Chapter 1 The Gods' Instance Dungeon

A Gu Long (poison dragon) with gray-white scales and purple mane, though dragon-like in form, appeared eerie. As soon as it plunged into the battlefield, it opened its long mouth, bared its fangs, and spat a stream of black flames, kilometers in length, towards the fair and adorable boy.

This flame seemed to contain the power to decay everything, plunging the arena within a few kilometers into ruin. The land lost its nutrients, bacteria and microorganisms died rapidly, and the already barren ground took on the texture of white sand.

The Flame of Extinction, one of Zhulong’s (Torch Dragon) strongest abilities and core authority, could burn all life, spiritual power, and nutrients in the world.

Turning the human world into a desolate wasteland.

The Xie family patriarch did not resist or dodge, allowing the black flames to injure his body.

The Flame of Extinction was an area-of-effect attack, so dodging was useless.

His skin rapidly withered and wrinkled, his hair turned gray, and his eyes became cloudy. Except for his size, which remained that of a boy, his appearance was that of an old man on his last legs.

But in the next second, a powerful life force erupted from within him, nourishing his skin, blackening his white hair, and restoring the clarity to his eyes.

The Xie family patriarch endured the burning of the black flames, constantly aging and constantly being reborn, cycling endlessly.

Suddenly, viscous black liquid flowed out of the void above his head, pouring down on the boy's head.

Dada, it flowed stickily down his cheeks and chest, covering him in a layer of foul and turbid aura.

Instantly, the boy's recovery ability plummeted, and he could no longer return to being a fair and adorable boy. Each time he aged into a white-haired old man, he could only recover to middle age even with all his strength.

He was being eroded by the power of the defiled evil spirit.

Curses, defilement, and decay, the essence of a shaman, were perfectly suited to restrain a musician's life force and recovery.

The Xie family patriarch calmly opened his inventory and took out an infant's head, followed by its torso and legs, but without arms.

This was a rule-based item controlled by the Xie family – the Sacred Infant. Only a "mother" could soothe the Sacred Infant, so it needed to be stored in pieces. Once a complete Sacred Infant was assembled, it would lose control.

The Sacred Infant opened its eyes and cried out, "Wah!" Its cry was loud and full of vigor.

Amidst the infant's loud cries, the Xie family patriarch hummed a cheerful tune, gently rocking the infant in his arms. The crying turned from loud to piercing.

This was an ability that musicians mastered in the extraordinary realm – Encouragement.

Encouragement could greatly enhance the strength of one's own or an ally's skills. He was now using Encouragement to amplify the infant's cries.

The infant's cries echoed again and again, and the Gu Long’s abdomen swelled up, gradually pushing open its scales. From the bulging abdomen came the infant's crying.

The Sacred Infant's power of rules, coupled with the demigod's amplification, caused the Gu Long to successfully become pregnant.

The fetus in its belly siphoned off part of the Gu Long’s power, causing the raging Flame of Extinction to visibly weaken and become less intense.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Xie family patriarch restored his boyish form, and the black flames spewed out by the Gu Long flowed back, covering the dragon's body, which was dozens of meters long.

It burned itself with the Flame of Extinction, killing the fetus in its belly. The crying immediately weakened, and the highly protruding abdomen began to shrink.

Seeing this, the Xie family patriarch, holding the Sacred Infant, opened his small mouth and spat out a stream of golden, viscous liquid like soup. This liquid formed a heavy rain in mid-air, most of it was incinerated by the Flame of Extinction, and a small portion poured down, drenching the Gu Long’s body….

The fetus, which was about to die in its womb, seemed to have received a great tonic. It let out a loud cry, and the shrunken dragon's belly swelled up once again. No matter how the Flame of Extinction burned, it could not stop its gestation.

The musician's "gestation" and "nurturing" combined, became a rule of inevitable childbirth in the demigod domain!

