Chapter 874: Sea Dragon's Roar Carries Singing

Qin Mu, smiling broadly, pushed his hand back inside and closed the Chengtian Gate. "Yutian Zun is doing very well," he said. "I left him at Yujing Academy, and he's currently training with thirty-five Renhuangs, including the First Ancestor Renhuang. He's incredibly strong now; once I step down as Renhuang, he'll become the thirty-eighth generation Renhuang..."

The old underworld emissary showed no intention of leaving. Qin Mu had to exert considerable force to finally close the Chengtian Gate. With a thought, the gate then dissipated.

"Young Master, the sea has turned black," Yan'er said, looking down at the water.

Qin Mu looked down. The seawater had indeed turned pitch black, and beneath the surface, a paper boat floated. The old underworld emissary, looking resentful, shone his lantern up at him.

Long Qilin, seeing the sight beneath the water, felt a chill run down his spine and hastily leapt up.

Qin Mu sighed helplessly, "You Tianzun, if you just go to Yujing Academy, you'll see for yourself whether what I said is true or not. Why bother following me?"

The old underworld emissary beneath the water slowly vanished, his voice drifting up faintly: "I'll go to Yujing Academy. If I find that things aren't as you've described, I'll come back to have a serious talk with you!"

Only then did the darkness beneath Qin Mu's feet disperse.

Not long after, another old underworld emissary arrived at Yujing Academy.

As there was a distinction between the underworld and the living world, the old emissary did not wish to interfere directly with the living realm. Thus, he did not reveal himself, but instead observed from the shadows.

He then saw the Renhuangs of Renhuang Hall training a small, chubby boy.

The smile on the old underworld emissary's face froze. "This little chubby boy surely can't be Yutian Zun..." he thought.

"Lan Yutian, let's spar!"

The burly Qi Kang Renhuang sealed his Divine Treasure, then began to beat the little chubby boy. After Qi Kang, Yi Shan struck, and after Yi Shan, Lan Po struck.

The old underworld emissary's face turned completely dark, and he felt an urge to destroy the world.

Fortunately, though the little chubby boy was beaten severely, the Renhuangs struck with careful measure, and his life was not in danger.

The Renhuangs circled around Yutian Zun, who had been beaten into submission, critiquing, "This move is no good, that move is wrong."

"Our Renhuang Hall's tradition is: if you don't beat them, they won't become useful; if you don't thrash them, they won't achieve greatness."

"And another tradition in our Renhuang Hall is that once you master what you learn, you must beat your teacher!"

"Don't learn from us! We never learn from our masters; we always create our own cultivation techniques and divine arts! If you don't create your own cultivation techniques and divine arts, how can you defeat that brat named Qin?"

Upon hearing this, the old underworld emissary felt relieved. While the Renhuangs' teaching methods made him somewhat uneasy, their educational objective was excellent.

Qin Mu, Yan'er, and Long Qilin continued in the direction the old underworld emissary had indicated. After more than ten days, they still hadn't found Dragon Bo Country. The sea contained nothing but waves and flying fish; entering it felt like entering a desert, driving one to madness.

Long Qilin again attempted to float on the sea surface. Qin Mu, lacking the strength to beat him, resorted to holding Long Qilin's tail and walking on the water, dragging the enormous creature along.

Yan'er, having eaten nothing but sea fish and beasts for days, was tired of it. She stood on Qin Mu's shoulder, her eyes vacant, occasionally raising a paw to scratch at the corner of her mouth, pulling out a fish bone.

Qin Mu opened the geographical map drawn by Bai Qu'er, glanced at it, then tossed it into the sea.

The map Bai Qu'er had drawn depicted the maritime geography from forty thousand years ago. With the passage of time and the transformation of land and sea, the geography of the East Sea was no longer as Bai Qu'er had known it.

Moreover, the Primordial Realm had been sealed once, and its geography significantly altered after the seal was broken.

Particularly in the vast sea, changes to underwater mountains were almost imperceptible, and many islands on the surface had vanished, making it even harder to determine their position.

Suddenly, Qin Mu tilted his head, his voice hoarse, "Yan'er, are you hearing singing?"

Yan'er replied weakly, "Young Master, you must be mistaken, there's no singing... Oh, wait, there really is singing!"

They followed the sound of the singing, and not long after, saw a gigantic skeleton, half submerged and half towering above the sea surface.

It was the unimaginable skeleton of a divine dragon. The water was very deep, yet half of its bones still stood above the surface, indicating its immense size in life.

