Tianyi felt as if his ears were ringing while he stared in disbelief at the pill-sized hole in the egg. Not just him, but Daoyi and Xi Ri was shocked silly as well.
The two had always known that the golden pill Tianyi carried was special, something that Tianyi had obtained from the ruins of the Immortal Court. The pill had somehow attained spirituality and followed Tianyi around like a small pet. Tianyi had told them what a troublemaker the pill was, but the two didn't believe him until now.
The formerly intact egg began to tremble as cracks started to appear all over it. As the cracks started to multiply, the egg began to shrink and shrink. Even as it became smaller and smaller, the cracks never disappeared.
Tianyi finally snapped out of his shock as he gave a helpless look at the shrinking egg. He had resigned himself to feeding the pill with his true qi of chaos after all these years due to it being something from the Immortal Court. Tianyi was hoping to discover a huge opportunity by nurturing the pill, yet before he could see the benefits, he was stabbed in the back by the pill. How could Tianyi not feel heartbreak?
That was a dragon egg. Granted, it was impure, but still!
While the egg was shrinking, the pool around it began to rumble. If Tianyi, Daoyi, and Xi Ri hadn't used their qi to stabilize themselves, they would have fallen over due to the tremors. The red tint of the pond began to clear at a rapid pace, being absorbed by the cracked dragon egg. Soon all the red coloring in the pond disappeared, but the changes didn't end.
The rumbling increased in intensity as streams of water began to be absorbed by the cracked egg as well. The water levels of the pool visibly lowered at a noticeable rate. Simultaneously, the previously soulless aura of the egg began to metaphorize. It wasn't quite a normal soul, but the egg became more and more complete.
At this time, the doors to the incubation room slammed open as the eight guards rushed in. "HALT!"
Tianyi felt his body stiffened at the sudden intrusion by the guards. He turned back to see them staring warily around the room. Only then did Tianyi remember that he still had the mantle covering him, hiding him from view. Upon seeing the petrified bodies of Daoyi and Xi Ri, Tianyi realized he wasn't the only one surprised by the doors slamming open.
Tianyi had a strange feeling like he had been almost caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Granted, he was sneaking in with the intent of stealing the dragon egg, but there was a strange sense of guilt lingering in his heart. Perhaps it was because he had never stolen anything in either of his lives before, and he still had the sensibility that stealing was a horrible crime from his life on Earth.
The eight demon guards surveyed the room, looking for any suspicious points, but they couldn't find anything. The only thing that was out of place was the dragon egg itself.
"Captain, is the egg hatching?" One of the demon guards asked upon discovering no intruders and the source of the commotion originating from the egg.
The captain of the guards, a demon with a cephalopod body and eight arms, shook his head negatively. "According to the elder's estimates, it should have taken at least another fifty years. For the dragon egg to act like this, I'm afraid something went wrong. Quickly summon one of the elders!"
None of the guards had a chance to leave because the gate suddenly slammed shut by itself.
"Who's there!" The captain of the guards shouted as he raised all eight of his weapons and glared around the room. The other seven guards followed suit; each of them unsheathed their weapons and surveyed the room.
However, what answered them was a torrent of black qi that sprang up from their feet and swallowed them. The qi swallowed their bodies whole and disintegrated them, starting from the feet. They only had a chance to scream before their whole body was destroyed and turned into dust.
The eight-armed demon was obviously the strongest as he managed to resist Tianyi's true qi of chaos. Still, he wouldn't be able to last longer as the bottom half of his body had already disappeared. The eight-armed demon roared, and a chitinous shell covered his remaining body, making him look like an octopus with a crab shell.
Tianyi felt the eight-armed demon's aura skyrocket from the Nascent Soul Realm to the Unity Realm instantly. However, the aura was unstable and incomplete, unlike a true Unity Realm expert.
At this, Tianyi felt the anxiety that had been building up within instantly disappeared. I couldn't really have trauma against nascent soul grandmasters, could I? Tianyi thought self-deprecatingly. Even so, Tianyi's actions did not stop, and he constructed a mini Chaos Refining Formation around the eight-armed demon.
Tianyi knew he could take on a half-unity venerable, but as he had never fought one before, he didn't know how much commotion such a battle would cause. So to be safe, he trapped the eight-armed demon in his formation. And it wasn't like that his true qi of chaos wasn't ineffective. All Tianyi had to do was wait until the eight-armed demon was ground into dust.
After all, the eight-armed demon didn't have a way to deal with his true qi of chaos like the Dragon Emperor had. However, there was another being within the room beside Tianyi that could, or rather, something. Under Tianyi's disbelieving eyes, his Chaos Refining Formation began to be broken under his very eyes as a stream of black qi was absorbed by the pill within the dragon egg.
Tianyi recalled the saying, "not afraid of a godlike opponent, only afraid of pig-like teammates." In other words, don't be afraid of your opponent being too strong, be afraid of your comrades dragging you down. This phrase perfectly summed up Tianyi's current feelings.
