Chapter 568 - 564: Collateral
Shortly after Wei Wuyin left to conceal himself, to focus on using his time in an efficient fashion, a hunched figure seemed to step out of fixed space directly where he was previously positioned for a full hour.
The figure revealed itself as an elderly man with pale skin, numerous wrinkles littered his face with aging, and his arm and leg skin seemed to be filled with yellowish age spots. The essence of old age exuded from him like a gushing geyser. Yet his black taoist robe with golden embroidery gave him an affluent impression, and his breath was unfathomably stable.
While it wasn't enough to form a sharp contrast, he could easily be assumed to be a mortal man at the edge of his grave. The limpid yet lazy gaze of the elder stared at Wei Wuyin's mountain.
In the Aeternal Sky Starfield, very few would find this elderly man unrecognizable, and even fewer would show him anything but the utmost respect and reverence. He was the Golden Life Pavilion's Third Manager, Ma Zhang, and he handled many matters that dealt with Ascended of the starfield. The other Ascended was sent packing before Wei Wuyin had transported the Four Extreme Continent by this man, and they dared not even harm Wei Wuyin or Lin Ming despite their interests clashing.
Inspiring fear and respect, one could tell that his position was untouchable. Yet he had focused his attention to Wei Wuyin, and most of it was because he was the only Ascended that was aware of the reason for the Four Extreme Continent's collapse and Wei Wuyin's action of bringing it through the Void…
Despite Wei Wuyin fully knowing this elderly man had settled his focus on him, he didn't have time to waste nor set precautions against someone like him. Therefore, he just ignored him.
Ma Zhang observed Wei Wuyin's mountain for a few hours, then his bushy eyebrows furrowed slightly. Within his lazy gaze of dark blue eyes was a faint glimmer of stimulated light. It possessed a faint energy that gave life to Ma Zhang's deflated expression.
"Spatial Dragon Bloodline; Mortal Sovereign Alchemist; Multiple Astral Souls; Elemental Heart Intent." Ma Zheng casually spoke these twelve words, his tone flat and incomprehensible. After a short moment, he lifted his head and looked at the sky above in a slow manner. A slow blink of his eyelids followed and he pursed his withered lips slightly.
With a calm breath out, "Tiangou?" After sensing the incoming Star-Devourer, Ma Zheng withdrew a small white tablet and rubbed it with his right index finger. After a moment, it emitted a dim golden light. With another breath in and a soft breath out, he shook his head while keeping the tablet.
"…" Ma Zheng lowered his head and observed Wei Wuyin once again. It took him a long moment before he took a step back, merging with fixed space and vanishing without a single ripple.
ROAR!!!
A cacophony of dragon roars of all types resounded at the Auric Sea. Since the collapse of the restrictive formations of the Auric Sea, the environment had drastically changed as reptilian-like creatures, both winged and unwinged, were swimming within the Dark Void around it as if it was their natural environment. As Star Beasts, they could exist in the Dark Void with utter ease.
They consisted of hundreds of thousands of various beasts of the dragon lineage, no matter how distant or intermixed, if they had a trace of draconic aura, they were present. But they were almost all malnourished, their scales were fractured and lusterless, and their auras were distraught and chaotic.
After escaping from their nearly eight thousand year imprisonment, their vitality was severely drained and their bodies and bloodline had suffered fundamental damage to their essence. If it wasn't for their united resistance, the World Realm's Formations would've long since killed them off. The formations would systematically take a set amount of blood energies and lifeforce to support the ecosystem and the various features of the Four Extreme Continent, so those who had more energy sacrificed themselves to give the weaker one's more time.
Despite that remarkable effort, their numbers that originated from hundreds of millions had been reduced to hundreds of thousands after eight thousand years. Furthermore, the stronger one's died first to give the others more time. It was the greatest tragedy of their species.
A single azure-scaled dragon with a single horn was acting as maestro as they directed the various draconic beasts to consume all sorts of flesh and fruits that seemed to be stored elsewhere. Anu had been preparing for their eventual escape for thousands of years, hiding from the prying eyes of those pesky cultivators.
Right now, he was the strongest dragon present despite his vitality suffering extreme damage, only surviving and possessing such strength because of a young boy over a decade ago. He brought out the storages of beasts and fruits that he had kept stored and preserved over the years in his internal world for these weakened dragonic beasts to feast upon.
"Take it slow!" With his massive body, he roared as the dragons ravenous with hunger tore into the corpses of large beasts and gigantic fruit piles. Mountains of food were being devoured with every passing second. The dragons gave off low roars, but they listened.
The once unruly species that ruled a portion of the entire stellar region had suffered until they became obedient, civil, and patient. Their arrogance was grounded down until almost nothing was left.
Within his sharp pupils, Anu felt an indescribable emotion within his gaze. A fierce light emanated from Anu's eyes. "We will get our revenge; all humans will die by our hands!" A righteous anger fueled his words.
The scrawny and feeble dragons roared in united rage! The humans had captured them and stuffed them into a prison, slowly extracting their vitality, energies, and essences with merciless means. They treated them like livestock to sustain their race.
