Chapter 2280: Dragon God's Night Patrol

Sun Hongye was arranged to stay in the guest hall behind the mountain, and at this moment he was reading a book.

When the palace attendants led him over, the vehicle was a four-sheep cart. Those sheep were taller and sturdier than horses, and when they ran they soared through clouds and mist, traversing cliffs as if on level ground, and even barely jolted—truly extraordinary.

After the rain cleared, he pushed open the door and saw the sky dotted with stars, and could hear the clear spring tinkling not far off, with frogs croaking in bursts.

The spore lamps in the forest burst with warm light, illuminating the path up and down the mountain.

He had finally arrived at Jucheng, and even sitting here still felt unreal.

Sun Hongye read two more pages, then suddenly felt something odd and lifted his head.

The eave bells of the hall fell silent, the frogs in the spring ceased their croaking, all around grew utterly quiet, so much so that even the sound of wind blowing through leaves could not be heard.

Everything outside the window had come to a standstill.

The air suddenly turned heavy and solemn, as if a storm were about to break, weighing down on people's chests.

Sun Hongye lowered his head and discovered goosebumps rising on his arms.

Heaven and earth had changed.

It seemed as if something was approaching, invisible and intangible, yet the pressure was immense. On the ground outside the window, the thick layer of fallen leaves suddenly stirred without wind, rolling up on its own.

That thing was very close, yet its aura was overwhelmingly strong, causing Sun Hongye to hold his breath like a cicada in winter.

Faint moonlight shone on the facing screen wall, his gaze swept over it, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

On the screen wall there was originally a black dragon carving, exquisitely crafted, but only the dragon's head, no body.

And as he watched, the black dragon carving suddenly came to life, its two front claws bracing against the wall, its slender dragon body leaping out and soaring into the sky!

Sun Hongye startled, hastily rubbed his eyes, but found that what had leapt from the wall was merely a wisp of gray smoke-like shadow, while the true dragon carving remained on the wall.

That flying dragon shadow flickered in midair, sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, but its eyes glowed red, extremely ominous.

Sun Hongye broke into a sweat on his back. This was the Chixiao Golden Hall, the safest place in the Jinjin Plains, yet at this moment he felt utter terror.

The dragon shadow headed down the mountain, toward the palace center, and along the way other gray shadows kept joining, making the dragon body appear even more vast. Moreover, the dragon's mane, whiskers, and scale patterns became increasingly lifelike, its towering, broad horns like two small trees.

After the dragon shadow had flown over a hundred zhang, the pressure gradually faded with its distance. Sun Hongye chased after it, standing at the cliff's edge, and just happened to see several palace attendants prostrating themselves in the direction the gray shadow had gone.

The gray shadow swept swiftly over the Chixiao Golden Hall, then split into dozens of strands, patrolling the streets and alleys of Jucheng!

Now Jucheng is a world-famous sleepless city; looking down from the mountain peak, the whole city's lights blaze all night long. Even at night, pedestrians still come and go on the main street.

Sun Hongye watched helplessly as that gray shadow wandered through the streets and alleys, yet it seemed to cause no destruction. Often, it would pass directly alongside citizens and merchants, gliding by like a night breeze.

He followed the mountain path downhill and soon met a palace attendant who had just risen to his feet; he hurriedly stopped the person:

"May I ask, what is that?"

The attendant wore a reverent expression: "That is the Emperor himself."

"?!"

Seeing Sun Hongye's bewildered face, the attendant explained: "The Emperor occasionally transforms back into a dragon god and patrols the capital! The residents of Jucheng all know this, so it causes no panic."

The dragon god's aura can be felt by everyone. Moreover, the black dragon statues or totems spread throughout the city also show anomalies, which ordinary people can also see.

Over time, this came to be known as the dragon god's city patrol.

Sun Hongye exclaimed: "Ah, now I understand."