Seeing that the Flame of Extinction could not kill the fetus in its belly in a short time, the Gu Long stopped spewing the Flame of Extinction from its mouth and uttered a difficult and obscure incantation from its fanged maw.

The two horns on its head lit up, spreading out waves of gray energy.

Instantly, the Xie family patriarch and the Sacred Infant in his arms, had darkened complexions and armpits generating filth, falling into the five signs of decay.

Immediately afterward, viscous liquid poured down from the void, landing on the heads of the Sacred Infant and the boy.

The combination of misfortune and defilement effectively launched a counterattack, causing the Sacred Infant to lose its spirituality and severely damaging the Xie family patriarch's vitality.

The crying stopped abruptly. The Xie family patriarch extended thin red threads from his fingertips, wrapping the Sacred Infant's body, which was covered in filth. In an instant, the Sacred Infant wrapped in "red cloth" let out a loud cry again, it had been resurrected.

The core skill of a level 7 musician, Resurrection.

The Gu Long’s abdomen swelled to its limit. With a "poof," flesh and blood tore open, and a small dragon the thickness of an arm was born.

The little dragon had no eyes, no antlers, and no scales. It twisted its body frantically, emitting a high-pitched "ao ao" sound, like a newborn infant calling for its mother.

The Gu Long snorted coldly, turned its head, and was about to swallow the little dragon, to recover its lost power and authority.

Just then, the Xie family patriarch took out a small and exquisite, bronze-greenish Demon Refining Pot.

This was something he had pre-emptively obtained from the Chu family girl. On the one hand, he was worried that she would die in the instance dungeon and this demigod item would be lost. On the other hand, the situation had reached a critical moment when a demigod war could break out at any time. Having a demigod item of his own class with him could save his life at a critical moment, and could also unexpectedly kill enemies, like now.

Of course, in exchange, he gave the Chu family girl a high-grade Sovereign item.

For Palace Master, this was not a losing, but even a slightly profitable, plan.

Demigod items were too high in rank, and Sovereigns could not exert their true power!

A high-grade Sovereign item could be used to its full potential in the instance dungeon. If she died in the instance dungeon, it was better for the Demon Refining Pot to be in the hands of the Xie family patriarch than to be recovered by the instance dungeon.

The Xie family patriarch opened the mouth of the pot and chanted a spell. "Whoosh!" A terrifying suction force was generated from the mouth of the pot, locking onto the Gu Long. The spiritual energy society's demigod's vertical pupils contracted sharply, and it felt a fear from its instincts.

It didn't bother to devour the little dragon, twisted its body, and frantically struggled to mobilize its spiritual power, trying to escape the shroud of the vortex. However, having lost part of its power, no matter how it struggled, it could not escape the Demon Refining Pot's devouring.

In a series of unwilling roars, the Gu Long disappeared into the Demon Refining Pot.

The Xie family patriarch quickly covered the mouth of the pot, opened his inventory, grabbed a banana leaf fan, and waved it hard at the Demon Refining Pot.

A violent wind rose, and samadhi true fire rose from the bottom of the Demon Refining Pot. The Gu Long in the pot crazily bumped around. The small and exquisite Demon Refining Pot swayed and tottered in the flames, but it stood firm.

Half an hour later, the roaring in the pot weakened, and the force of the impact became lighter and lighter….

Another half hour passed, and there was no more sound in the pot. The greatest function of the Demon Refining Pot was to reforge living beings, no matter whether you were a demigod or an ant, you could not escape the fate of being refined.

The Xie family patriarch unfolded his sleeves and took in the newborn little dragon. Amidst the Lingjing (Spirit Realm) notification sound in his ears, he smiled at the evil camp, whose faces were extremely ugly, and said, "I yield."

Then, he looked at the orderly demigods and smiled, "I have not failed my mission."

In the chaotic world, the Jade Emperor answered the fifth question: "We nurtured life on this planet, enlightened human wisdom, and taught them to establish civilization and practice cultivation, but before we could cultivate gods, the evil gods found this place."

