1224 Black Dragon

The dim passage was not man-made but naturally formed. It was very spacious and the air was fresh.

Slash…

A sword beam flashed and decapitated two fierce beasts.

Eyes glittering with cold light, Tang Xiu walked to the remains of the beast and slowly said, "It's strange. The space in the passage is so stable that it makes me rather alarmed. Not to mention that these fierce beasts do not exist on Earth. They are like new species with the exception of being weaker in strength. There's also something else noticeable…"

"What else did you find, Grand Master?" asked Tang An curiously.

"If my conjecture is correct, we directly entered another space right as we stepped into this passage. Take a look at the wall closely. You'll find the difference," Tang Xiu said in a deep voice.

The wall?

Tang An approached the wall and carefully observed it for a while. Then, she nodded and said, "There's something strange with the wall indeed, Grand Master. It's neither made of soil nor stones, but another special material. It's very similar to concrete if we must find a comparison for it."

"Hit the wall with your weapon, but remember not to use your full force," Tang Xiu ordered.

Tang An hesitated for a moment, then she turned her hand and grabbed a dagger and powerfully stabbed the wall in front of her. Her dagger was a magic weapon with peerless sharpness that could cut iron as if it was butter. However, her dagger was stuck after it pierced the wall for half an inch.

"How is this possible?" Tang An exclaimed.

She previously had thought that her dagger would be able to pierce the wall easily, as easy as cutting tofu. But the wall in front of her was nearly as hard as a diamond. Precisely speaking, it was even harder than a diamond. Yet, some plants were seen growing in several cracks on this hard wall.

Tang Xiu collected the carcass of two fierce beasts into the interspatial ring and then said, "I think we can expect to see more interesting things inside. Let's go ahead. But remember to activate your invisibility and hide behind the space barrier if something is wrong."

Tang An was about to reply when her expression suddenly changed and said in horror, "Grand Master, I can only exert one-tenth of my space ability here compared to the outside. Heaven! The space barrier here is really too solid. It will take me lots of energy to even tear up a crack. I… I can only hide by myself at most, but I won't be able to take you into the space barrier."

Tang Xiu didn't speak again and quickly advanced towards the other end of the passage. He finally saw the light at the end after walking for about 2 kilometers.

"This place…"

Tang An stood next to Tang Xiu and looked around at the world in front of her. It was a vast and seemingly endless prairie with lots of flocks of fierce beasts. She even saw a few fierce beasts nearly the size of hills.

Tang Xiu tilted up his head and looked at the sun in the sky. The blob of light was unexpectedly purple-colored, making his heart pound. It was because he had once read a record in the Immortal World about such purple sun.

The Eastern Purple Qi was said to be an auspicious portent and the force behind fate. It was also said as the purest essence of energy between heaven and earth, and any cultivator who absorbed this purple energy would obtain great benefits from heaven. Thus, finding such a world filled with purple qi literally everywhere was truly unexpected for Tang Xiu. Even just taking a breath of the air gave him a relaxed and peaceful sensation.

"The concentration of spiritual energy here is at least 10 times that of the outside world."

Tang Xiu took a deep breath and suddenly had the urge to move the Tang Sect's base from Nine Dragons Island to this place. He realized that cultivating here would definitely be better than there.

ROAR…

A harsh and jarring cry came from the distant sky as a dazzling Golden Peng bird dived down from the sky and grabbed a huge fierce beast on the ground and then soared again. Its sharp talons easily tore the body of the mammoth fierce beast during the dive and purple blood splattered from its body as though a rain of purple water was falling.

Tang Xiu's pupils flickered and his figure suddenly bolted forward in a flash. He quickly reached the speed limit he could achieve and caused several fierce beasts comparable to a Golden Core Stage expert to suddenly streak up to the sky and storm toward him.

"SCRAM…"

Tang Xiu roared and instantly unleashed his divine sword. The torrential sword beam burst out like cascading waves and directly slew these tens of fierce beasts that blocked his path. Several seconds after, he dashed forward for tens of miles and threw out rows of jade bottles from his interspatial ring to contain the purple blood from the sky. After filling up more than 200 bottles, he quickly poured one bottle into his mouth.

Buzz…

The surging energy torrentially swarmed in and burst out in his stomach as a scalding heatwave, making all the fine hairs all over his body to burn.

"Purify and refine!"

Tang Xiu roared and instantly circulated his Heavenly Arts of Cosmic Genesis to the fullest. Along with the torrential surge of his Primal Chaos force to circulate in the meridians of his body, he burst out his aura, causing the thousands of fierce beasts in the surroundings to howl in fear and flee in all directions.

The heatwave and the enormous energy of purple qi rapidly ran through his limbs and bones all over his body. Tang Xiu felt like he had turned into a flaming man. Although it made him terrified, he could feel that the universe inside his body was quaking while refining the enormous energy from the purple qi and transformed it into Primal Chaos energy that quickly flowed into the planets inside him.

