Chapter 206: The Ancient Cosmic Dragon and Garuda

Beneath a multicolored sky, large flocks of pterosaur-like creatures flew side by side, leaving rows after rows of rainbows behind them. On the ground, lush green grasslands were covered in all kinds of ferns, each standing thirty to forty meters tall. Centipede-like insects crawled on their leaves.

Farther away, countless enormous ancient trees towered into the sky, blotting out the sun. Instead of leaves, their trunks were covered in clusters of spores. These spores opened and closed as though they were breathing, periodically releasing clouds of yellow powder.

Standing atop the crown of one such tree, Yu Xian gazed at the landscape, which was completely unlike anything on the Blue Planet. It took him quite a while to recover from his amazement. "So, this is the Abyss? It really is bizarre and fantastical."

Eternal Purity corrected him. "This isn't the Abyss. It's merely a fragment of a world lodged somewhere within it."

Yu Xian snapped back to his senses. "Just like the world where we first met?"

"Similar. That world was already dead, while this fragment is barely alive. It continues to function on its own, which is why the creatures here can still cling to life."

Realization dawned on Yu Xian. "So, whether a world is still alive can basically be determined by whether it's functioning?"

It was like a watch. As long as its hands moved, it had not broken. Only when they stopped entirely could it be considered broken.

"In most cases, yes," Eternal Purity replied.

Yu Xian did not dwell on it any further. The phrase "in most cases" obviously implied a few exceptions, but this explanation was enough for him. He was not a scholar who studied the differences between worlds, so he didn't need to understand everything in detail.

Beneath the tree, the carcass of the plesiosaur-like creature Yu Xian had brought with him attracted a brown two-headed dragon. Yu Xian stared at the two-headed dragon feasting below and immediately leaped from the tree. The Grand Earthbound Megalith Mountain-Crushing Blade appeared in his hand, its blade extending as he drove it into the dragon's neck.

The two-headed dragon had a Power value of roughly 0.008 and possessed remarkably tenacious vitality. Even after its neck was pierced, it struggled wildly.

The moment Yu Xian landed, he controlled its blood and forced it to gush from the wound. In the blink of an eye, the dragon became a dried carcass.

After absorbing the two-headed dragon's blood, Yu Xian frowned. "Something isn't right."

He had stored more than a year's worth of energy from basking in sunlight. When an ordinary bloodline entered his body, he could refine it almost instantly. But the two-headed dragon's blood seemed to contain traits from numerous different species. At the very least, he had also absorbed the plesiosaur-like creature's blood earlier and could confirm that the two bloodlines definitely shared the same origin.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. Countless images appeared within his mind. The two-headed dragon's mother had been an herbivorous Armored Dragon. Further back in its lineage was a Bird-headed Giant-Winged Dragon, followed by an ever-growing number of bizarre dragons.

The dragons of this world had no reproductive barriers whatsoever. Moreover, they did not reproduce through ordinary mating, but through all kinds of bizarre methods.

For example, there was a species known as the Butt-Chin Dragon. Its butt-shaped chin released a powder, and any dragon species that inhaled the powder would become pregnant with its offspring.

Since dragons were egg-laying creatures, even dragons themselves had no idea what would hatch from the eggs they laid. An herbivorous dragon could give birth to a carnivorous dragon, while a carnivorous dragon could produce an herbivorous dragon. Since no egg-eating dragons existed here, dragons generally abandoned their eggs after laying them and left their offspring to survive on their own. In short, the dragons of this world were born at random and died however fate took them.

However, when Yu Xian traced the bloodline all the way back, he saw a pair of golden, vertical pupils. He immediately felt as though their owner was staring back at him. It was the ancestor of every dragon in this world and the ruler of this land, the Ancient Cosmic Dragon.

The Ancient Cosmic Dragon was still alive. Not only that, it was extremely powerful. Although Yu Xian could not determine exactly how strong it was, it was definitely no weaker than a Star-rank expert.

Yu Xian opened his eyes and immediately used a bubble to isolate his aura. Until he knew the Ancient Cosmic Dragon's exact strength, he wouldn't come into conflict with it. His safety came first. What he needed to do now was grow stronger as quickly as possible and reconstruct the Ancient Cosmic Dragon's bloodline.

Most of the dragons in this world had not inherited the Ancient Cosmic Dragon's true power. They had inherited its physical gift, while a small number possessed mere fragments of its abilities. If Yu Xian wanted to reconstruct the Ancient Cosmic Dragon's bloodline, he would probably have to absorb the blood of a great many dragons.

With his current strength, as long as he did not encounter an opponent at his rank or higher, he could essentially do whatever he wanted in this world. Numbers no longer meant much before him.

Sitting inside a spatial bubble, Yu Xian flew in a straight line toward the distant forest. Whenever he passed a dragon, he turned his blood into black threads, piercing its head and draining it dry.

The strongest of these dragons were only at Dragon rank and could not resist him. In just a few hours, he collected blood from more than ten thousand species of dragons. Unfortunately, they were all too weak. None of the materials from their bodies met the standards required to refine a Star Divine Artifact.

Yu Xian had originally planned to use Edward's Devil Cross as material for refining his own Star Divine Artifact. But when Edward had died, the Devil Cross had also fallen in rank after exhausting all its energy.

Edward had squeezed nearly all the latent power out of its materials. It was essentially like a lump of coal that had burned to ash, which made it completely unsuitable for refining a Star Divine Artifact.

Left with no other choice, Yu Xian dismantled the useless thing into two parts. He returned Marcus's corpse to Nora and sent the rest to Qilin for research. That was why he still did not possess a Star Divine Artifact to call his own.

As Yu Xian continued draining blood and leaving behind large numbers of dried dragon corpses, a commotion erupted in the distance. Countless winged dragons fled away at high speed.

Yu Xian looked toward the source of the commotion, and his eyes lit up. "There's something big over there!"

He immediately accelerated his bubble in that direction. Even from tens of thousands of meters away, he could see an enormous strange bird furiously pursuing a flock of Rainbow Dragons. Each time it snapped its beak, it seized one and swallowed it whole.

The Rainbow Dragons were about the size of elephants, yet before this enormous bird, they were little more than snacks. Despite its massive size, the bird was not flying. Instead, it kept itself low to the ground and sprinted on its powerful hind legs as it hunted the prey ahead.

Yu Xian used Appraisal on the enormous bird, but found that he could not view its attributes. So, he turned to Eternal Purity. "Auntie, what kind of bird is that?"

A creature possessing a natural resistance to Appraisal or similar techniques definitely had an extraordinary bloodline.

Eternal Purity studied the bird. "That's a juvenile pure-blood Garuda. Perhaps because there are many dragons here, its parents released it into this place."

Yu Xian examined the bizarre-looking bird. "A Garuda, huh."

Eternal Purity smiled. "Juvenile and adult Garudas differ greatly in both appearance and strength. See the black rings on its feathers? Each additional ring increases its strength tenfold. Three rings signify its adult form, while six mark a Garuda at the peak of its power."

"Then how much Power does the first ring represent?"

Eternal Purity answered, "The first ring naturally represents 1."

Yu Xian exclaimed, "One ring means 1, two mean 10, and three mean 100. In other words, a Garuda naturally reaches Star rank upon adulthood!"

Even more terrifying was a Garuda at the peak of its power. Without cultivating at all, it could naturally possess strength at the peak of Void rank.

Yu Xian stared at the Garuda chasing down the Rainbow Dragons, practically drooling. Is this the true caliber of pure-blood supernatural creatures from the Abyss? It's terrifying. But at the same time... incredibly tempting.