Chapter 421 - 390: [Chen]’s Unanswered Question, Lying in Wait

The origin of the Chen Dragon has always been a mystery. Although ancient texts have been recovered from some of Blue Star’s special Secret Realms, they only contain records of the Chen Dragon left over from the last epoch. These records describe a Demon Emperor of the Demon Race who was once one of the Peak Harmonization Realm experts in the Celestial Profound Great Realm.

This meant that in his prime, the Chen Dragon was likely on par with the strongest experts of the current peak Great Realms. After all, judging from the clues found regarding the Celestial Profound Great Realm, it was an incredibly powerful world. It not only housed a branch of the Cyan Simurgh Palace—one of the three supreme powers of the Human Race—but also contained various heaven-defying Demon Emperor legacies, Human Race legacies, and was even a place where a True Dragon had fallen.

While it’s not certain that the True Dragon only perished in the Celestial Profound Great Realm, the fact that it was chosen as one of its burial grounds proves it must have possessed many extraordinary qualities. In other words, it was a world capable of nurturing top-tier experts.

For the Chen Dragon to have reached the peak in such a Great Realm meant he was certainly no weaker than the Harmonization Realm experts of the current peak Great Realms. Moreover, the previous epoch was not necessarily weaker than the present one—it might have even been stronger. After all, Transcenders still existed in the last epoch, whereas not even a shadow of a Transcender has been seen in this era. It’s possible the Chen Dragon knows something about Transcendence.

Thus, the Chen Dragon’s power was undeniable. But that was precisely the problem: *why* was he so powerful?

He was the last of the Dragon Race’s bloodline, a Demon Emperor of his generation who once commanded countless powerful Demon Kings. He was able to contend with the branch of the Cyan Simurgh Palace and was the True Dragon’s most devoted follower in the Celestial Profound Great Realm, to the point of waging a great war against the Human Race.

But this was all information from after he had already made a name for himself. There were no records whatsoever about Chen’s true origins.

The Dragon Race, one must remember, was the foremost of the ten great ancient peak Demon Races, the last peerless clan to have displayed the power of a Transcender. Yet, they had vanished without a trace, until only the True Dragon and Chen remained.

Was it because the Dragon Race had become some sort of taboo, its historical existence erased by an irresistible power? Or was there another hidden story...

Jiang Qiu couldn’t make sense of these things. He didn’t have much information; he knew very little about the previous epoch, perhaps even less than the Witch Priests of the Northern Boundary tribes. After all, they had inherited the legacy of the Main Vein Tribe, having once been granted the power to protect their tribe’s heritage by four great masters.

However, he did know a bit about the Chen of this era. Back when the Northwest Demon Martial was still under the control of the Red Flame Spider Mother, the various Demon Races had all undergone Demonization due to the radiation from the Kunlun Great Secret Realm. This meant their bloodlines were mixed and impure, and the disparity in their overall strength was immense.

For instance, some insects that became Demon Beasts found it difficult to advance to the level of the Demon Race, meaning they could never cross the threshold to Transformation. But other demons, you could say, were born with the potential for Transformation. They successfully cultivated to that stage in just a few years and later grew to become Demon Marshals.

Under such circumstances, the Red Flame Spider Mother’s control over the various Demon Races was actually quite weak. There were many bestial Demon Beasts with no intelligence that she couldn’t command at all—unless she appeared in person or used special methods.

But after the Chen Emperor was reborn, the Northwest Demon Clan was renamed the Kunlun Demon Clan, and their unity instantly soared to a new peak. The latent bloodlines of the various Demon Races were unearthed, and unbelievably, the Dharma Aspects of some demons actually resembled the images of certain mythical Holy Beasts from Human Race civilization.

In just six months, the Chen Emperor developed the Kunlun Demon Clan into the strongest power and launched a counteroffensive against the cities of the Northwest, their advance unstoppable.

It wasn’t until Gao Yuan City faced a war of annihilation that Jiang Qiu, rushing back from the Northern Boundary Secret Realm, realized just how powerful the Kunlun Demon Clan had become. The newly promoted Demon Marshals each possessed heaven-defying abilities. It was said that a few of the Demon Marshals slain by Grandmaster Luo Beixing had even shown traces of the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird.

This was the strangest part. Why could the Chen Emperor elevate ordinary demons to unimaginable heights, and not just those of a similar type to himself, like Flood Dragons?

The Great Demon Races of the Northern Boundary were, in essence, of the same bloodline as the Demon Emperor who influenced them. The Wolf Emperor’s power shaped the Wolf Race, and the Xiong Emperor’s power shaped the Bear Race. Even on Sang Island, BaKi’s influence primarily affected the Snake Race. Kunlun was the most chaotic of all; the Chen Dragon’s influence extended to every single clan.

Clearly, the Chen Emperor was hiding a great secret.

At this thought, another question occurred to Jiang Qiu. He frowned deeply. ’Where on earth is Chen now?’

When he had returned from the Northern Boundary, Blue Star had already been ravaged by Zuo Xuan, and the entire planet was a wreck. Yet the Kunlun Demon Clan alone had been largely unaffected. It was said that the Chen Emperor had led all the demons with potential away from Blue Star and vanished.

This meant that the Chen Emperor had very likely taken his large contingent of demon prodigies to the Primordial world cluster. And these were no ordinary prodigies; some started at the Dao Entry Realm, were blessed with strange ancient bloodlines, and were personally taught by the Chen Emperor himself. Their rate of progress would be astonishingly fast.

As for why they wouldn’t have gone to other world clusters, it was because the Primordial world cluster could be considered an isolated whole. Just as each minor world and Great Realm was effectively isolated, so too was the Primordial world cluster. Blue Star was located within this cluster. While Space-Time Travel was possible within the cluster, leaving it was exceedingly difficult.