After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, Ye Futian, who had been feigning death, suddenly felt his remnant soul clench.

One hundred and eight Soul-Suppressing Nails were shaken and hummed in unison!

"It was Li Chengfeng's doing!"

"Four thousand years ago, he used the primordial essence to forge a chain, pinning this monstrous dragon to the water's eye!"

The old devil's voice carried a hint of fear, as if he had met his match.

"I'm afraid his cultivation level back then was at most the peak of Foundation Establishment."

Yet it can seal a Nascent Soul stage dragon!

He's a madman...

Zhou Ran didn't have time to listen to his lament.

He discovered an even more serious problem.

Nine chains, four of which are cracked.

At the break, there remained the marks of a dark blue electric arc.

This is not the erosion of time.

It was deliberately cut off!

A burst of purple-gold light shone in Zhou Ran's eyes, his gaze piercing through layers of water pressure and murky silt, reaching the deepest part of the water's eye.

There, in the pitch black where even light cannot reach, a massive steel outline is faintly visible.

Every line of its outline exudes aggression; it's a steel behemoth lurking beneath the water.

Susanoo.

The Black Dragon Society's submarine wasn't in the middle of the river at all; it had submerged to the very bottom of the eye of the water!

Several Onmyoji dressed in hunting robes sat cross-legged on a platform outside the submarine, using the submarine's vast energy to perform some kind of forbidden cutting technique.

Those eerie blue arcs of electricity emanated from their fingertips, precisely scorching the ancient chains left behind by Li Chengfeng!

They taught how to capture dragons.

The Black Dragon Society releases the dragon!

What they want is not the dragon pill, but to completely free this evil dragon that has accumulated resentment for four thousand years and let it break out of the water!

At that time, the entire Yangtze River system will be turned upside down, and the dragon vein of destiny in the south of Xia Kingdom will be cut in half!

"Zhou Ran!"

Miao Yingying, huddled inside the protective shield of the Heavenly Water Bowl, spoke through the water, her voice urgent and chaotic.

"The old dragon wasn't provoked by the formation!"

Something is cutting it from below!

It's struggling!

The leader of the Pai Sect has finally shown up.

Fifty meters away, on a floating boulder.

A man dressed in red robes sat cross-legged, his face gaunt, his cheekbones high, and his eyes filled with twisted fanaticism.

He held a bronze mirror in his hand, its surface engraved with twisted dragon patterns.

The Mirror that Locks Dragons.

The most treasured possession of the Pai sect.

"Charge!"

The cult leader roared, his voice distorted and deformed in the water.

He activated the bronze mirror, and all eighteen array eyes were activated!

Nine bright and nine dark beams of blood-red light rose from various parts of the riverbed, intertwining and weaving together to form a giant blood net covering the entire water eye area.

Each grid is composed of countless vengeful spirits, emitting silent wails.

The blood net slowly closed in, wrapping around the old dragon's massive body.

The old dragon was furious.

The resentment suppressed for four thousand years, the tearing sensation from the broken chains, and the foul aura emanating from the blood-soaked net overhead aroused its most primal ferocity.

With a flick of its tail!

The jet-black dragon tail swept across a hundred-foot stretch of water, breaking the flow of water and creating dozens of vacuum bubbles in its wake.

More than thirty water ghosts who were unable to dodge were hit by the aftershocks, and their bodies were immediately crushed by the water pressure difference, turning into clumps of blood and flesh.

But the Blood Web was more resilient than anyone imagined. A quarter of it was shattered by the dragon's tail, but it quickly drew energy from the dark array's eye to repair itself.

The life force of those eighteen living human stakes, which were used as "batteries," was frantically drained at this moment, and their bodies withered away at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The cult leader bled from all seven orifices, but a grin spread across his face as he chuckled and stubbornly maintained the Dragon-Locking Mirror.

He's gambling.

The gamble is that before the dragon breaks free of all its chains, this vast net, which has exhausted the three hundred years of the Pai Sect's heritage, can completely lock it up!

Zhou Ran did not move.

He hovered in place, watching quietly.

His gaze pierced through the fierce battle and landed on Miao Yingying inside the protective shield of the Heavenly Water Bowl.

Inside the protective shield, the silver bell in Miao Yingying's hand was already burning red, and the high temperature caused the water around her to boil.

She bit her lip, the skin on her palms scalded and blistered from the heat, making a sizzling sound like roasting meat.

Silver Bell wouldn't let her let go.

The bell's tongue had pierced through the skin and flesh of her palm, forcibly connecting with her bloodline!

In Zhou Ran's mind, the words Old Man Miao had said before leaving Longhu Mountain echoed.

"The Miao people owe a debt, and it's time to pay it back."

debt?

Zhou Ran's facial muscles twitched slightly.

That wasn't laughter; it was some kind of more dangerous emotion.

He got it.

This bell is not a ritual implement for transporting corpses.

It is a token of the contract!

On Miao Yingying's scalded palm, ancient golden runes emerged from the surface of the silver bell.

That's not a spell.

It's a name.

A name is inscribed in ancient Miao script.

Miao Yingying stared at that name, and tears finally welled up in her eyes.

That's the name on the first page, first line of the Miao family genealogy.

The first generation of corpse drivers of the Miao people!

The founding patriarch who established the school!

Now she knows what her ancestor encountered on the banks of the Yangtze River before his death.

The moment the name appeared on the silver bell, the old dragon stopped struggling.

Those scarlet vertical pupils suddenly turned towards Miao Yingying.

The violence, bloodlust, and four thousand years of resentment all faded from his vertical pupils.

In those eyes, there was only a profound sense of relief, a feeling of finally seeing an old friend again, after experiencing the vicissitudes of life to the extreme.

The dragon's might subsided on its own within a ten-zhang radius around Miao Yingying.

The leader of the Pai Sect's face froze in ecstasy, turning into astonishment, and finally turning ashen.

He spent half his life planning, gambling away the future of the entire sect.

Why would a prey that's almost successful resonate with a corpse-driving girl?!

Miao Yingying met Zhou Ran's gaze, her face streaked with tears, her voice choked with sobs.

"Brother Zhou...I'm sorry about this..."

Grandpa told me not to tell.

"My Miao ancestors..."

"I made a pact with this dragon."

The scorch marks on her palms from the silver bell were still bleeding, and her voice trembled with fear.

Four thousand years ago...

Even after being suppressed by Senior Li, the old dragon's resentment lingered.

My Miao ancestor passed by the Yangtze River and nourished it with his own pure Yang essence and blood in exchange for its cultivation.

In exchange, every hundred years, the old dragon would exhale a breath of primordial dragon energy to nourish the yin veins of my Miao family.

Zhou Ran looked at her, all the warmth in his eyes vanishing.

"Therefore, the peace that your Miao people have enjoyed for the past few hundred years was bought with the help of a wicked dragon that was locked up tightly."

His voice entered the protective shield through the surge of his inner energy.

"Now that its chains are about to break, you still want to continue arbitrage?"

"No..."

Miao Yingying shook her head desperately.

"That's it!"

A hoarse, aged voice suddenly came from above the deep water area.

The churning mud and sand were forcibly parted to both sides by a brute force.

Three golden-armored corpses covered in green hair and with a metallic sheen sank in the water in a triangular formation.

The gaunt old man standing on the shoulder of the golden-armored corpse at the very front was none other than Old Corpse Miao!

He looked down at his granddaughter, his withered face showing no pity, only undisguised calculation.