Chapter 380: My Potential Surpasses Your Imagination

Black Domain Continent, Ashen Canyon.

The great battle had ended; shadowy black mist slowly dispersed over the charred earth, while a wind laden with death howled through the canyon, swirling fine bone fragments across the ground.

The once mountainous piles of Erosion Clan corpses had vanished entirely.

The slain Erosion Clan warriors had been converted into players' sacrificial power and evolution points; the remnants left behind from the battle with the Dragon Wing Clan were also removed when the player legion withdrew.

Items with utilitarian value were batch-listed on the Trading Row; those without apparent use were sacrificed to Emperor Zhao.

This battle yielded great rewards for the three allied warbands that crossed over.

Beyond the kills and outputs, they acquired vast quantities of loot.

Such as weapons, armor, and war artifacts.

The battlefield after the war was a wasteland, riddled with trenches of varying depths, cracks crawling across the earth like earthworms.

The canyon walls on both sides had been sheared halfway off by energy shockwaves, exposing blackened, charred rock layers.

The stone bridge built by the Dragon Wing Clan, spanning the canyon, had collapsed and shattered; its broken body jutted diagonally into murky bloodwater, its planks covered in fissures and traces of shadow energy corrosion.

Beyond the canyon lay the direction of Dragon Court City.

The city walls, once built with dragon scales as shields and dragon crystals as foundations, now revealed grotesque wounds.

On the eastern wall, a gap nearly a hundred meters wide had been torn open; shattered dragon scales mixed with the blood of Dragon Wing warriors lay scattered across the open ground outside the city.

The dragon banner atop the city tower remained only as half a charred flagpole, crookedly embedded in the ruins, swaying and wailing in the wind.

Buildings near the city walls had mostly collapsed; crystal tiles had turned to dust, and a few lingering dragon breath flames still licked at the broken walls.

Rising black smoke merged with dark clouds gathering overhead, plunging the entire city into a suffocating gloom.

Occasionally, wounded Dragon Wing warriors emerged from the ruins, dragging broken wings as they limped toward the city.

At the edge of the meteor crater at the battlefield’s center, the elemental energy released by the Yama Lord’s manifestation gradually dissipated.

At the crater’s bottom, compacted earth remained, its residual heat making the passing wind scorchingly warm.

This war had no victors except the participating players.

The ruined walls, shattered weapons, flattened canyon, and remains of Dragon Wing warriors—all traces proclaimed the battle’s ferocity.

The surviving Dragon Wing members stood silently outside the city walls, arranged in formation.

Their scales still bore fresh bloodstains, yet their spines remained straight.

Long Yi carried a pile of shattered dragon scales and bones, walking slowly across the broken earth, with Ji Chen following behind.

In its hands lay the remains of the Great Dragon Lord.

The skull had shattered into three pieces, the left wing bone broken into several segments, the hardest reverse scale cracked into a spiderweb pattern; only the golden embers lingering in the eye sockets still radiated a trace of its former majesty.

Long Yi arrived at the gap in the city wall, where the foundation stones had been corroded by shadow energy into honeycomb-like holes.

It lowered its head, forcing out a suppressed growl from its throat.

Then, slowly raising its foreclaw, it lifted the remains above its head.

Golden dragon breath seeped from its teeth, flames enveloping the broken bones and scales.

This process lasted a long time; bones and flesh melted into flowing gold liquid, dripping from Long Yi’s clawtips into the foundation holes, filling every crack.

The scales unfurled within the dragon breath, transforming into translucent thin sheets, layered one upon another under psychic force, seamlessly blending with the remaining city wall at their edges.

The core fragment of the reverse scale was gently lifted by Long Yi’s clawtip and embedded at the center of the gap.

It lowered its head, pressing its forehead against the scale; its dragon breath surged through its brow, slowly healing the cracks until the scale radiated brilliant luster.

“With your bones, forge the clan’s wall.”

Long Yi’s voice, deep as thunder, echoed over the ruins:

“From now on, when the wind comes, you shall be the barrier; when enemies arrive, you shall be the war cry.”

The final drop of gold liquid seeped into the foundation; Long Yi slowly retracted its clawtip.

Where the broken gap had been, a new wall now rose—solidified gold-red bone pulp hardened into a sturdy structure; translucent scales shimmered with flowing light in the sunlight, while the central reverse scale resembled an eye, silently gazing into the distance.

This was the Dragon Wing Clan’s ancestral “Wall Fusion Ritual,” a burial more solemn than any gravestone.

For the Dragon Wing Clan, flesh decays, names fade; only merging with the land they protect grants true eternity.

The fallen clan members became the bones and sinews of the wall, continuing their protection in another form.

Their scales would whisper war cries in the wind, reminding descendants not to forget their ancestors’ glory.

