An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Whatever Black King had become, no single bloodline could define him anymore.

He had begun as an ordinary Black-Scaled Giant Python that wallowed in the mud. Later, someone used a secret technique to forcefully elevate him into a Black-Scaled Flood Dragon. However, at that point, Black King could hardly be considered a true flood dragon. At best, he was a flood-python hybrid. Even after devouring the Cliff Serpent’s corpse, he had still failed to complete his transformation.

Afterward, he had absorbed the blood of millions of dragonworms and received Luo Chen’s blood essence and was further influenced by the Stone Dragon’s lingering soul. Throughout those changes, the Imperial Nectar continued awakening the deeper potential hidden within his body.

By now, neither his blood nor his soul offered any clear answer as to what race he belonged to. His appearance most closely resembled the Responsive Dragons[1] described in ancient records, except for the rather obvious absence of wings. For convenience, Luo Chen simply continued calling him a flood dragon.

The distinction hardly mattered, and Luo Chen soon threw it to the back of his mind as the carriage crossed the Profound Rock Sea Region. He had once placed great hopes on this part of the Demon Sea and even considered attempting his Nascent Soul breakthrough here. Looking at it now, however, its spirit energy was woefully thin.

Profound Rock Island, in particular, had fared terribly. No one had properly restored or developed it, so even after a century, its spirit vein was still at the third tier. At this rate, the sea region was unlikely to produce another Demon Emperor for at least the next thousand years.

***

As the carriage continued east, Luo Chen kept his divine consciousness spread across the surrounding waters. At first glance, the landscape seemed much as he remembered, but as he looked more closely, several islands had vanished completely.

One of them had once supported a thriving human settlement and a major sect. Luo Chen remembered its location clearly, especially the linked-island formation it had inherited from the Righteous Blue Sea Alliance. Those defenses should have repelled any ordinary attack from the Demon Sea. Even if some formidable enemy had broken through and destroyed the sect, the island itself could not have disappeared without leaving anything behind.

Yet the sea held no trace of it. There were no ruins beneath the surface, no fragments of shattered formations, and no wreckage from a battle. The island and everyone who had lived upon it had simply vanished. Had Luo Chen not traveled this route before, he might have wondered whether his memory had deceived him.

The discovery troubled him, though he could still imagine an explanation. Perhaps an extraordinary battle had reduced the island to nothing, or some powerful cultivator had carried it away through an unknown divine ability. Unlikely as those possibilities were, they remained possible.

Then he reached the Yellow Springs Sea Region.

More than ten million li east of Dragon Abyss Island, Luo Chen asked them to slow the carriage as they approached the waters where Soulbreaking Cliff should have stood. He knew the area too well to mistake it. The sea should have been dark and murky, filled with a terrifying power that devoured souls and shattered spirits. Instead, clear blue water stretched under the open sky.

Luo Chen searched farther east before tracing the outer edge of the Demon Sea in case they had somehow strayed from the proper route. He sent out his divine consciousness again and again, yet each search returned the same empty result. There were no murky currents, no soul-devouring aura, and no trace of Soulbreaking Cliff.

Did it run away? Could it have moved on its own? Or was the Yellow Springs Sea never really a sea at all? Could it actually be some kind of living creature?

He might have dismissed the idea as absurd if not for the final image transmitted by the subsidiary soul puppet he had created when escaping Moon Hermit’s pursuit. Just before the puppet perished, it had shown him the Yellow Spring. The endless waters churned violently while the sound of something chewing echoed directly inside his mind.

At the time, the vision had been too brief and fragmented to understand. Now that Soulbreaking Cliff and the sea surrounding it had vanished without a trace, that final image no longer seemed like the dying illusion of a collapsing soul. If there was any explanation for the Yellow Springs Sea’s bizarre disappearance, perhaps the only answer was that the sea itself was a beast, and it had simply gone elsewhere.

***

A month later, the carriage entered a sea region where large seabirds circled beneath the open sky and sal trees rustled gently across the scattered islands. Luo Chen descended from the carriage and turned to the others. ”Continue to the Flying Swallow Archipelago and wait for me there. Unless something unexpected happens, I should join you in a bit.”

Heavenjade was somewhat puzzled. This place is still filled with seabirds?

Long ago, when they returned from the Profound Rock Sea Region, Luo Chen had also stopped here and sent her ahead to investigate the Flying Swallow Archipelago alone. At the time, she assumed he feared an ambush and wanted her to scout the way. Now, her master had become a Sage, yet he had once again chosen to remain behind in this seemingly unremarkable corner of the sea.

Still, once her master gave an order, it was not her place to question it. ”Yes, Master!”

Luo Chen watched until the magnificent carriage disappeared into the distance, then turned toward the islands of the Heaventrust Sea Region. He could have used his divine consciousness to search directly for the place he wanted to go, but instead, he searched by memory alone. His gaze moved slowly across the familiar coastline until it settled upon a small mountain.

