Star Martial Soaring Cloud

The dragon is a name familiar to every person in Kyushu; no one is unaware of it.

It is the eternal spiritual totem of the Kyushu land, which has long been integrated with this land and is deeply engraved in the bloodline of Kyushu civilization.

There is an ancient saying that dragons rise up to bring rain and control the four seas.

In ancient scrolls, stone carvings, anecdotes from the mountains and fields, and folk tales, dragons are depicted soaring through the clouds and chasing the mist, with imposing scales and armor, a majestic and agile figure, and a lifelike appearance, vividly imprinted in people's minds.

But in this world, how many people have actually seen a real dragon?

True dragons have long since vanished from the mortal world, disappearing into the primordial ages, and no one has ever seen them in thousands of years.

The few words recorded in ancient books and historical records are merely fragments deduced by our predecessors based on ancient legends; the stories told by storytellers in teahouses and markets are even more exaggerated and fabricated.

Some say that dragons are just fictional creatures created by the totem worship of ancient people; others say that dragons are just some kind of powerful mythical beast in the world, which has been exaggerated and deified through generations of legends; still others say that the real dragon race has long been completely extinct and disappeared into the world.

No one knows the truth.

Because no one has ever seen it.

And now, a living, breathing five-clawed dragon appeared before Wang Xiao.

It occupies a vast space, its body towering like a mountain, covered entirely in golden scales.

Each scale is the size of a millstone, layered upon layered, gleaming with a warm and profound luster in the dim light. It is not the dazzling brightness of gold, but a restrained, dark gold that has been tempered by countless years, seemingly capable of devouring all light.

The dragon's body meandered from the depths of the cave to the very end of Wang Xiao's sight, its exact length unknown.

The dragon's claws were curled up beneath its body, with five distinct toes.

The dragon's head was lowered, and its eyes were closed.

Two dragon whiskers, each several meters long, drooped from the corners of its mouth, swaying gently with its slow breathing.

The dragon's whiskers are pale gold and translucent, with a shimmering light flowing inside, like solidified magma or flowing starlight.

Dragon horns extend from both sides of the forehead, branching intricately like coral or jade trees, emitting a faint glow in the darkness.

Wang Xiao collapsed to the ground, staring up at the enormous thing, his mind blank and his heart trembling.

It's not that he hasn't seen powerful beings before.

Senior Brother Li Guang and Senior Brother Song Qing are both experts in the Divine Sense Void Realm; one of them can defeat an entire city.

But those were all humanoid, cultivators, beings of the same origin as him.

The dragon before us, however, belongs to another level of life; it is a creature that exists only in legends.

The dragon's breathing was extremely slow, so slow that Wang Xiao had to concentrate to barely detect the slight rise and fall of its chest.

With each exhale, a warm, thick current surged within the cave; with each inhale, the surrounding air reversed, drawing away most of the air from Wang Xiao's body, causing him to involuntarily lean forward.

With each breath, the deepest rhythm of heaven and earth is contained, like the pulse of mountains and rivers, the rise and fall of tides, and even more like the heartbeat of this world itself, magnificent and boundless.

Wang Xiao finally understood why the intermittent sounds he had heard earlier were so weak.

Because this true dragon is about to die.

As a cultivator at the Dragon Gate Divine Realm, he could clearly sense all of this.

The dragon's aura had already weakened to its limit, like a candle flickering in the wind, ready to be blown out at any moment.

Its vitality was rapidly fading, not from exhaustion of lifespan and natural aging, but from being continuously drained and wantonly devoured by some strange thing.

Wang Xiao stood up, suppressing the shock in his heart, and took a few steps forward.

The sword light illuminated the outline of the dragon's head, allowing him to see more details.

The once gleaming golden scales are now covered with fine cracks, not from battles and fights, but from the combined effects of the erosion of time and the depletion of their original essence.

The scales lost their former vitality and luster, cracking and peeling off piece by piece. In many places where the scales had fallen off, the grayish-white, shriveled skin underneath was exposed, wrinkled and cracked, like withered old tree bark, devoid of any vitality.

The once flowing and graceful dragon whiskers now hang limply, their tips curled and withered, no longer possessing their former glory; the dragon horns, which once glowed and exuded charm, are now only dim, their surfaces riddled with cracks and utterly broken.

