Reality.

Dongshan Province, Tongcheng.

The riot at the airfield in the suburbs had quickly subsided, and everything returned to normal.

The thugs did not continue their rampage, nor did they senselessly kill; instead, they strangely retreated.

Apart from the mysterious disappearance of several Skyglider Masters present, everything else was perfectly normal.

Whoosh!

Across the clear blue sky, a squadron of silver aircraft rapidly descended, landing slowly on the roof of the Tongcheng Central Union Building.

Several Union members were already waiting.

Liu Zhen, the Ninth Rank Regional Commissioner responsible for coordinating all provincial security affairs, anxiously stepped forward to greet them.

The hatches opened one by one, and heavy exoskeletal warriors clad in black armor with white patterns leaped out of the aircraft.

Fifteen exoskeletal heavy infantrymen, armed with guns, shields, and war blades, moved with the agility of apes, leaping out with only the soft thud of a falling wad of paper.

Each heavy infantryman had blue V-shaped electronic eyes that scanned the surroundings.

After disembarking, two of them quickly retrieved strange mechanical components from their backs and installed them around the rooftop.

Soon, the installation was complete.

Hum.

Invisible waves spread out into the distance.

Quickly.

Whoosh!

Three beams of light burst forth from afar, rapidly decelerating as they approached the rooftop and gently landing.

The beams were two white and one blue.

The blue light dissipated, revealing a cold, alluring woman clad in armor that resembled a blue formal gown.

The woman exuded an icy aura, her hair, lips, and eyes all blue, her skin unnaturally pale and bloodless.

The armor she wore appeared to be distributed illogically on the surface.

The blue-black protective plates barely covered three vital points, leaving her thighs, arms, neck, and other areas completely exposed, seemingly unconcerned about being harmed.

Each of her shoulders had horn-like spikes that curved upward, reaching almost to the level of her head.

Behind her, a blue rhomboid crystal floated slowly, circling around her from time to time.

"I am Ding Xianhong. You should be Zhao Chengyu and Zhu Bin, right?"

A blue light flashed in the woman's eyes as she spoke, looking toward the other two beams of light.

The two white lights slowly dissipated.

Revealing two young men of contrasting appearances.

One held a feather fan, wore a white robe and a white gauze veil, and had a silver-gold metal Taiji diagram inlaid on his left cheek.

This man was Zhao Chengyu, the Yin-Yang Flying Divine Saber, and the top expert of the Zhao family, second only to Zhao Chengxi.

The other had a stern face, sharp, piercing eyes, and wore simple gray trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. Behind him floated a pure white, luminous beheading horse saber.

The beheading horse saber was exquisitely ornate, with a golden hilt nearly half its total length, intricately carved with a landscape of flowers and birds.

The blade was silver-white, engraved with three ancient characters of pure purple in the middle.

Wisps of silver starlight fragments danced around the blade, creating an unknown, special effect.

This man was Zhu Bin, the Dragon-Slaying Scorpion, a top Eighth Rank expert from the Zhu family, one of the Nine Great Clans of Yi State.

The very title "Dragon-Slaying" demonstrated the terrifying extent of his power.

It could be said that, were it not for limited resources and energy, Zhu Bin could have been the Zhu family's second Ninth Rank expert.

Unfortunately, the energy resources of the entire Yi State could only support a maximum of nine Ninth Rank experts.

There was nothing left to spare.

Ding Xianhong of the Ding family, Zhu Bin of the Zhu family, Zhao Chengyu of the Zhao family.

The three of them were responsible for handling the Shadow Eater incident this time.

"This incident has become quite serious. When we deal with it, we need to stabilize the situation as much as possible and prevent it from escalating. So we must act quickly. When dealing with targets, it's better to kill the innocent than let the guilty go free," Ding Xianhong, as the designated leader, proposed the operational guidelines.

"That's the way it should be," Zhu Bin said calmly.

"Let's resolve this quickly. I was in the middle of negotiating a group deal when I was suddenly called in," Zhao Chengyu said with some impatience.

There were not many Eighth Rank experts in the entire Yi State.

Not to mention top Eighth Rank experts like them, who were at the level of the Thirteen Flying Stream sect leaders.

Each of them had a large number of vassals and forces under their command.

If it hadn't been for the disappearance of a Skyglider Master expert, suspected to be at the Seventh Rank, coupled with the need to quickly suppress the situation and the fact that the source of the turmoil originated from the Black Sea,

They wouldn't have been called in to deal with such a minor incident. They would have just used heavy weapons to lock on with the Eye of Heaven and bombard the area.

"The Eye of Heaven can confirm that the target is still within the city, so our mission is simple: find, lock on, and eliminate," Ding Xianhong said concisely.

"Understood."

"Then let's begin. Six districts, each of us will be responsible for one. Send a message immediately after discovering the enemy. No problem, right?" Zhao Chengyu said quickly.

"Affirmative," Zhu Bin said curtly.

"Let's go!"

Ding Xianhong glanced at the surrounding guard warriors, nodded to the welcoming Commissioner Liu Zhen and the others, and floated down from the building.

The other two also suddenly turned into two white beams and shot up into the sky, flying in other directions.

However, none of the three noticed.

Among the crowds coming and going below, one office worker who seemed to be on the phone suddenly flashed a glance toward them.

At the feet of this office worker, there was a faint shadow, and that shadow was unmistakably the form of a Shadow Dragon with twin wings.

