Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1714 - 1713 - Lost Races

The entrance was not simple. Lind felt that the moment he stood on the icy surface of the Northern Continent.

He had cleared the blockages but the entrance was still hidden even from his current senses! Aristrossa was the only one to confidently walk up and perform a set of movements to cause it to appear.

Qing and Karu were with him this time. The 4 of them entered and the entrance closed up behind them. There was no danger as his recent changes were fully under his control. He could leave at any time.

The space was stable but not impregnable to him.

The long icy passage gave way to a warm beach and Aristrossa was shocked. She froze as she took in the newly restored space.

The empty stretch of beach was currently littered with melting ice mounds!

Life had returned to the space she called home! Lind froze as he entered. He had felt it but experiencing it was drastically different.

He began to grasp why his alternate self wanted him to come.

The main reason was the flow of Qi. It was the foundation of everything and in the unique environment of the Starlit Refuge, he felt it was much more powerful than anywhere else he had been!

The unique space was ideal for comprehending the Qi layer!

Lind then narrowed his eyes. How had a version of him long dead known that?

He quickly lost his curiosity in the face of what happened next.

The massive body of water that glowed like a starlit sky rippled and several figures emerged.

He had seen the beasts of the Void Ocean but normal water beasts were something he had not encountered often.

There were honest to God mermaids for one. They were not human but beasts that had been born of beast and humans together. He saw demonic hybrids too! There were cecaelia as well with many tentacles flowing as they emerged onto the beach.

Lind was shocked. One race after another emerged from the waves of the water but not all were related to it.

He saw Minotaurs, and other mythical races from legend but he realized they were far more rare in the Divine Lands.

Was the Starlit Refuge some kind of preserve?

Still, Lind noticed the hybrids seemed more like beasts than human or demon. They resonated like beasts and acknowledged both Aristrossa and himself as their new status demanded.

He also saw races he had never encountered at all in either real life nor historical records!

Starlit Refuge was a place of races that had passed beyond recorded history!

Lind has always assumed hybrid races were just humans and demons that had beast bloodlines improperly awakened or mixed too much to fully assert a full bloodline. The few he had met in his Celestial Fields were powerful but struggled to progress, yet now he could see he had been gravely mistaken.

The issue was the bloodline inside was too damn strong! The tribulations were all about walking one path, not two. Even he, a former human, had been only considered a dragon once his soul changed.

The body did not matter to tribulations but the soul did. The hybrid species in front of him were profoundly powerful in their own right and seemed to register as some kind of fused entities.

Rather than human or demon mixed with beast, all he felt was what he saw. Mermaids were mermaids. Minotaurs were minotaurs. There were no traces of any other race in them no matter the realm they were at!

"How?" Lind spoke softly but Aristrossa heard him and seemed to understand.

"The Northern Continent was once considered the home of beasts. Many places and treasures were uniquely resonated to beasts alone but some humans and demons refused to give up." That did not surprise him at all.

Any cultivator stuck at a bottleneck would grasp at any path forward no matter how insane it might sound to others.

Yet, what she said next shocked him.

"However, instead of being consumed or transformed by the continent treasures, they seemed to grasp something no one ever heard of before. The legends say that because they were Divine Realms, they could not be completely subsumed and instead found a way to fuse what was once a battle between one bloodline and the original." Lind quickly thought about it.

Immortals had long proven it was possible to incorporate beasts and other races together. His own children were proof enough of the results. Despite having a dragon for a father, a vanishingly small number of his children became dragons.

It was also clear that sometimes there was a conflict of bloodlines like with Kora. Their children mostly came out as avian varieties but only 1 roc had resulted.

Hybrid bloodlines still existed too but usually the children would choose to refine or subsume one or the other to move forward.

The stronger usually won, but that was Immortals and below.

A Divine Realm was an entirely new existence! Soul and body were one. It was no longer as simple as trying to extract certain facets from a bloodline to improve strength.

If any change was to come, it would be at a massive cost. Fusion, however, was a path that led to possibilities he had not considered.

Rather than have one bloodline replace or subsume the other, the compatible parts became one with the existing person. The cost was a complete loss of the original race but retaining the origin of the elements.

Thus, demonic Qi came from the lamia and other races in equal measure as natural Qi.

He realized that just as sects and other powers sent envoys and settlers to the lower worlds to set up supply lines of new recruits and resources, the fused races had also spread and descended.

They likely created normal beasts if they cross bred with others outside their fused race, but if enough of them existed, they became races in their own right!

The quality of their bloodline also meant the threshold of tribulations would be horrifyingly stronger than just a beast or human would face.

The natives were happily celebrating the restoration of their space to the borders of the cavity they lived in. Lind even felt warmth flow as the sunlight flowed naturally through the ice.

He frowned as from the surface it had been opaque but beneath it was crystal clear. He had not felt anything when he worked with Aristrossa to restore and solidify the needs of the special refuge space.

He had not done that so it had to be a part of the ice itself. Lind was surrounded by a treasure trove of unique existences and more.

It was a good place to contemplate his next Mystery but was that enough reason for an alternate version to send him there?

He wished he had the answers but the various races were currently celebrating Aristrossa's return and the restoration of their home.

The feeling was pleasant and soothed him. He had not realized how frazzled his mind had become. He had raced and pushed himself for so long that just pausing to take in the world had become impossible.

Even the brief journeys between places had simply become time for him to consolidate his gains and practice his abilities.

The feeling of happiness and joy he saw around him had become a rare thing. The pressure of facing the Bastard and getting stronger had made him a machine.

Qing and Karu were pulled into the celebrations as well but his aura was too strong. While the hybrid races were not completely beasts, they did share their senses. He was too imposing for them.

Qing then smiled and retrieved him into an impromptu dance. The sandy beach under the ice filtered sunlight became a place of happiness. Food, song, and general rowdiness became infectious.

Lind felt stress fall off he had not known he was carrying. He was about to take Qing somewhere private when an intense feeling of deja vu washed over him.

He had never felt it before, not once, despite worrying he was simply reliving his old life. Yet now, of all times, he felt it so strongly. Why?

He glanced around but no one else reacted. Qing knew something had happened but since he was not panicking she did not either.

Lind calmly retraced the feeling and then slowly let his senses stretch out. It was very faint, but there was a wound in Time and Space. It felt odd to him because his senses confirmed it was both there and not there.

How such a thing was possible, he did not know at first but then he realized why he could detect it at all. Faint intent from a powerful Divine Realm was still on it. An alien emerald energy dissimilar to his own was mixed in too.

He now knew why he was there. Despite Karu's Talent, something had torn a hole in reality in the Starlit Refuge!