Blood Sacrifice Reverses, Dragon Soul Awakens

The phone call between Chen Feng and Su Yan was not very pleasant.

A month after the Lunar New Year.

Chen Shuangshuang finally returned to Daxia.

The little girl looked at her father.

She said playfully:

"The only reason I forgive you is because Mom kept pleading on your behalf."

"But from now on, you can't bully Mom anymore."

Chen Feng looked helpless.

Seeing her master being put in his place by his own daughter,

Jin Youxi and Liu Weiwei couldn't help but snicker behind his back.

"Alright, Shuangshuang, stop picking on Master,"

"let's hurry up and practice the martial arts techniques."

"I've already signed you up for this year's Martial Apprentice tournament."

As soon as the little girl heard there would be a competition,

she immediately followed Jin Youxi to practice her martial arts techniques.

Her Lingbo Weibu had already reached a decent level.

She moved as fast as the wind.

But her offensive power was still lacking.

With Jin Youxi's guidance,

Chen Shuangshuang now had her own weapon—

a metal baseball bat.

Jin Youxi had personally come up with her strategy:

during combat, she would dart behind her opponent and whack them with the bat.

The force depended entirely on the opponent's attitude.

Those who were polite would just be knocked off the ring.

As for those with a bad attitude—

heads bashed in, legs broken.

Chen Feng was quite speechless at Jin Youxi's teaching methods.

But with his daughter's speed,

it should be hard for anyone to hurt her in the Martial Apprentice tournament.

As for whether she would take the championship,

Chen Feng didn’t really care anymore.

He was no longer the Martial Arts Hall master with zero combat power from before.

Even if his disciples won,

it wouldn't have much impact on his current strength.

This year, Jin Youxi also signed up for the competition.

She would never miss out on something so exciting.

With her perfection of the ten forms of the Buddha’s Palm Strike,

combined with her peak Grandmaster-level cultivation,

winning the world championship at the same level was practically a sure thing.

As for Zhao Bing,

he trained with Wang Zun in swordsmanship every day.

He planned to compete in the World Martial Arts Tournament,

determined to earn the honor of being the strongest under the Martial Saint level before breaking through to that tier.

Because once someone became a Martial Saint,

they would never have the opportunity to participate in such competitions again.

Battles between Martial Saints could topple cities and level fortresses, making them unsuitable for tournaments.

Unless absolutely necessary, Martial Saints rarely made a move.

The first major tournament since the recovery of Daxia was quite lively.

The number of registered contestants was nearly several times larger than before.

The main reason was the Kunlun Blood Sacrifice backflow,

which caused many people to grow in combat power just by drinking water.

Their cultivation speed was astonishing.

Now, even people with inferior talent could reach the Martial Apprentice level.

The era of all-participating martial arts had fully arrived.

...

In the Kunlun Mountains,

Chen Feng and Wang Zun, along with a group of high-level members from the Martial Arts Association,

followed the location Aiden had described

and found the ghost tomb sarcophagus where he had appeared.

Everyone worked together

to carefully unearth it.

The sarcophagus was no longer an ordinary stone coffin.

The decorations inside it

looked nothing like a burial chamber—

it was more like a room.

Inside the huge stone coffin was the layout of a room.

Not only was there a stone bed, stone table, and stone stools,

but also a Bagua mirror embedded in the wall.

At the head of the coffin,

Chen Feng and the others saw the four large characters Aiden had mentioned:

"Feng Ze Zhong Fu"—

one of the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching.

But there was one discrepancy.

The writing on the coffin had lost its vivid color.

The bloodstains on the characters were completely dry.

Chen Feng guessed

that each ghost tomb sarcophagus could only resurrect one person.

Once someone used it to return from the dead through possession,

the sarcophagus would become an ordinary stone coffin.

Simply put,

it was a one-time consumable.

In the end, the sarcophagus was carried back to the Martial Arts Association headquarters in Tiandu.

Everyone preparing for the July 15th vigil

was made to see the coffin for themselves.

That way, if they encountered a ghost tomb sarcophagus in the future,

they could recognize it immediately and notify the association's higher-ups to handle it.

On the other side,

Su Yan had also obtained the coffin's data.

Without hesitation, she shared it with the Swallowing Heaven Club group chat

and then issued her orders:

"Search for ghost tombs with the hexagrams 'Xun for Wind' and 'Earth Fire Ming Yi.'"

"If you see those two hexagrams, do everything possible to enter them."

"If you see any other hexagrams, do not act rashly."

Su Yan had her own reasons.

Based on Aiden's words,

she knew her father had many enemies.

If enemies of her father were resurrected from the ghost tombs—

especially those two ancestors from the ancient clans—

her own chances of reviving her parents later on would multiply in difficulty.

With the Swallowing Heaven Club's actions,

the Martial Arts Association immediately took notice.

But the association was helpless.

Last time, they had rooted out hundreds of Swallowing Heaven Club infiltrators.

But clearly, that was only a small fraction.

Still, Chen Feng was puzzled:

"How does Su Yan know which two hexagram sarcophagi to target?"

"Did she calculate it?"

Meanwhile, the true source of the leaked information—Aiden—

was busy searching for a successor,

hoping to revive and spread the fighting spirit martial arts style once again.

...

At the Four Symbols Heavenly Moat—

the Dragon Tomb.

The dragon that had taken refuge inside the dragon vein had fully recovered.

With the Kunlun Blood Sacrifice backflow,

not only had the human race's fate been released,

but as the great formations weakened,

the dragon soul sealed inside the Dragon Tomb had gradually awakened.

For the first time, the flood dragon lowered its proud head

and knelt reverently before the dragon soul.

It looked at the golden dragon soul,

feeling the true dragon's majesty,

and said longingly:

"Please tell me—how can I transform into a true dragon?"

"How much longer must I cultivate before I can become one?"

The dragon soul was lifelike,

radiating a golden glow.

Looking at the weak flood dragon before it, it shook its head and said:

"What use is becoming a true dragon?"

"I was a true dragon, yet I was still pinned to death here by Gu Banjin and Gu Sanliang."

"Ending up like this—as a formation hub suppressing the beast race's fate."

The flood dragon heard the dragon soul's voice echoing in its mind,

and its body froze.

It had struggled so hard evolving from a serpent to a flood dragon,

all to be free from anyone's threats or restrictions.

Yet it still ended up defeated at the hands of Yin Hu.

Its only hope now lay in becoming a true dragon.

But the answer it received was: even if it became a true dragon, its fate would still not be its own.

This answer from the dragon soul

crushed the flood dragon’s previously unyielding path of cultivation,

making it feel as though all its efforts had been in vain.

Sensing the flood dragon's despair,

the dragon soul advised:

"Ten thousand years ago, I realized something."

"At the time, I paid no attention—I even dismissed it."

"But looking back now, I missed an opportunity."

"If you want to rise above humanity, you would do better to learn from the half-demons, instead of obsessively striving for transformation into a real dragon."

The flood dragon lifted its head in confusion.

"Half-demons?"

"Are half-demons more powerful than becoming a true dragon?"

Thinking of this,

it recalled Yin Hu in its mind.

"Could it be that Yin Hu is so powerful because he’s a half-demon?"