Their blood and bones would seep into the bricks and stones, making the wall grow ever stronger through time, becoming the clan’s most steadfast shield.

As history records, the first King to enter the Monster World transformed his own body into the first foundation stone of Dragon Court City; ever since, each war’s purification has infused the wall with the power of the fallen, rendering it ever more unshakable.

Now, with the Great Dragon Lord’s remains fused into the gap, it was not merely mending a wound, but infusing the wall with his lifetime’s achievements, embedding the will of the former monarch into this barrier to withstand future storms.

For the surviving Dragon Wing members, this newly built wall was also a historical totem.

Every time a clan member passed here, they felt the lingering battle spirit of their ancestors, remembering this war.

The fallen had never truly left—they had merely become part of the wall.

This was the Dragon Wing Clan’s philosophy of survival.

Pain was never deliberately recorded; it was forged into armor for the journey ahead.

Death was not an end, but a heavier means of lifting the clan toward higher skies.

The post-battle ritual continued.

Remains collected from the battlefield by Dragon Wing warriors were continuously repaired into the city wall.

There was no sorrow; every Dragon Wing warrior’s eyes gleamed with fierce battle spirit.

When the final scale was embedded into the wall, Long Yi raised the Dragon Breath Rule aloft, gazing skyward, and let out a deep, resonant roar.

The melodious sound resembled an ancient war song.

Other Dragon Wing members joined in the roar, their voices merging and echoing through the canyon.

As the howls faded, Long Yi bent down, scooped up a handful of dust, and scattered it upon the wall.

Clan members followed, one by one, bending to scoop charred soil and cast it upon the wall.

Movements slow and solemn, honoring and bidding farewell to the fallen.

The ritual ended.

Under Long Yi’s lead, the Dragon Wing members turned and walked toward the ruined city, their silhouettes stretched long against the gloomy sky, each step firm and steady.

For beneath their feet, the charred soil was infused with the bones and blood of their kin.

Just as their fathers and ancestors had done, they too would eventually become the dust beneath the wall, nourishing the power for the next flight.

Generation after generation, each inch of this canyon’s soil was soaked in the blood of their forebears.

And the path to the peak still stretched onward.

…

Back within the city, Long Yi, who had succeeded the Great Dragon Lord, began organizing clan members to repair the damaged Dragon Court City.

Throughout this time, Ji Chen remained by his side.

The player legion had departed, but his meeting with Long Yi had only just begun.

After arranging the post-battle matters, Long Yi and Ji Chen sat atop the city wall.

The golden glow of the setting sun spilled over the broken ramparts, casting Long Yi’s body and Ji Chen’s silhouette into shadow, overlapping upon the cracked earth.

The evening wind carried the scent of distant charred soil; Ji Chen swirled his bottle of liquor, then casually tossed it to Long Yi.

Inside, the amber liquid shimmered faintly in the sunset.

Long Yi bit through the bottle cap in one gulp, drained the spiritual wine in one swallow, then turned to Ji Chen:

“Now you should tell me.”

Its clawtip pointed to the spot on Ji Chen’s chest where he had once suffered a fatal wound—now radiating vibrant life.

It did not speak plainly, but Ji Chen understood what Long Yi meant.

It was asking: how had this corpse, meant to lie dormant forever, come back to life?

Ji Chen stared at the distant sunset; the dying light gilded his pale hair, and as he swirled the bottle in his hand, the amber liquid rippled in tiny waves:

“Back then, I truly returned to my homeland world using the spatial coordinates you set.”

“I had planned to spend my remaining years in peace there—to see my long-lost homeland, learn how it had changed during my absence, bow at my parents’ graves, and… visit my old home to see if the locust trees still bloomed outside the door.”

Ji Chen tilted his head back and drank deeply:

“I knew well that two hundred years had passed; my homeland had changed drastically. The people I wished to see, the sights I wished to behold, had long been worn away by time.”

Hearing this, Long Yi’s golden vertical pupils reflected the sun sinking behind the distant mountains:

“Your lifespans are truly brief.”

“Yes, as brief as the last sip left in the bottle.” Ji Chen shook the nearly empty bottle:

“Before I could savor the flavor, only emptiness remained in my mouth… What I cherished in the White Demon World was memory; returning to my homeland, it was still memory.”

“But the changes in my homeland exceeded my expectations—I felt alienated. The environment was far worse than I imagined.”

“The air reeked of pollution; spiritual energy was nearly impossible to absorb. Every breath burned my lungs; even clean air had become a luxury. Later, I learned that during my absence, my homeland had endured multiple descent wars.”

Here, Ji Chen paused, then explained:

“The wars I mean are not the clan battles you understand—they were other-world civilizations treating my homeland as an arena. Each war brought severe pollution, and countless alien beings joined my homeland’s alliance, making me feel… as if I’d crossed into another world entirely, not the homeland I remembered.”

