Chapter 652: Chapter 178: Golden Dragon: My Middle Years (Requesting Monthly Pass)_3
[“What… what’s going on?”]
Jia Jinbo opened his sleeve to check and saw you were barely alive. He immediately breathed a sigh of relief, “So both parties were injured, it’s a pity about the fortune of that nation!”
You were barely breathing?
You were completely unharmed, you were pretending, unfortunately, you are a natural-born actor, and coupled with the racial differences between dragons and humans, Jia Jinbo failed to see through your deception.
Following Jia Jinbo, you headed south until you finally reached the Southern Sea Ruins, where Jia Jinbo leapt down. At the brink, he unexpectedly turned the world upside down, coming from the underground to the sky, and a great gate appeared before you.
Heavenly Gate! Here we are.
“Hmph, you vile creature, causing trouble along the way. Is it not much more pleasing to serve the true superior beings in the Heavenly Palace than in the human world?” Jia Jinbo knelt thrice and kowtowed nine times, absorbing a celestial radiance, then pushed open the Heavenly Gate and walked in, revealing everything inside the Heavenly Palace before you.
“So this is the Heavenly Palace.” You were somewhat astonished; you had never seen the Heavenly Palace and imagined it would be resplendent and paradisiacal.
But what was it actually like?
All you saw was a desolate land, devoid of life, soundless, completely deathly still.
Not long after proceeding, you saw the first creatures.
It was a mountainous gigantic creature, square and robust, with nine dragon heads—it was your former “foster father,” the Nine-Headed Snake!
However, the Nine-Headed Snake no longer possessed its imposing bravery from its days in the human seas. Chains stretched from the void, firmly locking it in place.
On the back of its wide stony body, peculiar one-eyed creatures clung, utterly grotesque and repulsive, like a giant, solitary eyeball affixed on a severed neck, with an original mouth in the middle of the eyeball.
They were gnawing on the flesh of the Nine-Headed Snake, like ants swarming over a corpse. Yet their pace of devouring was slow enough that the Nine-Headed Snake could gradually regenerate, thus becoming a continuous source of meat.
This shocked you greatly, no wonder the Nine-Headed Snake never returned after “offering the egg,” it turned out to be imprisoned here!
Is this place the Heavenly Prison? Was the dragon egg offered by the Nine-Headed Snake a fake, angering the heavens, resulting in it being thrown into prison?
As you speculated, Jia Jinbo moved straight forward, his eyes closed the entire time, his steps bold and proud as if a general who had won a battle, yet he never glanced at the surrounding.
From time to time, ancient ferocious beasts appeared on either side, such as the great bird with golden wings that could travel ten thousand miles, the majestic cloud-reaching Azure Ox, a lion also with nine heads, the pure white elephant, and other various mythical beasts…
Some of these creatures’ eyes were filled with despair, some with fear, some with confusion, and many more became completely numb.
The only commonality was that chains restrained them all, and their bodies were covered with those peculiar eyeball people, nibbling and devouring.
After an unknown distance, a boundless lake appeared ahead, and you were certain it wasn’t the sea, because the sea symbolizes freedom and hope, on the other side of the sea is…
Two eyeball people came forward, waving bloody phalanges in their hands, blocking Jia Jinbo. Jia Jinbo, his eyes closed, showed a flattering smile and humbly said, “I’ve seen the Heavenly Official!”
Xu Shu was stunned.
Heavenly Official?
Jia Jinbo, are you truly blind or pretend blind? Can you play blind just by closing your eyes?
These damn eyeball monsters, even among bugs, are the ugliest things, a million times more disgusting than cockroaches and maggots, and they are what, Heavenly Officials?
The two Heavenly Officials cleared the way, Jia Jinbo immediately walked in and knelt on a platform; he raised his buttocks high and bowed his head low, his voice full of flattery and sycophancy, like a drake loudly calling: “Your servant, the Human Clan Guardian, Heavenly Palace Gatekeeper, Jia Jinbo, respectfully requests the heavenly decree!”
With a thunderous rumble, waves surged, parting the lake to reveal a bizarre underground palace, flanked by five golden dragons forming a circle, prostrating on the ground.
They seemed to be guarding a high platform in the middle, on which was a single, massive eyeball.
This eyeball was constantly gnawing on a green-robed corpse, the body neither human nor beast, indescribable in shape, seemingly an embodiment of all beings yet overlapping with none.
However, that did not matter; what mattered now was that it was a corpse, a body being wantonly devoured.
Jia Jinbo had knelt for a long time. He didn’t dare to raise his head, so he had never seen the true face of that eyeball.
But you had seen it, and you associated it with the forbidden deities you had encountered before. You worried that looking directly at this eyeball might cause it to burst, but fortunately, you seemed to be fine.
Finally, the eyeball stopped feeding and cast an emotionless gaze upon Jia Jinbo, issuing a resounding, genderless voice akin to the ringing of a bell, “No merit, no reward!”
Xu Shu frowned. This bizarre thing could actually speak human language?
He had encountered “eyeballs” more than once in legends.
But to look directly at one and not die, this was the first.
And one that could speak human language was also a first!
What was special about it?
Jia Jinbo was slightly excited and joyfully said, “Your servant has brought a true dragon from the mundane world to serve Your Highness!”
While speaking, he trembled lightly, took you out, and sent you forth.
A great force lifted you up and brought you into the underground palace.
You felt a powerful gaze sweep over you.
Then, a grand and solemn voice sounded again: “Good! Granting five hundred years of lifespan and three thousand units of cultivation!”
You saw streaks of blood-red mystic light rising from the desolate landscape outside and from the exploded eyeballs of the Ghoul-like eyeball people, converging and pouring into Jia Jinbo’s body.
His body instantly transformed from the appearance of a man in his forties to that of a thirty-year-old, and he no longer emitted the aura of impending demise but displayed a vibrant vitality erupting from all things.
Jia Jinbo ecstatically exclaimed, “Thanks to Your Majesty’s grace! May the heavens remain forever stable, forever stable!”
His words of thanks, along with a great force, pushed him out of the door and disappeared.
The surface of the lake closed, leaving you alone in the underground palace facing that eerie and terrifying eyeball.
Clang, clang, the five submissive dragons moved along with the ground, shifting from their original positions to add one more spot.
The eyeball regarded you and said, “Those who believe in me shall gain eternal life!”
You felt intense oppression, and knowing the vast gap in strength between you, you temporarily bowed your noble head in submission.
You joined the ranks of the guardians, and six dragons encircled the area as everything darkened.
The eyeball resumed nibbling little by little on the body in the blue robe, while you felt a cool, seemingly condescending will empowering you.
You had received the “Origin” power!
Your strength instantly broke through, and you became the Dragon King, the fifth realm!
You were Tier 5, but with the bolstering effect of the “Origin” power, your realm had far surpassed that of Tier 5. However, you felt this “Origin” power, though it elevated your realm, seemed mismatched to you. There were many disparities, making it difficult to control, and instead, it hindered you.
From the “Origin,” you sensed a will that you couldn’t interpret, but the Tai Chu Scroll translated the result for you.
This “Origin” power was dense, pure energy of Humanity, originating from “Heavenly Dao!”
That body in the blue robe was Heavenly Dao! He was the original Heavenly Dao of this world, the deceased Heavenly Dao!
You also understood why this Origin power and your current path as “Dragon King” didn’t align and instead caused complications, because this Origin represented another transcendental path known as—
Human Immortal.