The Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest was the burial ground of the Ruthless One!
The Great Black Dog was frightened by its own words. Every strand of black fur stood straight up all over its body, like a great porcupine — one could truly say it was terrified to the bone.
“Stop talking nonsense.” Ye Fan’s own heart sank as well. He always felt that it was better not to have too much entanglement with the Ruthless One.
He had taken the Source Root of the Ten Thousand Things’ Primordial Energy from the Ruthless One — he had nearly seized the immortality medicine as well — and now he had stepped into the burial ground itself. Something felt deeply wrong about all of this.
“The Heaven-Devouring Great Emperor — could he truly have lived through four lives?” The Great Black Dog was becoming unsettled. Four ancient coffins in this place stirred many thoughts within it.
“Damuliyimna…” The youth of the immemorial royal bloodline fixed his large, clear eyes on them and said something earnest.
The Ape explained: there were indeed four ancient coffins here, each more terrifying than the last — though some were empty, containing only a supreme killing intent stored within.
“That’s right — without a doubt, this is the greatest Ruthless One of antiquity. Four ancient coffins represent four lives brought to their end!” the Great Black Dog said gravely.
In his first life, the Ruthless One was the Heaven-Devouring Great Emperor. In his final years, he sacrificed his aged emperor-body, refining it into the Heaven-Devouring Demon Cauldron — leaving behind no physical remains.
In his second life, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, he broke free from within his old body, shedding a divine fetus and severing all past cause and effect.
In his third life, he extended his lifespan with immortality divine medicine, gaining yet another lifetime. The divine fetus regained the vitality of youth — yet no new divine fetus was born.
As for how he obtained his fourth lifespan — that remained unknown to anyone. But it was clear that in this life he had reached the end of his years, and was unable to persist further.
“If what Nangong Zheng said was true, the Ruthless One most likely succeeded within the Bronze Immortal Palace — that is how the fourth life came to be,” Ye Fan said, brow furrowed.
The Battle Sage Ape continued his exchange with the youth and gathered more useful information.
The four coffins were indeed all confirmed to belong to one person — the immemorial royal lineage had long since established this. An elder king had warned that none were to approach. The youth did not know the full details; he had assumed the occupant was an ancient sovereign’s remains.
“Wushi the Great Emperor, out of reverence, chose not to take this place and instead sought out the Purple Mountain elsewhere,” the Great Black Dog sighed deeply, then said, “Unimaginable — the greatest Ruthless One of all antiquity, who shook the ages past and present, yet was buried here.”
Ye Fan pressed his questioning, and from the youth of the immemorial age obtained one certain piece of news: the Ruthless One had been thoroughly, completely dead — his divine consciousness shattered for more than two hundred thousand years.
The mature sovereigns of the immemorial age who slumbered here possessed power comparable to ancient saints, or even the fully-realized sacred physique. They could not possibly have made an error in their judgment.
The Great Black Dog seized a handful of earth and flung it outward, sighing deeply: “The great emperors of antiquity were all solitary souls, returning to the earth in their invincibility… May you go in peace.”
Though it had never laid eyes on the Ruthless One, it had feared that figure — man or woman — more than any other. It had dug through the Ruthless One’s cultivating ground, searched for the ancient Heaven-Devouring Demon Cauldron — and now could only mourn.
They pressed forward several more li, and discovered another great chunk of divine source. Sealed within was a man of middle years — his posture upright and heroic, a head of violet hair, like an ancient emperor at rest in serene sleep.
In a trance, one seemed to see him rise to his full height and let out a mighty roar — the earth of the immemorial age crumbled, the vault of heaven pressed downward, and ten thousand races bowed in submission.
“That is my father-king. Shall we wake him?” the youth said.
The moment those words were heard, even the Ape’s face went pale. He quickly shook his head: “Do not disturb our elder.”
Not long after, they finally glimpsed the third ancient coffin — and after pressing forward several more li, they arrived at the deepest part of the Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest.
“It truly rivals the Purple Mountain’s terrain!”
After observing carefully, Ye Fan gave voice to this sentiment. Within the Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest were nine ancient caves shaped in the form of true dragons, each stretching for an unknowable number of li.
Their tails pointed outward, and their nine dragon heads all pointed toward the central area — bearing a remarkable similarity in conception to the formation of nine dragons guarding the Purple Mountain.
Moreover, beneath the ground, nine vast and mighty dragon-shaped veins of earth energy lay densely covered in ancient caves of every size, all in the shape of dragons — truly worthy of being called ten thousand dragons lying in concealment.
