di Nufeng insisted.

"I just thought of something happy..." Mingde said, turning away.

"

Hmph.

" Di Nufeng leaped into the air, intending to fly back to the imperial city. "In any case, this happened in the imperial palace, so the imperial family must bear full responsibility. If anything happens to Chu Liang, I won't let you guys off!"

...

"I'm done for."

Chu Liang felt something sharp sweeping back and forth across his face. His first reaction was that he was dead.

Am I being punished in the netherworld?

I created jobs for so many people. Surely, I accumulated enough good karma to avoid going to the netherworld, right?

Chu Liang finally opened his eyes and found that a stocky little Winged Draconic Beast, about four chi tall[2], was licking his face. Its tongue was covered with sharp barbs. They scraped his face with every lick, causing him a lot of pain.

"Little Winged Draconic Beast..." Chu Liang muttered as he gradually recalled what had happened.

***

When Cheng Hu's second strike descended earlier, Chu Liang truly thought he was done for. With the restriction gone, they were essentially in full view of all the powerful cultivators in the imperial palace. So, Chu Liang did not expect that Cheng Hu would actually dare to kill him.

Yet, Cheng Hu struck anyway.

This was Chu Liang's first time facing a seventh realm Eminent One in a fight to the death, and he lost.

Just as he thought his death was imminent, the Blue Dragon's Orb in his Sea of Qi refused to let him die. It spun frantically.

Even if Chu Liang had fully refined the orb, he was still too weak to activate some of the powers of the Blue Dragon's Orb—like Shattering the Void and Return to the Lair From Afar.

The orb's greatest life-saving method was the ability to instantly return to the Blue Dragon's Hidden Realm from any location. However, this required immense power, far beyond what Chu Liang could manage in his current state.

In the past, the Blue Dragon's Orb had sacrificed more than half of the draconic descendants in the hidden realm to summon the Dragon God's throne into the realm. That meant the spiritual energy in the remaining draconic descendants was not enough for another summoning.

Since the amount of spiritual energy within the Blue Dragon's Hidden Realm remained the same, where had the additional energy been sourced from?

It was the Dragon God's throne.

In that critical moment when Chu Liang had been on the verge of death, the massive bronze throne, which loomed like a lofty mountain in the hidden realm, erupted with immense spiritual energy and transferred it to the Blue Dragon's Orb.

That was how the Blue Dragon's Orb was finally able to activate in the instant before Chu Liang's death, transporting him thousands of li away to the Blue Dragon's Hidden Realm.

***

"

Ahhh...

"

Chu Liang tried to get up, but he was struck by a wave of excruciating pain that rendered him immobile. It felt as if his body no longer belonged to him. The only part of his body he could move was his head, and even that was extremely difficult to do.

He had experienced this before. This was no accident. He was paralyzed again.

The last time this happened, it had been in the illusory realm of the Divine Mirror of the Eight Trigrams. This time, however, it was in the real world, and his injuries were likely much more severe.

When it happened in the illusory realm, it had been due to the backlash of drawing in and using an immensely excessive amount of spiritual energy. His corporeal body had recovered quickly then, but that wouldn't be the case this time.

Chu Liang had been injured by a seventh-realm Eminent One. He could feel many streams of powerful spiritual energy wreaking havoc inside him, hindering his recovery by repeatedly re-opening his wounds.

With his current abilities, Chu Liang couldn't repair these injuries. Nevertheless, there was an external force doing that for him.

Chu Liang lay on his back on top of an ice-cold, massive bronze throne. Sparks of lightning flashed and darted across the surface of the throne like roaming golden dragons. There was an enormous number of them, and they eventually all converged on Chu Liang, injecting him with spiritual energy.

The Blue Dragon's Orb had paid a tremendous price to summon the Dragon God's throne, and now the throne's value was finally showing.

Chu Liang recalled that time in Baxia's tomb and how the Dragon God's throne had spent countless years reassembling Baxia's shattered soul. This indicated that the throne likely possessed some sort of healing power.

As Chu Liang thought about it some more, he remembered that the Dragon God was an ancient Hallowed One. That meant the Dragon God couldn't possibly have made Baxia carry around such a massive throne every day simply as a show of extravagance.

It was highly likely that the Dragon God's throne was a legendary artifact with restorative and healing effects. That would explain why the Dragon God valued the throne. It had likely used the throne to recover after battles.

As for Chu Liang, he had inherited the cultivation legacy of four kinds of dragons, allowing him to produce dragon breath that was so pure it rivaled that of a True Dragon. That pure dragon breath was likely why the throne was helping him.

As the true master of the Blue Dragon's Orb, Chu Liang could sense the will of both the orb and the Dragon God's throne now that he was inside the Blue Dragon's Hidden Realm. The orb and the throne were inanimate objects, but they had developed a will of their own a long time ago. It was probably similar to how legendary artifacts had spirits.

Chu Liang could sense that the Blue Dragon's Orb's will was quite aligned with his own, while the throne had an arrogant and imposing will. Even as the throne healed him, it maintained an air of superiority.

After all, it once belonged to the Dragon God. It didn't matter that the throne was a little arrogant as long as it could save Chu Liang's life.

Chu Liang lay there quietly, waiting to be healed. The golden dragons of lightning from the throne flashed and flickered over him, channeling spiritual energy into his corporeal body. They gradually expelled Cheng Hu's spiritual energy and began healing Chu Liang's broken limbs and shattered meridians.

These were severe injuries like those he had suffered in the Divine Mirror of the Eight Trigrams. His corporeal body might be able to recover, but the damage to his Sea of Qi would be permanent, effectively ending his cultivation journey.

If not for the Dragon God's throne, that would likely have been Chu Liang's fate. The throne's lightning seemed to be injecting boundless vitality into Chu Liang. It restored his devastated Sea of Qi, letting it grow anew. This amazing recovery shocked Chu Liang greatly.

If he remained conscious throughout, this long recovery process would be unbearably boring. Nevertheless, his corporeal body required vast amounts of spiritual energy for the recovery. So, fortunately for him, he was forced into a prolonged state of slumber, only waking briefly once in a while before drifting back into deep sleep.

The Little Winged Draconic Beast dropped by every now and then to lick him awake and feed him a few plump, juicy fruits to meet his basic sustenance needs.

Chu Liang had given it some berries in the past, and now it seemed the Little Winged Draconic Beast was returning the favor.

There was no distinction between day and night in the Blue Dragon's Hidden Realm, so the recovery process seemed to go on for an indeterminate amount of time.

Then one day, Chu Liang woke to find that the corporeal outer parts of his body had healed completely. All that was left were the incorporeal inner parts of his body, which were the most difficult to heal. The recovery process for his shattered meridians would be long and slow.

Nonetheless, Chu Liang stood up excitedly. His heart was filled with gratitude as he gazed at the engravings of the dragon race on the backrest of the throne.

Yet, before he could utter a word of thanks, the Dragon God's throne suddenly lit up with a white glow. Then a bolt of lightning shot down from the clear sky, striking his head.

Crackle!

The chaotic lightning that had appeared unexpectedly sent Chu Liang sprawling to the ground, knocking him unconscious once again.

In his unconscious state, a crimson-gold mark slowly spread across his forehead...

1. Yeah, that’s what it said in the raw. I assume she’s just showing her dominance or something. ☜

2. Around 133 cm ☜