1 planet!

2 planets!

10 planets!

99 planets.

The entire 99 heavenly bodies began to inflate crazily—a situation that, given Tang Xiu's cultivation speed, would have taken at least hundreds of years of arduous cultivation to make these 99 planets grow to the size of more than 10 meters in diameter. That was also on the premise that his cultivation speed progressed faster than normal.

But now, these 99 heavenly bodies were literally getting bigger in nearly an instant. After tasting the benefits given by the purple blood rain, Tang Xiu quickly downed the remaining 200 bottles of purple blood and all of them sharply grew to more than 10 meters in diameter.

7 days passed and Tang Xiu looked like he had turned into a demonic god as he stood still in mid-air a 100 meters high while an enormous aura overflowed from him. During this time, tens of fierce beasts that were comparable to Nascent Soul Stage experts could feel Tang Xiu's enormous pressing aura and all quietly retreated in fear.

ROAR…

A violent roar of a dragon came from the distant sky. Tang Xiu, who was deeply immersed in cultivation, was abruptly awakened by this dragon's roar.

My power…?

As he snapped back to reality, Tang Xiu felt the surge of power in his body and disbelief overflowed in his eyes. He never expected to break through to the ninth small-stage—the last small stage of the Star Heavenly Essence Stage. Another breakthrough in this stage meant that he could directly enter the third stage of the Heavenly Arts of Cosmic Genesis.

The ninth small-stage?

Tang Xiu suddenly recalled that him breaking through to the ninth small-stage of the Star Heavenly Essence Stage meant that he was now comparable to the Great Ascension Stage experts. But if he kept progressing in his cultivation and became stronger, he could even contend with experts at the Crossing Tribulation Stage.

Further, he would possess strength comparable to ordinary Immortals once he broke through to the third stage, the Star Essence Integration.

It's coming!

A cold light flashed across his eyes. He could clearly hear the dragon's roar just now. The instant after, a 100-meter-high black dragon appeared before his eyes and moved towards him threateningly. In particular, the bursting aura coming out from this dragon was truly terrifying.

At the same time, it scared the fierce beasts within a hundred miles of the surrounding area and made them flee further in all directions.

"Human? A human entered this place?"

The 100-meter-long black dragon made a grotesque expression and fixedly stared at Tang Xiu. Suddenly, it said, "You're neither of this world nor from the world outside. Your soul imprint… strange… where did you come from?"

"You can see through my soul mark?" asked Tang Xiu with a frown.

"Hahaha." The black dragon uproariously laughed. "Not only can this sacred being see through your soul imprint, but I also can see through your power. But it's strange, indeed. You're a human yet you practice a cultivation art belonging to the demon race. That's interesting… truly interesting. Even that demon race's cultivation art you're practicing is very unusual and extraordinary, but a branch that emphasizes physical tempering. Son of human, do you really want to kill yourself that much?"

Tang Xiu narrowed his eyes and indifferently replied, "I naturally don't wanna die, so I've been cultivating well enough. Black dragon, there's no way you're a creature born from this pocket world, right? Else, you wouldn't have been able to speak in the human language, especially Mandarin. Further, you also know the demon race and their cultivation system."

The black dragon spurted a dragon breath and shook its head, saying, "This Sacred being naturally is not a native of this pocket world. There's no way this pocket world that has just been born for hundreds of thousands of years can have such a sacred being like me. I spent 100,000 years of metamorphosis before I finally recovered my body and only now can I escape from this trap."

"Where are you from?" asked Tang Xiu

"Of course it's the Dragon Realm," the black dragon replied.

Tang Xiu's expression changed and he said in a deep voice, "The Black Dragon Clan has been banished by the Five-claws Divine Dragon to the Ashura Realm after violating the laws of the Dragon Realm and have been dragging out their feeble existence since. How did you get here? You even stayed here for over 100,000 years according to what you just said."

A sinister aura blasted out from the black dragon as it furiously roared, "Shut the hell up! The ancestors of my Black Dragon Clan may have violated the rules of the ancestors, but it was all because of those Dragon royalty bastards who were afraid of the talent and strength of my Black Dragon Clan! They just framed us and used it as a pretext to banish us from the Dragon Realm. How did a human brat like you know the secret history of the Dragon race? What's your origin?"

"I'm from the Immortal World. You can say I just had a rebirth and transmigrated here," Tang Xiu said.

"Hmph." The black dragon snorted. "You can deceive other dragons, but you can't deceive this sacred being! You would have retained your cultivation art from the Immortal World after you've transmigrated instead of cultivating a cultivation art from the demon race. What a huge joke. Forget it. This sacred being is about to escape from this trap and I don't want to be bothered by a bug like you. I'll kill you first since I haven't tasted human blood for the last 100,000 years."