Rise of the Demon God

The Snake Monarch turned around, accidentally hitting the statue of the Dragon, which was half the size of a normal human. 

As the statue was hit, it fell down, ultimately breaking apart.  ​​

Long Chen glared at the Snake Monarch, who simply shrugged it off. 

"You can't blame me. It was an accident. How was I supposed to know that it was going to break so easily? Shouldn't their statues be more durable? I mean, they are Dragons, after all. How can they be so stingy to get something with such a bad quality?" Snake Monarch said. 

"Moreover, nothing happened. See? It was just an ordinary statue, it seems," he further said as he saw the broken statue lying on the ground. 

Long Chen also observed the statue, frowning. It did seem like nothing happened. Snake Monarch was right. In any case, there wasn't any formation on the statue. 

"It's possible that it was an ordinary statue. You're lucky," Long Chen said, shaking his head. "But that's also surprising. Why would an ordinary statue be on the top floor of the Treasure Temple?"

Stepping forward, Long Chen picked up the pieces of the statue to observe them from close. Was there something special about the material?

"Even the material it's made of seems too ordinary. I don't understand. Let alone being a treasure; this isn't even a good statue, worthy of being in this place," he further said. "But then again, there's something odd.  Why would this thing be kept in such a high position?"

"That's true. The treasures only increased in quality the higher we went, and now this suddenly? That's a bit anticlimactic; I must say," Snake Monarch said, frowning.

"As far as I know, this place contains the treasures given by the Emperors. For an Emperor to place this here, he must think this was worth it. Maybe it had some value to him?" Long Chen said, shaking his head. 

"This could be the first gift he gave the Dragons. That might be why it's here? Its significance in history should be the reason if there's nothing else," Xun also chimed in on the conversation. "As for the formation, probably they thought no one would steal it since it's not a treasure."

"Why would the Emperor, who should be the ruler of the entire Immortal World, give something so cheap as his first gift?" Long Chen asked, still not understanding. 

"I think it's because he wasn't the ruler of the Immortal World at that time. If I'm not wrong, Immortal World civilization came into existence after the Blood Dragons," Xun replied. 

" You mean it's the gift that the first Emperor gave to the Dragons before he had made a name for himself?" Long Chen let out, smiling wryly. 

He glanced at the Snake Monarch, who was shamelessly pretending that he wasn't responsible for it.

"Fortunately, it didn't have a formation, or you would have got us killed," Long Chen said as he shook his head. "Let's see other places."

Q

"Wait, I had a question. This is the Dragon Temple. Why don't we see any Dragons here? All we saw were dead skeletons, didn't we?" Snake Monarch asked, frowning. 

"Because there aren't any Blood Dragons anymore," Long Chen replied, shaking his head.

"Didn't you feel the Qi of the Dragon Temple? The Origin Energy is not at all more compared to the mortal world. I think this realm had been changing for the last thousands of years. The Origin kept decreasing while Qi kept increasing, which wasn't sufficient for the Blood Dragons," he explained. 

The Blood Dragons were stubborn and preferred to die in the temple instead of going out, getting buried in the Dragon Graveyard. As for the others who were young Dragons and didn't share the beliefs, they left the place."

"The Blood Dragon that we saw on the mountain was one of the very few that had preferred to leave. This place isn't suitable for them to live anymore, so you won't find anyone here," he said, finishing his explanation. 

"You mean there's no one here anymore? This whole place is abandoned?" Snake Monarch asked, stunned. 

"That's right. The Dragon Temple is abandoned by the Dragons. I think some of them might come and go to visit, but they won't stay here anymore," Long Chen replied.

"How about we stay here then? Let's take over this place?" Snake Monarch suggested. "It's such a beautiful place."

"We can stay here, but it's certainly going to be boring. It's better to stay outside," Long Chen replied, shaking his head. "Anyway, let's leave this place. No treasures here are worth the risk."

"Is there any other special place here?" Snake Monarch asked as he followed Long Chen, who had started going down. 

"Special place here? I guess there is one more place that can be of use to us," Long Chen said as if he remembered something.

"What place?" Snake Monarch asked, frowning. 

" The Herb Garden. The Dragons ate the herbs from there. I think we can find really rare herbs. Since they'll be useless for them, we might as well take it. It can be useful in my alchemy," Long Chen told the Monarch as he flew downstairs. 

...

In a different part of the Dragon Temple, the four Generals had stepped out of the palace, which they had entered inside to check. 

"Strange. That should be the place where Dragons stay, according to our information. But there was none in there?" The Easter General said as he stood outside the palace, looking around. 

"True. Not finding even a single person in the Herb Garden is strange indeed," the Northern General said, agreeing. "And it doesn't seem like anything in there was eaten in a long time."

"How would you find them? Of course, they left. We wouldn't find anyone here, I think," the Western General said, frowning.

"It might as well be a coincidence. Maybe they are in some other place? We still have lots of places to search," the Southern General said, rolling his eyes. 

"Let's check that one," he said, pointing towards a different floating palace. 

"Alright. Let's go there," Northern General said, agreeing. Everyone started flying towards the second Palace. 

Pushing the door open, they entered the Palace, which happened to be near the tower inside which Long Chen was. 

Just as the four Generals entered the Palace, Long Chen stepped out of the tower, unaware that there were more humans in the Dragon Temple with him. 

"Such a big place and no one here other than us. It feels so awesome, like we're the Kings of this place," Snake Monarch said, looking around.