The Return to a Changed World

Such a bizarre figure was truly unnerving. These people were utterly straightforward—they all rolled their eyes and fainted, not a single one remaining conscious.

"Alas, I am truly your founding ancestor. Why won't you believe me?" The disheveled strange man shook his head and patted each of them awake, one by one.

When the crowd regained consciousness, they saw the strange man unhurriedly take off his own head, carefully wipe it with his tattered sleeve, then weigh it in his palm, back and forth, as if it were nothing more than a rotten watermelon.

Such inhuman stimulation was simply unbearable. Even the most thick-skinned person would have collapsed. The crowd, in perfect unison, stretched their necks, kicked their legs, rolled their eyes, and fainted once more.

"Wake up, wake up." The strange man nudged them one by one, forcing them to consciousness, but the moment their eyes opened, they received another tremendous shock.

With a crisp crack, the strange man dislocated his own thigh, holding his head in one hand and swinging the leg in the other.

"Heavens, don't wake me up anymore!" Faced with such inhuman stimulation, everyone felt their legs give way, their hearts pound as if they would leap from their throats.

"After so many years without seeing living people, I wanted to share some joy with you, yet you are so unappreciative." The strange man's head, held in his hand, spoke without any difficulty.

Share joy? More like scare people to death! After several rounds of shock, the crowd was nearly numb; now they could hardly even faint.

"What… what exactly are you?"

"If you live and never know Sha Polang, you've lived a wasted life." With that, the strange man cracked his thigh back into place, then slowly straightened his head and set it on his neck.

Just then, light flashed, and another figure appeared on the scene. The crowd screamed again, for it was a nine-headed serpent, cast from silver-white metal, glinting with cold, metallic light.

"S-s-snake demon!"

"Monster!"

Everyone shrieked in terror. Today's shocks had already reached the limit of their psychological endurance. Any more would surely frighten them to death.

The nine-headed serpent flashed with light and transformed into a white-robed man. He said to Sha Polang, "You have emerged from seclusion. Do not do frivolous things. Come with me to the Dragon Palace now."

"Brother, I too have become a sage and ancestor. After so many years without seeing the living, I finally found someone to speak my heart to, but they are so uninteresting. These people are too fragile."

Light flashed, and a divine radiance shrouded the crowd, erasing the memories of the recent events. When they woke in confusion, the two figures had already vanished.

The mouth of the Yellow River, near Dongying, was close to this region. The surging, endless river flowed into the vast ocean.

With two soft whooshes, the figures submerged into the Yellow River. The space at the riverbed twisted, and in the blink of an eye they entered a mysterious Dragon Palace—a self-contained small world.

True to mythological legend, the Dragon Palace was built from crystal divine stone, multicolored, glittering, and resplendent. Various treasures were displayed within the magnificent halls, shining brilliantly.

The Dragon Palace stretched on, its grand buildings endless, as if celestial palaces had fallen to this place.

Yet within this vast, elaborate underwater realm, there was such dead silence, utterly devoid of the life it deserved. Still as a graveyard, as if no one had dwelled here for countless years.

The two figures went straight to the central Dragon Hall. There, a youth with hair black as a waterfall sat cross-legged in meditation, motionless as a divine statue. Though he was right before them, he gave an infinite, ethereal feeling, as if he sat far away at the edge of the sky.

Most striking of all, between his strands of hair grew two Ancestral Dragon horns, so vivid and prominent.

When he opened his eyes, the entire Dragon Palace seemed to brighten at once, as if a thousand years of radiance had instantly swept across the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.

He was none other than the Inverse Dragon King of old—the Little Defiant Dragon. In those ancient days, he had thrown himself into the Yellow River before Xiao Chen's eyes, and from then on, he had sunk into silence for over ten thousand and three hundred years.

His innate talent was extraordinary. Cultivating in the Yellow River, which had been transformed from the Ancestral Dragon's body, he had gained enlightenment, reaching an awe-inspiring level of power and becoming a mighty War Ancestor.

What the Ancestral Dragon had left behind was immense. He had yet to truly inherit it all and still had boundless room to grow.

One of the two newcomers was, naturally, Sha Polang. Though a creature of the Death World, this fellow was deeply attached to the mortal realm and loved to roam in the human world. In the ancient days, when the Nine Provinces faced the threat of the Otherworld, Xiao Chen and Keke had taken away most of the cultivators, yet even under such circumstances, this fellow had refused to retreat. Unfortunately, during a battle of powerful experts, someone summoned a meteorite from beyond the heavens, and he was caught in the collateral damage. The meteorite crushed him into the Yellow River, where the Little Defiant Dragon later saved him.