Anu's claw reached out for a young dragon that had his youth stunted, its teeth finding it difficult to tear into the corpses. It was trying to rip away at the flesh with all its strength. When Anu realized the age of this young green-colored dragon was under five thousand years old, the emotions in his heart became heavier.
This young dragon had been born inside that prison, likely his parents had long since died. There was no way his mother would have survived after giving birth in such a disastrous environment.
The young dragon quivered, its dim eyes lifting to find Anu's large claw reaching towards it. It was terrified for a moment before the claw moved to the giant corpse and pierced it, a surge of power weakened the flesh.
"Eat. Slowly, digestion is important. Be sure to not waste any of it." Anu instructed with a soft voice.
"Eeekky!" The young dragon couldn't even communicate with its mental energies, and it launched itself at the softened corpse and ate. It was so delicious that it could barely control itself, but it halted and saw the horned dragon staring at it. With a soft snort, it dug into the corpse slower, eating every piece and wasting none of it.
This scene caused the embers of anger to be stroked by the older dragons, noting that roughly six percent of the current population was born in that imprisonment, never experiencing the glory of being a dragon, only a slave meant to be drained. They wanted revenge even if it meant their deaths.
The scene of hundreds of thousands of dragons swirling around, consuming and devouring within the Dark Void was utterly terrifying yet strangely warm. Those Realmlords and Timelords that were exploring the Four Extreme Continent could faintly see this scene, but they were ignorant of these dragons origins or how they thrived on their energies their entire lifetime.
They continued on their way, avoiding them as Anu's pulsating aura gave them cause for pause.
"A Star Beast with their own Internal World?" An elderly voice resounded in the Dark Void, rippling through the senses of the dragons that were feasting on corpses and fruits. The vigilant roared, sending out pulsating auras of draconic might to find the source. The young cowered behind the stronger, older dragons.
Anu took the forefront of this search, its body of thirty-thousand meters twisted protectively. From the tip of its horn a faint golden light emitted, giving off a strange yet piercing power.
"You must be a Horned Firmament Dragon. No wonder you have an Internal World and escaped the sights of that man all those years ago." The elderly voice echoed out, and a figure stepped out of the Dark Void with a hunched figure. It was Ma Zheng!
Anu sensed the physical aura emitted from Ma Zheng and its eyes of hundreds of meters turned to focus on that insignificantly small figure that was tens of thousands of miles away. With a violent war that shook the starfield, even pushing some flat continental earths out of their aligned orbit a little.
The murderous aura from Anu was particularly dense. The horn at its snout was glowing with radiant runes.
"You should reconsider. At most, you're as strong as a Mystic Star Ascendant. And that was at your peak. Now?" Ma Zheng calmly spoke, his voice flat and slow. Yet Anu didn't respond with words, but might!
With a powerful roar, he barreled towards Ma Zheng with his gigantic body. The act of aggression was devastating, and the horn on Anu's snout glowed fiercely.
Ma Zheng didn't move. Instead, he lazily looked at Anu's charge. In a blink of an eye, Anu had deftly swam through the Dark Void and used its sharp as swords, large as mountain claws to violently swipe at Ma Zheng.
There were no soundwaves in the Dark Void, but a muffled explosion still occurred. Anu's claw was violently quivering as its sharp tip stabbed into Ma Zheng's hand and small body. With a single hand, he halted a claw that was the size of hundreds of meters. There was no change in Ma Zheng's expression.
Anu's dragon heart throbbed fiercely. It was about to use its trump card, but Ma Zheng moved. That withered and wrinkled body vanished, reappearing beside Anu's horn.
Anu was instantly startled by this speed, seeking to retaliate and reposition, yet Ma Zheng's palm slowly touched his horn and he felt a wave of dread spread throughout his entire body. That body of thirty thousand meters that could collapse continents with casual movements was stopped with a single placement of a hand.
Anu didn't dare to struggle. "WH-WHO ARE YOU?!" The anger in its voice covered the abject fear it felt.
"My name's Ma Zheng. I'm the Third Manager of the Golden Life Pavilion." Ma Zheng calmly introduced himself, but Anu was entirely unaware of what any of that meant.
So it asked a more direct question: "What do you want?!"
This elderly man was even more terrifying than that villain who captured them all, putting his species into cages! At least he could exchange blows with him.
Ma Zheng calmly glanced at the young dragons and malnourished dragons that stared at them with fear and anxiety in their eyes. The horror of facing a being that might put them back in their cage, destroying their ray of hope, was terrifying to the utmost degree.
"I'm your savior, and…" Ma Zheng slowly said, returning his focus onto Anu, "you're collateral." After saying that, Ma Zheng didn't explain further as he lifted his hand with an open palm. A swirling silver vortex formed at his palm and seemed to be sucking.
The dragons roared at this sight and Anu's heart quivered. Without a single ability to resist, the dragons were all drawn into the vortex and shrunk, seemingly sent into an entirely different world in a blank. Hundreds of thousands of dragons, all of them with hundreds of meters in size at least, were sucked into the vortex in the matter of moments.
The Auric Sea's environment was cleaned of beasts, and every last dragon vanished.
Ma Zheng closed his palm, dispersing the silver vortex. With a soft breath, his hunched figure turned and vanished.
During that day, every last beast and beastman in the starfield mysteriously vanished!