The Dragon King's Broken Horn

Cleanly and decisively, Xiao Chen’s palm strike tore the Dragon Clan youth into pieces, stunning everyone present.

“The young master is dead!” “How dare you raise your blade against the Dragon Clan?”

Outside the hall, the Dragon Clan cultivators erupted into chaos. They could hardly believe their eyes. In recent years, who would dare provoke the Dragon Clan? That someone would act so brazenly today was truly shocking.

Shrieking sounds cut through the air. Three Dragon Clan experts who had been screaming curses were struck down by sword light in an instant. The clamor died abruptly, and the remaining cultivators withdrew in fear, retreating like a receding tide.

The hall, however, grew lively. Several old friends met unexpectedly, feeling no pressure from the mighty Dragon Clan. Each was deeply moved.

Niu Ren and Liu Mu had been pursued ten thousand li by the Yaksha Heavenly King, chased from the east all the way to the bitter cold lands of the far west, then forced to flee the mortal world back to the World of Immortality.

“Fatty Niu, have you sired a little Bull Demon King yet?” Xiao Chen teased.

“I’m in my prime, full of youthful vitality—why would I want a burden?” Niu Ren laughed, looking honest and simple. But those in the know dared not underestimate him; this was the famous Bull Demon King, a figure who had risen to prominence over the past twenty years.

Liu Mu’s face was somewhat pale, as it had always been. Though he was healthy enough, a hint of sickliness clung to his handsome features. He smiled and said, “Fatty Niu has a knot in his heart. For twenty years, he has been devoted to Miss Liu Ruyan, refusing to marry anyone else.”

Xiao Chen was taken aback, then laughed. “Liu Ruyan is Dugu Jianmo’s sister. Does Fatty Niu want to be that iron-faced swordsman’s brother-in-law?”

The chubby Niu Ren shook his large ox horns and let out a silly laugh. “Don’t listen to his nonsense.” But it looked very much like a guilty attempt to cover up the truth.

“Dugu Jianmo?” Zhuge Liang exclaimed in surprise. “I haven’t heard news of him in nearly twenty years. I wonder where he is now.”

“Yes, Dugu Jianmo has been gone for almost twenty years. I don’t know if something has happened to him.” Liu Mu sighed. “And the monk Yizhen… he left far too soon. If he were still alive today, with his cultivation, he would surely be a towering figure in this world.”

“When the Cultivation World was full of experts, and now the Hundred Races have all emerged, why are those people so rarely seen?” Xiao Chen found it strange that cultivators from the Cultivation World seemed scarce nowadays.

Niu Ren took a gulp of wine. “Those people are best at preserving their strength. Most of the Cultivation World experts have returned to their own realms. But now the Four Worlds are not an insurmountable barrier with the Nine Provinces. Though crossing is still difficult, with enough cost it can be done. They will certainly return.”

With a tinkling of jade pendants, two beautiful young women entered the hall. One was passionate as fire, her voluptuous figure swaying with an enchanting rhythm; the other was serene and pure, delicate as a snow lotus in bloom. They were Fire Dance and Ice Qin, both cultivators. After so many years, time had left few traces on them.

Fire Dance drifted over like a cloud, sitting beside Liu Mu with great familiarity. She smiled sweetly. “Thank you, Brother Liu Mu, for protecting us earlier…”

Ice Qin also expressed her gratitude, bowing to Liu Mu and Niu Ren.

“You…” The two beauties noticed Xiao Chen on the other side. Though they had not yet seen his face, they recognized the form from years past.

Given their cultivation level, they could not access the deepest secrets, but they had heard the ordinary news that passed from the mortal world back to the World of Immortality—that Xiao Chen had died in battle in the Nine Provinces. To see him again today shocked them speechless.

Zhuge Liang snickered. “Out with the old, in with the new? You don’t even see us brothers?”

“You… really are still alive?” The two clever and beautiful courtesans seemed at a loss for words.

“It seems every time I meet an old acquaintance, I have to astonish them for a while. This is unavoidable,” Xiao Chen said with a wry smile.

A fragrant breeze drifted by as Ice Qin stepped forward, and Fire Dance, even more warmly, leaned close to Xiao Chen. Both women insisted on offering him a few cups of wine.

Soon, the hall echoed with the tinkling of zither music, like celestial tones. Then a fiery, unrestrained dance began, graceful and enchanting. Fire Dance and Ice Qin displayed their arts to the fullest.