What alarmed Wang Xiao even more was that there were tear stains in the corners of Long's eyes.

Not just one tear, but two deep, dried tear tracks, stretching from the corners of her tightly closed eyes all the way to her chin, washing away the golden scales and creating two furrows.

The tear stains were so deep, so deep that they had become permanent indentations, as if they had been repeatedly washed away by something for millions of years.

It is crying.

It wasn't just tears; it was a genuine cry from the depths of my soul.

Wang Xiao's throat tightened.

He had heard of dragons, of their sacredness and majesty, of their power.

But he had never heard of a dragon crying.

"child……"

An old and weak voice echoed in Wang Xiao's mind.

It didn't enter through his ears, but was directly imprinted deep within his consciousness, as if someone were carving words on the walls of his soul, each stroke striking his very heart.

Wang Xiao was terrified and instinctively took a step back.

"Are you... from Kyushu?"

The voice was intermittent, each word requiring a long pause for breath.

Wang Xiao saw the dragon's eyelids tremble slightly, and it tried its best to open its heavy eyelids, but ultimately it lacked the strength.

"Yes," Wang Xiao replied. "I come from Kyushu."

A long silence fell over the surroundings.

Then, Wang Xiao heard a voice.

It was not words, not a sigh, but a sob squeezed from the depths of the throat, almost inaudible.

The true dragon is crying.

It wasn't a silent, suppressed weeping; it was a heartfelt, uncontrollable lament.

The sobbing was extremely low and faint, almost drowned out by the sound of her heartbeat and breathing, but Wang Xiao heard it clearly.

There was no grievance or anger in that voice, only boundless sorrow and a humble, almost extravagant yearning.

"Could you... come closer to me?" The dragon's voice trembled slightly. "I want... to smell the scent of home."

Wang Xiao saw Zhenlong's lips twitch slightly, as he tried his best to force a smile.

But its essence was exhausted and its strength was gone, so the smile could not take shape. Only the muscles at the corners of its mouth twitched twice in vain before it fell silent again.

A voice echoed in Wang Xiao's mind... Be careful, this is too eerie!

No one has ever seen a real dragon, so why does it appear here?

Why do I have to talk to you?

Could it be a trap?

Could it be a conspiracy?

But Wang Xiao still took the first step.

He walked step by step toward the dragon's head.

Who could bear to refuse the final request of a dying old man?

Moreover, it said that Kyushu is its hometown and its native land.

The word "hometown" holds an irresistible magic for two people living in different places.

He walked to the dragon's head and stood there.

Zhenlong's nostrils twitched slightly as he took a deep breath.

A gust of air swept through, causing Wang Xiao's robes to flutter and his hair to fly wildly.

This inhalation lasted for a very, very long time, so long that Wang Xiao thought it would stop breathing.

After a long while, the true dragon slowly exhaled a long breath.

"Haha..." Laughter rang out, filled with utter satisfaction and bliss. "It's the feeling of home... Yes, it's the feeling of home..."

It's like savoring some precious delicacy, relishing it again and again.

Wang Xiao felt a lump in her throat.

He wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth, he found that his throat was blocked by something, and he couldn't say a word.

"Senior." After a long silence, Wang Xiao finally spoke.

After much deliberation, unsure of how to address this ancient being, he finally decided to address him as a senior.

He took a few more steps forward, raised the Seven Star Sword high, and tried to see the dragon's full appearance by the light of the sword.

The sword light fell, illuminating a hidden corner, and only then did Wang Xiao discover the horrifying anomaly.

Fine threads.

Countless fine, almost transparent lines, as thin as hair, extend from beneath the dragon's body, densely packed, firmly connecting the dragon's form to the earth.

These threads are as fine as dust particles; they are virtually undetectable unless you look closely.

They emerged from the gaps in the dragon's scales, penetrated deep into the underground rocks, and formed a boundless giant net, trapping the true dragon there.

What's even more alarming is that these fine threads are by no means inanimate objects.

Wang Xiao could clearly sense that they were throbbing, pulsating, and continuously drawing power and essence from the body of the true dragon.

Each fine thread is like a straw, greedily sucking up the life force of the true dragon.

This is the root cause of the true dragon's weakness and decline.

