Chapter 900

The murky Yellow Spring water suddenly solidified, and the drifting remnants of souls on the river surface all stilled at once. In Yan Buji's pupils reflected the Yellow Spring Lao Gui gradually shedding his human form!

His raincoat turned into azure dragon scales, his bamboo hat into towering dragon horns, and that faceless visage now revealed a dragon head covered in mysterious patterns. Most chilling were the seven bronze chains piercing his spine, each engraved with the lost Primordial Dragon Script, humming heavily as Lao Gui moved.

"A million years..." a dragon's roar-like voice shook the Yellow Spring water to flow upstream: "You are the first human to see through this old man's true form."

Yan Buji's Swallow Desire Pot trembled violently behind him, the blood-red patterns on its surface all lighting up, resonating with the 《Chaos Dragon Chart》 on Lao Gui's scales.

He suddenly understood why the other could control the Yellow Spring water of Youming Jie—it was not a spell but a bloodline instinct. The entire Yellow Spring River was clearly the spine of a slumbering giant dragon, and the murky water flowing within was clearly diluted dragon blood!

"Look closely." Lao Gui's dragon claw suddenly plunged into his own chest, pulling out a writhing black tumor.

The tumor's surface was covered with vein-like purple patterns; each throb caused the surrounding space to warp. Yan Buji realized it matched the deep-sea tumor he had seen in his vision, only shrunk ten million-fold.

"This is what the Star Void Cult calls a 'god,' and also the source of the aberrant mutations of souls in Youming Jie."

As Lao Gui spoke, the Yellow Spring water automatically condensed into a scene.

At the end of the Primordial Era, the twelve ancestral dragons volunteered to become the heavenly barrier to suppress the 'Dao Evil' seeping in from beyond the firmament. The Profound Void Ancestral Dragon sank into the Nine Depths, its spine becoming the Yellow Spring, its blood turning into the River of Forgetfulness.

The last three living pure-blood dragons respectively guard the Celestial Firmament Layer, the Returning Abyss Sea Eye, and the Six Paths of Reincarnation.

What does that mean?

Are the Primordial deities also formed from that tumor's mutation?

The demon king didn't tell him that before.

Yan Buji frowned, unable to tell who was deceiving him.

"When that daoist excised the tumor back then..." Lao Gui's dragon whiskers suddenly stabbed into the void, pulling out a fragment of blurry memory.

Yan Buji saw in the depths of the void a daoist carving out a tumor from the back of a ten-thousand-zhang dragon corpse, whose scale patterns matched exactly those of Lao Gui before him.

"He excised the Dao Evil parasite on my elder brother's back."

Huh?

The scene shifted abruptly: the discarded tumor split in the deep sea, part salvaged by a mysterious figure, more sinking to the deepest reaches of Youming Jie. Meanwhile, the seven bronze chains on Lao Gui's back revealed their true form.

Each chain's other end connects to the dragon seal grand formation deep within the Celestial Firmament Layer; the apparent rust on the chains is actually dragon blood crystals corroded by Dao Evil.

"Now you understand why the Extreme Desire Pot is needed?" Lao Gui suddenly spat out dragon blood mixed with golden-black from his mouth, the droplets turning into countless tiny dragon shadows in the air: "Dao Evil feeds on all desires; only desire can counter desire."

With a sweep of his dragon claw, the bronze coffin at the bottom of the Yellow Spring River burst open, the beating black heart inside shooting out seven black lines that precisely linked with the seven chains on Lao Gui's spine.

Yan Buji shuddered violently, his Swallow Desire Pot flying uncontrollably toward that heart.

At the instant the pot touched the heart, he saw a more horrifying truth: the so-called Seven Emotions Demon Lord was actually a monster formed when the escaped tumor fragments devoured a demon.

And the aberrant mutated souls rampaging in Youming Jie each harbor a microscopic black crystal invisible to the naked eye—these are the miniature avatars of Dao Evil.

"Three hundred thousand years ago, I personally sealed my elder brother at the core of the Celestial Firmament Layer." Lao Gui's voice suddenly carried the dragon race's unique spacetime tremor, each word distorting the surroundings: "But his dragon pearl has long been corrupted by Dao Evil..."

In the void appeared a half-black, half-gold dragon pearl; within it a shrunken version of the ten-thousand-zhang dragon corpse could be seen undergoing mutation, its scales peeling off to reveal the writhing black substance beneath.