The other was the Nine-Headed Serpent. In bygone years, he had once supported Empress Zhao Lin'er, and some of his offspring had been named crown princes. When the apocalypse came, he was gravely wounded and fell into the Yellow River, also saved by the Little Defiant Dragon.

The Nine-Headed Serpent had once fought a fierce battle with the Inverse Dragon King, and after his defeat, he swore he would become a Nine-Headed Dragon. Yet in the end, he was saved by his greatest enemy. In these thirteen thousand years, he had witnessed with his own eyes his former foe slowly become an Ancestor-level War Dragon.

The grudges of the past had long since scattered with the wind. Now they were among the few ascetic cultivators left in the Nine Provinces, and their old enmity was no more.

"Has that stone figure awakened yet?" Sha Polang peered into the depths of the great hall. "No matter how you put it, I've become a sage and ancestor myself, yet he locked me in an underground cavern for so many years, calling it tempering cultivation. Thinking about it makes me spit blood!"

Just then, a figure appeared silently in the great hall, sitting cross-legged in meditation, like withered wood, like a fossil, without a trace of life's fluctuation.

He was in a state that truly resembled a Stone Man, yet his body was not made of stone, still of flesh and blood. He somewhat resembled the three Upper Ancestral Gods of the Eternal Unknown from ages past.

This was Xiao Chen. He had long since hidden himself beneath the land of the Nine Provinces to cultivate. After many years, thinking back on all his old friends, he had concluded that the Little Defiant Dragon was the most likely to have survived. He thus came to the Yellow River and, after years of searching, had found him. He had also stayed on to cultivate here.

"Since we have all emerged from seclusion, let us go to the mortal world for a visit," the Little Defiant Dragon said as he rose.

Xiao Chen nodded. After so many years, he had grown increasingly calm—or rather, increasingly silent. As he rose, the four of them instantly vanished from the Dragon Palace and appeared on the earth.

They saw again the people from earlier. The disheveled Sha Polang waved toward the oil well. "Hey!"

"What drama troupe are you from? Don't perform here—go find another location," said Boss Zhang, full of authority, glaring at them.

"Brother, I was just chatting with you a moment ago…" Sha Polang muttered.

"Psycho!" Boss Zhang had had that part of his memory erased; there was no way he could believe it.

With a crack, Sha Polang directly removed his head and weighed it in his hand a few times.

"Ghost!" Boss Zhang fell backward.

The four vanished from the spot. The Little Defiant Dragon frowned and said, "Do not casually manifest your divine powers in front of mortals."

"I won't cause trouble. Ten thousand feet of mortal dust, not a drop stains my body. Rest assured, I'll leave no trace. This fellow has become even more attached to the mortal world after his flesh-and-blood rebirth." As he spoke, his eyes were already fixed on the distant city, eager to act alone.

Yet the Little Defiant Dragon forcibly suppressed him. With this fellow's temperament, running off alone in this present world would surely cause chaos.

In the distance, tall buildings stood in dense rows, flying machines sped through the air—the patterns of the land were vastly different from the Nine Provinces of old.

"Time brings great changes. The world today has completely transformed." Xiao Chen sighed, but he was not surprised. He had long seen technological civilizations in the distant past; humanity had already been through such an age before, though like the age of gods and demons, it too could not escape destruction.

Soon, Xiao Chen and his three companions discovered that many regions still bore their ancient names—Yan Capital, Luoyang, Jinling—very similar to the three-thousand-year technological civilization of the Yan and Yellow Emperor era.

Xiao Chen stood in the clouds, gazing down at the earth. All things change, people are not what they once were… This was a new cycle. The river of history was unstoppable, but how long could this last? In the end, it was probably nothing but a dream, an empty flower, as brief and beautiful as a firework.

Standing in the clouds, Xiao Chen opened his right hand. Light flickered, and an object appeared in his palm.

"What is that?" Sha Polang asked.

"The strongest nuclear weapon of the current civilization." Xiao Chen was calm as still water. Then he detonated it in his hand. The so-called strongest nuclear weapon flared like a small flame and died out in his palm, not even damaging a single strand of hair he had pulled out.

"This weapon is too weak, utterly useless." Sha Polang shook his head. The Little Defiant Dragon also opened his palm, placed the captured strongest nuclear weapon on top of Sha Polang's head, and with a bang, a small mushroom cloud rose about half a meter high, turning Sha Polang's long hair into a forest of scorched black.

"Brother, you don't do experiments carelessly like this!" Sha Polang fumed.

His strength, of course, was far below Xiao Chen's. He had not yet reached the state where his body could contain a world bearing the power of billions of stars.

