Hearing his words, Yuan Weiyang grabbed Uncle Xiao without a second thought and hurled him out of the golden ship, calling out loudly, "Uncle Xiao, get out first! Don't let anyone in!"
Having cultivated the Great Dao of the Emerald Rock alongside Xu Ying, she was unaffected by the Dao weeping and could protect herself. Xu Ying possessed no cultivation beyond his incense smoke qi, so he was unharmed as well. Uncle Xiao alone had cultivated only to the Earth Immortal realm and was completely powerless to withstand the Dao weeping!
Yuan Weiyang's act of throwing him out was purely for his own safety.
The moment Uncle Xiao flew clear of the golden ship, he saw scores of immortals clambering onto the vessel, leaping inside one after another. He hastily shouted, "This is a ghost ship that returned from the other shore! It holds the Dao weeping!"
"Dao weeping, my foot!"
An Immortal King swung a palm strike, sending him tumbling head over heels, and sneered, "What insolence! You actually want to keep it all for yourself!"
A jeweled carriage sped over and descended toward the ship. Seated serenely inside was an Immortal Monarch, who said in an unhurried voice, "Having come from the other shore, this ship must carry strange treasures, perhaps even the secrets of the other shore itself. If I do not claim them, wouldn't that be a reckless waste of heaven's gifts?"
Uncle Xiao steadied himself and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Don't board the ship! There is Dao weeping aboard!"
A few others took offense at his shouting and knocked him down. Beaten half to death, Uncle Xiao watched helplessly as the golden ship flew farther and farther away.
Scores of immortals continued scrambling onto the ship, while others gave chase, eager to seize the treasures of the primordial Dragon Race.
Uncle Xiao wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and shook his head. "Men die for wealth..."
Just as Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang prepared to follow the source of the Dao weeping, bloodcurdling screams suddenly echoed from the sky. Skeletons tumbled down from above, instantly shattering into powder with a clatter.
The two looked up and saw more people squeezing into the World-Crossing Golden Ship. The vessel was like a miniature continent, complete with mountains, rivers, and pastoral lands, and even possessed its own atmosphere.
The moment those immortals crossed into the golden ship's atmosphere, their flesh and blood quickly dissolved. Even their magic treasures and jeweled carriages withered and decayed, drifting down in a scatter of debris.
Seeing this, Xu Ying suddenly looked at the flying swords that had stuck into him earlier. Yuan Weiyang also came to a sudden realization and glanced at the golden blades.
Both felt a wave of uncertainty.
This set of golden swords was truly extraordinary; in ancient times, it must have been an exceptional treasure. To have resisted the effects of the Dao weeping for so long without decaying, and to still retain such power tens of millions of years later, it had to be a top-grade artifact of the Dragon Court!
"What a pity that the power of these golden swords has been greatly damaged, and more than half have shattered, leaving only twenty-seven blades," Yuan Weiyang said with genuine regret.
Had this set been intact, it would likely have been a treasure on par with a Daluo Golden Immortal. More importantly, it was a massive set, flying like a golden cloud!
A single golden sword was already equivalent to a Daluo Golden Immortal treasure; so many together could probably rival a Wondrous Realm treasure!
"What a pity that even they could not escape the corruption of the Dao weeping."
Right then, the sound of Dao weeping rapidly drew near. A Zangified white-bone divine dragon charged toward them, a golden key hanging from its neck. Opening its maw wide, it unleashed waves of Dao weeping at them.
Yuan Weiyang stood completely motionless and opened her mouth, uttering a Dao weep back at it.
The white-bone divine dragon immediately abandoned her and directed its weeping toward Xu Ying, as if inquiring whether he was one of its own kind.
Xu Ying blinked and opened his mouth: "Ahhh!"
He wanted to produce the Dao weeping, but could not make the sound. Lacking any magic power, he naturally could not perform the Dao weeping.
With a sharp gust of wind, the white-bone divine dragon raised its razor-sharp claw and slammed it down with a thunderous roar!
*Bang!*
The dragon's skeletal claw came down over Xu Ying, but its toe bones split right through the middle. Xu Ying pierced through its toe bones like a nail, utterly unyielding.
The divine dragon lifted its claw and stared in bewilderment at the hole through it.
