"The treasures buried within Mount Whitestar have finally emerged—and they're absolutely astonishing!"
Almost everyone from the Whitestar Sword Sect was fleeing down the mountain, but the three elders charged up toward the volcano’s crater instead. They shouted harshly, "The Heavenly Demon Cult Master can’t take the treasure from the mountain, so he’s trying to drive us away and keep it for himself! Nobody leave!"
Another old woman cried out, "It's our ancestral founder showing his spirit—he’s blessing the Whitestar Sword Sect, granting us the treasures of Mount Whitestar! This is a sign our sect will flourish!"
"Heaven have mercy!"
A white-haired elder looked up to the sky and sighed, then declared loudly, "Our sect’s founder said this is the land where dragons prosper—wealth and fortune are destined to come! Today, it’s finally come true. All disciples, listen! This is the day our Whitestar Sword Sect rises above the Three Great Holy Lands! Come back, join forces, and subdue this treasure!"
Many disciples of the Whitestar Sword Sect heard this and immediately stopped running. Instead of escaping, they turned back.
The sect didn’t have many people to begin with. The sect master had gone to the capital to file a complaint, leaving three elders and a dozen mid-level teachers in charge of a hundred or so disciples on the mountain.
Now, most of the sect chose to stay behind, gathering up their sword caskets that had been blasted away. Black sword caskets thudded down all over the collapsing Mount Whitestar, each one several meters tall. As the lids opened, countless flying swords poured out like rivers from within.
Up in midair, Quinn Shepherd raced onward riding two dragons, their bodies surging with power. Other flood-dragons flanked him, escorting him as they sped into the distance. Quinn glanced back and saw a cloud of flying swords gathering above Mount Whitestar, their tips pointing downward—then, all at once, they shot toward the erupting volcano crater!
Quinn’s eyes widened. He shouted, "Are you all insane? Get out of here before you die!"
At the mountaintop, the three Whitestar Sword Sect elders sneered in unison: "You’re trying to trick us into leaving so you can hog the treasure for yourself? The Heavenly Demon Cult Master really is as vicious as they say. If we didn’t know Mount Whitestar was a dragon-prospering land, we might’ve fallen for your lies!"
Quinn Shepherd sighed and sped away, howling through the air.
"Mount Whitestar sits atop the dragon vein’s eye, but this vein is just a subsidiary of the True Dragon Lord vein. Not only is it not a land of rising fortune, it’s actually a place that siphons away luck. The Whitestar Sword Sect has had its fate stolen by the dragon vein for years—looks like their luck has finally run out."
Quinn thought to himself, "Luckily, this sect only has about a hundred people. The disaster won’t be too great..."
Just as he had this thought, Mount Whitestar exploded with a deafening roar.
The enormous volcano shattered into pieces.
At the moment the volcano erupted, the Hundred Caskets Sword Formation instantly collapsed. Countless flying swords dissolved in midair, turning to molten iron. The disciples of Whitestar Sword Sect didn’t even have time to cry out before they were vaporized.
The three elders were powerful, but in the face of this terrifying force, they were utterly helpless. Blood spurted from their mouths as they were blasted backward, while molten iron from the swords mixed with shattered rocks shot toward them even faster than the flying swords had.
The elders’ faces turned hopeless. The molten iron would pierce through them, leaving no chance of survival!
Then, they saw a colossal figure slowly rise from the ruins of Mount Whitestar.
"So the Heavenly Demon Cult Master wasn’t lying—there really is a giant in the mountain..."
The three elders looked up. This impossibly muscular god-demon slowly stood upright, with two long azure and crimson dragons beneath his feet roaring to the heavens.
Ssssss—
The elders’ bodies exploded into pieces, pierced like sieves by molten sword-iron. Their corpses tumbled down with the shattered rocks of Mount Whitestar, buried deep alongside the rest of the sect’s disciples.
The founder of Mount Whitestar never should have chosen this place for the sect.
At this moment, the Dragon-Keeper Lord’s body had grown dozens of times larger. His flesh coiled like a great dragon, muscles bulging, claws gripping two massive dragons beneath him. The two dragons sped through the clouds, carrying him as he chased after Quinn Shepherd—but Quinn was nowhere to be seen in the sky.
He had several flood-dragons with him, dangling from his ears or burrowing into his clothes, poking out their heads and tails.
He kept these flood-dragons to help him refine the Dragon Nest, which is why he could finish so quickly.
The Dragon-Keeper Lord’s aura was overwhelming. He glanced around, still not spotting Quinn, then flipped his hand and took out a jade artifact the size of a table, sneering, "You think you can escape me, little one?"
The base of the jade artifact was as flat as a large round table, but its surface was a half-dome. Beneath the dome were nine stepped tiers, each filled with interlocking jade pillars and fangs. On the ninth tier was a ring-shaped groove with a missing segment.
On top of that, his whole purpose in coming here was to find the main dragon vein of Everpeace. If he couldn’t seize the main vein, how could he ever show his face back in High Heaven?
