Chapter 45: East Sea Dragon Silk Tribulation
Lu Qingyang stepped on the crumbling coral steps of the East Sea Dragon Palace, the Water-Avoiding Talismanic Incantation patterns on the soles of his boots stirring up fine bubbles on the moss-covered tridacna bricks.
Deep-sea currents carried a fishy, salty, and bloody, and the emerald jade pendant on the surface of the qingmu spirit pearl glowed faintly, resonating with the mermaid bas-relief at the base of the broken Dragon pillar.
The Witch God's essence blood, swallowed three days prior, had congealed into battle patterns on the surface of his Golden Core, now flickering erratically with the encroaching Dragon poison.
"These night-luminescent pearls at the bottom of the sea are even brighter than the glazed lamps in the Drunken Immortal Pavilion," he mused, tapping a Water-Avoiding Pearl embedded in the Dragon pillar.
The pearl's surface suddenly became covered in dense 'Dragon Locking Talismanic Incantations'.
Su Li's Puppet Silk wrapped around a peeling piece of the pearl's shell, and the moment a silver needle pierced a gap in the incantations, the entire Dragon Palace ruins trembled as if a Dragon was roaring.
Yinghuo's silver bell cord swept away the surging currents, and chensha stone shattered the sea Puppets attacking from the shadows.
Nine corpse Puppets, clad in Dragon scales, crawled out of the shipwreck wreckage, their exposed spines wrapped in profound iron chains, the chain links' patterns eerily identical to the cracks on the qingmu spirit pearl.
"Ye Wuchen's Puppet refining skill has indeed become more refined," Lu Qingyang said, using two fingers to split open the chest of one corpse Puppet, digging out a pigeon-egg-sized water-controlling pearl.
"This pearl on the black market..."
Before he could finish, the 'Myriad Dragons Worshipping the Saint' mural on the Dragon Palace's dome suddenly peeled away.
Profound iron chains surged, coalescing into a spectral Dragon, its sharp claws tearing at the currents, which actually caused cracks to appear in the battle patterns on his Golden Core.
Lu Qingyang moved nimbly, stepping on collapsing tridacna bricks, the array patterns on his boots clashing with the Dragon Qi, imprinting a fragmented array diagram of the Tai Xu Swallowing Sky Skill on the seabed.
The emerald jade pendant suddenly burst forth with a faint glow, freezing the approaching poisonous mist into ice crystals.
"Zhen Palace shifts, Xun Wind breaks barriers!"
Yinghuo's chensha array temporarily forced back the Dragon souls, and Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to dart towards the Dragon Palace's core.
The qingmu spirit pearl reflected the profound ice coffin at the base of the altar.
The coffin lid was not inscribed with Talismanic Incantations, but a 'Myriad Dragons Weeping Blood' painting, and the main sacrificer's back bore an eight-tenths resemblance to Ye Wuchen.
He sneered, prying open the ice coffin: "Ye Laozei certainly knows how to gild himself..."
However, what surged out of the coffin was not cold Qi, but solidified Dragon clan resentment.
The moment the resentment touched the jade pendant, the battle patterns on the Golden Core's surface suddenly erupted, and in their struggle with the ice scale Dao patterns, they actually coalesced into an ancient Dragon Emperor's phantom.
Su Li's Puppet Silk wrapped around his wrist: "Dragon poison backlash!"
"Backlash?" Lu Qingyang shook off the silk threads, his pupils developing vertical slits like a Dragon's.
"Back then, to cure sea snake venom, Mr. Lu swallowed a thousand-year-old tridacna gall..."
His voice abruptly ceased, and he suddenly froze in place—at the bottom of the ice coffin lay half a scroll of the 'Dragon Silk Secret Record', and tucked between its pages was not a Talismanic Incantation, but a Dragon scale originating from the same source as the jade pendant.
At the peak of the midnight tide, the mournful sound of conch horns echoed from deep within the Dragon Palace ruins.
Lu Qingyang, stepping on a whirlpool formed by Dragon souls, leaped towards the epicenter, the qingmu spirit pearl reflecting the Dragon barrow in the seabed fissure.
Three hundred Dragon clan remains were piled within the barrow, each skeleton having a bowl-sized blood hole gouged out at its inverted scale, with the lingering green glow characteristic of Taiyi Pavilion's Sword Qi.
"Kan Palace returns, Li Fire burns evil!"
The moment the chensha stone shattered the Seal barrier, the Dragon barrow suddenly boiled.
What surged out of the barrow was not corpse Qi, but solidified Dragon clan essence souls, which, upon touching the faint glow of the jade pendant, actually pieced together half of the 'East Sea Dragon Vein Map' in mid-air.
Lu Qingyang leaped towards the barrow's center, and the Dragon Emperor's phantom on the Golden Core's surface suddenly opened its eyes, exhaling a wisp of Divine Sense mixed with alcohol: "The Dragon Silk poison sac can temper the Golden Core."
At the fifth watch, the currents reversed, and the sound of Sword Qi echoed from deep within the seabed fissure.
Lu Qingyang found a half-cracked Dragon clan jade bi at the barrow's center, and the residual Dragon breath on its surface suddenly came alive, manifesting in his Sea of Consciousness the secret of Taiyi Pavilion slaughtering the Dragon clan to refine poison pills.
Yinghuo's silver bell cord wrapped around a current, and the three used its force to rush out of the Dragon barrow.
At dawn, Lu Qingyang stood on the mast of the shipwreck, overlooking the ruins of the underwater city.
The qingmu spirit pearl reflected the Dragon silk drifting among the broken walls, and embedded in the forehead of the Dragon Emperor embroidered on the silk was a Dragon Pearl that fit perfectly with the jade pendant.
A current swept over his right arm, which was covered in Dragon patterns, and the Dragon Emperor's phantom on the Golden Core's surface was slowly undergoing Fusion with the battle shaman Dao patterns.
"One more ingredient is needed," he said, flicking his finger to shatter the carrion barnacles attempting to climb his boots, and narrowed his eyes at the surging thunderclouds in the distant sea.
"After I deal with these poison refiners, I'll have to go to Guixu to find that ten-thousand-year-old blood coral..."