“The energy of the fourth ancient coffin is coming through!”
The Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest was pitted and uneven, filled with countless ancient caves, and dragon energy flowed like a vast sea. They finally reached the sacred land at the very center.
“The True Dragon’s former lair!” The Great Black Dog cried out in shock.
Ahead of them, ancient trees stood in great numbers without end — all long since dead for who knew how many tens of thousands of years, and yet each trunk’s branches required dozens of people linking arms to encompass.
“Dragon-wood! It is said these are the divine materials true dragons use to build their nests!” The Great Black Dog’s eyes had gone fixed.
Countless ancient trees were stacked and interwoven together, forming a massive nest. In appearance it was simple, yet it was profoundly mysterious.
It was immense beyond measure — built from endless ancient trees, tall as a mountain — and from within it moved tens of thousands of great dragons, all of them formed from dragon energy given shape.
“There is truly a dragon’s nest here…” Even the Battle Sage Ape was left wide-eyed and dazed.
Ye Fan too was stunned speechless. The Source Heaven Book contained records that the Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest might be the lair of true dragons — all of it inferred by Source Heaven Masters, none of whom had ever entered.
Now he had the fortune to witness it with his own eyes. Within was truly an ancient nest, built entirely of dragon-wood — and even now it had not rotted or withered.
Tens of thousands of great dragons, each like a vast river, moved continuously in and out, encircling the nest in boundless mystery and grandeur.
The dragon-wood was deep black, and the entire nest shared that color — ancient and weathered, emanating an aura that inspired awe.
“Damn it, it seems… there really were dragons living here!” the Great Black Dog cried out.
The Ape too was stirred. It had never crossed his mind that he would see an abandoned dragon’s nest — like something out of a legend.
“A dragon on the same level as an immortal actually existed here?” Ye Fan was also lost in a daze.
“A dragon’s nest must contain immortal treasures. Everything it left behind is a priceless treasure — even this nest itself is a world-shaking divine object!” The Great Black Dog’s old habit of greed flared up again.
It unleashed its great divine arts and actually attempted to take the entire ancient nest away — divine power surging in waves, trying to uproot the dragon-wood structure.
Yet the divine power it unleashed vanished like a clay ox entering the sea, amounting to nothing — like a single drop of water falling into a desert, gone in the blink of an eye.
“Help me! If we can take away this ancient nest, we will have obtained a stroke of heaven-blessed fortune!” the Great Black Dog called out.
“Mudalaliniyelu?” The youth of the immemorial royal lineage asked in puzzlement.
“He’s asking what we’re doing. The ancient nest must not be rashly disturbed — doing so invites disaster and death,” the Ape explained.
“That can’t be right — I don’t sense anything dangerous?” The Great Black Dog probed carefully, detecting nothing, and said, “If this ancient nest could be fully refined, it would absolutely become an unrivaled divine object — capable of taking in and suppressing all things.”
“My father never encountered any immortal traces. This place should not truly be a true dragon’s lair,” the Ape began murmuring to himself, his mind racing through many possibilities.
His own father was the Battle Sage Sovereign — supreme in the immemorial age. That race was renowned for its world-shaking combat power; one could only imagine how terrifying such a being would be upon achieving the realm of ancient emperor.
It could be said that the Battle Sage Elder Sovereign’s power was enough to command admiration across all of history. In the final era of the immemorial age, the entire world was essentially his alone!
This place — if it held immortal traces — for an elder sovereign desperately seeking to enter the immortal realm, there would surely have been some resonance. Yet he had never once mentioned it.
“Right — this is most likely the abandoned lair of an ancient emperor, unknown to the world!” After careful deliberation, the Ape arrived at this judgment.
“Whether it belonged to a true dragon or an ancient emperor, their ancient nest is a world-shaking divine object — to say nothing of whatever immortal treasures may be stored within.”
The Great Black Dog didn’t care about any of that. The moment it laid eyes on that dragon’s nest, it was rooted to the spot, desperate to claim it for itself, devising one scheme after another.
Ye Fan was cautious in his heart. Using his source arts to probe the place, he found it utterly impenetrable — this was the convergence point of ten thousand dragons, arcane and mysterious beyond all reckoning.
“Allow this sovereign to make an attempt.” The Great Black Dog dared not risk its true body. It plucked a single gleaming black strand of fur from itself, blew hard upon it — and the strand transformed into a black dog the size of a young calf.
“Go on — go inside the dragon’s nest and see what’s happening.” It gave the order.
“Woof!” The dog born from the fur-strand shot toward the ancient nest like a bolt of black lightning.
