A swirl of mixed emotions washed over Yu Xian. With a shift of his thoughts, the cockpit of the King of the Abyss Battle Armor slowly opened. He stepped outside and walked up to the Extreme Dragon.
A single drop of Primordial Pure Blood seeped from his fingertip and fell onto the dragon’s carcass.
Since this Extreme Dragon was not the one Xiao Sensen had spoken of, Yu Xian had no reservations whatsoever. If he wanted to resurrect it, he would resurrect it; if he wanted to enslave it, he would enslave it.
The Primordial Pure Blood sank into the beast's body. Moments later, the dull, lifeless dragon began to emit a faint blue luminescence once more. Its faded eyes regained their eerie blue glow, and its massive frame slowly stirred back to life.
Curious about the creature's origins, Yu Xian drew a drop of blood from the Extreme Dragon to peer into its memories.
He chose to watch from the very beginning. The initial scenes were pitch-black, followed by faint threads of red light. The tiny dragon struggled out of its eggshell and tumbled into water, letting its diminutive body drift with the current.
*An electric eel?*
*Or a sea snake?*
Yu Xian scrutinized the creature's form, yet it bore little resemblance to any creature found on Earth.
At the very least, when the Extreme Dragon was born, it showed no draconic characteristics at all. It looked entirely like a snake. It preyed on fish in the water, gradually growing from four or five centimeters to a full meter in length.
Yu Xian could be certain that the world where it grew up was likely quite similar to Earth, yet distinctly not Earth.
It had the same blue sky and white clouds, but no humans existed there. Animals thrived and reproduced in abundance, so food was plentiful. Sometimes it fed on fish and shrimp; occasionally, it caught long-eared beasts resembling rabbits near the water's edge.
It was not until the creature grew to three meters long that a natural predator appeared.
It was a bird with razor-sharp metallic talons, looking somewhat like a vulture and somewhat like an eagle. It plunged from the sky and shredded the serpent's hide, nearly hauling it out of the water. Fortunately, the beast clamped its jaws around a water plant, barely surviving the ordeal at the cost of torn flesh.
For a long time afterward, the creature was hunted relentlessly by this bird, confined entirely to underwater depths. It was the first time Yu Xian had seen the Extreme Dragon in such a pitiful state, though at this stage it hardly qualified to be called an Extreme Dragon at all.
Yet its body continued to grow. Clearly, it was not destined to remain trapped in a small pond; lingering in shallow waters would only invite another strike from the metallic bird's lethal talons.
And so, one night, it swam downriver in search of a larger habitat. That night turned out to be a night of miracles. As it drifted westward along the currents, the pitch-black sky suddenly lit up. Countless stars shattered in an instant, turning night into day.
Terrified, hordes of animals began fleeing in disarray. The young dragon was equally panicked and accelerated, swimming frantically forward.
Right then, a colossal finger descended from the heavens, slamming into the earth with a deafening crash. Innumerable living beings vanished into ash in an instant, and churning clouds of dust swept across the land.
If Yu Xian had been able to observe the scene from another perspective, he would have witnessed a giant in outer space gripping the planet and hurling it toward an adversary on the opposite end.
That adversary was a Dark Gate Dragon.
The Dark Gate Dragon simply opened the gates among its scales, casually and cleanly teleporting the planet away to a random location, before opening its maw to unleash a beam cannon at the giant.
It all unfolded far too quickly.
The few surviving creatures left on the planet's surface were mostly at their last gasp. The sky changed color repeatedly—from white to red, then to blue, and then to gold.
The beings on the planet had no inkling that the world they inhabited had traversed dozens of spatial dimensions in a single breath.
By this point, the young dragon was on the brink of death. Struck by a boulder, trapped as the collapsing rocks blocked the flow of water, it lay in the mud awaiting its end.
Yet just as its life was about to slip away, an immortal maiden gently descended from the sky.
"Oh? Looks like my luck isn't bad." The woman landed before the dragon and smiled into its eyes.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, looking far from a natural creation—as if every detail had been meticulously sculpted and polished over and over. Her facial features, her face, and even every single cell seemed entirely devoid of flaw.
Drawing a jade bottle from a storage ring, she poured all of the blood inside over the creature and said, "Karmic cycles turn. I'm borrowing your eyes for a moment today, so consider this your compensation. No need to thank me. Bye-bye!"
With that, her face drew closer and closer to the creature's eyes. From Yu Xian's perspective, she was leaning directly toward him.
Yu Xian, who had been immersed in the Extreme Dragon's memories, suddenly jerked backward. His eyes snapped wide open, only to see the woman climbing right out of his eyes before drifting lightly to the ground.
"Hooray! The stowaway mission succeeded! Now Mom and Dad can kiss my homework goodbye!" the woman cheered excitedly the moment her feet touched down.
Having fully exited the memory, Yu Xian stared at the woman standing right before him, dumbfounded.
"Y-You... who... who are you?"
Yu Xian stared wide-eyed, feeling a chill run down his spine. For a person to leap straight out of a dragon's memories was utterly terrifying.
"Who am I? I am the daughter of the Great Hero Wuming! I never change my name whether standing or sitting—I am Zhang Buyao!" Though she was exquisite, draped in antique garments with classical grace, her demeanor was not traditional in the slightest; she was lively to an almost excessive degree.
Because she spoke so fast, Little Nora did not catch it clearly and asked curiously, "Big Brother, were her parents so terrified of being jobless that they named her 'Never Unemployed'?"
"It's not 'Never Unemployed'! It's Zhang Buyao—'bu' as in taking steps, and 'yao' as in far away! It means I can take steps that carry me exceedingly far!" Zhang Buyao glared indignantly at Yu Xian, though her gaze was actually directed toward Little Nora.
Yu Xian relaxed at this point. Evidently, this Zhang Buyao was no villain. He couldn't help but retort, "Well, you certainly walked far enough. You walked straight out of a memory."
"I didn't walk out of a memory! I merely used it and you as a medium to travel from the present to the future! Speaking of which... this future seems a little too far into the future. None of you know about the Great Hero Wuming?" Zhang Buyao corrected him, suddenly realizing that Yu Xian and the others had shown no reaction whatsoever to the name.
Yu Xian shook his head. As for the Great Hero Wuming, he truly had never heard of him.
"Really? You honestly don't know?"
"Truly never heard of him. I swear."
"Awesome! That's wonderful!"
Zhang Buyao double-checked just to be sure, and upon receiving confirmation, she immediately rejoiced.
Although she took pride in her father, she was an ambitious second-generation daughter who refused to live forever in his shadow. If no one in this era knew of Wuming, didn't that mean her chance to make a name for herself had arrived?
Here, no one would treat her differently just because she was Wuming's daughter, nor would anyone attribute her accomplishments to her father's shelter.
She would become the Great Hero Zhang Buyao, not Zhang Buyao, daughter of the Great Hero Wuming!
*This will be my era—Zhang Buyao's era! Hahahahaha!*
Her mind was already overflowing with grand visions of supreme success and the adoring reverence of ten thousand people.
Beside her, Yu Xian watched as Zhang Buyao abruptly zoned out, a question mark hovering over his head. He glanced at the Extreme Dragon, which wore an equally bewildered expression. Even this Life-saving Benefactor Number One was entirely beyond its comprehension.
Chapter 322