The singing came from the skeleton. As Qin Mu and the others approached, they realized it was this very bone dragon that was singing.

Its dragon head opened and closed, and the song emanated from its mouth. Yet, this divine dragon was nothing but bones; how could it still sing?

The bone dragon's song was rough, prolonged, and deep. It was like a poet of the ocean, its voice imbued with melancholy and sorrow.

"Young Master, what is it singing?" Yan'er asked, not understanding Dragon language.

"He's singing about his homeland in a very ancient Dragon language."

Because Qin Mu had spent years trying to decipher the Dragon language on the True Dragon Lord's lair, he had a deep understanding of it.

"His homeland is Dragon Bo Country."

Listening to the bone dragon's song, Qin Mu said, "He sings that Dragon Bo Country was a beautiful place, where divine dragons roamed the seas, speaking beautiful Dao language. The divine dragons built magnificent and grand structures on the islands, ruling over the vast ocean. Various races in the sea presented offerings to them, giving them delicacies and precious jade and jewels from the ocean. They lived in harmony, and many divine dragons traveled far from home, becoming respected Dragon Kings who brought rain."

Suddenly, the song turned mournful, filled with a murderous aura and confusion.

"He says that one day, the Heavenly Court's Feathered Forest Army suddenly arrived, destroying his homeland. The divine dragons were separated from their families, enslaved, and had chains pierced through their bodies. Many captives were beheaded, their blood staining the seawater, and many slaves were forced onto ships."

Qin Mu listened to the bone dragon's chant and continued, "The Heavenly Court's Feathered Forest Army used their flesh and blood as sacrifices, offering them to the Heavenly Emperor of the Heavenly Court. Their king, Dragon Bo King, was also captured, turned into a slave, and sent to the Heavenly Court for trial. His homeland was thus destroyed, and he became a wanderer without a home. When he yearned for home, he returned to his scarred homeland and saw lonely spirits drifting there."

Long Qilin, hiding behind Qin Mu, timidly peeked at the divine dragon skeleton and asked, "Cult Master, where is its homeland? And why did it die here?"

The bone dragon had long been dead; its yearning for its homeland made it continuously sing this nostalgic song of the Dragon race, unable to answer them.

"Is this Dragon Bo the same one Bai Qu'er encountered in the East Sea back then?"

Qin Mu pondered for a moment, then activated his Myriad Gods' Nature Technique to awaken the bone dragon.

The dragon skeleton standing on the sea surface suddenly rattled and shook. A great torrent of water surged as the divine dragon's dry bones pulled out of the water, stood up, and roared, "Homeland! Homeland! I cannot be buried anywhere else; I must return to my homeland—"

Qin Mu stood below, the vast waters parting around him due to his vital qi.

The young man looked up and called out loudly, "Where is your homeland?"

Whoosh—

The bone dragon suddenly soared into the sky, shaking its head and tail as it flew towards the distance. However, without flesh and magic power, it fell from the air after only about half a kilometer, splashing the sea surface and scattering its bones in all directions.

Qin Mu used a spirit-awakening spell to revive it. The divine dragon's skeleton reassembled itself, quickly returning to its original form. Instead of flying, it swam through the ocean with surprising speed.

"Follow it!"

Qin Mu jumped onto Long Qilin's head, and Long Qilin hastily followed. The bone dragon swam faster and faster, rushing wildly across the sea surface. Suddenly, it vanished into thin air before their eyes.

Qin Mu paused in surprise. Long Qilin rushed to the spot, stealthily extending a paw to test, only to see his paw disappear into the air ahead.

"It's an illusionary array."

Qin Mu stepped into it. The sea before him suddenly receded, and a magnificent and tragic scene unfolded: countless divine beings escorted Dragon Bos with dragon heads and human bodies to sacrificial altars, where they were beheaded. Innumerable heads fell, blood turned into an ocean, and crimson waves surged, rushing into the sky.

In the sky was a massive altar, upon which blood surged. It was a spectacular sacrifice of immense scale.

The shouts of the Feathered Forest Army's divine demon generals constantly echoed. The people of Dragon Bo Country had become offerings for this sacrifice. Their flesh and blood were offered to the Heavenly Court through the ritual, becoming delicacies for the Heavenly Emperor and the civil and military officials of the Heavenly Court.

Qin Mu stood stunned, then shook his head.

Suddenly, the illusion vanished, and the desolate, decayed reality appeared before him.