"Donghuang..." the true dragon suddenly spoke, his voice slightly clearer than before, "You... have the aura of Donghuang on you."

Wang Xiao was taken aback, then suddenly realized what was going on.

It turns out that the words I had been hearing intermittently were not just blurry noises, but the words "Donghuang," which I had been misunderstanding all along.

"Child, could you please... plant the sword in front of me?" Zhenlong's voice was tinged with excitement. "That way... I'll feel a little better, and it will also answer some of your questions."

Wang Xiao looked down at the Seven Star Sword in his hand. Although he didn't know why, he didn't hesitate at all.

He strode forward and firmly inserted the Seven Star Sword into the rock directly below the dragon's head. The sword stood upright, its blade shimmering with a faint spiritual light.

"The Eastern Emperor's sword..." The True Dragon lowered his eyes to look at the Seven Star Sword, his tone calm and no longer hesitant, "It really is his aura."

Wang Xiao, filled with countless questions, immediately asked, "Who is Donghuang?"

Upon hearing this, the true dragon was clearly taken aback. It expended a great deal of energy to slightly raise its eyes and open one of its golden dragon eyes.

Longan should be as bright as the sun, shining in all directions, but now its light is dim, with only a faint halo like the afterglow of the setting sun.

"Isn't the world now the Great Qian Dynasty?" Zhenlong asked rhetorically, his tone tinged with confusion.

"It is the Great Qian Dynasty," Wang Xiao answered truthfully.

"The Eastern Emperor is none other than the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty." The dragon's voice was weary and full of confusion. "The song is not yet finished."

Before the song was finished, the name of the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty was mentioned.

The man and the dragon faced each other in silence, their eyes meeting. Neither of them was lying, yet both found the situation utterly absurd.

"But the current emperor's surname is Li." Wang Xiao suppressed the shock in his heart and quickly explained, "Fifty years ago, for some unknown reason, the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty and the Confucian sage mysteriously disappeared without a trace."

"What Confucian sage?" Zhenlong asked, his tone full of doubt.

"That is the sage who reshaped the cultivation system of the Nine Provinces," Wang Xiao said. "Legend has it that he summarized the ancient cultivation methods, aligned them with the laws of the Nine Provinces, and established a brand-new cultivation system, which led to the nearly one hundred years of golden age of cultivation in the Nine Provinces."

The dragon fell into a long silence, so silent that Wang Xiao thought it had fainted.

After a long silence, the dragon spoke again, its tone filled with absurdity and wistfulness: "Isn't that the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty?"

"Ge Weijing was originally a scholar," Long's voice was soft. "He was well-versed in literature from a young age, possessing vast knowledge, and his greatest dream was to become a teacher. The person you mentioned who reshaped the cultivation system is him!"

Wang Xiao stood frozen in place, speechless, unable to utter a single word.

He recalled what Xiao He had once told him: the Confucian sages had vanished into thin air, and the name of the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty had been deliberately erased.

He always thought they were two different people, but he never expected that the two renowned sages were actually the same person from beginning to end.

"Boy, are you truly from Kyushu?" Although the True Dragon was certain that Wang Xiao came from Kyushu, and the aura emanating from him was undeniable, Wang Xiao's behavior made it somewhat doubt its judgment. "Where did this sword come from? The Eastern Emperor's sword, why is it in your hands?"

"It was a gift from my master," Wang Xiao answered truthfully. "I come from Seven Star Mountain. Have you ever heard of this place, senior?"

"Seven Star Mountain? Never heard of it. And who is your master?" Zhenlong asked blankly, completely unaware.

Wang Xiao was completely dumbfounded.

He originally thought that Seven Star Mountain must be related to the First Emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty, after all, the saying "all martial arts under heaven originated from Seven Star" was too consistent with the achievement of "reshaping the cultivation system of the Nine Provinces".

Even the true dragon has never heard of the name Seven Star Mountain.

What exactly is Qixing Mountain?

Just as Wang Xiao was about to ask a question, a short but profound and mysterious incantation suddenly entered his ears.

The incantation consisted of only a few hundred words, each containing profound mysteries of the Great Dao and possessing an inexplicable demonic quality, which was directly imprinted deep within his sea of ​​consciousness.