After all, he too is a cultivator; combining the attendant's reply with a little thought, he grasped it:

The so-called "dragon god patrolling the city" is actually the Primordial Spirit of the Nine Abysses Great Emperor emerging from his orifice!

In former times, when heavenly and earthly spiritual energy waned, cultivators practicing Primordial Spirit emergence could at most leave their bodies by a few zhang or a dozen zhang; once they drifted too far, they might not be able to return.

But with the spiritual environment of Cangyan returning to the early Middle Ages, the difficulty of cultivation has plummeted in a straight line. Sun Hongye has heard that some cultivators' Primordial Spirits can emerge twenty or thirty li, making round trips to neighboring mountains and counties.

Just hearing that is already impressive, but Jucheng is so vast that the Nine Abysses Great Emperor's Primordial Spirit patrolling the entire city covers several such twenty-li stretches.

What level of cultivation has my former employer actually reached now?

Two hours later, the "dragon god" had finished patrolling the entire city and headed out beyond the walls, no one knowing how far it went.

After another quarter hour, the gray shadow flew back and reassembled in the sky above Jucheng.

From Sun Hongye's perspective, he could just make out its full form:

A black dragon shadow coiled above the city, its head-to-tail length unknown how many li, its scales clearly visible, its eyes glowing red.

In the city, countless civilians knelt before it, murmuring prayers.

Soon, the dragon shadow flew back to the Chixiao Golden Hall and dissolved into nothingness in place.

The night sky was vast and clear, again with a dark moon and bright stars.

Sun Hongye then saw a wisp of gray shadow descend from the air, burrow into the facing screen wall, and return to its place.

He could not help but also bow before the screen wall, his heart filled with both awe and reverence.

Could it be that my former employer is truly a dragon god reborn?

……

In the morning, He Lingchuan went to the ridge of the main hall's roof to absorb the purple qi coming from the east.

After the sun rose, he even refined some true solar fire.

Until he was drenched in sweat, he then finished his practice, faced the morning sun and stretched, his entire spine emitting a dozen or so crackling sounds like bursting firecrackers.

The mirror asked him: "You practiced cultivation last night until the end—did you fall asleep again?"

"Mm-hmm, I even had a strange dream, dreaming I was talking to an acquaintance, but upon waking I couldn't recall the content."

"Dreaming" used to be rare for him, but not anymore.

Mirror said strangely: "This is the Chixiao Golden Hall, your domain as the Nine Abysses Great Emperor. What nightmare could invade your dreams and harm you?"

Talking in one's sleep—isn't that a specialty of nightmares?

"Not a nightmare."

Last night he practiced cultivation, his Primordial Spirit emerged, and he went to a place a hundred li east of Jucheng, where he struck the wind chime hanging outside the Mount Mount Fengmo's nest.

When the Mount Mount Fengmo came out looking bewildered, his Primordial Spirit returned to the city.

For He Lingchuan, this time the distance was so great that it was also a milestone-like leap forward.

The people of Ju City called the phenomenon of his Primordial Spirit appearing during practice "Dragon God Patrolling the City," and he naturally would not deliberately clarify it. But in fact, it was not his Primordial Spirit turning into a dragon shadow after emerging from the orifice, but rather the Great Expansion Heavenly Pearl, the Vast Origin Golden Mirror, and the Crimson Void Golden Hall, and then further merging deeply with the entire Ju City, so that when He Lingchuan's Primordial Spirit passed over Ju City's airspace, it would trigger the resonance of the Black Dragon Mark.

Perhaps only a few people understood this principle, but they would not spread it around.

After his Primordial Spirit traveled hundreds of miles and returned to the orifice, He Lingchuan also felt fatigued, so he directly went to sleep and even had a dream. Somehow, he actually dreamed of the long-unseen Great Shaman of Zhao Man Du.

After many years apart, the Great Shaman's demeanor remained the same, with not a single white hair at his temples, and he remained as amiable and approachable as ever in his dealings with people.