"Tread the Heavens, One Strike, Slay the Dragon!"

Everyone's vision froze at this moment, which became the most unforgettable memory of their lives. Many even fell to their knees, prostrating themselves in worship before the airborne Lin Mu and proclaiming him a Heavenly God!

Li Lai's small mouth fell open in disbelief, but the adoration in her eyes was impossible to hide.

"No!"

The High Priest watched as the Divine Dragon's body was split in two, and he let out a piercing, desperate scream. He truly couldn't believe what he was seeing, but the reality was undeniable.

The Divine Dragon was dead, sliced into two halves by a single strike.

Blood rained down, splattering across the entire mountaintop. The warm liquid splashed onto his face and body, making the scene all the more real.

"Lin Wudi, you killed the Divine Dragon! You will surely be cursed!" the High Priest shrieked, his face contorted with venomous hatred. "The Heavens will not spare you, and neither will the Great God Chiyou!"

"Pah!" Li Lai couldn't stand her idol being cursed like this. "High Priest, you betrayed the Great God Chiyou and the ancestral teachings of the Li Clan long ago! If anyone deserves retribution, it's you!"

Li Lai's voice echoed in the ears of the crowd, and their expressions began to shift.

Yes, the High Priest was the traitor who had betrayed the Great God Chiyou. He had violated the ancestral teachings of the Li Clan. He committed patricide and matricide! He slaughtered his own kin! He practiced the forbidden techniques of the Li Clan! These were all his crimes!

The people of Bai Miao Village began to shout in unison.

"That's right, the High Priest is the traitor!"

"You will face retribution!"

"Hahaha!" The High Priest suddenly burst into laughter. "Retribution? Betrayal? You fools are nothing but frogs in a well! You violated the clan's rules by bringing an outsider here, so you will face retribution as well!"

BOOM!

The moment the High Priest's voice fell, a thunderclap that echoed for thousands of miles ripped through the Nine Heavens.

CRACK!

Immediately after, a massive bolt of lightning, visible from all across the Southern Sky, struck deep within Thunder Mountain. The roar was deafening, the spectacle astonishing. Countless people cowered on the ground, trembling as they prayed for the Heavenly God's forgiveness.

「Heimiao Village.」

Everyone stared, their mouths agape in shock, as the thunderbolt incinerated the High Priest.

The High Priest is dead? Killed by a lightning strike? Is this retribution?

At this thought, everyone turned to look at Lin Mu in the sky. Their gazes were fervent, their cheers thunderous.

Lin Mu, however, simply shook his head. That thunderbolt was merely the Thunder Dragon, which had just awakened. It had spat out a single bolt of lightning that killed the insolent High Priest. As for the misunderstanding among the people from Bai Miao Village, he couldn't be bothered to explain.

Instead, his gaze suddenly turned toward the Cold Pool, his eyebrows slightly raised. With a wave of his hand, a white pearl the size of an infant's fist flew out from the giant python's corpse.

This vile creature's cultivation level wasn't weak. It actually managed to form an inner core. Lin Mu shook his head. What a pity. Although the giant python formed an inner core, its methods were crude. That's why I could kill it with a single strike. If it had truly been on the path of daemon cultivation, even I would have needed to expend some effort to slay it.

His brow suddenly furrowed. But... why does this daemon core feel so strange? It's as if...

"Drain the Cold Pool!" he ordered, turning to the dumbfounded Li Xuan and the others.

「Half an hour later.」

The water from the Cold Pool was drained. When everyone saw what was inside, their eyes narrowed, and Li Lai let out a cry of alarm.

The Cold Pool was filled with piles of skeletons! Though it was over a hundred meters across, the entire basin was packed with innumerable bones. Some were crushed to fragments, while others remained eerily intact. There were human skeletons mixed with those of various animals, and some bones were of creatures nobody could identify.

"Vile creature!" Li Xuan couldn't help but curse. A single glance at the skeletons in the pool revealed the horrifying number of lives this so-called Dragon Lair had consumed. The others reacted with similar horror and disgust.

Only Lin Mu's gaze was firmly fixed on the depths of the Cold Pool, where a skeleton a dozen meters long lay. The skeleton had long since decayed, but it still emitted a towering presence and a thick Evil Qi. Beneath it lay a row of head-sized eggs, though most were now just hollow shells, as if whatever was inside had hatched long ago and left.

Lin Mu glanced at Li Xuan. "Is this place often hit by thunderstorms, with weather so severe it seems apocalyptic?"

Li Xuan looked surprised but answered honestly. "Yes, that's true. Before the Li Clan split, this area was plagued by constant thunderstorms and torrential rain, year-round, even during the day. Many times, our people believed it was a Divine Punishment from the heavens, a sign of the apocalypse. In my lifetime, I've encountered it twice, and other instances are recorded in our ancestral texts. That is why this place is known as Thunder Mountain."

Lin Mu pointed at the skeleton at the bottom of the Cold Pool. "It's all because of that!" he said. "If I'm not mistaken, this skeleton belonged to a Jiaolong that had achieved considerable cultivation but failed in its attempt to transform into a dragon.

"During the founding of the nation, the Grand Ancestor himself decreed that no creature may achieve sentience. As the ruler of the nation, he held the Mandate of Heaven. His word was law, a heavenly edict! Therefore, in this realm, any creature that attempts to gain spiritual power will face the ruthless suppression of the Heavenly Dao.

"As this Jiaolong's power grew, it periodically drew the attention of the Heavenly Dao, which is why this place suffers from frequent heavenly lightning. Ultimately, when the Jiaolong could no longer postpone its draconic transformation, the power of the Heavenly Dao surged exponentially. The Jiaolong could not escape and was annihilated.

"However, the Jiaolong's death attracted other creatures from the surrounding mountains. That giant python must have seized the opportunity to enter the Cold Pool and cultivate, using the Jiaolong's residual spiritual essence to form its own inner core.

"The High Priest must have struck a deal with the giant python. He would faithfully serve his 'Divine Dragon,' and in return, the beast would help him control Heimiao Village and, eventually, unify the entire Li Clan. A pity for them that I was the one who ended up killing it."

Li Xuan and the others listened, utterly dumbfounded. They never imagined such a complex history lay hidden here.

"The High Priest got what he deserved!" Li Xuan said, unable to restrain herself. "With so many bodies in the Cold Pool, who knows how many people he harmed!"

Li Xiaotian also wore a sorrowful expression. It was now clear that the High Priest's betrayal of the clan had been instigated by this so-called Divine Dragon.

Lin Mu shook his head. The High Priest had brought it all on himself; his death was not worth pitying.

He handed the Heavenly Punishment Blade back to Li Xiaotian. With a sweep of his Divine Sense, his eyes suddenly lit up. He sensed a potent fluctuation of energy coming from the Jiaolong's skeleton.

With this thought, Lin Mu turned his gaze back to where the High Priest had stood before.

There, on the ground, lay a small cauldron. Beside it was a nine-leafed grass emitting a faint, star-like glow.

"The Mountain and River Cauldron and the Sky Star Grass!"

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