Bruno showed a faint smile, musing to himself, "Restrain to capture—this is the art of keeping people close. Crown Prince Yooming is already a fish in my barrel."
Annie felt uneasy and whispered, "This Brother Yooming is so honest and generous. If we steal his Glass Azure Firmament Banner and cause him to be suppressed by the Northern Emperor for six hundred thousand years, isn't that too cruel?"
Bruno hesitated for a moment and said, "If we don't steal the Glass Azure Firmament Banner, Yooming might have already died and never lived to see the Everpeace Era. Taking this treasure is actually saving his life."
Annie still felt uneasy about deceiving Crown Prince Yooming. After thinking for a moment, she said, "Even if we don't steal the Glass Azure Firmament Banner, Northern Emperor Black Tortoise would find some excuse to suppress him, just to keep him from being harmed by people like the Underworld Prince. Bruno, if we can avoid stealing it, then let's not."
Bruno hesitated again, then nodded. "Alright. We'll stay here and rely on the protection of the Glass Azure Firmament Banner until the Chief recovers."
With their plan decided, the two followed Crown Prince Yooming to the High Heaven Hall of Black Tortoise Palace, and before even entering, they were stunned by the dazzling display of treasures and jewels.
When they stepped inside, they were startled again. A towering jade-glazed pillar stood in the center, wrapped in layer upon layer of azure canopies, making the pillar look like a stack of sugarcane joints.
As they approached, each canopy slowly unfurled outward, layer after layer, resembling stacked 'turban' characters.
Inside the canopies, all sorts of treasure-light shone through, as if many tiny suns were hidden within.
Bruno stood below and looked up, feeling dizzy. Each canopy was strung with pearls and pendants, and inside hung all sorts of treasures—bells, tripods, towers, trees, clouds, and rivers.
Inside the canopies, stars moved along their own paths, sometimes close and dazzling, sometimes distant like stars in the night sky.
"Wow!"
Bruno asked tentatively, "Brother, how do you use this Glass Azure Firmament Banner?"
Crown Prince Yooming stepped forward, hoisted the Glass Azure Firmament Banner, carried it outside the High Heaven Hall, and planted it before the hall. He said, "This treasure answers every request and is extremely mystical. My father and mother spent their entire lives' savings to forge it. Using it is simple."
He bowed to the Glass Azure Firmament Banner and said, "Baby, give me something to eat."
The canopies of the Glass Azure Firmament Banner gently rotated, and all sorts of delicacies and fine dishes fell from the canopies.
Bruno and Annie were both astonished.
Crown Prince Yooming caught the food falling from the air, shared it with everyone, and then said, "Baby, make it rain."
As soon as he finished speaking, clouds gathered, and soon a light rain began to fall over Black Tortoise Palace.
Crown Prince Yooming laughed heartily and bowed again. "Baby, please protect Black Tortoise Palace!"
Whoosh—
The Glass Azure Firmament Banner suddenly expanded countless times over. Its many canopies transformed into twenty-eight layered heavens, completely encircling Black Tortoise Palace in rings upon rings—inner and outer layers. Each heaven hung with treasures, sun and moon orbiting, stars wheeling and shifting, all dazzlingly brilliant!
Within those heavenly spaces, strings of pearls and pendants also swelled to immense size, like giant planets in outer space.
The sky was filled with colossal bells, tripods, towers, flowering trees, and drifting cloud-rivers, all slowly moving and radiating divine light!
Bruno looked up and saw, at the very top of the twenty-eight heavens, a massive celestial sphere suspended there. Its surface shimmered with shifting Dao runes—appearing and vanishing—which must be the core treasure of the Glass Azure Firmament Banner.
"That celestial sphere!"
The palace maid possessed by Queen Serena Gong was suddenly shaken to her core. She hurriedly sent a message via divine sense to Quinn Shepherd, whose soul was hidden in the halo behind Annie's head: "Northern Emperor Black Tortoise brought out a terrifying creature from the ancestral court! That couple truly dared everything—they even refined this egg into a treasure!"
