The divine sense pressure from the Vermilion Bird Divine Beast utterly crushed the rebel army's formation. After several charges, the rebels had already collapsed into disarray. Every surviving soul wanted to flee beyond the deep valley, cursing that their parents hadn't given them two extra legs so they could escape even faster.
"Little Long, your moment to shine has arrived!"
The Vermilion Bird Divine Beast chuckled and called out to Long Xiaoxuan.
Long Xiaoxuan's spirit surged with vigor. His dharma body shifted, stirring up winds and clouds across ten thousand zhang. He drew upon his dragon qi, and his resonant roar filled the air without cease. Long Xiaoxuan's roar was entirely different in style from the Vermilion Bird Divine Beast's cry.
Grand and magnificent, it swept through the void like furious tidal waves, rolling on without end.
This was a divine ability unique to the True Dragon bloodline—the Dragon Roar.
Once this Dragon Roar began, it could not be restrained. Wave crashed upon wave, continuously overlaying and amplifying, like one thunderclap after another, booming against every cultivator's eardrums.
For the rebel forces, this was nothing short of inhumane torture.
The Dragon Roar pierced into the cultivators' five senses like bronze hammers, boulders, and every manner of crushing pressure—penetrating their divine sense, boring into their internal organs.
Those cultivators with slightly weaker cultivation saw their divine sense shatter on the spot under the onslaught of the Dragon Roar, their bodies exploding and perishing one after another.
Long Xiaoxuan had waited so long for an opportunity like this to unleash his full power. How could he possibly let it slip?
His figure streaked like lightning, weaving at high speed around the valley's perimeter, the Dragon Roar blanketing the entire surroundings.
In that moment, the space beyond the deep valley seemed enclosed inside a giant drum, and the Dragon Roar hammered upon that drum with relentless fury.
Screams of agony rose without pause.
Jiang Chen's fighting spirit was also stoked by Long Xiaoxuan's Dragon Roar. He laughed heartily and joined in with a long, resonant howl of his own. Having refined the True Dragon bloodline, his Dragon Roar divine ability was no less formidable.
Moreover, the chain-like seal within his sea of consciousness amplified his divine sense power to a level that was in no way inferior to Long Xiaoxuan's.
And so, the scene of a single dragon soaring through the heavens instantly became that of two dragons playing with a pearl.
Man and dragon roared together wildly across the heavens.
In the blink of an eye, mountains and rivers changed color, the sun and moon lost their brilliance, and the entire space beyond the deep valley was torn by flying sand and rolling stones, every tree and blade of grass flattened.
Even the Spirit Medicine base within the deep valley—had it not been protected by the formation—would likely not have escaped the devastation. Those cultivators of the True Martial Sacred Ground would have been caught in the crossfire.
Even with the formation in place, the cultivators inside still felt waves of agitation and unease. Fortunately, the formation shielded them; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
The Sacred Maiden Yuling's beautiful face was painted with astonishment. Stammering, she said, "Master… that person—is he not human? How can he also use the Dragon Roar divine ability?"
At this moment, Sacred Master Ningyan had already deduced the identity of this human cultivator. She murmured with a sigh, "This person must be Jiang Chen—that genius who has emerged from the Eternal Sacred Ground in recent years, the hero who turned the tide of battle for them. I never expected him to be so young?"
"Jiang Chen?" Sacred Maiden Yuling was completely bewildered. In her memory, there had never been any young genius of that name on Myriad Abyss Island.
A talent like this—could he truly have appeared out of nowhere?
"Ling'er, the name Jiang Chen may sound unfamiliar to you. But his other name—perhaps that one you'll recognize." Sacred Master Ningyan sighed softly.
"What name?" Sacred Maiden Yuling asked curiously.
"Shao Yuan."
"Shao Yuan? That alchemical prodigy from the Eternal Sacred Ground—the one who defeated Grandmaster Shi Xuan of the Hundred Gods Kingdom on the spot and took him as an alchemy slave?"
"That is the one." Sacred Master Ningyan's tone was complex. "The outside world always assumed this young man was merely an alchemy genius. Who could have guessed that his martial talent was even more extraordinary? Consider the Xiahou clan's foremost genius of the Eternal Sacred Ground, Xiahou Zong—he was slain in single combat by this young man right at the Tournament of Geniuses."
"I've heard about that. But the Eternal Sacred Ground has so many powerhouses—could they really be outmatched by a single young genius?" Sacred Maiden Yuling found it hard to believe.
"It truly is the case. When I first received the intelligence, I was equally incredulous. Word is that this young man befriended a Vermilion Bird Divine Beast whose combat power rivals that of a god. Perhaps the rumors are true. And what's even more exaggerated than the rumors is that he hasn't merely befriended a Vermilion Bird Divine Beast—he also keeps a True Dragon by his side. Such a talent is truly without precedent in all of history. Could it be that the Eternal Sacred Ground is about to rise to dominance?"
A flicker of complicated emotion glimmered in Sacred Master Ningyan's eyes as she gazed at the scene beyond the deep valley, where heaven and earth had shifted color and the sun and moon had gone dark. Her curiosity toward this young man only deepened.
At the same time, she felt a pang of envy toward the Eternal Sacred Ground, which had somehow obtained this peerless genius out of thin air.
A talent like this might not appear once in ten thousand years—and yet, through some twist of fate, he had fallen into the Eternal Sacred Ground's lap.
Sacred Master Ningyan had also heard that this young man had not originally been part of the Eternal Sacred Ground at all. He had been brought back from the Blue Smoke Island Domain by the Yan family of the Eternal Divine Kingdom.
It had to be said—the Eternal Sacred Ground had stumbled upon an enormous windfall.
"Master, is this Jiang Chen of dragon bloodline?" Sacred Maiden Yuling asked with curiosity.
"He should be of human bloodline, though he has undoubtedly refined True Dragon blood within himself and learned many of the dragon clan's divine abilities. The fact that his Dragon Roar can resonate in harmony with the True Dragon clan's true spirit—that level of attainment is absolutely no simple matter. This young man is truly a genius among geniuses."
Sacred Master Ningyan was proud by nature and had always set her standards exceedingly high. Young people who could earn a word of praise from her lips were few and far between.
And one who could earn such high praise—she had never encountered before.