The golden wine in the jade cup gleamed with a lustrous light, its fragrance intoxicating. Xiao Chen held the cup, leaning back in his chair. The soft furs of rare beasts beneath him were supple and relaxing, allowing his entire body to unwind.

After so many years of struggling for survival in the Death World, this present scene felt like a dream. At last, he could enjoy the pleasures of the living like any ordinary person.

The fine wine, the exquisite dishes, the zither music, the passionate dance… all of it made him feel the reality and beauty of life. The contrast with the dead, silent, monotonous Death World was overwhelming.

Beside him, Ke Ke was also contentedly sipping sweet fruit wine. The little beast’s eyes sparkled, full of tiny stars.

“Ya-ya… so delicious…” The little one had never touched alcohol before, but today she tasted fruit wine for the first time and could not stop. She grew tipsy, swaying and wobbling, utterly adorable.

Fatty Niu Ren swirled his wine cup. “Don’t you think we went a bit overboard today? If we provoke the old dragon from the depths of the Southern Wastes, we’ll be in big trouble.”

Liu Mu shook his head with a smile. “After the False God Calamity, the illusory Half-Ancestors vanished forever, and the true Half-Ancestors disappeared as well. I suspect that old dragon has long since left the Southern Wastes, probably due to some matter. Otherwise, how could the Southern Wastes Dragon Clan have become such a mess with no one to restrain them?”

Xiao Chen nodded. “I have entered the Nine Provinces several times and asked many people, trying to learn where the Half-Ancestors of those years had gone. But in these past years, no one seems to have seen them. Today, I came first to settle my grudge with Long Teng, and second to test whether that old dragon is still deep in the Southern Wastes.”

A heavenly voice rang out, accompanied by a wafting fragrance. A peerlessly beautiful woman with a devilish figure and an angelic face stepped lightly into the hall. Her black dress fluttered like falling petals, accentuating her graceful curves.

“You are… the Flower Queen?” Zhuge Liang was very excited. He had long heard that the Flower Queen had come to Heavenly Emperor City.

The Drunken Beauty Palace and the Sinking Fish, Falling Goose Palace had branches in every great city of the Eternal Continent. Some said they belonged to the same organization; others claimed they were rivals. The true relationship between them was hard to discern.

The Flower Queen of the Drunken Beauty Palace and the Flower Emperor of the Sinking Fish, Falling Goose Palace had always been mysterious. Though famous, few had ever seen their true faces. Legend said they were peerless beauties, the most captivating women in the world.

Years ago, when Xiao Chen first set foot in the Drunken Beauty Palace, he had heard tales of the Flower Queen, but had never seen her in person.

The enchanting woman laughed lightly as she drifted into the hall, graceful as a dancing butterfly.

“It’s you…”

Both Xiao Chen and Niu Ren recognized the woman before them. They never expected the Flower Queen to be her.

“My name is Yaoyao, and I am also the Flower Queen you speak of.” She was the peerless enchantress of the Heavenly Demon Palace. All the people in the hall had witnessed her skills more than twenty years ago.

Only Liu Mu knew something of the Drunken Beauty Palace’s background, for his grandmother was the head of the Heavenly Emperor City branch. But he had never become deeply involved, training outside since childhood and knowing only limited information.

Yaoyao was a beauty that could topple nations, enchanting all who saw her. At this moment, her bare feet were white as snow, her toes crystalline. She laughed lightly, her demeanor charming, her allure bewitching—truly a peerless temptress.

“Ice Qin, Fire Dance, you must thank these gentlemen properly,” Yaoyao said, her smile sweetly seductive.

It was clear she had been watching from the shadows for some time. So when she saw Xiao Chen, resurrected from the dead, she showed little surprise. She approached with a bewitching smile, sat beside Xiao Chen, and engaged the group in warm conversation.

With a thunderous crash, the entire Drunken Beauty Palace trembled. A nearby pavilion was smashed to pieces by a house-sized purple-golden hammer. The hammer, four to five meters in diameter, stood amid the ruins, gleaming with a cold light.

A tall figure descended from the sky—powerfully built, muscles bulging with infinite strength. The strangest feature was his dragon tail.

“Who killed our young master? Come out and die!” He waved his hand, lifting the enormous purple-golden hammer as if it were made of straw, showing no effort at all.