Everything on the earth was like scenery to them, with little intersection.

"Familiar aura… the Seven-Colored Sacred Tree! Could it be Keke?!" Xiao Chen, who had been as calm as an ancient well, suddenly grew agitated.

He directly tore through space, and the four instantly appeared over Dunhuang. His powerful divine sense probed deep into the earth and immediately discerned everything.

With a wave of his hand, the sacred tree that had baffled all cultivators in the ruins vanished, arriving between his fingers.

"The Sacred Tree has evolved further… but there is no aura of Keke left behind." Xiao Chen sank back into silence.

Below was an ancient battlefield. The piece of flesh that had not rotted was the remnant of an Otherworld Ancestral God. He did not know why the divine tree had been buried here.

"Let's go!" Xiao Chen said in a low voice, and the four vanished into thin air.

The Little Defiant Dragon also sensed it—an Ancestral God-level divine sense sweeping toward them.

"There are Ancestral God-level experts walking in this mortal world. Perhaps things will get more interesting. But for now, I want to go to the Four Worlds to search for the remaining Heavenly Marks."

Xiao Chen's strength had reached a bottleneck. All his past techniques and divine powers had sublimated to their utmost. He now needed a new opportunity.

Yet just as he said this, Xiao Chen's heart stirred. The formation diagram within him became hazy; he felt something in a city not far away calling to him.

"Another War Sword!"

He instantly understood what it was.

"It seems we cannot leave just yet."

The four descended outside Yan Capital. After transforming their robes into clothes of this era, they felt quite out of place—especially since all four had long black hair down to their waists.

The language of this era was, of course, different from Xiao Chen's time. But at their level, with a sweep of powerful divine consciousness, they could master it instantly.

Yan Capital was truly bustling. Towering buildings rose one after another, roads extended in all directions. Even the four of them were briefly startled.

Walking through Yan Capital's streets, Sha Polang's eyes seemed not enough. It was not the technological marvels that dazzled him, but the scantily clad beauties—the fellow's nature was beyond cure, his eyes darting with lecherous gleams.

"Ah, true kindred spirits are hard to find. It's a pity that refined people like Jin Sanyi always die young. If he were still here, he'd certainly have many insightful comments…" He then complained, "We can just take the War Sword directly. Why go through all this trouble? How about we split up for a stroll?"

"This War Sword seems problematic…" Xiao Chen frowned slightly.

They then entered an antique street and stopped at a long-standing antique shop. Xiao Chen frowned again. The War Sword was inside, but he felt an indescribable, inexplicable sensation.

"It seems this is bait."

Just then, the War Sword inside the shop trembled faintly, as if sensing something. Light flashed, and the shop, along with Xiao Chen and his companions, vanished.

"Hmph!"

Xiao Chen let out a cold snort. With his power, he tore through space from thousands of miles away over the vast ocean, breaking free from the teleportation formation.

The Little Defiant Dragon frowned. "A formation specifically set for Ancestral Gods, capable of forcibly transporting them elsewhere."

"This is the area of the overseas islands where the Hundred Races once flourished…" The Nine-Headed Serpent frowned.

"The destination of the teleportation formation is ahead." Xiao Chen's eyes shot out two beams of divine light.

Shrouding the auras of the four with his immense power, Xiao Chen quickly rushed forward.

This was a strange sea region. Without reaching the Ancestral God level, one could not enter this place. It had been partitioned from the vast ocean into another space by a great power.

The Nine-Headed Serpent pointed ahead. "A Primordial Demon City!"

In this space, isolated from the outside world, a Primordial Demon City stood towering, exuding an ancient, majestic aura.

Xiao Chen circled it from afar and noticed that at each of the four gates hung a War Sword!

"Too arrogant!" Sha Polang fumed. "To condense an ancient city on the vast sea and brazenly hang four War Swords outside—truly maddening!"

"Look within the city…"

The Little Defiant Dragon pointed at the roiling black mist within the ancient city. One could faintly make out drifting corpses.

Xiao Chen had already noticed them. Those were the remains of Ancestral Gods, including the Old Farmer and Mo Xiaowang, and several others were powerful experts of the Celestial Realm he had seen when he had ascended there.

"Hanging corpses as a provocation, acting with impunity, plainly telling me this is a killing ground…" Xiao Chen's gaze turned cold.

"That is… there are stone statues! One of them looks like… Keke!" The Little Defiant Dragon's eyes shot out two terrifying beams of light.

Within the Primordial Demon City, black mist roiled, and corpses drifted, including stone statues—one of which bore a striking resemblance to the innocent form of Keke.

"What is this?" Xiao Chen's eyes blazed with sharp light, filled with confusion and unease.