"Looks like I’ll have to take out my Golden Dragon Censer and use it to track down my precious dragons!"
Dragon-Keeper Lord reached for his Glutton Dragon Pouch—only to find it empty. His face turned instantly ashen.
He’d handed his Glutton Dragon Pouch to Quinn Shepherd, letting Quinn use it for pill refining and dragon feeding. Of course it was still with Quinn now!
And the Golden Dragon Censer was stashed right there in the pouch!
"That gullible brat..."
Dragon-Keeper Lord ground his teeth so hard sparks flew from his fangs. "Next time I see a gullible face, I’ll tear them to shreds first! You think just because you took my pouch, I can’t find you? Too naive!"
He raised his hand and yanked out a huge handful of hair from his head. His hair was all twisted and curled—there wasn’t a single straight strand.
Not only that, each strand of his hair had four little branches, clustered at two spots along its length.
And when he yanked the hair out by the roots, each one gave a little yawning sound—like a baby dragon opening its mouth, sleepy and dazed.
Muttering incantations, Dragon-Keeper Lord blew a breath over the curled hair in his palm. Instantly, the hairs floated up, came alive in midair, and dropped to the ground as wriggling little dragons.
These little dragons swelled in the wind, growing in a heartbeat to two or three zhang long—thin-bodied, thin-legged, long-necked, black flood-dragons that tore across the hills in a wild stampede.
"You’re not in the sky, so you won’t get far."
Dragon-Keeper Lord’s face shifted from dark to pale and back again. He yanked out another handful of hair and repeated the spell, sending hundreds more skinny black flood-dragons flying off into the distance.
He kept pulling until nearly all the hair on his head was gone, then finally stopped.
Thousands of black flood-dragons raced out, each one covering a li in every direction. In no time, they formed a search net stretching thousands of li wide, sweeping forward to hunt.
These black flood-dragons would sniff out dragon qi. No matter how well Quinn hid the Imperial Disc, as long as he stayed near any flood-dragons or Dragon-Qilin, these black drakes would catch his scent and track him down!
"No one’s ever dared trick me like this. When I find you, I’ll make sure you can’t die even if you want to!"
In Riverhold County, Quinn eyed the wooden chest, still a bit uneasy. "Is hiding the Imperial Disc here really enough to fool the Dragon-Keeper Lord? He took away the Dragon Nest, and the Disc is the True Dragon Lord born from that nest—it’s a strange and mystical thing!"
"Aba! Aaah?"
The one carrying the wooden chest was a sturdy old man, weathered and rugged, who waved a hand and grinned—his mouth had no tongue.
Quinn nodded, "Of course I trust you, Grandpa Mute. How could I ever doubt your skills? I’m just worried—what if the chest can’t block the Dragon Nest’s connection and the Dragon-Keeper Lord comes looking? He’s a god from High Heaven, and his dragons are terrifying!"
Just earlier, as Quinn was fleeing for his life, he’d spotted a silver ark slicing through the sky like a flying shuttle. He’d called out for Grandpa Mute, and sure enough, the silver ark turned back—with the Mute Smith aboard.
Quinn quickly explained the situation. The Mute Smith collapsed the silver ark into a pile of silver pellets, dropped them into the wooden chest, and let Quinn stash the Imperial Disc inside as well.
"Ah." The Mute Smith replied offhandedly.
"Grandpa Mute, you mustn’t underestimate him."
Quinn’s face grew serious; he felt the Mute Smith was being a bit too relaxed. "By the way, the village chief said you chased after a mysterious ship. What ship was it? Did you catch it? I saw one myself—and even met my dad aboard."
The Mute Smith’s smile faded, replaced by a look of disappointment. He hefted the wooden chest and trudged on.
Quinn hurried after him. "Grandpa Mute, you didn’t find that ship?"
The Mute Smith kept his head down, looking dejected. He gestured, meaning the ship had gone to a world he couldn’t reach, and he’d been driven back by a powerhouse from that world.
A moment later, a surprised and delighted voice called out: "Quinn the Human Emperor, what are you doing here? Your Dragon-Qilin really is something—he actually got here ahead of us!"
Quinn turned at the sound, startled to see Warren Moran, Ronnie Long, and Cindy Mu riding a big stag, all travel-worn and heading his way.
Dragon-Qilin strutted proudly, his tail sticking straight up like a flagpole as he gave the Little Jade Capital stag a disdainful look.
The stag’s eyes went wide, mouth hanging open. Its once-perky little tail instantly plastered itself to its rump, tucked tight in fear.
Seeing all the flood-dragons—big and small—crowding around Dragon-Qilin, the stag’s awe only deepened.
Quinn exclaimed, "It took you over three days to get here?"
He’d spent those three days running from the capital to Whitestar Sword Sect, then all the way across eighty or ninety thousand li to the heart of the Great Ruins—and then back again!
Of course, if he said that out loud, the three of them would never believe it.