The pale light of dawn glowed beautifully on the horizon.
As the sky just began to brighten, the two of them left Seaside City and headed toward the Endless Sky Sea.
They walked and talked along the way. Li Zhizhong was actually a very reserved person. Unless Xu Zimo asked a question, he could stay silent the whole time.
When they arrived at the dock by the sea, Xu Zimo saw the same old man as before, holding the yellow sack and tossing something into the sea.
“Be careful of him,” Li Zhizhong glanced at the old man and warned Xu Zimo briefly.
Xu Zimo frowned slightly. He had suspected before that the old man was suspicious.
This time, he was retrieving the Supreme-Yang Solar-Illumination, no mistakes could be allowed.
He was thinking about whether he should just kill the old man ahead of time to remove any future threat.
“Let’s go,” said Li Zhizhong beside him, stepping onto a small boat without saying more.
Xu Zimo thought for a moment, then got on the boat.
As the small boat slowly drifted away, the old man's cloudy eyes seemed endlessly deep. No one knew what he was thinking.
…………
The sea remained calm. The deep blue ocean wasn’t very clear, in fact, it seemed somewhat murky.
“Strange, we haven’t been attacked by any flood dragons,” Li Zhizhong said, shaking his head.
Xu Zimo paused for a second. Everyone said the sea was full of flood dragons, yet he hadn’t seen a single one even when he came yesterday.
The two arrived at a certain stretch of water. Li Zhizhong looked around, then slowly stopped the boat.
He nodded at Xu Zimo and jumped into the sea.
Xu Zimo was slightly surprised and guessed that maybe the iceberg was underwater.
He had always imagined the iceberg floating on the surface, never thinking it could be submerged.
Following Li Zhizhong into the water, they didn’t notice anything unusual at first.
Li Zhizhong stayed at the seabed for a long time before taking out a small insect from his spatial ring.
“This is a Firebug. It’s highly sensitive to fire-related objects,” Li Zhizhong explained.
Xu Zimo found all of this quite interesting.
As soon as the Firebug touched the seawater, it began to struggle and swam rapidly toward the north.
“The iceberg’s location is never fixed, but it always stays within this part of the sea,” Li Zhizhong said.
After swimming for about half an hour, the Firebug seemed exhausted, and its speed clearly slowed.
At that point, Li Zhizhong put it away and took out a new one.
In this way, they followed the bugs for nearly two hours, until the outline of a triangular iceberg appeared ahead.
The closer they got to the iceberg, the more Xu Zimo felt the Supreme-Yin Nether-Glow inside him start to tremble.
And the tremors and pulses were becoming stronger and more frequent.
“This is it,” he thought to himself.
“Is this what you were looking for?” Li Zhizhong turned and asked.
Xu Zimo nodded slightly.
They stepped onto the iceberg. It wasn’t particularly large, and its surface was pure white.
But when Xu Zimo touched it, he felt a slight warmth.
At the front of the iceberg stood a large fiery-red door.
The door was tightly shut, and in the center was a slot shaped like a circular sun, carved with runes Xu Zimo had never seen before.
As he approached the door, he felt a power boiling inside him.
His Demon Physique seemed to stir, as if it were awakening.
“How did you find this place?” Xu Zimo asked Li Zhizhong curiously.
Li Zhizhong smiled faintly, then gazed silently at the endless sea.
…………
Dozens of winters ago, a baby was abandoned by the shore of the Endless Sky Sea.
A couple who had gone fishing at sea found him and, feeling pity, took him in and raised him.
They named him Li Zhizhong.
As the boy grew older, he needed more food.
That same year, flood dragons began to occupy the Endless Sky Sea, and food was in very short supply in Seaside City.
Unwilling to see the child go hungry, the couple tried many ways to find food. In the end, they decided to go fishing in the sea.
They never returned. At the age of twenty, the orphan went out in the rain to search for them.
The sea was stormy and wild, and the sky looked like it could collapse at any moment.
His small boat was overturned, and he was thrown into the sea.
When he woke up, he found himself lying on a warm iceberg.
Inside him, his blood felt like it was burning, and he gained immense strength.
He drifted in the Endless Sky Sea for days, but never found the couple again.
When he returned to the city, he encountered a flood dragon.
What seemed like certain death turned unexpectedly when he, in panic, smashed the flood dragon’s head with a punch.
He brought the flood dragon’s corpse back to Seaside City and became instantly famous, known as the Dragon-Slaying Hero.
After telling his story, Li Zhizhong smiled and said, “Since then, I’ve come back here often. Because the closer I get to this door, the more my blood seems to boil. But no matter what I try, I’ve never been able to open it.”
Xu Zimo nodded slightly. He placed his hand on the door, but couldn’t tell what material it was made from.
Just then, the map in his spatial ring, the one that had led him here, began to emit a brilliant light.
The light floated into the air, shining brightly like a blazing sun.
Its radiance shot up to the sky.
Then it transformed into a beam of light and surged into the circular slot.
With a loud rumble, the heavy door slowly began to open.
Inside the door was a void, no one could see what was within.
But the moment the door opened, the entire iceberg seemed to tremble.
At that moment, the roar of dragons echoed around them.
Xu Zimo turned and saw that the whole iceberg was surrounded by a massive group of flood dragons.
There were at least hundreds of them, each exuding terrifying power. Among them were even some at the Imperial Meridian and Empyrean Meridian realms.
And riding atop a black-purple flood dragon was none other than the old man from the dock.
“How many years... I’ve waited so many years... This withered old body has finally opened the door,” the old man shouted wildly from atop the flood dragon.
Seeing this, Li Zhizhong roared in fury, “So you were the one raising all these flood dragons!”
Xu Zimo suddenly recalled seeing the old man feeding something into the sea, so it was food for the flood dragons.
“No need to be so angry,” the old man laughed loudly. “Even your arrival was part of my plan.”
“What do you mean?” Li Zhizhong asked angrily.