“This feeling was terrible—I felt utterly out of place. The harsh environment further deteriorated my already nearly exhausted vitality.”

“Upon arrival, even my own kin mistook me for an invading cross-world entity—they nearly dissected me.”

“Fortunately, that was just an interlude. Soon, I gained a new identity and confirmed I was indeed from two hundred years ago…”

As Ji Chen spoke, Long Yi listened in silence.

“After accepting my inevitable death, I found unprecedented peace. I truly surrendered—to the decay of this body, to the strangeness of my homeland, to the fact that all encounters must end.”

“During my imprisonment by my kin, I taught them the knowledge you had imparted to me, planning to live quietly after leaving, find a beautiful place to spend my final years, and relive the long memories of the White Demon World—until my last breath faded, and I finally slept in my homeland’s soil.”

Ji Chen gazed at the distant mountain ranges, as if lost in memory.

Long Yi had waited a long time, yet still received no answer he wanted, and couldn’t help glaring:

“So, what does this have to do with you coming to the Monster World? What comes next?”

“The story that follows involves secrets that cannot be told, so it ends here,” Ji Chen said solemnly, turning his head to Iron Face Long Yi and nodding.

“This is the twisted tale of my return to my homeland world. That’s all.”

The air froze for an instant.

Long Yi’s claws clenched tightly.

The next moment, a fist streaking through the air slammed hard into Ji Chen’s shoulder.

“You little brat, you’re messing with me.”

Ji Chen, over two hundred years old, grinned like a mischievous boy who’d just pulled off a prank.

“Old Yi, show me some respect. I’m not the same man I was back then—I could beat you like it’s nothing. Don’t force me to reveal my true strength.” He rubbed his numb shoulder, yet his Iron Face wore a smile:

“Don’t press me on what I went through. Just know that after that, I had a miraculous encounter and joined a special organization. But due to a warning from a friend, I’m forbidden from revealing any details, so I can’t tell you more. In short… I’m now terrifyingly strong.”

Upon hearing this, Long Yi still glared, but did not press Ji Chen for further details:

“So, how strong are you now?”

At the question, Ji Chen’s Iron Face broke into a brilliant smile.

Finally, his moment to show off had arrived.

“Ahem.” Ji Chen cleared his throat deliberately:

“Do you remember when you once explained to me about Rule-level power?”

Upon hearing this, Long Yi immediately recalled the past.

Back when it had taught Ji Chen various combat techniques, it had, on a whim, introduced “Rules” as the ultimate form of power.

Ji Chen had once curiously asked what a Rule was.

Its answer was: a power that transcends the laws of reality and establishes its own absolute logic.

The greatest strength of a Rule is not its destructive force, but its ability to redefine the logic of all things within its domain.

During that time, it had also detailed the Rule possessed by its own Long Yi clan: Dragon’s Breath.

The effect of this Rule was that, within the domain of Dragon’s Breath, clan members’ power gained from cultivation or consuming spiritual substances was amplified tenfold.

It completely rewrote the laws of reality.

The prerequisite was generating energy according to the Rule’s own logic—this served as the power source to activate the Rule.

For any race, possessing a Rule is the first step toward greatness.

Based on the nature of a Rule, countless cultivation systems and sects can be developed, granting a race infinite potential.

With Long Yi’s bewildered expression, Ji Chen feigned calmness:

“I currently control twelve Rule-level powers (PS: aside from the Nascent Soul in my Star Vein slot, there are also group-augmentation types, such as Flesh and Blood Reshaping, Gathering the Masses, and Divine Transference).”

“Twelve?!”

Long Yi’s golden vertical pupils shrank sharply. It instinctively leaned forward, its head nearly touching Ji Chen’s Iron Face, hot breath spewing dragonfire from its nostrils, whipping Ji Chen’s white hair into wild motion.

“How is that possible?!”

Ji Chen’s answer truly startled it.

Although possessing a Rule doesn’t necessarily mean one is powerful.

Many factions in the Monster World lack Rules yet still possess formidable war potential.

But without a Rule, there is no growth potential.

The entire Long Yi clan, throughout its history, had only ever forged one Rule: Dragon’s Breath. Generation after generation of Great Dragon Lords had exhausted their hearts and minds to evolve Dragon’s Breath’s amplification from an initial threefold to tenfold.

And now, this former brother who had once followed him, claimed to control twelve Rules.

It felt as if that poor boy who once couldn’t even afford a meal had suddenly thrown twelve golden mountains at its feet.

Recalling those days, Ji Chen had struggled even to sense the most basic spiritual energy for cultivation.

But now, the figure who once needed its protection to slowly stumble toward growth casually uttered a number capable of shattering its worldview.

Rule-level power is the primordial essence of a world, and not every world can give birth to a Rule.

Every world that harbors a Rule inevitably possesses the potential to nurture a mighty civilization.