These words leaped and flowed in his mind, intertwining and combining to transform into exquisite and unparalleled diagrams of martial arts techniques, each move and stance clear and distinct.

Wang Xiao had countless questions waiting to be answered, but he was instantly captivated by the incantation, completely absorbed, like a drowning person grabbing onto the only piece of driftwood, sinking deeper and deeper into it, unable to extricate himself.

Every word and every picture in that mantra is like a door; once you push it open, you'll find a whole new world.

He instantly realized that this was an incredibly terrifying and unparalleled secret technique for attack.

"The True Dragon Slaying Technique, the origin of all arts, can evolve into all kinds of attacks and defenses in the world!"

The voice of the true dragon echoed in his mind, carrying an ancient and sacred majesty, as if a thousand troops were galloping.

The moment the mantra is imprinted on one's mind, extraordinary phenomena suddenly arise in the heavens and earth.

A phantom of a five-clawed golden dragon emerged from between Wang Xiao's brows, circling in the void, stretching its body, and roaring to the sky.

The dragon's shadow was majestic and unparalleled, its whiskers fluttering, its golden scales spreading, and its expression looking down arrogantly at the heavens.

The phantom of the true dragon let out a long roar, and Wang Xiao's soul trembled and resonated with it.

The dragon's roar was vast and boundless, carrying the primordial energy of heaven and earth. A desolate and ancient aura swept over us, seemingly real yet illusory, seemingly unreal yet tangible.

Countless images flashed through his mind: dragons battling, their five claws splitting the sky, their tails sweeping across mountains, their giant mouths swallowing the blazing sun, dragons bathing in the thunder of the nine heavens...

Every single image is a deadly move.

Every killing move contains profound truths.

Wang Xiao was completely absorbed in it, utterly captivated.

He discovered that this was a martial art that suited him perfectly.

With the flesh and blood, one can inherit the dragon vein and transform the dragon's might into qi and blood. It is not limited to fists and fingers, nor to legs and feet. Every part of the body can be used to attack. Every move has the might of a true dragon pressing down on the world.

This technique was practically tailor-made for him.

His cultivation was unconventional; he didn't cultivate supernatural powers, relying solely on his strong physical body and his fists.

This True Dragon Fighting Technique can push his already invincible physical combat power to an even higher level.

His fists possess the power of a dragon, his feet the might of a dragon, his entire body is a weapon, his attacks are unparalleled.

After an unknown amount of time, the dragon's shadow dissipated, and the incantation and secret techniques were completely integrated into the depths of his consciousness, becoming a part of his instincts, like breathing and heartbeat, something he was born with.

"Senior..." Wang Xiao opened his eyes and was about to express his gratitude when he saw that the dragon's eyes were already closed and its aura was so weak that it was almost impossible to detect.

He was startled and quickly stepped forward to check the dragon's breath. Fortunately, the dragon was still breathing faintly, but it had exhausted its last strength to impart the secret technique and had already fainted.

It seems the true dragon didn't want this supreme secret technique to be lost; despite having many questions, it still passed it on to him.

Wang Xiao gazed at the real dragon, her heart filled with mixed emotions.

The kindness of teaching is as great as the heavens.

He wanted to help it, to do something, even if it was just to alleviate the dragon's pain a little.

He drew his Seven Star Sword and crouched down, intending to sever the strange, thin threads that bound the dragon's body and extracted its essence.

The sword blade was sharp enough to cut through iron like mud, but when it cut a line as thin as a hair, it was as if it were cutting into the void.

The blade pierced straight through, leaving the fine thread unharmed.

He tried several more times, using all his strength, even channeling his inner energy into the sword, but the result remained the same.

These fine threads seem to belong to a different world; they are formless and intangible, impossible to touch or cut.

Wang Xiao was unwilling to give up, so he raised his hand and placed it on the dragon's body, wanting to transfer some of his vital energy to it.

The dragon's aura is too weak. If it could receive nourishment from vital energy, it might feel better.

But as soon as he activated his vital energy, it was swallowed up by the fine threads.

He can't do anything.

Wang Xiao remained silent for a long time, then sat cross-legged in front of the true dragon.

He began to comprehend the True Dragon Fighting Technique.

He thought this should be the greatest comfort to the true dragon.