Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

Dago composed himself and continued to peer into the water through the clear, mirror-like surface of the lake.

Deep beneath the deep blue water, the faint, inverted silhouettes of a vast array of magnificent, ancient buildings hang precariously.

The silhouettes of those spires stood silently underwater, instantly reminding him of the "Three Towers" that the gatekeeper tree man had mentioned with awe.

Having made up his mind, Dago controlled the force field around him, blending into the group of trial wizards who were also just entering the secret realm, and slowly descended towards the bottom of the lake.

However, just as he was falling less than a hundred meters, a deafening roar suddenly ripped open the sky above his head.

An extremely violent spatial fluctuation, powerful enough to distort light, crashed down from above like a heavy hammer.

Dago's muscles tensed suddenly, and he quickly looked up at the high place.

On the originally smooth, cold white sky, a terrifying rift thousands of meters long had been torn open by a brute force at some unknown time.

The spatial fragments at the edge of the rift peeled off like solid glass, and were then rapidly pushed outward, transforming into a massive, deep blue vortex that blotted out the sky.

Endless dark winds surged from the depths of the vortex, carrying a nauseating stench of blood, and condensed directly into dozens of thick and terrifying tornado pillars in mid-air.

The air currents pulled wildly, causing the hem of Dago's robes to flutter loudly. He subconsciously squinted his eyes, and his right hand instinctively gripped the storage bag at his waist.

The next second, a terrifying monster, as large as a towering mountain, roared through the sky and burst out of the narrow vortex passage!

It was an ultimate killing machine stitched together with countless nightmare elements—it had an enormous lion's head, burning with dark red mane; but its body was strangely robust like a sheep's.

Behind it, dragging two terrifying long tails, one a raised, highly venomous black scorpion stinger, and the other a thick, hissing venomous snake.

Even more terrifying was the pair of enormous, demonic bat-like wings that suddenly unfurled from its back.

"roar--!!"

The monster, its entire body covered in hard, dark reddish-copper scales, raised its lion's head and let out a terrifying, soul-shaking growl.

With a sudden flap of its wings, a massive shadow instantly enveloped half the sky, casting a heavy shadow upon the countless trial wizards below and the tranquil surface of the Spirit Mirror Lake.

A brutal aura belonging to a high-level demon, like an erupting volcano or a raging tsunami, swept outwards without reservation.

In the distance, a well-informed wizard, unable to withstand the oppressive force, screamed in a voice cracking with extreme fear:

"Chimera...a chimera?! It's the ancient ferocious beast, the chimera!"

A mixture of despair and fear spread rapidly like a plague among the thousands of wizards in mid-air.

Many weaker wizards even lost control of their mental power, screaming as they crashed into the lake like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

But Dago, who was below the storm, did not linger his gaze on the monster's enormous body for long.

His gaze, like a blade locked onto its prey, pierced straight over the towering back and fixed firmly on the top of the monster's head.

He could clearly see that on the back of that arrogant and ferocious monster, there was a person standing quietly!

It was a figure whose entire body was tightly bound and shrouded by countless semi-illusory mysterious runes.

He emanated a chilling, faint light that was too intimidating to look directly at, like a god descended to earth, indifferently looking down at the ants beneath his feet.

The moment Dago saw the figure clearly, an unprecedented, intense tremor gripped his heart.

This tremor did not stem from fear, but from the deepest part of his soul.

His blood began to boil erratically, and deep within his bones, the long-dormant, incomplete storm patterns seemed to encounter some kind of absolute natural enemy, uncontrollably bursting into dazzling light.

Hot blood surged wildly through the veins, emitting a hidden roar.

Dago gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing the surging power within his body with his mental strength. Suddenly, Arajan's deep, somewhat solemn laughter echoed in his mind.

"Dago, do you remember that term I mentioned to you in detail before—'decaying blood'?"

A flicker of shock crossed Dago's eyes, and he quickly asked in his mind, "Is he also from the Bloodline of Decay?"

"No."

Arajan denied it outright, his tone revealing a rare deep apprehension. He slowly said, word by word, "If my remnant soul's perception is not wrong... this little guy standing on the back of the chimera is no ordinary descendant at all."

"He should be a first-generation cultivator with seven-ring decaying blood."

"?!"

Dago's pupils suddenly contracted, and his heart skipped a beat uncontrollably.

My vision pierced through the thick, dense white fog.

This is an inner lake shrouded in a serene and deathly stillness. The viscous blue-green water ripples with an eerie, cold light as the simulated moonlight and dawn light overhead alternate.

Above the water, an ancient floating bridge, entirely constructed from silver-gray high-grade magic stones, silently extends from the source of the thick fog, leading straight to a solitary island in the very center of the lake.

"Da, da, da."

The dull thud of dead wood striking stone slabs echoed through the thick fog.

A figure draped in a wide gray robe, his face completely hidden in the shadow of the hood, was slowly walking across the slippery floating bridge, leaning on a bone staff almost as tall as himself.

The mist automatically parted to the sides around him. He stepped over the last stone slab, his heels gently touching the solid yet slightly damp black soil of the island.

Directly in front of him were two figures, also dressed in wide gray robes, sitting casually cross-legged on a simple stool made of a few rough stones.

"What a commotion... Juventus is here."

The gray-robed man who had just landed on the island stopped and walked to the two men, casually picking out an empty rock.

He slowly raised his withered arm, using the wide sleeves of his robe to brush away non-existent dust from the stone surface, and spoke in a deathly, flat voice.

"They should have come sooner."

The gray-robed man sitting cross-legged on the left spoke softly, his voice like sandpaper rubbing against a rusty iron plate.

The other person on the right shifted slightly and then chimed in, "Quite a show of force, but what exactly does he want to take from us with this high-profile entry into Spirit Mirror Lake?"

The mist seemed to have a life of its own, swirling around the three people's faces and completely obscuring their features.

Moreover, even the frequency of their voices when they communicated was distorted by some kind of law, making it impossible to discern their true age and gender, as if they were just three empty shells that had lost their physical form.

"have no idea."

The first person to speak, a gray-robed man leaning on a bone cane, shook his head slightly.

He slowly raised his chin, as if looking through the thick fog at the raging chimera beyond the sky, and uttered a long, drawn-out conclusion: "I'm just wondering... perhaps the 'person' mentioned in that ancient prophecy is him."