Xu Ying turned to Yuan Weiyang in surprise. "This thing still retains part of its intelligence..."
Yuan Weiyang had been worried, but seeing him unharmed, she let out a sigh of relief.
*Bang!*
Hearing the sound, the white-bone divine dragon slammed another paw down, only for yet another hole to punch through its claw.
Xu Ying's Leakless Golden Body had withstood a strike from the Ginseng Fruit Tree; aside from being blasted apart to the point of death, his human skin had suffered not the slightest damage. Mighty though the white-bone divine dragon was, it was far inferior to the Ginseng Fruit Tree.
Xu Ying raised his hand and threw a punch, a crack of thunder instantly echoing out. He chuckled, "You aren't a Supreme, so how do you expect to hurt me?"
*Boom!*
His fist shattered the white-bone divine dragon's claw, sending the dragon tumbling and rolling a great distance before it finally came to a halt. Scrambling to its feet, the dragon looked at its broken claw, then hastily limped away at a surprisingly swift pace.
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang exchanged a glance, sharing an unspoken understanding, and gave chase after the white-bone divine dragon.
They followed it over hill-like pavilions, until an open expanse suddenly appeared before them. Everywhere lay ruined walls and fallen masonry, and imposing skeletons of divine dragons came into view!
Most of these dragon skeletons were not in dragon form, but rather in the form of dragon-headed Daoists—dragon heads atop human bodies, clad in magnificent robes!
They had likely been experts who had taken orders during the Dragon Court era to steer the ship beyond the universe in search of the other shore.
The various Dao realms of numerous Dragon Race experts were intertwined and overlapping, most of them belonging to beings of the Sixth or Seventh Dao Realm!
Their Dao realms had decayed severely amid the Dao weeping. A slight touch would shatter a Dao scene, and branch-like patterns grew in many places, as if the Dao scenes had sprouted mold.
Xu Ying could no longer divine the Great Daos they had cultivated in life from their Dao realms. When he reached out to touch one, the Dao realm began to pulverize, crumbling into a vast shower of dust with a soft rustle.
"Why did they die here?" Xu Ying murmured, gazing at the corpse of a dragon-headed Dragon Race expert.
The World-Crossing Golden Ship, which was supposed to have journeyed to the other shore burdened with the mission of preserving their species, had returned to its native universe without fulfilling its duty. That was an unforgivable crime of treason against their race.
These Dragon Race experts would never have done so willingly, so what had compelled them to return?
The broken-clawed white-bone divine dragon from earlier was rummaging through the skeletons, finding a dragon claw and attaching it to its right limb.
Spotting Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang, it immediately let out a threatening weep toward Xu Ying.
Xu Ying paid it no mind, continuing to survey their surroundings.
Yuan Weiyang crouched before a skeleton and said in surprise, "These Dragon Race experts died while locked in combat with an enemy."
Xu Ying went over to her side and crouched down, his expression solemn. At the crown of the skeleton's skull was a rough hole, the bone cracked in branch-like fractures.
Peering inside the cranium, even more branch-like patterns filled the interior!
Xu Ying held up a finger to gauge the hole. The finger that had killed this Dragon Race expert had been exceptionally thick; a single finger had pierced the skull, and an Emerald Rock divine ability had obliterated the expert!
He stood up and searched carefully, soon spotting the marks where a Seventh Dao Realm had been pierced by an Emerald Rock divine ability, splitting the Dragon Race expert inside from head to toe into two halves!
Yuan Weiyang walked along the other side. Flanking each other left and right, the two advanced slowly through the battlefield ruins, scanning left and right in search of clues.
The white-bone divine dragon wanted to attack Xu Ying, yet dared not. It ducked behind several skeletons now and then, sneaking peeks at him like a petty thief.
Xu Ying noticed that the creature had picked up a thick, heavy, blade-shaped treasure from the battlefield, likely intending to test it on him.
"Ah-Ying, there's an Eighth Dao Realm Dragon Race expert here!" Yuan Weiyang's voice called out.
Xu Ying rushed over. The Eighth Dao Realm expert still maintained a fighting stance, glaring with wide, furious eyes. His aura was overwhelmingly intense, causing an uncomfortable pressure.
His Eighth Dao Realm was remarkably profound, an eightfold heaven composed of countless dragon glyphs. The mastery of Dao methods was truly awe-inspiring!
