The Abyssal Depths were much richer in qi than the surface. And monsters were attracted to energy density. However, that didn’t mean that the surface was wholly unappealing. A place like the empire's capital is still attractive enough that veritable hordes of monsters charge at it all the time.

The former Empress was a wise woman, however. With an Earth Manipulation spirit power, she formed intricately shaped caverns beneath the capital, and their unique shape prevents energy from flowing underground while it siphons it above.

The upward direction to the monsters living below felt almost like a neverending void. Not even the lowliest of creatures ventures up there.

Neave pondered this. Could such a shape be used in something like armor to—

“You whelp,” a deep, thundering voice echoed around him. “You not only dare intrude upon my domain, but you also dare lose focus in confronting me?”

“Huh?” he asked dumbly.

Oh, right.

He was fighting a red dragon, a titanic, fifty-meter-long monstrosity of serpentine death. Red dragons were known for their powerful resistance against qi techniques and plentiful life force reserves. So he was hunting it to—

“That’s it!” it roared or something as a red light lit up.

He wasn’t really paying attention, however. After fusing his abilities again and fighting monsters for a while, he realized something peculiar. The nerve-memory aspect of Thunder Nerves spread throughout most of his body, giving him a second consciousness that could fight independently from his mind.

Although he had been trying his hardest, he wasn’t quite there yet with his muscles. He was quite a bit smaller than his peak back in the nightmare realm, but his power had grown considerably in a very short time.

His body roared with power as his fists shaped into bony, sharp spikes. With a flash of will, his speed exceeded that of sound, and he immediately appeared before the dragon. Around a thousand or so strikes, and roughly two seconds later, he realized that a dragon’s defense, as a supreme diamond-ranked threat, was not something to scoff at. With a red breath attack, it nearly vaporized his body, but from a small piece of charred flesh, he regenerated in an instant, popping back into existence from well beyond a state that should have killed him.

The dragon was shocked at his survival ability, and it shifted backward, making some space between them in the giant open caverns. Facing it in a direct fight wasn’t impossible for him, but it was tedious and needlessly time-consuming.

So, he dove straight into the dragon’s mouth. Big mistake. His body nearly disappeared as the dragon’s incredible digestion power tore his flesh into smithereens. Unfortunately, that strategy wouldn’t work against a beast of diamond rank. Thankfully, he was able to flee before he thoroughly disappeared.

The dragon seemed quite angry, but he doubted it was quite as frustrated as he was. He had to find a way to kill it quickly since each moment mattered. Sighing, he resigned himself to plan B: it was time to try the… other way inside.

After an excruciating thirty seconds that left Neave almost wincing in sympathy, the dragon’s guts were reduced to mush, and it was dead, lying lifelessly on the cavern floor. Poor thing.

Either way, it was time for his true mind, which was still busy contemplating ways to gather power, to kick in and take over.

“Done already?” he mused, pleased by his body’s increase in performance. He was surprised that it was capable of thinking up the ass-crawl technique on the spot like that.

Thus, forming his arm into a giant sawblade, he cut the dragon’s head off. Then, he placed it into the positively massive dimension ring he had bought from the vendor and continued chopping it up. After less than ten seconds of gruesome sawing and chopping, the cave was covered in dragon blood and chunks of its flesh. And he had collected all of it.

Now, it was time to return to the others. In a blink of supernatural speed and movement techniques, he traveled through the well-memorized layout of the caves until he reached his allies.

They were all still busy digesting the other slop he had prepared for them. Good. Their stomachs were getting stronger. Naturally, all of them still looked ready to puke, but that was nothing but a minor side effect of consuming tons of liquefied monster flesh.

Their bodies were already close to entirely in line with what they had achieved in the Nightmare Realm, but there was always more improvement to be made. Although the work hadn’t been particularly demanding for most of them, given that they had all cultivated to the peak of the platinum path, he had to… intervene a bit to speed some things up.

Needless to say, Hunter hadn’t been pleased when Neave’s fingers morphed into tiny parasites he then proceeded to use to… let’s say, surgically remove excess muscle.

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Nobody was surprised when they saw him retrieve the dragon’s head from his dimension ring.

Marven grabbed a cup of rancid liquid, downed it like a champ, then turned to his son and asked, “Are we up?”

He nodded. After quickly manifesting the life force bridge, he allowed them to step up and apply the alchemical techniques he had taught them. Dragon flesh, even after death, was still incredibly tough and challenging to deal with. Some key types of remnant spirit had to be disassembled first, and his Sacred Blood wasn’t capable of doing that since, technically, it wasn’t toxic in any way.

This structural remnant spirit was the secret behind why their bodies were so rigid. His allies took only thirty seconds to finish their job, but given that there were five of them and they were positively sweaty afterward, it wasn’t an easy task.

