All the heavens, starting as the ruler of the universe

In the empty Crystal Palace of the East Sea Dragon Palace.

Ao Qing coiled on the pillar, staring at the chat group panel, its tail swaying intermittently.

No one is chatting in the group now; everyone has gone about their own business after receiving their daily activity rewards.

Aside from him, who was trapped at the bottom of the sea and unable to cultivate, and Kara, who was being studied by others.

However, Kara is a cold and aloof person, and usually doesn't talk much.

Ao Qing silently calculated his source point and the time when the chat group would invite people again.

As he was thinking, he suddenly felt something was wrong.

The light in the Dragon Palace... has dimmed?

Ao Qing raised his head and looked at the top of the palace.

The few luminous pearls were still there, emitting a faint light. But the light seemed to not reach far, as if it was blocked by something.

wrong.

Ao Qing's tail tensed instantly.

He slid down the pillar, swam to the palace door, and looked out through the crack.

It was pitch black outside. Not the normal black of the deep sea, but the kind of black where you couldn't see anything at all, as if you were covered by a huge curtain.

What about a ban?

Ao Qing extended his divine sense and then gasped.

The Dragon Palace's protective barrier... has been broken. Not breached, but rather enveloped by something, making it completely imperceptible to the outside world.

"Old Turtle!" he called out.

no respond.

Ao Qing's heart sank, and he swam towards the back hall. There lived several old turtles there, the last servants of the Dragon Palace, who had followed him for hundreds of years and were too old to swim anymore.

The door to the rear hall was open.

Several old turtles lay motionless on the ground. Their eyes were still open, but they had lost their sparkle.

The tortoise shell was covered with cracks, as if something had drained its life force.

"Old turtle..."

no respond.

They died.

Ao Qing clenched his fists.

He turned and swam back to the front hall, stood inside the hall door, and stared into the darkness outside through the crack.

His body was trembling—not from fear, but from anger.

The magical power surged wildly within his body, desperately seeking an outlet.

"Li Changqing! You get the hell out here!!!"

The roar of the dragon filled the entire seabed, and the dark clouds in the sky pressed down on the churning sea surface.

The darkness remained silent for a few seconds.

Then, a light shone from the darkness.

It's that jade plate. The Spirit-Suppressing Plate.

The light from the jade plate illuminated several figures—Li Changqing stood at the front, followed by the two old men, and then a dozen or so young cultivators, each holding a formation flag.

"Dragon Lord," Li Changqing said, his voice carrying through the array's barrier, "I've long admired you."

"I've heard so much about your mother!"

The curses and the dragon's might erupted simultaneously.

"Don't waste your energy."

Li Changqing sighed softly and activated the array plate in his hand to dissipate the dragon's might into the water.

Ao Qing hadn't expected the dragon's might to work. The moment he finished speaking, more than a dozen scales lit up on his body and shot towards Li Changqing.

"Dragon Scale Darts, what a treasure."

Li Changqing clearly knew Ao Qing's methods.

"Dragon Lord, stop wasting your spiritual power. With the Spirit Suppressing Plate here, your resistance is futile."

The Spirit Suppressing Disc lit up again, the spiritual energy on the Dragon Scale Dart disappeared, and it swayed in the water, losing its power, and sank.

"Lord Dragon, I didn't want things to come to this either. But..." Li Changqing paused.

"This calamity of the Dharma's decline is inescapable. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth is becoming increasingly scarce, and we cultivators are struggling desperately. But you, Dragon Lord—you occupy the Dragon Palace, those rare and precious materials, and the Spirit Gathering Array, drawing away the last remaining spiritual energy of this sea area day after day."

Li Changqing spoke with such sincerity that he seemed about to burst into tears at any moment.

"I know that the Dragon Lord has it tough too."

Li Changqing's voice grew increasingly sincere, "Dragons are enormous and require far more spiritual energy than we do. But precisely because of this, the existence of the Dragon Lord is itself a... burden on this world."

"Moral blackmail, is this it?!" Ao Qing was almost laughing in anger. He never expected to encounter this kind of thing after transmigrating to another world.

Li Changqing ignored what Ao Qing was saying and continued talking to himself.

"This calamity of the Dharma's decline is the end of the world's destiny. We cultivators should stand together and overcome this difficulty. But the Dragon Lord dwells alone in his Dragon Palace, possessing vast resources, yet he only seeks to prolong his own life. Meanwhile, outside, countless cultivators cannot even absorb a single breath of spiritual energy, and countless sects have been wiped out due to the depletion of spiritual energy..."

Li Changqing's words appeared to be addressed to Ao Qing, but in reality, they were meant for himself and the others behind him.

