In the blink of an eye, over a dozen colossal dragons had materialized around Yang Kai. None of them possessed physical bodies, yet they were composed of purest primal source power. What truly chilled everyone to the bone, however, was their sheer size.
Even the smallest among them boasted a body at least forty zhang in length!
The largest was close to a hundred zhang, its titanic form coiling and drifting through the vast hall, filling every corner and pressing down on all present with an indescribable sense of terror.
These dragons looked as though they had stepped straight out of ancient paintings, descending upon this place without warning.
*Gulp...*
The sound of swallowed saliva rose from the crowd. The assembled dragons finally lost their composure. Under the crushing weight of that impossibly ancient draconic pressure, they could barely keep their feet. Every one of them trembled like leaves in a gale, their faces drained of color.
The Dragon Tomb was the final resting place for deceased dragons — but not for all of them. Those of extraordinary standing among the fallen would be enshrined within the Dragon Hall instead, left behind to grant blessings and protection to future generations.
Only the most outstanding members of each generation of the Dragon Clan earned the honor of being enshrined in the Dragon Hall. Only the leaders. In other words, only the Grand Elder of each generation was qualified to be enshrined here after death. In this current generation, only Zhu Yan held that distinction — even Fu Zhun did not qualify.
These dragon figures that had suddenly gathered from every direction within the Dragon Hall were precisely those ancestral leaders, enshrined here across countless generations.
Zhu Yan even spotted a familiar figure among them — a yellow dragon roughly forty to fifty zhang long. His thoughts drifted back across tens of thousands of years, recalling events from his own youth.
Back then, he had grown and flourished under this very elder's guidance. And after that elder had fallen, Zhu Yan had stepped into the role of Grand Elder in his stead.
He stared at the yellow dragon's silhouette, his lips trembling uncontrollably. Deep within his heart, he yearned for this elder — long since passed tens of thousands of years ago — to raise his head and look at him, to offer a single word of praise. But to his disappointment, that elder kept lowered the head he had never once bowed in life, hovering silently behind Yang Kai.
"The First Elder..." Fu Zhun's eyes went vacant as she fixed her gaze on the only dragon in the gathering that had reached a full hundred zhang in length. Though their eras were separated by an immeasurable gulf of time, Fu Zhun recognized that dragon's origins at a single glance.
Only the dragons of that primordial age could command such majestic power!
With the passage of time, the Dragon Clan had declined further and further. By their own generation, true dragon forms had shrunk to a mere forty or fifty zhang — barely half the size of the First Elder's.
The one slightly smaller than the First Elder was most likely the Second Elder, and the ones smaller still would have been the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth...
Over a dozen generations of the Dragon Clan's Grand Elders, drawn together as if answering a call from the dawn of time, assembled in one place. The sight left every soul in the hall shaken to its core.
"How dare you!" Fu Zhun stared blankly for a long while before suddenly clenching her teeth and letting out a sharp cry. Her pristine features twisted with fury, her eyes piercing toward Yang Kai with undisguised hatred, as though she wished to bore a thousand holes through him. "How dare you disturb the ancestral spirits of our Dragon Clan!"
Though her tone was vicious, under the combined pressure of the Dragon Hall's power and the draconic might of over a dozen generations of Grand Elders, Fu Zhun's previous dominance had entirely evaporated. She now looked like an offended kitten swiping its claws — almost comical.
Her rage was entirely understandable. The Dragon Hall was the sacred enshrinement site of the Dragon Clan's Grand Elders, the very foundation upon which the clan's survival had been secured across the ages. These ancestors had long since fallen. They possessed no will or thought of their own. Under normal circumstances, even if she and the Grand Elder performed the most profound secret arts, they could never summon them.
Yet now, at Yang Kai's single command, over a dozen generations of Grand Elders had risen from their eternal slumber.
Every dragon present felt deeply, profoundly insulted.
Even Mo Huang clicked his tongue in wonder as he regarded Yang Kai, having never imagined the young man could accomplish something of this magnitude. His gaze swept over the Golden Sacred Dragon source, and he understood — the root of it all must lie in that bizarre draconic primal source.
"I was forced into this," Yang Kai said, his expression one of bold defiance as he looked at Fu Zhun. There was no excessive show of power, no attempt to exploit the situation against her.
Had he not been pushed to the brink, he would never have resorted to such extreme measures.
The moment he had stepped into the Dragon Hall, his Golden Sacred Dragon source had stirred to life, as though resonating with something ancient that surrounded him. The summoning of the ancestral spirits of generations of Grand Elders had been an almost instinctive act.
"Forced, you say?" Fu Zhun sneered coldly. "So what do you intend to do now? Slaughter the entire Dragon Clan?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." Yang Kai's eyes swept the hall with a chilling glint, as though genuinely weighing the proposition. "We've already drawn each other's blood — might as well kill you all and save myself the trouble of looking over my shoulder later."
Every dragon he glanced at blanched, their blood seeming to freeze in their veins as the aura of death descended upon them.
Fu Zhun pressed her red lips together, her expression one of stubborn defiance. Zhu Yan's face had grown equally grave.
If Yang Kai were to wield the full power of the Dragon Hall against them now, then even if he and Fu Zhun joined forces, their only option would be to flee. Their only hope of victory would be a single decisive strike to kill Yang Kai on the spot.
But under the watchful eyes of over a dozen generations of Grand Elders, not even Zhu Yan could find an opening to strike. The power of the Dragon Hall — its true, terrifying scope — was known only to those who had once served as Grand Elder themselves.
A special place. A special power. Together, they produced an existence that was all but invincible.
Mo Huang parted his lips, as though about to offer some counsel.