“He’s a dragonman, a half-breed between the Dragon Clan and humans,” Zhuge Liang murmured.

Everyone walked into the courtyard. Xiao Chen frowned. “Long Teng certainly puts on airs. Does he want me to kill every single person he sends before he shows himself?”

“I am the Purple Lightning General of the Southern Wastes Dragon Clan!” The dragonman glared at Xiao Chen. “How dare you provoke the Dragon Clan’s dignity. I will extract your soul and offer it to the young master!”

Yaoyao laughed lightly. “Long Teng is only of the fourth generation of the Southern Wastes Dragon Clan. His dragon blood is impure. If his son is the young master, then what are the three little dragon kings with true dragon blood? You are a general of the Dragon Clan? I think you are a general of no true rank.”

“Bitch, die!” The purple-golden hammer crashed down, shattering the void and sending bolts of purple lightning lancing in all directions.

Liu Mu stepped forward. “You dare to boast at the mere Fish-Leap First Heaven?”

With a flash of cyan light, a curtain of blue radiance rolled up toward the sky, instantly enveloping the four-to-five-meter hammer. Spatial rending slashes crisscrossed, shattering the refined-metal hammer into a pile of iron filings that rained down.

The self-styled Dragon Clan general lashed out with a dragon shadow, his tail extending like a divine whip, tearing through heaven and earth as it swept toward Liu Mu with terrifying force.

Liu Mu did not underestimate him. Intending to make an example, he swept out a wave of cyan light that engulfed the dragonman, unleashing his most fearsome Spatial Divine Principle.

“Spatial Blade Rain!”

Within a ten-zhang radius, Liu Mu became absolute sovereign. He sealed the dragonman in place, and thousands of cyan beams, like falling stars or a storm of light, crisscrossed through the space.

“Ah…” The self-styled general let out a single miserable scream before being pierced by the spatial blade rain, cut into countless pieces, and finally reduced to a mist of blood. Liu Mu lightly sketched in the air, tearing open a great rift, and swept all the blood mist into the dimensional void.

The Dragon Clan experts who had followed the general turned pale. Even Xiao Chen was somewhat surprised. Liu Mu was undeniably a cultivator of great potential. The Space Law was called the king among divine principles—equal in realm, the space spiritist reigned supreme. His power would one day reach unimaginable heights.

“Our Dragon Clan has long lived apart from the world. Who exactly seeks trouble with my clan?” A middle-aged man in his thirties strode through the void, approaching step by step from the distant sky. A host of Dragon Clan experts surrounded him.

Zhuge Liang sneered under his breath. “His underlings dare to kidnap beauties and seize others’ Beast Fighting Palaces, yet he acts the victim. How disgusting.”

“Ya-ya, ya-ya…”

Little beast Ke Ke flew up into the sky, angry and wide-eyed, staring at the approaching middle-aged man.

Long Teng’s expression tightened. The moment he saw the snow-white little beast, a wave of discomfort washed over him.

“Little one, come back with me to the Southern Wastes. No matter what, you have cultivated my race’s divine arts. Though there have been misunderstandings, we are no longer strangers.”

Hearing this, Xiao Chen soared into the air, his long hair dancing wildly, his gaze fixed on Long Teng. “If you had such intentions, you would not have stood idly by when she was killed twenty years ago, nor pursued me thereafter.”

“Impossible!” Long Teng, upon seeing the figure before him, was shocked into speechlessness. He involuntarily retreated a few steps, pointing at Xiao Chen. “You… how are you still alive?!”

“Surprised?” Xiao Chen stared at him. “Disappointed? Even the heavens could not take me.”

“This cannot be!” Long Teng stared at Xiao Chen, as if refusing to believe his eyes. In his heart, he had always looked down on Xiao Chen, a man he had manipulated at will, never considering them equals.

But too much had happened since then. During the False God Calamity, Xiao Chen had sent the illusory Half-Ancestors to their end. Such a momentous event—how could Long Teng not know of it? Meeting again now, a deep unease settled in his chest. Remembering the great calamity of twenty years ago, he felt a flicker of fear.

“Let us settle this once and for all today.” Xiao Chen’s words were calm, but his presence was overwhelming, pressing down on all who heard.