"So the second divine war broke out. The consequence of that war was that Lingjing was breached, and the power of the evil gods polluted this planet, leading to large-scale distortion of creatures, the successive fall of cultivators, the collapse of order, and the world falling into the brink of destruction. Therefore, we launched the Great Flood, the Great Flood composed of weak water, devouring the distorted creatures. Then, we drove the ten sun golden crows evolved from the origin of the sun to burn the earth and purify the power of the evil gods."

So the world-destroying disaster in myths and legends originated from this!

Zhang Yuanqing had a sense of the fog breaking open and history slowly unfolding before his eyes.

No wonder Nüba said that the ten sun crows' chaos was destruction, but also redemption.

"Since there is Taiyin (Great Yin) to protect it, why could the gods of the evil camp find this place?" he couldn't help but ask.

The Jade Emperor said: "Taiyin's secrecy is mainly to prevent divination, detection, and deduction, not to erase actually existing things. The universe is vast and boundless, but as long as you adopt the most stupid carpet search, you will eventually find this place. Of course, the main reason is that among the gods in the third district, someone betrayed and led the evil gods in."

"The war of destruction first broke out in the third district, leading to the annihilation of all the gods and creatures in the third district. The part of Lingjing that was polluted was the most serious, so it has not been opened for a long time."

So that's how it is. No wonder cultivators never appeared in the history of the third district, because they had already been wiped out.

Zhang Yuanqing suddenly understood, which was consistent with the information he had learned about the third district.

After explaining, the Jade Emperor continued to narrate: "After that, as the main creator of Lingjing and possessing the authority to refine tools, Nüwa sacrificed herself in order to repair the loopholes in Lingjing. But the invasion of the evil gods had become a fact. They could still pollute the creatures of this planet through Lingjing. The Battle of Zhuolu that you are familiar with was the evil gods' another attack on this planet. This battle made the human leader in charge of the five elements wake up, stop attacking each other, and unite against foreign enemies, ending the Battle of Zhuolu. After two generations, the grandson of the Youxiong Clan, Zhuanxu, restarted the dispute, killed the water god, collected the five elements authority, and became the first god."

"At that time, the orderly gods had already fallen, and I was hiding behind the scenes, struggling to maintain the operation of Lingjing to fight against the evil gods. He knew that he could not fight against evil with the power of order, so he used the authority of the administrator to imitate Nüwa and sacrifice himself, sealing Lingjing, and the world entered a period of peace because of this."

Severing the Connection Between Heaven and Earth! These four words flashed in Zhang Yuanqing's mind.

According to legend, Zhuanxu severed the connection between heaven and earth, cutting off the connection between mortals and the heavenly realm. From then on, human affairs were human affairs, and there was no need to listen to the orders of the heavenly realm.

Although legends and reality had deviations, they expressed history to a certain extent.

Zhuanxu severed the connection between heaven and earth, which not only prevented the evil gods from eroding the world, but also sealed Lingjing. The world thus entered the age of Dharma's End. Lingjing produced spiritual power more stably, and the entire world became a pool of stagnant water.

As the existing spiritual power continued to be consumed and became less and less, the upper limit of cultivators also became lower and lower, until they became extinct.

Later generations worked hard to seek longevity, but were still ruthlessly swallowed by time. They were destined not to become administrators, so they could not restart Lingjing.

Zhang Yuanqing thought for a while and asked in confusion: "The evil gods cannot invade Lingjing, but it is not difficult to destroy the planet, right?"

The earth was a hatchery where orderly gods cultivated successors. If they couldn't destroy Lingjing, they could always destroy the earth.

The Jade Emperor stared at him for a few seconds and said something that overturned Zhang Yuanqing's worldview: "Because this planet is also part of Lingjing, the largest instance dungeon in Lingjing. If you want to destroy it, you must completely control Lingjing."

pt.

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