A Pawn's Passage

Hun Ahau shook both arms with no flourish whatsoever, relying on nothing but brute strength to drive back the Chief Elder and the female elder before pressing his attack on the weakest of the Longevous elders.

This elder neither dodged nor retreated, meeting Hun Ahau’s strike head-on.

This time, Hun Ahau felt an enormous force transmitted through the elder’s palm, far beyond what any of the seven elders had produced fighting separately, even surpassing the Chief Elder alone. It felt as though all seven had combined their strength.

Hun Ahau’s strike achieved nothing, but he did not yield. He drew his palm back, allowed his five fingers to spread naturally upward, turned his palm outward, and pushed it steadily forward. The motion appeared effortless, yet its force was enough to sever rivers and split mountains.

Before the palm strike arrived, a vast chasm had already split open across the sea, 60 meters wide and 300 meters long. This technique was called the Abhaya Seal, capable of parting the ocean.

It was not surprising that Hun Ahau knew a Buddhist technique because the founder of the Western Daoist Order, Tantai Yun, had defeated the Western Region Buddhist Sect. As such, the Western Daoist Order took many Buddhist supreme arts and passed them down through the generations.

The Longevous elder was completely shocked as Hun Ahau’s palm force surged toward him like a great river in full flood. Even with the formation channeling the strength of all seven elders into his body, he could not endure such impact. The bones in both arms shattered under the tremendous force. His dragon scales exploded, and all five internal organs were injured, causing blood to gush out from his orifices.

The moment Hun Ahau wounded this elder, the entire formation halted. Seizing the opening, Hun Ahau shot toward the female elder and struck with both palms.

With Hun Ahau’s level of cultivation, not even Huangfu Ji would dare let those strikes land directly on his body.

Seeing the palms descend like a toppling mountain, the female elder dared not take the blow and retreated.

As soon as she retreated, the already stalled Seven Star Net Formation grew even more disordered, its flaws more exposed.

Hun Ahau gave the elders no opportunity to repair the breach. He immediately charged toward the Chief Elder at the Megrez position of the formation.

The Chief Elder did not dodge. He held his position with steadfast discipline, intending to stall Hun Ahau through his own strength alone, buying the others time to reconsolidate the formation.

The two clashed in an instant. Hun Ahau employed the Abhaya Seal once more, aiming for the Chief Eder’s chest. Even with the highest cultivation among all the elders, the Chief Elder borrowed the force of the formation, extended his left palm to deflect the strike, and held his ground without moving.

Hun Ahau followed with two more consecutive strikes, each fiercer than the last, echoing the Chief Elder’s own earlier three-palm sequence. However, each strike was dispersed by the Chief Elder’s channeled force.

On the fourth strike, Hun Ahau blended the intangible and the tangible. Their palms met again, and this time, a cloud of blood mist exploded from the Chief Elder’s body. The palm strike had reversed the flow of the Chief Elder’s innate qi and blood, which burst outward from every pore in a crimson haze.

At that moment, the elders in the Dubhe, Alioth, and Alkaid star positions attacked simultaneously, preventing Hun Ahau from pressing his advantage to take the Chief Elder’s life. But the absence of one star position left the formation further exposed.

For a time, Hun Ahau darted left and charged right with such speed that he seemed like a dozen men moving at once, while the Longevous elders could only shift their formation to follow him. But the elders differed in cultivation level. When the Chief Elder had been uninjured, he could keep pace with Hun Ahau. Now that he was wounded, the others struggled even more. The formation grew increasingly fractured,far from its former precision.

What had begun as seven in a surrounding formation seizing the initiative had been reversed entirely. Now, the seven elders were in a passive position, moving only in response to Hun Ahau.

Hun Ahau had tried on several previous occasions to distinguish himself before Qi Xuansu, only to nearly embarrass himself instead. This time, he had finally succeeded.

Hun Ahau roared, “The Daoist Order’s forces have arrived! How dare you defy the Order and not know when to yield?”

As he spoke, Hun Ahau stopped attacking, but the lingering force still threw several weaker Longevous elders off balance. They could not hold their positions, causing the Seven Star Net Formation to collapse.

Hun Ahau had just turned to claim credit before Sage Qi when a new figure arrived, trailing a roaring water vortex. It launched itself into the fight.