Quinn sat beneath the Dragonblood Treasure Tree, quietly focusing his mind and using the Overlord Three-Core Art to refine the Origin-Root Primordial Essence Wayne Gale had poured into his belly. He felt his flesh and vital qi growing ever stronger, yet the Origin-Root Primordial Essence inside him still wasn't exhausted.
"An egg?"
Quinn was stirred. The body beneath the tree looked up toward the summit of the twenty-eight heavens and saw, sure enough, a gigantic celestial sphere floating there, dazzling among the other treasures.
"Is that... an egg?"
Quinn's divine sense, anchored in the Dragonblood Treasure Tree, nearly slipped into chaos. That celestial sphere truly was an egg—one much like the Prime-Begin Egg and Taichu Divine Egg!
But unlike those, the Dao runes of the Taichu Divine Egg are imprinted on its inner wall. Quinn had obtained half the Heavenly Emperor's eggshell and fused it with his own vertical eye, so he knew this well.
As for the Prime-Begin Egg, its Dao sounds emanate from within, though Quinn still hadn't unraveled the mysteries of the Prime-Begin Dao.
Yet the core treasure of the Glass Azure Firmament Banner was also an egg from the ancestral court—strangely, its Dao runes were imprinted on the outside of the shell!
Could it be that, aside from the Ancient God Emperor and Prime-Begin, there are other primordial god eggs in existence? Quinn steadied his swirling divine sense, pondering silently.
"Black Tortoise brought this egg out from the ancestral court—aren't they afraid of unleashing some great disaster?" Queen Serena Gong was clearly displeased.
Quinn was intrigued; Queen Serena Gong seemed to know a lot about these strange primordial god eggs. He immediately probed, "God-King, what is the origin of this kind of egg?"
He didn't wait for her reply, but continued, "I know the Heavenly Emperor was born from a primordial god egg excavated by the Juyu Clan from the Taichu Divine-Stone Vein, which made him incredibly powerful. But I didn't realize there was more than one of these primordial god eggs."
The palace maid hesitated, her divine sense wavering. "Since you know the Heavenly Emperor's origins, there's no need to hide it from you. Back then, after the Juyu Clan discovered the oldest Taichu Divine-Stone Vein in the ancestral court, they unearthed the Taichu Divine Egg. The Taichu Divine Egg was born alongside the Taichu God-Stones, and the ancient god who later hatched from it became the current Ancient God Emperor. However, other Creator races also discovered other extremely ancient veins, and the god-stones from those veins were not Taichu God-Stones."
Quinn's heart skipped a beat.
Queen Serena Gong continued, "These ancient veins, together with the Taichu Divine-Stone Vein, total five. After the Taichu Divine Egg was excavated from the Taichu vein, the other veins also yielded discoveries in turn, though two veins produced nothing. During Supreme Emperor Julius's campaigns against the other races, as Creators were slaughtered and wars raged, the other two primordial god eggs vanished without a trace."
Quinn blinked. One of the primordial god eggs ended up in the Heavenly Emperor's hands, hidden away in Radiant Sun Hall.
The other primordial god egg was secretly stashed by Northern Emperor Black Tortoise, refined into a treasure, and made the core of the Glass Azure Firmament Banner.
"Hmph! Black Tortoise didn't even recognize its true worth, treating the primordial god egg as a giant gem and turning it into the Banner's core."
Queen Serena Gong sneered, "Fool! The so-called 'wish-granting' power of this treasure is actually the ancient god within the egg manipulating it. Any response is the ancient god's doing! Northern Emperor Black Tortoise will suffer its consequences sooner or later!"
Quinn pondered. The Dao runes of the primordial god egg Black Tortoise obtained were imprinted on its shell, resembling the strange treasures born of heaven and earth. Still, Northern Emperor might well have recognized it for what it was.
It's also possible they recognized it, but lacked the means to hatch it.
Then what powers does the ancient god within the egg possess?
Suddenly, a distant voice called out, "Prince Umbral! Prince Umbral! It's me, Jasper Yin!"
Prince Umbral's heart leapt with joy. He said to Dragon Qilin and Yan'er, "That's my friend! With his help, returning will be much easier. I'll let him in!"