*

*

*

The Black Sea.

Countless streams of Black Sea aura continuously poured into Li Cheng Yi's body, which was encased in a gray sphere.

It was difficult to describe the substance of the seawater within the Black Sea.

It seemed to be a mixture of countless substances, yet it had no true form, sometimes ethereal, sometimes solid, sometimes viscous, sometimes thin.

The so-called Black Sea aura was a particularly pure essence of unknown origin that was drawn out and integrated into Li Cheng Yi's body at this moment.

Time passed without measure.

Perhaps an hour, two hours, or even more.

Suddenly, the gray sphere trembled slightly, and a thin crack appeared.

The crack rapidly widened, turning into fissures that spread across the entire sphere.

Pfft.

Finally, the sphere shattered completely, and the gray fragments re-melted into gray dead energy flames, which Li Cheng Yi absorbed back into himself.

He lay supine in the Black Sea, his eyes tightly closed, the Flower Whisper no longer glowing.

Similarly, the Black Sea aura around him also became incredibly dense with the completion of the transformation.

It was nearly indistinguishable from many of the weaker Black Sea creatures he had encountered.

Without the eye-catching glow of the Flower Whisper, and without the obvious gray dead energy sphere, Li Cheng Yi at this moment was like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

His sense of presence quickly weakened, slowly disappearing from the countless gazes around him.

He just lay there, floating, without direction, unaware of his location.

Another half hour or so passed.

Finally, his consciousness returned to clarity.

'It's over?'

Li Cheng Yi took a deep breath but discovered that there was no air outside, and his mouth and nose were completely blocked, making it impossible to breathe.

Fortunately, he could hold his breath and survive for at least a day, so he wasn't too worried about running out of oxygen for now.

The Shadow Dragon didn't need oxygen or breathing anyway. If worse came to worst, he could switch to the Shadow Dragon's survival mode.

'The engraving seems to have succeeded.'

He lowered his head to examine his body.

On his right chest, corresponding to the mirrored location of his heart, there was now a hideous, dark red tumor.

The tumor was surrounded by a mass of blood vessels that resembled tree roots.

A constant stream of fullness radiated from this point, spreading throughout his body.

Li Cheng Yi casually clenched his fist and immediately felt that his body was much lighter than before.

It felt as if his weight had been cut in half.

"It should have worked."

He tried to move his body, recalling the Flower Whisper's commentary on good luck. This time, he didn't use the Radiant Force Field again.

Instead, he simply allowed himself to float in the Black Sea.

'I can't see, smell, hear, or sense anything except for touch. Perhaps it's because I haven't opened the Non-Gate. This time, the integration and completion of the engraving was entirely due to the existence of a mysterious gate directly connected to the Black Sea, coupled with the fact that the strength limits of both the engraved sphere and myself were met.'

'The problem now is that I must find a way to leave here as soon as possible. All sorts of strange things exist in the Black Sea, and I can't stay here for long.'

He tried to turn over and face downwards.

But as soon as he turned, his hand touched something hard and cold.

Grasping this thing, he pulled it out with force.

Pfft.

A stick the size of an arm was pulled out from the black silt.

As soon as he grasped the stick, Li Cheng Yi could see it.

It was a ghastly white bone stick about a meter long and the thickness of a fist.

At the top of the stick, there were small, earthworm-like black threadworms attached.

These threadworms seemed to feed on the stick, drilling several black holes in it.

'What the hell is this thing?' Li Cheng Yi wanted to throw it away but hesitated.

It wasn't easy to enter the Black Sea.

It would be good to take something back as a souvenir.

He vigorously shook off the threadworms from the stick, then lifted it in his hand and waved it.

There was no gravity here, so he naturally couldn't feel how heavy it was.

But at least it felt handy to hold.

With a tool in hand, Li Cheng Yi closed his eyes and began to sense his connection with the Flower Whisper sub-body.

He actually had several connections to reality.

First was the connection between the Flower Whisper Beads of the Purple Petite Flower. Because the Purple Petite Flower didn't have this ability, this connection was very faint.

Secondly, was the connection between the Holy Infant of the Sacred Spirit Art. This was relatively tighter.

Li Cheng Yi tried both methods.

To his surprise, he felt nothing from the Holy Infant connection, but he actually felt a trace of connection from the Flower Whisper Beads.

It was this trace of connection that gave him a little sense of direction.

"It seems to be below and to the left!"

Having determined the approximate location, Li Cheng Yi turned around and swam quickly towards the lower left, as if he were swimming.

He still maintained the dragon transformation, and the Flower Scale Armor was instantly switched to the Shadow Dragon Flower Scale Armor of the Thistle Bristlewing.

With a flap of his wings, his speed suddenly increased dramatically.

Although the Shadow Dragon was also slow here, it was much faster than he was on his own.

Pfft.

Swimming along, he suddenly bumped into a hard, fan-shaped object.

Reaching out to pull it over, this time, he obtained a large piece of grayish-white fan-shaped bone, it was unknown from what creature. The edges had crumbled and dissolved a lot, and the surface was covered with dense, honeycomb-like small holes.

Li Cheng Yi checked it, made sure there were no worms on it, and then tapped it, finding that it was very hard. So he held it in his hand, using it as a shield, so that no matter what he encountered, he wouldn't have to reach out and touch it directly, thus avoiding danger.

He continued to swim forward.

Soon, as he swam, he snagged a soft, round thing with the fan bone.

(End of chapter)