“You? Settle with me? A fine joke!” Long Teng’s expression turned contemptuous. Even knowing Xiao Chen’s past, he scorned the “minor character” he had once controlled. As a dragon, he possessed an innate pride. “Without the Yellow-Clay Altar, you are nothing. In my eyes, you will always be a card, a chess piece.”

Xiao Chen was not angered. He walked forward through the void, step by step. “Then let strength speak.”

“If you want to fight my master, you must pass through me first!” A dragonman rushed forward.

Xiao Chen did not pause, treating him as if he did not exist. He advanced unhurriedly and pointed a finger. The dazzling light curtain of the attack instantly shattered, and a bloody hole appeared on the dragonman’s forehead. He fell from the sky.

But the surrounding Dragon Clan experts were all warriors sworn to death and unafraid of dying. They charged together.

All their efforts were futile. Xiao Chen, calm and at ease, made casual motions with his hands, and blood rained from the sky. The Dragon Clan experts before him crumpled like scarecrows, utterly helpless.

A single finger-point pierced a man; a single palm strike shattered half a man’s body. It was as easy as swatting flies.

Ten kills with one step!

The Dragon Clan experts before him shattered like fine porcelain, utterly defenseless.

Growing a bit impatient, Xiao Chen flicked out a Lingxi Sword Wave. The twenty-odd Dragon Clan experts charging ahead burst apart in rapid succession, turning into mist of blood in the sky, annihilated body and soul.

Such methods sent chills through everyone present.

These were Long Teng’s elite warriors, yet they died so cheaply.

Xiao Chen’s footsteps landed on the void with a rhythmic pulse. The heavens and earth trembled, and a rumbling sound echoed as if he were treading solid ground. His steps were one with the world’s pulse, causing this small realm to shake with his every movement.

With a series of dull explosions, the remaining seventeen Dragon Clan experts were shattered by the terrifying cosmic vibrations, utterly destroyed.

“Show your true strength! Do not hold back before me!” Xiao Chen faced Long Teng, his eyes blazing with divine light. He refused to believe that Long Teng was only at the Deathless Longevity realm as he appeared. The dragon must be suppressing and hiding his true power, just like the Little Defiant Dragon.

With a roar, a dragon’s cry shook the heavens. Long Teng erupted with a devastating aura and lunged at Xiao Chen.

The two mighty experts became bolts of lightning in the sky, and a fierce battle erupted.

Dragon energy flooded the heavens. A colossal dragon shadow hung like a dark cloud, covering half the sky. It twisted and danced, trapping Xiao Chen within, its scales like a million divine swords blazing with billions of beams of light, drowning Xiao Chen.

Xiao Chen, having cultivated his peerless Martial Body, used the Eight Aspect Worlds to stand as if in another realm. He channeled all the incoming sword light into the eight overlapping spaces, not a single ray reaching him.

At the same time, he took the offensive. The Lingxi Sword Wave swept across the ten directions, shattering the dragon shadow in an instant and striking directly at Long Teng’s true body.

Long Teng soared through the heavens, his entire body now covered in ink-black scales. Though in human form, he had become terrifying to the extreme, revealing his half-dragon hybrid form.

A destructive aura filled the air. The heavens trembled; wind and thunder raged from all sides. The clouds in the sky were blasted apart.

Xiao Chen never underestimated his enemies. He moved simultaneously: the Four Loose Techniques, the Eight Aspect Worlds, and the Weng Heavenly Sound. Divine abilities and peerless arts emerged one after another.

Though Long Teng had once disdained Xiao Chen, he now had to muster all his concentration. The slightest carelessness would bring lifelong regret.

The fierce battle made the sky above Heavenly Emperor City a forbidden zone. The heavens shook, and all directions were stunned.

Half a quarter of an hour later, another dragon cry rang out. The two mighty experts separated.

Xiao Chen grasped a bloody dragon horn in his hand, while Long Teng’s eyes blazed with fury. His long hair was disheveled, and one of the dragon horns hidden among his locks had been broken off.

With a thunderous boom, a great seal the size of a mountain flew from the distant sky, crashing down toward Xiao Chen.

“The Heaven-Overturning Seal!” Yaoyao exclaimed.

This heavy treasure was known throughout the World of Immortality. Most cultivators knew its origin—a supreme artifact of the Guang Chengzi lineage under the Original. Without a doubt, members of that lineage had arrived, seeking to trouble Xiao Chen. During the False God Calamity, he had offended far too many.