The Dragon King's skeletal maw yawned inches from Hua Yang Zhenjun's face, its breath reeking of brine and forgotten aeons. The True Monarch stood frozen, his triumph curdling to ash as the resurrected leviathan's hollow gaze locked onto the crystal amphora clutched in his hand—the stolen Golden Blood within pulsing like a trapped star.
"Impossible..." Hua Yang's whisper barely escaped before the bone dragon struck.
The attack shattered his arrogance. Hua Yang's Skyrend Crucible flared in panicked defense, prismatic shields erupting mere breaths before serrated fangs closed on his torso. The collision sent shockwaves rippling through the throne hall, pulverizing nearby merfolk statues into glittering dust.
Zhao Rui watched from the shadows, golden motes swirling around his pupils. "Now, Dun Che!"
The fox demon lunged not toward escape, but the scattered fragments of dragonbone. His claws closed around a rib fragment still oozing Golden Blood.
"For Yellow Springs!" Dun Che roared, hurling the bone like a javelin.
Resurrection's Price
The bone shard struck the amphora with crystalline clarity. Hua Yang's snarl of fury drowned beneath the dragon's enraged bellow as Golden Blood cascaded over its skeletal frame.
What happened next defied mortal comprehension.
The dragon's vertebrae twisted, necrotic marrow blazing with stolen vitality. Ghostly musculature wove itself from seawater and ancient grudges, until the leviathan stood reborn—not as flesh, but as vengeance incarnate.
Hua Yang's crucible spat defiance. "You think dead things frighten me?"
The dragon answered with a tail swipe that collapsed three supporting pillars. Qingcheng disciples screamed as the ceiling began its inexorable descent.
Zhao Rui seized Dun Che's arm, spatial bracelet flaring. "The western archway!"
Their teleportation left Hua Yang alone against the enraged titan.
A Monarch's Undoing
Hua Yang's battle cry echoed through collapsing halls. "I am Tribulation Transcendence! I am—"
The dragon's claw pierced his barrier array like parchment.
Golden Blood mingled with mortal ichor as talons sheared through Hua Yang's left shoulder. The True Monarch's scream contained multitudes—every soul he'd consumed over eight centuries wailing through his disintegrating meridians.
"Impossible..." Hua Yang choked, backpedaling through pooling blood. "The Draconic Cycle was myth..."
The dragon's skeletal wings unfurled, each movement carving new fractures in reality. Its maw yawned, not to bite, but to inhale.
Hua Yang's crucible clattered to the floor as his golden core tore free—a miniature sun dragged into the leviathan's ossified gullet.
Echoes of Victory
Zhao Rui watched from a crumbling balcony as Hua Yang's desiccated corpse toppled. The dragon turned its hollow gaze upward, sensing richer prey.
"Brother..." Dun Che nudged a still-dripping bone shard with his boot. "We just murdered a Tribulation Transcendence elder."
"No." Zhao Rui opened his palm, revealing the Ten Thousand Laws Tome now branded with draconic sigils. "He murdered himself."
The scripture pulsed in time with distant roars as the dragon horde turned on fleeing cultivators. Screams melded with the wet crunch of bone meeting flesh—a symphony of karmic reckoning.
Dun Che sniffed the blood-soaked air. "The Golden Blood?"
"Gone." Zhao Rui nodded toward the amphora shards. "But the Tome remembers."
As if summoned, the manuscript's pages fluttered open. Golden droplets coalesced above vellum—a single tear of condensed divinity.
The fox demon's ears flattened. "It's... watching us."
"Learning." Zhao Rui snapped the Tome shut. "We leave. Now."
Legacy in Ashes
Their escape through collapsing corridors became a fever dream. Dragonbone revenants clashed with desperate cultivators, while ceiling collapses birthed new waterways that reversed gravity itself.
At the Hall of Celestial Treasures' ruins, Dun Che paused to pocket a fist-sized pearl. "For Yun Fang."
Zhao Rui didn't stop him. Let the fox demon keep his trinkets—they'd earned this much.
The spatial bracelet's final teleportation deposited them on the seafloor three li east, where the Dragon Palace's death throes manifested as underwater cyclones.
Dun Che stared at the apocalyptic maelstrom. "Think anyone survives?"
"Does it matter?" Zhao Rui studied the Tome's new glyphs—instructions for rituals no human tongue should pronounce. "The game has changed."
As if in answer, the last standing dragonbone spire imploded, taking Hua Yang's legacy with it. The ocean stilled.
Dun Che broke the silence first. "Next time, we rob somewhere warmer."
Their laughter carried no mirth, only the relief of men who'd stared into the abyss... and stolen its secrets.