Chapter 28: Dragon Ruins, Incomplete Manual
Lu Qingyang clung to the glowing coral at the edge of the trench, his fingertips stung with a series of blisters.
Yinghuo’s silver bell cord was wrapped around his waist, and the chensha stone in her hair, drifting with the undercurrent, flickered on and off, making the golden patterns on the trench floor seem to swim like living creatures.
He pulled out the bronze key from his pocket; as the tip of the key touched the golden pattern, the entire seabed suddenly trembled and rose—it was a half-buried stone carving of a Dragon head, its broken Dragon horns covered in glowing barnacles.
“Three hundred of them!” He pried off a fist-sized glowing barnacle and stuffed it into his pouch.
The scaled stone carving suddenly flipped over, pulling the two of them into a turbulent whirlpool of undercurrents.
The qingmu spirit pearl in his Dantian trembled frantically, and the golden patterns growing from the cracks pulsed like blood vessels, actually creating a three-foot-square waterless space in the rapids.
Yinghuo’s fish tail shimmered in the Spiritual Qi, and as she caressed the inscriptions inside the Dragon head stone carving, her fingertips were scratched by something sharp, drawing blood: “This is the entrance to the Dragon Clan’s blood sacrifice altar, it needs…”
“It needs this, right?” Lu Qingyang dangled the chensha stone he had taken from her hair; after the stone surface was stained with blood, winding Dragon patterns appeared.
While dodging Yinghuo’s silver bell cord attack, he retreated, and from a hidden compartment he bumped open with his back, three volumes of Jade Slips wrapped in jiaoxiao silk rolled out.
The top volume was titled 《Secret Essentials of Dragon Taming》, and the claw marks remaining on its cover still seeped golden blood.
The roar of Taiyi Pavilion breaking through the formation came from the seabed.
Lu Qingyang grabbed the Jade Slips and stuffed them into his crotch, then pressed the chensha stone onto the broken horn of the Dragon head relief.
The moment blood light erupted, the entire stone carving turned into dust, revealing a bottomless bronze passage below.
He pulled Yinghuo into the darkness, and the Taiyi Pavilion Disciples who pursued them were bitten into a bloody mist by the suddenly closing Dragon tooth mechanism.
night-luminescent pearls that seemed to breathe were embedded in the passage walls.
As Lu Qingyang pried off the seventh pearl with his dagger, Yinghuo’s silver bell suddenly emitted a warning chime.
He threw the night-luminescent pearl towards the source of the sound, and the pearl’s light illuminated a Dragon-shaped Puppet coiled on the dome—its spine was actually pieced together from Cultivator leg bones, and its eye sockets glowed with corpse fire fed by decaying flesh.
“Good stuff!” Lu Qingyang dodged the poisonous smoke spat by the Puppet, and the jiaojin cord he swung from his sleeve wrapped around the Puppet’s neck.
From the skull that clattered to the ground rolled a pigeon-egg-sized soul pearl.
He stepped on and crushed the struggling remnant soul within the pearl, “Living, you’re a grandson; dead, you still have to guard the door…”
Yinghuo’s silver bell cord suddenly went taut, and the sound of waves came from a turn in the passage ahead.
Lu Qingyang moved along the slippery wall, his pupils suddenly contracting—at the bottom of the ten-thousand-fathom deep sea, there was an entire bronze palace, and in the plaza in front of the palace stood nine coiled Dragon pillars, each Dragon’s mouth holding a night-luminescent pearl of a different color.
He pulled out an iron-armored turtle shell for divination, and the hexagram showed “Arrogant Dragon repents”.
When the seventh copper coin landed, the turtle shell suddenly split in half, revealing Dragon Clan secret writings engraved on its inner wall.
Yinghuo’s fingertips brushed over the characters, and she said softly, “Blood sacrifice three animals, and the Heavenly Gate can be opened.”
“No three animals, so three night-luminescent pearls will have to do.” Lu Qingyang stuffed the pearl he had just pried off into the nearest Dragon’s mouth.
The coiled Dragon pillar suddenly reversed, and the strong acid liquid it sprayed corroded deep pits in the ground.
He retreated, cursing, but his trouser legs were corroded with three holes: “These extravagant Dragon Clan fellows, using thousand-year stone marrow fluid for their anti-theft mechanisms!”