The youth of the immemorial royal lineage cried out in alarm, his face filled with terror. He hid himself behind the others, body trembling.
“This is bad!” Ye Fan had a premonition that something was terribly wrong. He summoned forth the Cauldron of the Ten Thousand Things’ Primordial Energy, and ten thousand silk-like strands of energy descended from it.
The Ape too brought out his peerless weapon of slaughter, gripped it in his hands, using it as a great staff, ready at any moment to swing it outward.
“Yelp!” Before the ancient nest, the great dog let out a miserable cry and was instantly reduced to ash on the spot. Its residual phantom was then drawn into the dragon’s cave.
At the same moment, a ray of chaos sword-light burst forth — terrifying beyond reckoning, obliterating all creation — and in an instant it rushed straight for them.
Everyone went rigid with dread. That was pure, undiluted chaos sword-light. To say nothing of themselves — even the most supreme of sacred masters, if struck by it, would be utterly destroyed in body and soul.
“Clang!”
In the Black Emperor’s great claw, the ancient sovereign’s command token radiated coiling violet light. It held its position in the void and blocked the strike — the chaos light receded like flowing water.
“The immemorial sovereign is so terrifying — gone for hundreds upon hundreds of millions of years, yet the ancient command token left behind still carries such immortal might!” Ye Fan exclaimed in awe.
“I dug this piece of violet iron out of some dusty corner, and it turns out to be a supreme divine object…” The Great Black Dog clutched the ancient sovereign’s command token for dear life, saliva trickling from the corner of its mouth, grinning without stop in delighted stupefaction.
“Blessings of the Undying Celestial Emperor!” The youth of the immemorial royal lineage prayed to the god enshrined in his heart, then earnestly warned the three of them not to act rashly.
They circled the ancient nest and discovered a terrifying fact: the moment one came within three li of it, all divine power in one’s body would be stripped away entirely — only restored after moving away.
Though the area was broad, layers of ancient cave walls blocked the view from most directions. There were very few vantage points from which to observe.
In the end, they climbed to the top of a sheer cliff and gazed out over the interior of the dragon’s nest, trying to make out exactly what lay within.
“Dragon scales!” The Great Black Dog cried out in astonishment. Among the ancient dragon-wood forming the nest, it had spotted a scale radiating shimmering light — carrying a trace of an ancient great emperor’s oppressive aura.
Whether this was a true dragon’s ancient nest or the ancient emperor’s resting place, that scale was worth a city — something that could absolutely be refined into a sacred object.
The dragon-wood was all deep black. Thousands upon tens of thousands of pieces were piled together to form this vast nest, with endless dragon energy surging through it. When a gust of rushing wind swept through and exposed a glimpse of the interior, all present were astonished.
“The fourth ancient coffin!”
“A land of chaos!”
In the fleeting instant that the tens of thousands of streams of dragon energy parted to reveal a crack, the interior of the True Dragon’s former lair became dimly visible — a massive coffin suspended in rising and sinking motion, with boundless chaos surging all around it.
“Was this chaos born from the nest of a true dragon on the same level as an immortal?!”
“Or did someone use dragon-wood to deliberately conceal this stretch of naturally-formed chaotic terrain?!”
Everyone was left in shock. If it was the former, it proved immortals existed in the world. If it was the latter, this place was unfathomably mysterious beyond all reckoning.
At the base of the nest built from dragon-wood, endless chaos churned and roiled, as if heaven and earth were being split apart anew. The ancient coffin rose and sank within it — profoundly arcane and inscrutable.
“The Ruthless One’s fourth life rests here — he or she truly knew how to choose a resting place!” The Great Black Dog’s heart shook with awe.
“The Ten Thousand Dragons’ Nest — containing chaos within. So this is the nature of this terrain!” Ye Fan pondered, cross-referencing against the inferences of the Source Heaven Book.
Suddenly, Ye Fan’s heart lurched. The Ten Thousand Things’ Primordial Energy trembled inside him and burst forth from his body, hovering above his head, as ten thousand strands of mysterious yellow energy descended from it.
“This is…”
He was seized with a chill from head to toe. The Cauldron of the Ten Thousand Things’ Primordial Energy shook continuously — and something within the ancient nest had resonated with it.
“Crack!”
At the base of the True Dragon’s former lair, the ancient coffin was encircled by chaos. Its lid was slowly beginning to open — a thread of connection between it and Ye Fan’s cauldron formed, impossible to sever!
“Thud!”
The coffin lid shifted slowly — and inch by inch, it began to open…