"Li Changqing, are you giving me this nonsense?"

Ao Qing's voice traveled through the barrier, making the ears of those holding the array flags ring.

"I'm hogging spiritual energy? I'm using the Dragon Palace's treasures to prolong my life? Why don't you mention how many elixirs and miraculous medicines your Heavenly Pivot Sect has in its treasury? Why don't you mention how many spirit stones are hidden in the caves of those two old geezers behind you?"

Ao Qing's gaze swept over those people.

"You're nothing but a bunch of starving vultures eyeing this piece of meat. All this talk of a cataclysmic event, of sharing weal and woe—it sounds nice, but all you really want is to devour me!"

Li Changqing's smile froze for a moment.

The two elderly men behind him also lost their smiles.

"Your Majesty, you have misunderstood," Li Changqing tried to salvage the situation. "I acted for the sake of all living beings—"

"fart!"

Ao Qing's dragon roar shook the entire Dragon Palace.

"Enough with the nonsense. If you're so capable, come in and fight me for real. If not, just keep using your broken formation flag to wear me down."

Ao Qing turned and swam back into the hall, ignoring the sounds outside.

Behind him, Li Changqing's face darkened completely.

"Continue to use the array flags to deplete his spiritual energy."

The battle flags waved, and darkness once again enveloped the Dragon Palace.

Ao Qing swam back into the hall, coiled up on the pillar again, its claws trembling slightly.

It wasn't out of fear, it was out of anger. And also out of resentment.

He was a dragon in the mid-stage of the Nascent Soul realm. In the past, he would have attacked as many of these kinds of people as he could.

But what about now? The spiritual energy is depleted, even circulating magic power is difficult, the Dragon Palace's restrictions have been broken, and even the old tortoise is dead.

He looked down at his claws—he had just fired more than a dozen dragon scale darts at once, but they had all been rendered useless by that array-breaking plate.

Now, the only ranged attacks he can use are dragon breath and water manipulation.

Dragon breath consumes too much energy; one breath takes half a day to recover.

Water manipulation... Golden Core cultivators were already on guard. The two old men behind Li Changqing had been making hand seals, probably to prevent him from playing with water.

Ao Qing took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

He opened the chat group panel.

The group chat was quiet. Peter Parker was probably at school, You Lingfeng was probably practicing his martial arts, Liu Ming was probably pulling stones, and Kara... Kara was probably daydreaming again.

Ao Qing stared at the panel for a few seconds, then started calling for reinforcements.

"Help!!!"

"Someone's come to raid my hometown!"

"What's going on?" Peter Parker, bursting with a sense of justice, was the first to jump out.

"Simply put, someone has their eye on me and wants to use me to make soup."

"How long can you hold out?" You Lingfeng also logged on.

"I don't know... They're using array flags to wear down my spiritual energy, and my mana is draining away. Maybe a day, maybe half a day." Ao Qing watched his mana continuously draining away and silently calculated.

"Where's Brother Lin?" Liu Ming rarely took the initiative to speak.

Ao Qing stared at Lin Yan's profile picture—it was lit up—but didn't say anything.

He gritted his teeth and sent another message.

"Brother Lin, are you there? Can you come and save me?"

"Yes. How many people? What's their cultivation level?" Lin Yan then added, "Does anyone still have source points? To buy talismans."

"There are 13 people on the surface, all of whom are at the Golden Core stage, but their combat power will not be too strong in this Dharma-ending Age. There is also a Spirit Suppressing Plate, which is specifically designed to attack spiritual energy."

You Lingfeng didn't hesitate and immediately bought a cow talisman.

"Bought it!"

"I bought one too." Peter Parker stopped saving up Source Points and waiting for Lin Yan to put the Dog Talisman up for sale.

"I have enough to buy one too." Ao Qing immediately exchanged for a cow talisman.

"I'm being monitored here, so I can't make the exchange." There are dozens of cameras pointing at Kara in the cell where she is being held, so there is no privacy at all. In addition, Kara has never been exposed to the sun and is currently powerless.

"I only have 340 source points here, not enough to redeem them," Liu Ming muttered to himself.

"Thank you everyone!" Ao Qing's eyes were a little sore.

"That's enough." Lin Yan's Origin Points broke through the thousand mark, and he opened the shop to buy a cross-realm teleportation talisman.

【Use a teleportation scroll to travel to the world of immortal cultivation in the Dharma-ending Age?】

"Yes." Lin Yan replied without hesitation.

"Connection in progress..."

Meanwhile, Ao Qing also received a notification from the chat group.

[Do you agree to join the cross-dimensional teleportation group - Lin Yan?]

"Agreed!" Ao Qing replied without the slightest hesitation.