Yinghuo cut her wrist and smeared blood on the Dragon patterns, and the nine coiled Dragon pillars rotated in response.
Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to pocket the water-repelling Jade embedded at the base of the pillar, and when he looked up, he saw the palace gate slowly opening—Spiritual Qi condensed into clouds and mist poured out from within the gate, and suspended in the mist were three hundred and sixty volumes of Dragon skin classics, each bound with the sinews of different creatures.
“An Incomplete Manual of 《Cloud-Bag Seven Scrolls》!” He lunged towards a golden-glowing classic, but his fingertips were burned by lightning patterns as soon as they touched the spine.
The qingmu spirit pearl suddenly flew out of his body, and as the hourglass within the pearl inverted, it actually projected and replicated all the classics in the entire library into the spirit pearl space.
The true classics turned to dust after the replication was complete, leaving only the volume of 《Secret Essentials of Dragon Taming》 falling to the ground.
Yinghuo picked up the Secret Essentials scroll, and blood-colored seal script suddenly appeared on the parchment: “Non-Dragon bloodline, touch and be incinerated.”
Lu Qingyang bit his fingertip and smeared blood on the scroll, saying with a laugh, “Maybe this young master’s ancestors…”
The seal script suddenly erupted, throwing both of them back, and living sea lice, sealed within the falling glazed tiles from the palace roof, instantly crawled all over their clothes.
“Damn bad luck!” Lu Qingyang tore open his collar to shake off the poisonous insects, and a Dragon roar came from a secret door he bumped open with his back.
As he rolled into the secret chamber, he casually tore off half a jiaoxiao silk curtain, and looked up to face a Dragon corpse immersed in a glazed jar—the broken section of the Dragon horn perfectly matched the bronze key in his embrace.
Yinghuo’s silver bell cord wrapped around the pursuing swarm of sea lice, while Lu Qingyang had already pried open the drainage mechanism at the bottom of the glazed jar.
The Dragon corpse poured out with the antiseptic fluid, and he swiftly cut off a piece of the inverse scale, but the Dragon corpse suddenly opened its eyes and sprayed cold Qi.
The qingmu spirit pearl blocked the fatal blow, but three more cracks appeared on its surface.
“Catch!” He tossed the inverse scale to Yinghuo, and he himself lunged towards the Jade box in the Dragon corpse’s mouth.
The silk inside the box contained the construction map of the Dragon Ruins, with annotations in cinnabar by the first Sect Leader of Taiyi Pavilion in the blank spaces.
Suddenly, the sound of Ye Wuchen’s Sword Qi tearing through the air came from outside the palace.
Lu Qingyang stuffed the construction map into the sole of his shoe, then turned and ignited the antiseptic oil in the Dragon corpse’s abdominal cavity.
As the explosion overturned half the palace, he pulled Yinghuo into the hidden sewage passage.
Undigested Cultivator Magical Artifacts floated in the turbid water, and Lu Qingyang swam and salvaged, his qiankun bag quickly bulging like a ball.
Yinghuo’s silver bell suddenly emitted a rapid tremor, and ahead, where it suddenly opened up, was a burial pit filled with the remains of Cultivators.
“To all Fellow Daoists who are aware in the netherworld, Mr. Lu will surely help you achieve salvation…” He clasped his hands and muttered, but his fingertips were quickly picking off the storage rings from the corpses.
When he touched the seventh corpse in a golden silk Daoist robe, the decaying corpse suddenly opened its eyes and grabbed his wrist—the imprint on its palm was exactly like the cracks on the qingmu spirit pearl.
Yinghuo’s chensha stone shattered the decaying corpse’s skull, and from the skull rolled out a Jade pendant engraved with the character “Ye”.
Lu Qingyang stared at the Taiyi Pavilion emblem on the back of the Jade pendant, then suddenly grinned and said, “It seems Ye Wuchen’s ancestors had some unclear connection with the Dragon Clan…”
A muffled thunder-like tremor came from the seabed, and the burial pit began to collapse.
Lu Qingyang stepped on the falling bronze beams and pillars, leaping towards the underground river, and the 《Secret Essentials of Dragon Taming》 in his embrace suddenly seeped Dragon blood, drawing an escape route in the turbulent flow.
When the two surfaced from the sea, the setting sun stained the sky blood red, and in the distance, Taiyi Pavilion’s soul-chasing lanterns were approaching with the waves.