His corpse had not fully dissolved, still retaining dragon scales and traces of flesh and blood.
Yet he was dead. The fatal wound was a massive hole torn through his chest; a large hand had reached into his heart, ripping it out while the principles of an alien Dao invaded his body, Zangifying his internal organs!
Xu Ying calmed his mind and whispered, "An Eighth Dao Realm expert is an expert of the Wondrous Realm of Great Luo, or a peak Supreme. Even a being like this died here."
He found it hard to accept. Whether in the ancient era or today, experts of the Wondrous Realm of Great Luo were exceedingly rare. The Six Supremes and Twelve Wondrous Ones represented the very zenith of the new dynasty, and even now, the full twelve had not been found!
Yet here, one had died in complete obscurity!
"Here's another Eighth Dao Realm!" Yuan Weiyang called from ahead.
Xu Ying walked over, noticing dozens of skeletons belonging to Seventh Dao Realm dragons along the way, causing his eyelid to twitch. The Seventh Dao Realm was equivalent to a Daluo Golden Immortal!
Along the path he had walked, he had spotted no fewer than thirty to fifty skeletons of Daluo Golden Immortals!
"An entire era's worth of experts died aboard this ship..."
His heart tightened. He arrived before the second Eighth Dao Realm skeleton, which also belonged to a dragon-headed Dragon Race expert.
This person had also fallen to an Emerald Rock divine ability. His head had been severed, likely cleaved off by the enemy. Yet the expert had held his own severed head and continued the fierce struggle, fighting for a long time headless before finally succumbing.
Xu Ying walked farther out and spotted a third fallen Eighth Dao Realm expert, virtually hacked into pieces by Emerald Rock divine abilities, his death gruesome beyond words.
"Ah-Ying, I can't understand the Emerald Rock divine abilities left on their corpses," Yuan Weiyang said suddenly as she inspected the remains.
Xu Ying said grimly, "Neither can I."
Yuan Weiyang looked at him in shock. Xu Ying was arguably the most accomplished practitioner of the Great Dao of the Emerald Rock in the entire world. If even he could not understand the residual divine abilities, it meant the techniques used to kill these Dragon Race experts were of an exceedingly high order!
Examining the marks on the bones, Xu Ying said, "The one who killed them did not come from our universe. He—or it—must have come from the other shore!"
Steeling themselves, they walked onward.
Suddenly, an emerald-green vessel came into view.
Carved from Emerald Rock, the ship was many times smaller than the giant Dragon Court galleons, though somewhat larger than an ordinary vessel. It was emerald green throughout, equipped with a mast and sail structure that had broken off.
There, the aura of the Great Dao was extraordinarily potent, intense enough to cause severe discomfort, even nearly freezing Xu Ying's qi and blood!
Xu Ying was filled with shock and doubt. Though he had lost his cultivation, his physical body's achievements remained. For an aura to feel so overwhelming that it caused him physical distress, the cultivation behind it had to far surpass an Immortal Emperor Supreme!
"To retain such a formidable aura tens of millions of years after death, this expert could not have been inferior to the Holy Venerable in life!"
Yuan Weiyang could no longer draw near; the pressure was too intense, exceeding what she could endure. Xu Ying had her stay behind while he stepped forward alone, heading toward the Emerald Rock vessel.
Leaping onto the ship, he finally saw the owner of that aura.
It was an Eighth Dao Realm being, but not of the Dragon Race—it was a human expert. Locked in mutual destruction with him was a Zangified giant unlike any human.
Both had perished together on this ship. The Zangified giant had severed the human expert's heart meridian, while the human expert had pierced the giant's skull.
The back of the Zangified giant's head had exploded, leaving only the bone beneath its facial skin, while the rest was gone.
Xu Ying felt a thrill of shock. Looking up at the human expert, doubts surged in his mind.
"Why would a human expert be aboard the fleeing ship of the Dragon Court?"
Just then, he noticed a golden book resting within the human expert's Dao realm. His heart stirred, and he picked it up and placed it into his robes.
Searching the Emerald Rock vessel further, he found the corpse of another Zangified giant, seemingly female. She had already died, likely brought down by a siege of Dragon Race experts.