In a heartbeat, the two were locked in combat amid crashing waves. Their exchanges created endless clashes of metal striking rock, vaporizing the surrounding seawater that formed an ever-expanding mass of cloud.

“There are more?” Qi Xuansu watched from a distance with some surprise. “The Longevous’ foundations run rather deep, huh?”

Utu had been operating the Shadow Tide at range all this while. Now, he stood beside Qi Xuansu as he maintained the spell. “That’s no longer a Longevous. That’s a Dragonman through and through.”

The figure locked in combat with Hun Ahau, apart from having limbs and walking upright, bore no resemblance to a human being. It had transformed entirely into a dragon, with horns, whiskers, scales, claws, and tail all accounted for.

The Dragonman was far larger than an ordinary Longevous, forcing Hun Ahau to manifest his Manly Immortal True Body to roughly match his opponent in size.

Sun Jiatu was also at Qi Xuansu’s side. His expression displayed a complex mixture of feelings as he said, “If I’m not mistaken, that should be my grandfather. My grandmother gave him that pendant on his neck. He never took it off.”

Qi Xuansu looked, and sure enough there was a jade pendant at the Dragonman’s neck. After the dragonification, the neck had thickened so greatly that the pendant’s cord was pulled taut, pressing the jade pendant flush against the scales. It was easy to miss if one did not look carefully.

Qi Xuansu finally understood. “The first among the Longevous elders to drink the dragon’s blood.”

Sun Jiatu could not conceal the pain on his face as he nodded. “Yes. The clan said he had died. I didn’t expect he was still alive and had become this creature.”

Qi Xuansu said, “Seeing this, it seems that using the bones of this flood dragon to build a Yinglong Warship is the best form of atonement it could offer, the only end fitting for it.”

Sun Jiatu’s grandfather had already possessed Zaohua-stage cultivation in life and had been fully transformed by the dragon’s blood. He was now comparable to a Pseudo-Immortal, as a chosen servant of the old dragon. It was a pity that his mind had lost all reason. Only instinct remained.

Under Hun Ahau’s full-force assault, the Dragonman gradually fell to the losing side.

Hun Ahau’s punches did not cease. Ring after ring of visible, massive ripples spread outward. He advanced upon the Dragonman relentlessly, allowing no retreat.

A clear fist mark appeared instantly on the Dragonman’s chest. Upon impact, the Dragonman halted for a brief moment. Hun Ahau then seized the opportunity to strike down on the crown of its head with all his might.

The Dragonman crashed into the sea with a thunderous impact, sending up an enormous spray.

But Hun Ahau did not stop there. He pressed downward with another palm, smoothing the turbulent sea into a surface as flat as a mirror.

The Dragonman that had just surfaced was driven back to the bottom.

Pressing his advantage without mercy, Hun Ahau activated all of his body spirits, making him glow like a divine being. When Hun Ahau threw a punch, every body spirit struck as one. The fist intention was so immense that it could easily crumble mountains.

The fist’s force blanketed the sea, and his fist intention shot straight into the heavens.

The timing was perfect. The Dragonman had just breached the surface when it was met head-on by the blow. Dragon scales shattered across its entire body, and blood gushed out as the Dragonman fell back into the sea once more.

Its blood stained the sea red.

At that very moment, a dragon’s cry resounded through heaven and earth.

The true master of the Dragon Palace had finally awakened.

The next moment, the sea beneath Hun Ahau collapsed with a tremendous roar, forming a vast chasm. The water on both sides cascaded down like waterfalls. Then an enormous head slowly rose from within, its two golden eyes the size of well-mouths looking into Hun Ahau’s. Its long whiskers swayed gently, and dense columns of water vapor rolled from its mouth. It seemed to be bathed in a fine, perpetual mist at every moment.

A dragon could summon wind and rain. Wherever it passes, torrential rain falls. It could even move against the natural order of the seasons.

Hun Ahau did not panic. He studied the massive creature before him carefully.

This flood dragon had not yet transformed into a true dragon. That was because there were several key differences. Its horns were straight and short, without branches, while a true dragon had branching horns. Its tail also resembled a serpent’s, unlike the true dragon’s tail that had scaled and a tail fin. Moreover, a flood dragon only had two claws with four toes each. A true dragon had four claws with five toes each.

That was how Hun Ahau determined that the creature before him was a flood dragon, not a true dragon.

Even so, a flood dragon was not to be underestimated because it was comparable to a Longevity-stage Immortal.