Why do you think I'm going through so much trouble right now!? And you're still dragging me back!? Tianyi screamed internally.
Tianyi could feel his Chaos Refining Formation become unstable due to the loss of true qi of chaos, so Tianyi had no choice but to increase the fueling of the Chaos Refining Formation. Which, for the case, was no trouble to Tianyi at all, but it was the principle of the matter!
"Tianyi, would anyone else discover the ruckus?" Daoyi asked as she looked around with worry after she saw Tianyi stabilize the situation. Although Xi Ri didn't say anything, his expression exposed his thoughts.
"Most likely. With how important this room is, it's unlikely for the situation to remain hidden for long. Although no one can discover us with the mantle cloaking us, that doesn't mean it has great defensive abilities. If we are hit with anything, we'll still be injured." Well, more like Daoyi and Xi Ri would be injured. Tianyi's body was perversely strong, a fact that the dead Earth Burning Venom Serpent can attest to.
"So what are we going to do?" Daoyi asked.
Tianyi curled his lips upward. "For now, nothing. I still want to retrieve the immortal pill. Right now, it seems to be at a crucial stage, so I don't want to disrupt it. However, once it is finished...how do you guys fancy taking on an army?"
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"Rejected." Daoyi immediately said.
"No," Xi Ri also rejected Tianyi's proposal without a second thought.
"Alright, alright, stop looking at me like that," Tianyi said, a bit embarrassed. "Once we do that, I'll use some of my Immortal Realm talismans and destroy the Dragon Palace and escape. Of course, if we can, we should raid the treasury as well."
Tianyi felt like he could take on all the demons of Dragon Palace and leave relatively unscathed, but he couldn't do so while protecting his two friends. Not to mention that Tianyi had absolutely no intention of facing fifty Nascent Soul Realm equivalent demons. And he didn't know when the Leviathan Ancestor would come back. Tianyi was not intent on testing whether he could kill a true demon with Immortal Realm talismans.
Thinking back on the first time he used an immortal talisman on a mortal, the Dragon Emperor, he almost lost his life or, at least, suffered excruciating pain. From that, Tianyi learned that using an immortal talisman would not solve everything.
Thus, the three decided to wait under the mantle, hidden from every demon within Dragon Palace. Tianyi also constructed a spacetime formation inside the room designed to minimize the disturbance as much as possible as an extra safety precaution.
Time passed, and the egg continued to shrink the more qi it absorbed until the pool was practically dry. Due to this, the burden fell on Tianyi to fuel the qi the pill needed. Luckily for Tianyi, he had a vast reservoir of qi, so he didn't feel too much drain, but he did notice that his qi generation was slower than the pill's absorption. By this time, the eight-armed demon was long dead, so Tianyi could focus fully on providing qi to the pill inside the egg.
When the pond was fully sucked dry, Tianyi's formation broke. It wasn't due to the elders of Dragon Palace discovering the trouble Tianyi had brought, but due to the changes at the bottom of the pool. It was as if something had gone crazy at the bottom of the pond as it began to suck in qi crazily. Tianyi's true qi of chaos was no exception as it was also sucked into the bottom of the pond, but how could true qi of chaos be so easily absorbed?
After just a few moments of sucking Tianyi's true qi of chaos, the rumbling, which only originated from the platform the dragon egg was on, increased. The platform began to tremble like crazy as if an earthquake was occurring. Not just the incubation room, but the whole Dragon Palace began to rumble like crazy.
"Crap," Tianyi said as he sensed a massive buildup of qi, ready to explode. Without a chance to explain anything, he immediately formed the Chaos Refining Formation without regard to secrecy and covered himself, Daoyi, and Xi Ri.
BANG!
An explosion occurred. The whole foundation of Dragon Palace was shaken and even began to show signs of cracking. The coral reef the Dragon Palace was situated on began to show signs of discoloration, and the bubble surrounding the structure flashed several times before disappearing.
"What happened?" Xi Ri asked as Tianyi took down the Chaos Refining Formation, allowing the three to see what happened.
The walls of the incubation room were filled with cracks, but the whole room was filled with dense qi far more than before. Tianyi looked down and discovered a perfectly clear liquid filled with spiritual qi began to bubble from the bottom of the dried pond.
"Could it be?" Tianyi muttered to himself. He flew down to the bottom, touched the bubbling liquid with his finger, and felt qi gushing into him. "I was right. This is a spirit spring!"
"Is this the source of the explosion?" Daoyi asked from afar.
Tianyi closed his eyes and spread out his spiritual sense. He could feel the spiritual senses of numerous demons clashing against his, but he didn't care. It was too late to hide anyway after such a large commotion. After discovering the reason, he replied to Daoyi, "To be specific, it should be all the stored up spirit spring."
"The Dragon Palace must have been built atop a spirit spring, explaining why the spiritual qi is so dense here. They must have a way to accumulate the spirit spring over a period of years. The pond from before was created from the diluted water from the spirit spring." Tianyi explained. "When the pond dried up, the mechanism drawing the spirit spring water reversed and began to pull qi instead. Unfortunately, it absorbed my true qi of chaos, which it couldn't digest, resulting in the explosion that shook Dragon Palace."
