Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1669 - 1668 - Safety is Always Relative

Arlen was full of shock followed by terror. He had stayed at the Broken Palaces before but no one had realized the danger right below them!

Even if a floating structure fell, there was always a chance of survival in escaping or finding a haven to endure the crash before fleeing.

The Broken Palaces only had death awaiting them! Worse than death, they were reduced to the skin of a worm!

Lind would be lying to himself to say he was not tempted but a thought occurred to him. A Master Tier beast that quietly sat below tempting food yet it never attacked? There were no signs of anything occurring in the mountains as they were pristine and the slab perfectly fit inside the center.

Even if the worm absorbed so smoothly, it would still leave traces of broken arrays and other obvious evidence of destruction.

"By the spirits, it was already here! They had it for their own production needs!" Haro quickly grasped his Master's understanding. He, too, became shocked. Taming a Master Tier?

It had to have been raised from birth if so but the lifespan of worms was one of the shortest below the Immortal Realm.

That still left a question. Disaster clearly struck when the other worms awoke yet they would not come near the mountains. Their instinct to live would override hunger easily, so what had happened to the people floating over it?

A dark frown crossed his face.

"Arlen, are there any legends about a final fight to escape the island?" The boy screwed up his narrow face before slowly nodding.

"My Pa, when he was trying to distract us from the sounds outside our home, would tell stories. Most were common legends of battles between beasts and men but there was one time he was a bit drunk and cursed the Ancestral Fireheart Clan." Arlen then relayed a common enough story.

Times were good and they flourished but when famine and desperate struggles came, they revealed their true face and extorted profit in the face of extinction.

Lind narrowed his eyes at a key point.

"The last working teleportation array was inside their floating castle. They planned to abandon everyone and destroy the array behind them to cover up the crime. Yet, something went wrong. Their plan to escape failed when the skies bled and the wails of thousands of roared across the peaks. The array self-destructed and ripped the structures apart–" Arlen suddenly put it together as Lind did.

His Eyes instantly activated and despite the incredible passage of time, he found them. TIny stress fractures in space!

They were scars left by exactly what Arlen described and only a Dao Grade teleportation array could do it.

"Master, if they tried to teleport even a million years after the Western Lament, it would have been suicide." Lind nodded. Whether the rest of the story was true, the final safe teleportation array would be too tempting in the nightmare the island had become.

Some idiot clearly overlooked the truth or failed to confirm anything and tried to flee. The backlash from the energies unleashed at the death of a continent would take epochs to settle!

Teleportation arrays operated on mapping, spatial paths, and even intervening arrays to guide the people using them safely. Any facet of that was off by too much and the best case was it did not work.

The worst was in front of them.

Complete detonation and wiping out of anything in the local area. If the palaces had been on the ground, the entire mountain range would be almost gone with a gigantic crater to boot!

The fact it must have just kissed the surface and the worm still didn–!

Lind looked down in shock! There was no way!

"Haro, could a Quicksilver Worm absorb spatial energy run wild?" His question made Haro almost stumble.

Haro then turned pale and realized exactly what Lind was thinking.

"Master, assuming the beast in question was at the Divine Realm, even the Apprentice Tier, it might be possible at the limited range but the shockwave could not be absorbed. It would suffer grievous injuries." Lind felt his instincts scream at him at the confirmation.

"That worm is alive. That ore would only vanish if that was the case but such a surge of energy would take time to digest. It had no need to hunt for food because it was full to bursting! Safety is relative! The instant that worm completes digestion, it will be like all the rest!" Tamed or not, beasts need resources to advance like anyone else.

Meager as the broken pieces floating were, they were close!

The island was thrice cursed death trap it was only a question of which death found someone first!

Death by battle still existed but it was far more likely that the native worms would be the cause!

The group swiftly made for the nearest piece floating to recover and leave. They could not stay!

Haro was also going to exhaust his reserves. He was only a spirit of an artifact no matter how profound.

There was, however, a silver lining in their location.

The Quicksilver Worm did not care about artifact waves! Haro returned to the ring to recover faster and Lind quickly had Arlen administer elixirs to finally stabilize his companions.

Lind did not push his luck with a communication jade stone or other potent artifact. Even a starving man would run to his death if food was dangled in front of him too temptingly.

Still, there was something he could finally do!

He solidified his foundation to near perfect levels! HIs power was finally back under his control! He also had a better grasp of the refinement of his Mystery ahead. The warnings were not in vain.

If he had tried to condense another Heaven Mystery, he would have become a walking disaster! Even now, he has just barely mastered his power.

The shift in his aura was subtle but even Arlen understood what had happened and congratulated him.

Lind was happy and was about to evaluate Karu and the others when a cold sweat broke out on his skin. Now that he had much finer control, he could feel it!

An aura was locked onto him, not the others, just him! It was a fearsome power unlike anything he had ever felt in his life!

The Bastard was intimidating but Lind had never truly been in his presence. It was always in places only part of his power could be exerted. The krakens and leviathans had never gone all out as they considered their surroundings and fellow beasts before attacking.

Even the few Master Tiers he had encountered were always muted so it was the first time he truly felt the weight of difference between a Journeyman Tier and a Master Tier in pure raw power!

He had been wrong, so very wrong! The Quicksilver Worm was not dormant, it was awake! It was fully aware and now it had locked onto him!

While they did not truly desire flesh, any beast in their right mind would love to get their hands on a divine bloodline. The worms were not of dragon lineage but they were compatible!

The Quicksilver worm was even more compatible by nature of its abilities!

He did not panic but leaving would not be as easy as arriving! Lind cupped his hands and bowed low.

[Junior greets senior. I apologize but my foundation was unstable and could not safely assess my surroundings.] His transmission was heard by Arlen who quickly followed suit. Master Tiers, regardless of race, were to be feared and revered.

The aura intensified before a head splitting tsunami of images, emotions, and other random pieces of knowledge slammed into Lind's mind. If he had still been an Apprentice Tier, he would have left a vegetative body behind at the Divine Realm!

As it was, blood gushed from him and he collapsed but he lived.

"SENIOR!" Lind held up his hand weakly to keep Arlen away. The worm only wanted Lind!

It took him some time to recover even with an elixir but he slowly stood up and bowed again.

[I am sorry, senior, I do not understand. I am unable to parse what you showed me.] It was absolute truth. The images and other impressions had not been fast but too damned profound!

Heaven and Earth had lashed at his mind just seeing and sensing them! His newly condensed Heaven Mystery had reacted but so had his harmony!

A long silence stretched out before a powerful male voice thundered across the entire mountain range in all minds!

[True Lord Dragon. Why have you come to the heart grounds? We did not break the treaty yet the twisted ones disrupt the consumption. Explain, or forfeit your cultivation to me.]

Lind trembled as he recognized something he had missed! It was very different from him but enough similarities existed he could still grasp it.

Authority! He was given a command but he had no answers! Further, it was far stronger than him! A fellow True Lord should not be that different even with a higher cultivation realm, right?

Haro suddenly appeared and his dark eyes looked shocked.

"DIVINE LORD!"