The next second, the translucent panel in front of him burst into a blinding white light. The light pierced through the dark seabed and shot straight into the sky.

Ao Qing was so shaken that he couldn't open his eyes. He could only hear a roaring sound in his ears—not the sound of ocean currents, not the sound of formations operating, but something deeper, as if the whole world was trembling.

His scales stood on end. It was an instinct etched deep within the dragon bloodline—something beyond this world was descending.

Then he heard a scream.

They are the monks outside.

Ao Qing suddenly opened his eyes.

Through the crack in the palace door, he saw a beam of light descend from the sky, tearing apart the dark array, the sea, and the sky.

The beam of light was so bright that even he, a dragon in the Nascent Soul stage, dared not look directly at it.

Within the beam of light, a human figure was taking shape.

Then the beam of light trembled.

It was a very slight movement, but Ao Qing noticed it. The forming figure seemed to be tugged by something, almost falling apart.

"Brother Lin?" Ao Qing's heart jumped into his throat.

---

Meanwhile, deep in the universe.

Lin Yan's true form stood on that young planet, his brows slightly furrowed.

The teleportation channel had been opened, but as soon as his consciousness probed into it, he sensed something was wrong—the teleportation was too fragile and couldn't withstand his original consciousness.

The passageway is shaking and collapsing.

If they continue to force their way down, not only will the passage be destroyed, but Ao Qing's Dragon Palace will likely collapse, and even that sea area will evaporate.

Lin Yan did not hesitate.

With a slight thought, the original consciousness instantly withdrew, leaving only a sliver of starlight.

The ray of starlight coalesced into a human shape and entered the collapsing passage.

The tremors stopped.

The next instant, Lin Yan's avatar appeared outside the East Sea Dragon Palace.

The light dissipated.

The cultivators who were controlling the array flags looked up at the same time, their pupils shrinking sharply.

A figure stood in front of them.

Ordinary clothes, ordinary figure, ordinary face.

But when those eyes swept over, everyone felt their blood freeze.

It wasn't fear, nor was it pressure; it was something more fundamental—like being looked at by a higher-dimensional being.

Li Changqing almost dropped the Spirit Suppressing Disc from his hand.

“Who…who are you?”

Lin Yan did not answer.

He looked up and glanced around.

Thirteen cultivators, ten array flags, and one spirit-suppressing plate.

His arrival had torn a hole in the dark formation, but it was still barely functioning.

He glanced at the Dragon Palace again.

Inside the palace gate, a small blue dragon was lying by the crack in the door, its eyes wide open and its tail shaking excitedly like a propeller.

Ao Qing is still alive. He's alright.

Lin Yan did not speak again.

He simply raised his right hand slightly.

A faint orange-yellow glow emanated from the palm of my hand.

The next second, gravity changed.

It's not that it "became heavier," but rather that it "changed."

The thirteen cultivators simultaneously felt an invisible force pressing down on them, making them unable to straighten their backs, forcing them to kneel on the ground, and forcing them to lie prone on the seabed.

All the battle flags were broken.

The spirit-suppressing disc slipped from Li Changqing's hand, smashed against the reef, and shattered in two.

The dozen or so Golden Core cultivators lay on the ground, their faces buried in the mud and sand, unable to move.

The two elders, both at the peak of the Golden Core stage, barely managed to prop themselves up, but were pressed back to the ground by even greater pressure the next second.

Li Changqing knelt at the front, his hands supporting him on the ground, his whole body trembling.

His eyes were wide open, staring intently at Lin Yan. His lips moved as if he wanted to ask something, but he couldn't utter a single word.

He knew he was finished.

Lin Yan ignored them and headed towards the Dragon Palace.

Ao Qing coiled on the pillar, its eyes wide open, its tail wagging even faster than before.

He wanted to say something, like, "Brother Lin, you're finally here," or "That move was so cool," or "What are we going to do with those people outside?"

But when he opened his mouth, he couldn't utter a single word.

He simply watched Lin Yan walk in, stand in front of him, and look down at him.

"Ao Qing?"

Ao Qing nodded vigorously.

"Brother Lin... thank you."

Lin Yan looked down at him, a slight smile playing on her lips.

"The teleportation scroll only lasts for three days. Tell me your question."

Ao Qing paused for a second, then began to speak eloquently.

The spiritual energy was dissipating, the spirit-gathering array was about to collapse, the Dragon Palace's resources were almost burned out, and a bunch of vultures were watching him from outside...

Lin Yan listened quietly, his gaze piercing through the Dragon Palace and landing on this world.

The spiritual energy is dissipating.

But it's not too late.

Three days.

enough.