Yang Kai had only one sensation—heat, so intense that his entire body felt as though it were about to ignite.
Instinctively, he shook his head and plunged into the ocean, racing straight toward the seabed. The deeper he went, the colder the seawater became.
A trace of relief washed over him. Yet wherever he passed, the frigid water began to boil, and the space around him instantly became a void.
He had no idea what was happening to him, but he felt no real sense of danger. If anything, there was a vague anticipation rising within him—he couldn't even tell what he was anticipating.
Soon he found out. A tearing, soul-rending pain erupted as cracking and popping sounds rang out from every bone in his body. His already enormous thousand-zhang frame was visibly expanding at a speed that defied his imagination.
Back on the Profound Continent, he had obtained the origin power of the Golden Holy Dragon. It wasn't until he encountered Zhu Qing in the Star Boundary and received her Dragon Transformation Art that he could barely harness the power of his dragon lineage, transforming into a half-dragon form.
But after years of bitter cultivation, he had only managed to achieve a half-dragon body three hundred zhang in size.
If not for a stroke of fortune in the Ancestral Land—obtaining the Dragon Clan's Crystal Palace and refining a vast quantity of Ancestral Spirit Crystals and Ancestral Spirit Fruits—Yang Kai estimated he would have needed at least several thousand to ten thousand more years of painstaking cultivation to ascend to the rank of True Dragon.
The growth of the Dragon Clan was inherently slow. Not only was this true for dragons, but it applied equally to all Sacred Spirits, which was why the Sacred Spirits of the Ancestral Land were reluctant to leave. The Ancestral Spirit Energy there was far too important for their cultivation, capable of dramatically shortening their growth period.
Yang Kai had planned that after reaching the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm, he would enter seclusion in the Ancestral Land to advance his dragon lineage. But that had been a plan for the very distant future.
He was currently only Sixth-Order. Seventh-Order came first, and only then Eighth.
Given his current foundation, advancing to Seventh-Order shouldn't take too long. But the leap from Seventh to Eighth would similarly require the sedimentation of ages—at the very least several thousand to ten thousand years.
That was not something he needed to concern himself with right now. Though after becoming a True Dragon he could already be considered a proper member of the Dragon Clan, at his core he was still a human. His cultivation in the Open Heaven Realm was what he relied on above all else, so he had to push his own cultivation to the absolute peak of the Eighth-Order first and foremost.
But he had never expected that after the tremendous boost his dragon lineage received in the Ancestral Land, it would surge forward again so quickly. And this advancement was even swifter and more violent than his time cultivating in the Ancestral Land's Crystal Palace—his growth was accelerating at a pace that surpassed even that.
Yang Kai could clearly feel his dragon lineage being refined under the influence of a strange, peculiar power, growing ever purer. The result was an uncontrollable expansion of his body.
A dragon's strength could be gauged by the size of its form—the larger the dragon, the purer its bloodline, and the more powerful it naturally became.
His thousand-zhang body, which had stagnated since leaving the Ancestral Land, grew by dozens of zhang in less than half a day.
After a single day, it had expanded by another hundred zhang.
Such rapid advancement was more than even his formidable True Dragon physique could endure. Bones constantly shifted and reassembled, and even his skin cracked and split. Golden blood flowed into the ocean, and the dragon scales covering his body began to peel away.
Wherever his body passed, it left a golden trail through the deep.
Countless sea beasts converged on the scent like sharks drawn to blood.
Faced with the temptation of True Dragon blood, these low-intelligence creatures simply could not resist. It was an innate yearning for greater power and higher existence— they opened their massive jaws and greedily devoured the seawater laced with golden dragon blood.
In any corner of the world, dragon blood was a supreme treasure. It contained the profound secrets of the Dragon Clan's might, the very essence of the most powerful force in existence.
The cultivation of many divine techniques and the refinement of many sacred pills required dragon blood as a catalyst.
Yet pure-blooded dragons were exceedingly rare. Under normal circumstances, one could never find truly pure dragon blood; one had to substitute it with the blood of demon beasts or spirit beasts carrying even the faintest trace of dragon lineage, and the effects were naturally diminished greatly.
What flowed from Yang Kai's body was not only the most pristine dragon blood, but the blood of a Golden Holy Dragon at that—its grade was undoubtedly a tier higher still.
Even the faintest drop contained terrifying energy.
As a result, wherever he passed, massive stretches of sea fish and ocean beasts floated to the surface, dead. The once tranquil ocean was transformed in an instant into a slaughterhouse.
His dragon body continued to expand, the dragon lineage within him constantly refining itself. The speed of that refinement was so extreme that even Yang Kai felt a flicker of unease.
But once he identified the source of this transformation, the unease quickly dissipated, replaced by boundless elation.
Half a month later, the searing sensation finally began to fade, and the raging dragon lineage within him settled at last.
On a small island, Yang Kai maintained his True Dragon form, his colossal body coiled across the beach, taking up nearly all the sand. This transformation had brought him tremendous benefits, but it had also left him utterly exhausted. The sudden acquisition of even greater power left his body struggling to adapt, and he needed time to recover.
Beneath the blazing sun, a suit of dragon scales gleamed with golden radiance, resplendent and overwhelming.
Two thousand zhang!
Half a month of transformation had doubled his size. The thousand-zhang body he once had was now two thousand zhang!
When he had refined the Ancestral Spirit Crystals in the Dragon Clan's Crystal Palace in the Ancestral Land, his dragon lineage had been purifying itself ceaselessly. Yang Kai had thought that speed was already absurdly fast.