The sacrificial scene from before was merely a historical echo, depicting the Dragon Han era when Wei Suifeng led the Feathered Forest Army to suppress a rebellion in Dragon Bo Country, slaughtering its people as sacrifices to the Heavenly Court.

What now lay before him was the reality.

Before him, countless gigantic dragon skeletons lay scattered across a vast continent. Skeletons were everywhere. In the collapsed, majestic Dragon Palaces, ghostly flames swirled around bones, causing these withered Dragon Bo skeletons to rise and move about.

This place was like a ghostly netherworld. Bone dragons with ghostly flames floating in their eye sockets drifted through the air. In the immense city, bone dragons bustled through marketplaces. He even saw a true ghost market.

—Those Dragon Bos seemed alive, buying and selling goods, trading items within the Dragon City.

He even heard the sounds of haggling.

Qin Mu, with Long Qilin and Yan'er, walked into the city of Dragon Bo Country. Compared to these gigantic divine dragons, he was tiny. Even if Long Qilin returned to his true form, he would still be a dwarf here.

Ancient divine dragons had built a magnificent civilization and a grand kingdom here. Qin Mu found himself among the moving bone giants, watching them live seemingly carefree lives, as if still alive.

Yet, this scene was indescribably eerie.

He then saw the bone dragon that had led them to Dragon Bo Country earlier. This bone dragon had transformed into a Dragon Bo with a dragon head and human body, seemingly reborn, and was soaring through the air.

What Qin Mu saw were piles of bones, but in its eyes, Dragon Bo Country seemed not a ruin but a vibrant place, where all the Dragon Bos were still alive.

It excitedly greeted the moving skeletons, completely unaware that it was dead, and that its kin were also dead.

Everything here was merely the unwilling Dragon Bos, having forgotten their deaths, repeating their former lives in confusion and ignorance.

However, for this Dragon Bo who had returned home, its obsession dissipated, and it found peace.

"Cult Master, do they not know they are dead?" Long Qilin asked, trembling with fear.

Before Qin Mu could answer, suddenly all the divine dragons of Dragon Bo Country seemed to hear his words. All the skeletons collectively turned their heads to look at Long Qilin.

Long Qilin's heart jolted. He quickly hid behind Qin Mu again, tucking his tail tightly and trembling.

Like the sound of a tsunami, in an instant, the bustling Dragon Bo Country suddenly saw all its withered bones collapse and disintegrate. Innumerable bones fell to the ground, the ghostly fires in their eyes extinguished, and no Dragon Bo stood up again!

The sound of collapsing bones subsided, and the surroundings became utterly silent, with no sound to be heard.

The sky gradually darkened.

A faint sigh drifted through the air, ghostly fires began to float, and small paper boats sailed from Youdu, each with an old underworld emissary standing at its bow.

Qin Mu greeted them, and the old underworld emissaries returned his salute.

"The Dragon Bos here have been dead for nearly a million years," one of the old underworld emissaries explained to Qin Mu. "They didn't know they were dead, which is why their souls lingered."

"Previously, their will to live was too strong, and I couldn't enter this place to guide their souls," he continued. "But now that they've realized they're dead, I can come in and escort them to Youdu."

Qin Mu looked around. The vast majority of the Dragon Bos' withered bones had severed heads, their dragon heads lying on the ground. He couldn't help but frown, his voice somewhat hoarse: "You Tianzun, Wei Suifeng, the commander of the Dragon Han Heavenly Court's Feathered Forest Army back then, was my Eldest Senior Brother. Was he truly so cruel? Was it truly necessary to annihilate the Dragon Bo race and nation?"

"Wei Suifeng was not the cruel one," the old underworld emissary replied.

"The cruel one was the entire Dragon Han Heavenly Court," the old underworld emissary said.

Qin Mu was startled.

"Using a rebellious race or nation as a sacrifice to the Heavenly Court, to the Heavenly Emperor, was common practice during the Dragon Han era."

The old underworld emissary explained, "The Feathered Forest Army suppressing a rebellion, crushing Dragon Bo Country, annihilating its nation and race to sacrifice to the Heavenly Emperor, allowing the Heavenly Emperor to feast on flesh and blood—this was completely normal in that era. Your Eldest Senior Brother simply followed local customs; he couldn't change anything. If he had, he would have become an anomaly. Throughout the Dragon Han era, such things happened frequently. Why did the Heavenly Emperor have to die? Why did the Heavenly Alliance have to eliminate him at all costs? This is the reason."

Qin Mu's hair stood on end.

The Ancient God Heavenly Emperor's death was not innocent!