Then, Neave stepped up. First, he pulled out the gigantic metal basin and threw the head of the dragon into it. Then, after forming ten arms and sharpening every finger into blades, he proceeded to shred the head into a paste.

Usually, dragon flesh was a scarce and powerful treasure. Of course, killing a dragon and retrieving its flesh was a task that the Emperor and the Great Four could achieve without too much risk, but that wasn’t the main problem. Dragon muscle was the only even remotely edible part of a dragon’s body.

And even then, it had to be treated excessively to purify it enough for consumption to be possible. If it wasn’t, most who ate it raw would simply explode, their bodies overflowing with toxic energies that tore them apart.

Dragon muscle, however, was nothing compared to any other part of its body. At least it could be treated and consumed. The other parts, however? The skin had extremely potent qi technique nullification properties and thus could deteriorate a cultivator’s cultivation if disgested. The heart also made people explode, but there was no way to stop that from happening.

Its veins made the veins of humans too thick to allow blood to flow through, and its blood made the blood of whoever consumed it too viscous to flow through the veins. The brain matter, or any of its nerve tissue, was a drug that made people lose their minds instantly.

The bones made people’s bones thicker, but also calcified the surrounding tissue—worst case scenario? One could become a statue of bone.

There were numerous other demerits to consuming parts of a dragon.

After blending the entire head into a thick soup without removing any of its parts, he started the purification process. He poured a generous dose of his blood in, and then, he began. With a tendril of life force, he remotely activated Sacred Blood and started cleansing the substance of all toxic properties.

Instantly, his entire body bulged as his veins appeared along the surface. They grew darker by the second, and his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. Even with what was technically a diamond-ranked spirit power, cleansing the violent storm of turbulent energies was a herculean task that made him spit even more blood into the mix.

But after a while, he was done. It was a pure red substance, perfectly mixed into what could perhaps even be called an elixir.

His allies stepped forward, gawking at the substance and swallowing.

Indeed, they had had much monster meat so far, but this was the first time they tasted dragon. The tales of the legends surrounding them made almost everyone extremely uncomfortable, barring Harel, who bravely scooped up a small cup of the substance, and Gabrias, who put his complete faith in his lord’s wisdom.

“Wait!” he yelled, halting their intent to drink the liquid. “Take only small bits at a time. Too much of a good thing is not good and is actually still going to make you explode into gory fireworks.”

They nodded nervously at his words. Then, with all the bravery they could muster, they sipped.

It was as if something had exploded in their bodies. Everyone lit up with a glow that made Neave almost presume it was a failure, but that was premature. Within a few minutes, they shrank back again.

All of them appeared notably stronger, however.

“Wow,” he gawked in awe, impressed by the efficacy of this strategy. “Going underground was a good idea,” he decided.

Dukean cackled at that. “Well, when you can kill a dragon with your eyes closed, it sure is.”

He laughed at that. “Yup. Well then, we better hurry. There is a whole dragon body that needs to be consumed.”

***

With her titanic form hidden in the darkness of a thick, viscous shadow, she growled in displeasure. Four of its lesser kin bowed before it, quivering in fright as they reported the death of a great guardian.

“Preposterous,” she declared with her loud, mighty voice.

For a dragon to fall so quickly, surely the lesser creatures must be mistaken. But they repeated themselves, swearing the truth of their statement on their lives and urging her to act.

The red wyverns had flown into her chamber a while back, swinging their wings and bowing, gesturing at her and retelling the tale of a tiny calamity. A creature who thoroughly ignored the attacks of anything less potent than a dragon and strode right into their lair as if owned a place. Even stranger yet was that it was not immune. With each claw swung at it, the flesh was torn away, and blood was spilled.

But then, a mere moment later, the creature was whole again, as if their attacks were nothing but a dream.

Then, with utter impunity, it slew one of her most powerful servants and made his entire body disappear, either consuming it outright or storing it somewhere with extraordinary powers, like those bastard golems with their spacial voodoo. Yes… perhaps this was one of their ilk. But if that was so, it was strange. It was humanoid, yes, but it was fleshy, not of a metal or stone. A flesh golem, then? But that made no sense. A flesh golem with spacial powers? Perhaps some form of mutant?

Her massive eyes shrunk into tight slits. She began morphing with an intense burst of power, reducing her glorious shape into one more compact.

Out of the massive shadows, a tiny, humanoid form strode out. She was beautiful in any form she took but had to admit that this was one she was particularly fond of.

It was that of a two-meter-tall humanoid. Her body was curved most pleasantly, and she bore the features of her kin, their scales, red eyes, claws, and horns most proudly.

Now, then. It was time to find this intruder and hear their cries for forgiveness. Forgiveness that they would not be granted.