With a sweep of his sleeve, he slowly flew toward it. ”Last time, I passed this mountain without going inside. This time, I have to face whatever’s waiting for me in there.”

After reaching the foot of the mountain, he continued upward on foot. Wherever he passed, the thick vines seemed to possess minds of their own and parted to let him through. Before long, he stood uneasily before a cave entrance almost completely hidden by greeneries.

”Go in!”

Whether the words were an order or a reassurance to himself, Luo Chen did not know. He stepped across the threshold and disappeared into the cave.

***

Luo Chen stood before the ancient teleportation formation with his lips pressed into a thin line. He brushed his finger over the weathered patterns until they reached the corner.

”It’s fixed! Someone restored the formation!”

The new lines blended almost perfectly with the original formation, yet they lacked the dust and wear that covered the older patterns. Judging by their condition, the repairs could not be more than twenty or thirty years old.

When Luo Chen first arrived in the Northern Sea through the formation on Green Parasol Mountain, he destroyed that corner as soon as he regained consciousness to prevent the demon cultivators from following him. Yet now someone had later crossed the distance between the Eastern Wilderness and the Northern Sea to reopen the passage.

Was it Azure Frost, Nether Spring, or... could it have been...

The name remained buried in his mind, but it was too dangerous even to think about it.

Truth be told, he had returned partly because he longed to return to the Eastern Wilderness, but it was not the only reason. In the Land of Fallen Devils, he learned of the enmity between Heaven Refiner and Rosycloud. He cultivated with Rosycloud’s technique while carrying Heaven Refiner’s inheritance, and that left him entangled with both sides of a conflict he still barely understood.

Before deciding whether to return home, he needed to know what had become of Green Parasol Mountain. If it had fallen during the Nether Origin Sect’s attack, then the demons who knew of his past dealings with them would have died as well. No one would remain to expose the pills he once refined for the demon race, and his return to the Eastern Wilderness would carry far fewer hidden dangers. But if it had been repaired, then he would have to face the possibility that they might expose the fact that he had once refined pills for the demon races. Whether they simply did not care that Luo Chen knew their secret or believed he could do nothing with that knowledge, the message was unmistakable.

For a while, conflicting thoughts churned within him. Yet once he accepted what the repairs meant, the unease that had been weighing on him slowly eased. Green Parasol Mountain still stood, and whatever waited there could no longer be avoided.

Luo Chen’s gaze grew firm. ”I can’t avoid this forever. Sooner or later, I’ll have to face it.”

Han Zhan was dead, and every human cultivator who witnessed Luo Chen refine pills for the demons had perished in the Nirvana Sacred Fire. Only the demons of Green Parasol Mountain knew the truth. Even if they accused him, they had no evidence that could force him to confess.

Now that he was a proper Sage, ordinary powers could no longer condemn him based on an unsupported claim. Only the Holy Lands possessed enough strength to force the matter, and even the Nether Origin Sect might hesitate once they learned that he could refine fifth-tier pills. That ability would not guarantee his safety, but it would at least give him something valuable enough to bargain with.

He shook his head. ”No matter what happens, I’m going back to the Eastern Wilderness. But I can’t use this teleportation formation.”

Luo Chen turned away. Even if he had been willing to risk appearing directly on Green Parasol Mountain, he no longer possessed the Azure Luan Feather needed to activate the ancient formation.

Before he could take more than a few steps, however, a sudden restlessness stirred within his Purple Mansion. The Withering-Flourishing Fire Sprite pulsed with eagerness, as though responding to something hidden among the formation’s ancient patterns.

Luo Chen was surprised. ”You can activate this formation?”

The fire sprite’s reaction intensified, and the reason soon became clear. It had once devoured a fragment of the Nirvana Sacred Fire. Though that fragment had been exceedingly tiny, it left behind a trace of the sacred fire’s nature.

Azure Frost had comprehended the Laws of Void, but a teleportation formation capable of spanning such an immense distance had most certainly demanded a staggering amount of time and resources. There was no way she had built it merely for her own convenience. The formation had most likely been intended for Sovereign Lord Rosycloud, whose Nirvana Sacred Fire served as one of its keys. The remnant within Luo Chen’s true fire was therefore enough to awaken a response.

For a moment, the path he had thought closed lay open before him once again. By activating the formation, he could cross the vast distance to the Eastern Wilderness almost instantly. Yet doing so would, of course, send him straight into the heart of Green Parasol Mountain.

Luo Chen dismissed the temptation with a shake of his head. ”Forget it. I have no reason to take that risk when another road remains open.”

He left the cave and departed the Heaventrust Sea Region, leaving everything exactly as he had found it. There was no reason to retrace the desperate path he had once taken. Now that he was a Sage, he had every confidence that he could carve out a path of his own, leading straight home.

1. 应龙(yìnglóng) is a legendary winged dragon in Chinese mythology associated with rain. The name is commonly understood as referring to the dragon’s ability to answer prayers for rain or respond to the needs of the world. ☜