Legacy of the Nine-Colored Dawn
The solution, in theory, was clear. It mirrored the original timeline's desperate gambit, but with a crucial difference in intent. Defeat the Abyss Saint King. Refine the Abyss's stolen, chaotic energy. Return a portion to heal Douluo Continent's ravaged essence, using the remainder to fuel his own ascent. And crucially, sever the parasitic leech of the God Realm forever. A healed, unshackled Douluo Continent could then evolve naturally, perhaps one day growing robust enough to sustain its own deities, free from external masters.
But the architect of the current devastation would not be a bystander. Tang San. The name was a cold weight in Yao Xuan's gut. To that God-King, this world was a tool, a stepping stone. His "Ten-Thousand-Year Plan" was a monument to ruthless pragmatism, willing to sacrifice billions of lives on the altar of his power and his God Realm's survival. A clash was inevitable. The sheer scale of that future confrontation—against a remote, godly entity who could smite continents—sent a necessary, chilling urgency through Yao Xuan's veins. The Super God System and the Ancestral Dragon legacy were keys to unimaginable power, but keys were useless without the strength to turn them. Divine throne or not, he needed power on a level that currently felt like a distant star.
And there was Gu Yue. Gu Yuena. Her silver eyes held the hope of her entire race and the memory of a shared childhood. For her, and for the balanced future she represented—a world where humans and soul beasts were not predator and prey, but parts of a whole—he had to succeed. This responsibility was no longer abstract; it was woven into the fabric of his affection for her.
His silent reverie was broken as Di Tian reached the water's edge. The Beast God's movements became ritualistic, solemn. He dropped to one knee on the damp mud, his posture one of profound fealty. Then, a terrifying yet controlled aura erupted from him. Dark gold power, dense as collapsing stars, streamed from his body and poured into the languid waters of the Lake of Life.
Simultaneously, Bi Ji, Zi Ji, and Xiong Jun moved. A tri-colored shield of energy—emerald, amethyst, and brutal gold—blossomed around the entire lake basin, sealing it from the outside world, containing whatever was to come.
The lake reacted. Its placid surface boiled without heat. The earth trembled, a deep, groaning shudder. Then, from its profound depths, a light began to rise. Not the blue of the water, but a brilliant, commanding nine-colored radiance. It grew, piercing the surface like a reverse sunrise, until the source emerged, hovering above the water.
It was a stone slab. Circular, roughly three meters across, and carved from a material that seemed both stone and condensed light. At its center was a relief—a majestic dragon in mid-coil, claws outstretched as if grasping the heavens. The likeness to Yao Xuan's own Ancestral Dragon Spirit was unmistakable, though this image felt older, more authoritative, the prototype from which all draconic majesty was derived.
Awe, sharp and clean, struck Yao Xuan. He activated his Detection Eye.
A string of question marks. The slab's nature was so profound it defied the system's current analytical scope. This was an artifact of true divinity.
Di Tian, his face etched with a reverence Yao Xuan had never seen on the proud Beast God, guided the slab to land gently on the shore before him. "I am going to begin the test," Di Tian said, his voice hushed. "Do not move. Do not fear. I will not harm you. Are you ready?"
"I am ready, Uncle Di," Yao Xuan affirmed, his own heart beating a steady, anticipatory rhythm.
Di Tian approached. With a motion too swift to follow, a blade of condensed dark-gold energy flickered. A thin, precise cut opened on Yao Xuan's forearm. Blood, shimmering with a pale, nine-colored sheen, welled up. Even as it did, the cut began to knit itself closed, the enhanced regeneration of his Intermediate Ancestral Dragon Body already at work.
Di Tian's golden eyes blazed with triumphant fire. "As expected! As I knew!" He could barely contain the tremor in his voice. With a careful gesture, he guided the droplet of Yao Xuan's blood through the air.
It landed on the center of the Dragon God Slab, on the carved dragon's heart.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then—
BOOM!
A silent explosion of nine-colored light erupted from the slab, so intense it was soundless, a visual thunderclap that filled the shielded clearing. The light coalesced above the slab, twisting and forming into the phantom of a nine-colored dragon, vast and sublime. Its aura was one of absolute sovereignty, a pressure that made the very space kneel. Di Tian, Xiong Jun, Zi Ji, and Bi Ji instinctively lowered their heads further. Gu Yue's breath caught, her silver eyes reflecting the glorious, heartbreaking light of her king.
The phantom lasted only a moment, a brilliant flash of recognition. Then, it collapsed inward, not dissipating, but streaming like a comet of pure consciousness directly into Yao Xuan's forehead.
The Dragon God Slab dulled, falling inert once more to the earth.
Silence, heavier than before, descended. The four Fiend Beasts stared, a mixture of shock, jubilation, and religious awe on their faces. The evidence was incontrovertible. The Slab, a relic of the Dragon God himself, had reacted only to the true heir. Their millennia of waiting, of guarding a fading hope, had found its answer.
Gu Yue's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes glistening not with tears of sadness, but of overwhelming, vindicated joy. He is real. He is here.
Yao Xuan, however, was no longer with them.
The moment the phantom entered his mind, his consciousness was wrenched away. He found himself standing, solid yet insubstantial, in an endless expanse of star-dusted void. There was no ground, yet he did not float. He simply was.
From the swirling nebulae in the distance, a form approached. It was the nine-colored dragon phantom, but now on a scale that dwarfed galaxies. It stopped before him, its eyes—pools of swirling, primordial chaos—fixing on his minuscule form.
A roar echoed through the psychic space, not in sound, but in direct meaning that imprinted on his soul.
"I AM THE DRAGON GOD. WHAT ARE YOU, THAT YOU AWAKEN THE FRAGMENT I LEFT BEHIND?"
The voice was not hostile, but deeply curious, and immeasurably weary, carrying the loneliness of eons and the echo of catastrophic fracture.
Yao Xuan's mind reeled. This was not a memory. This was a sliver of will, a final message in a bottle cast into the cosmos by a dying god. He had come seeking a test of his bloodline. Instead, he stood in the presence of its original source. The path forward had just vanished, replaced by the precipice of a destiny far more immense and terrifying than he had ever imagined.