Yan Buji suddenly understood Lao Gui's true intention.

He wasn't trying to repair the Yellow Spring at all; he wanted to use the power of the Extreme Desire Demon Pot to finish the dragon-slaying undertaking left unfinished back then!

That so-called "desire origin" is actually the contaminated essence of the Profound Void Ancestral Dragon's heart, and the Seven Emotions Demon Lord is merely the aggregation of evil thoughts spawned by that heart.

"Why choose me?" Yan Buji's question sent the Yellow Spring water exploding into myriad waves. Only then did he notice that the flesh beneath Lao Gui's dragon scales was slowly blackening; those bronze chains were not imprisoning him but slowing the spread of corruption.

A flicker of appreciation crossed his dragon pupils: "Because you are the sole cultivator in six hundred years who broke free of fate's control by your own strength." Lao Gui suddenly tore off a scale of his natal dragon, which unfurled in the air into a star chart:

"Furthermore..." the star chart showed the silhouette of the daoist Yan Buji had seen in his vision: "His deductions show that only the Extreme Desire Path can resolve this calamity."

The instant Yan Buji's divine sense touched the dragon-scale star chart, a flood of vast information surged forth.

He saw how the primordial dragons used the 《Chaos Dragon Chart》 to weave the canons of heaven, how the first sages stole dragon secret arts to create cultivation systems, and how the essence of the Nine Heavens and Five Domains is merely a refuge propped up by the corpses of the twelve ancestral dragons.

And now, the "roof" of this refuge, the Celestial Firmament Layer, is riddled with holes.

Yan Buji felt his head swim from the onslaught of information.

"Fuse with the dragon heart, and you will become a half-dragon body." Lao Gui's voice turned illusory, his dragon form beginning to fade: "The price is..."

Before he finished speaking, the seven bronze chains suddenly straightened, an invisible force in the void tugging at his body.

Only then did Yan Buji realize that Lao Gui's true body was actually far away in the Celestial Firmament Layer; what appeared now was merely a Dao-blood incarnation.

"Too late..." Lao Gui's incarnation began to collapse, he finally spat out a cluster of golden dragon blood wrapping the black heart: "Catch the ancestral dragon's core! Remember, the true Yellow Spring is..."

His words cut off abruptly; the incarnation dissolved completely, leaving only seven hanging bronze chains swaying in the void.

Yan Buji held the dragon heart brimming with desire in his hand, his expression shifting unpredictably.

Suddenly Yan Buji laughed: "What a joke, a huge joke!"

He more or less understood: the so-called "Yellow Spring Old Ghost" probably isn't a dragon at all, but this dragon heart should be genuine!

"Still, since the other party has pointed out a path for him, there's no reason not to go see."

Yan Buji suddenly realized something.

The demon race has likely already infiltrated the Nine Heavens; perhaps there truly was a Yellow Spring Old Ghost in primordial times, but now who knows.

To ask why Yan Buji can clearly understand all this, it's simply because the demon controlling the Yellow Spring Old Ghost can't wait any longer.

Do they think fabricating some twisted facts can sway his heart?

"If I hadn't come into contact with the source of wisdom, I might really have been deceived. If I had never encountered demons before, I would have agreed the moment they spoke."

Yan Buji gave a cold snort.

This Yellow Spring Old Ghost has made two grave mistakes!

First, the tumor he mentioned is clearly a tale from before heaven and earth opened, having nothing to do with their dragon clan. Yan Buji, having stolen a fragment of the source of wisdom and cultivated his own Extreme Desire Path, already knows the original secret.

Second, the structure of the Nine Heavens and Five Domains. Although Yan Buji doesn't know what the Nine Heavens look like, he knows that the mere dragon clan could not withstand the Dao Evil, i. e., the aberrant corruption.

Furthermore, this world might very well have evolved from that tumor on the daoist's body, with everything originating from that mass, so how could Yan Buji believe the other's nonsense?

"Let me study this dragon heart thoroughly; perhaps there's another way to draw its desire to boost my cultivation!" Yan Buji narrowed his eyes, activating the Heaven Gate Law and whooshed away to Youming Jie.

Since they so want him to make the trip, Yan Buji has no reason not to go take a look.

Of course, this doesn't mean Yan Buji fears death; rather, he knows that this cabal of demons likely has some scheme requiring his involvement, so even if he doesn't go now, he'll eventually be entangled by them.

When the time comes, you'll have to go even if you don't want to; you might as well go now and see what happened.