Finding nothing else after a thorough search, Xu Ying leaped off the Emerald Rock vessel and returned to Yuan Weiyang's side.
The two opened the golden book and read it carefully. The book was written in the Dao patterns of the ancient era, script originally from the Dragon Court period that had later been inherited by the surviving demons and humans.
The contents of the book left them astonished.
During the Dragon Court era, humanity had held a lowly status. Even if human immortals attained supreme realms of cultivation, most merely tended the gleaming scales of dragon immortals, brushed their manes, and cleaned their teeth. As for the Demon Race, they often served as mounts for dragon immortals.
The owner of the book was a Human Immortal of extraordinary achievement named Qin Daoquan. Because his accomplishments were so great, the Dragon Emperor had recognized his talent and appointed him as a Dragon Court court historian.
When the Dragon Race launched the Sky-Stealing Plan to send a contingent of Dragon Race experts beyond the universe to find the other shore and seek survival, Qin Daoquan had boarded this World-Crossing Golden Ship as a court historian to accompany them.
He had recorded what he witnessed along the journey, so that when the Revival Plan was carried out in the future to awaken the Dragon Race experts sealed within the Ten Thousand Dragons Banner, these historical records would serve as precious research materials for subsequent generations of dragons.
The Sky-Stealing Plan had been a monumental undertaking, with thirty World-Crossing Golden Ships setting out in different directions across the universe. The experts aboard would unleash their magic power and divine sense to the absolute limit, propelling the golden ships to pierce through time and space.
At the edge of the universe lay a expanse of frozen time and space resembling solidified amber, known as the gelatinous zone. While crossing this gelatinous zone, Qin Daoquan's golden ship witnessed three Emerald Rocks tear through the void from beyond the universe, hurtling toward the Heavenly Immortal Realm, Earth Immortal Realm, and Mortal Realm!
They attempted to intercept them, only to find that their divine abilities were virtually useless against the Emerald Rocks.
While gripped by dread, they discovered this Emerald Rock vessel.
It was a scout ship, sent to monitor the strike of the Emerald Rocks.
Consequently, the Dragon Race's Celestial Prime Minister Bi Yanhai, who oversaw the ship, ordered the capture of the Emerald Rock vessel at all costs.
Aboard the Emerald Rock scout ship, they discovered three outlanders: a man, a woman, and a young one who seemed to be just a child among them.
At first, the three were cooperative, but once they gauged the true strength of the World-Crossing Golden Ship, a slaughter ensued!
The notes came to an abrupt halt.
Puzzled, Xu Ying flipped forward, but found only blank pages. There were no further records; Qin Daoquan had likely stepped in personally, fought a bloody battle against the outlanders, and ultimately died in combat, unable to write any further.
Xu Ying murmured, "Strange. There are clearly only two corpses of outlanders on the Emerald Rock ship. Where did the other one go?"
Yuan Weiyang said, "Could it be that the youngest outlander didn't die?"
Xu Ying said, "The Great Dao of heaven and earth doesn't align with theirs. Even if that young outlander escaped the World-Crossing Golden Ship, it couldn't possibly survive. Unless..."
Frowning slightly, he suddenly thought of the Mortal Realm. "The Great Dao rules of the dark Mortal Realm were drastically altered. Only if that young outlander escaped there could it have survived. Still, a mere child among outlanders couldn't possibly have made it all the way to the Mortal Realm, could it?"
***
In the Mortal Realm.
The Holy Venerable had ducked and hidden, finally evading the Ancestral God's relentless pursuit. Yet miseries never come singly: the Immortal Emperor had led old rivals like Zaohua and Danxuan into the Mortal Realm to track him down, putting him in a severely passive position.
Yet to him, this was also a rare opportunity. He had not felt pressure in a very long time, and the pressure the Ancestral God brought was enough to push him a step further.
As for the Immortal Emperor, Zaohua, and the others, he did not hold them in high regard.
Just then, a voice drifted over: "Holy Venerable, all the world's Dao methods stem from the Emerald Rock. I wonder if you agree with that statement?"
The Holy Venerable was startled, his gaze turning sharp as a sword. "Which fellow Daoist is outside?"
A tall figure strode forward, treating his layers of seals as though they were nothing. "I am Lu Yiren, here to pay respects to the Holy Venerable!"
Chapter 632