"So, it's your fault." Daoyi summarized.
"Technically..." Tianyi began, not wanting to be blamed.
"We don't have time for this. What is our next plan?" Daoyi asked.
Tianyi waved his head, and the dragon egg that shrunk to double the immortal pill's size landed on his palm, its whole exterior pitch black now. Within his palm, Tianyi could feel a pulse akin to a heartbeat. Tianyi wondered what he should call the pill now. Dragon egg or immortal pill? Or maybe an immortal dragon egg pill?
"Well, we can give up on thinking we can stay hidden for one. Every demon must be heading this way now." Tianyi said. "Plus, I'm very interested in this spirit spring. I want to take it away."
"I don't think it's possible. Spirit springs are like spirit stone veins. You can't just take it away." Xi Ri said.
"Sure I can," Tianyi said as he tapped the jade pendant on his waist. Instantly, one mountain full of immortal qi, a silver sea made of spacetime, eight illusionary mountains, and eight illusionary seas descended and covered the whole Dragon Palace.
The Dragon Palace that had stopped shaking began to tremble once more as if it would be ripped from the coral reef. While it wasn't exactly what was happening, it was close enough.
"CEASE YOUR ACTIONS AT ONCE!!!" Three Unity Realm equivalent demons charged into the incubation room through the shattered gates and roared. Their eyes were full of fury as they zeroed in on Tianyi, Daoyi, and Xi Ri. The rage increased even more when they sensed the dragon aura from the pill in Tianyi's hand.
"If you stop now, your death will be quick and painless." The lead elder said. "Otherwise, once the ancestor returns, you will wish for the sweet release of death!"
Tianyi curled his lips into a smirk as he looked defiantly at the three elders and the increasing number of demons rushing in.
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The scene was that of hell. Red walls emitting steam surrounded the space, and sparks of flame spontaneously flickered in and out of existence. At the bottom was a vast pool of magma emitting smoke, and at the top was an opening revealing the ashen sky. At the center of the magma was feather form bathing within it.
The avian had a beak as red as lava and golden feathers filled with flickering sigils. The avian was Golden Crow Ancestor, one of the three true demons that ruled the Demon Cage Realm.
Next to it were two apparitions, one of a giant sea serpent and another of rabbit. They were Leviathan Ancestor and Jade Rabbit Ancestor.
"Golden Crow, I heard that some of the outsiders had invaded your territory." Jade Rabbit Ancestor asked.
"Hmpf," Flames flickered from the crow's nose holes as he snorted and said in disdain, "Just a minor trouble. This isn't the first time they have descended. For the past few thousand years, none of them were true immortals, just mortals. They can't trouble me."
"You can't say it like this. Even if we aren't affected by them, our descendants will be the ones to suffer." Jade Rabbit Ancestor said.
"Then what do you want me to do?" Golden Crow Ancestor asked irritably. "Whenever the outsiders invade, the more we leave the core of our territories, the weaker we become. It's like the realm itself is suppressing us for the outsiders! As long as the outsiders don't enter the core territories, we can't do much to them."
"That's true." Jade Rabbit Ancestor agreed. "How about recalling your descendants?"
"You think I haven't tried that?" Golden Crow Ancestor said. "The older ones return since they remember the disaster from a thousand years ago, but the newer ones are far more foolish, taking my words like air."
Jade Rabbit Ancestor sighed as she glanced at the Leviathan Ancestor's apparition. "We all can't be like Leviathan Ancestor, having a territory that would make the outsiders too wary of invading."
"Don't push your troubles on me. If you have the ability, choose a territory the outsiders aren't willing to invade." Leviathan Ancestor returned, his tone arrogant, unlike the humility he showed to the Mountain King of Flower Fruit Grotto.
Golden Crow Ancestor stayed silent, so Jade Rabbit Ancestor spoke up, "We know, that's why the core of our plan to break out of this prison is you."
The descendants called the Demon Cage Realm, Demon Heaven Realm, but that was only because they didn't fully know the truth. After they entered the True Demon Realm, they understood the situation clearly. It may look like demons were the rulers of the realm, but only they knew that this place was a cage. They had already interacted with many sealed demons like the Mountain King. Some of the sealed demons wanted to work together and break out to freedom, while some refused, stating that it wasn't feasible.
"You don't have to worry about anything. Just leave it to me, and our plans will come to fruition." Leviathan Ancestor said confidently.
The three of them discussed their plans more. They had already ironed out their plans, so they were currently discussing how to deal with the mortal outsiders. Specifically, the cultivators that were causing a ruckus in Golden Crow Ancestor's territory. Jade Rabbit Ancestor also had outsiders invading his territory, but compared to Golden Crow Ancestor, they weren’t as big a threat.
Suddenly the apparition of Leviathan Ancestor froze before Golden Crow Ancestor and Jade Rabbit Ancestor heard a furious roar from him as his apparition disappeared.