Chapter 390: Coin of Fate

The White Dragon Lord flew out of the White Tower and landed on the ice alongside the six other High-Tier Legendary Dragons. They walked toward the frozen Tower of the Ice-Bound. The King of the Thunder Prison, the most impatient of the group, walked the fastest, arriving first before the tower's frozen main gates.

"For the Tower of the Ice-Bound to be destroyed by ice... how truly ironic."

With that, the King of the Thunder Prison kicked the doors.

Crash!

The thick layer of ice fractured into a spiderweb pattern, splintering and shattering into falling shards to expose the buried main gates of the Tower of the Ice-Bound. The King of the Thunder Prison kicked them again.

Forged from an unknown material, the gates caved inward to form a massive dent, but showed no signs of shattering. The King of the Thunder Prison looked slightly surprised. Feeling his pride take a hit, he lashed out with another kick.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

After three consecutive kicks, the massive gates of the Tower of the Ice-Bound collapsed with a crash, revealing the grand hall inside the magic tower.

The first thing the White Dragon Lord saw was the towering throne at the far end of the hall. Between the throne and the White Dragon Lord stretched a pathway as smooth as a mirror, flanked symmetrically by sixty-four stone pillars carved with exquisite patterns and reliefs. One could easily imagine the Ice-Bound sitting high upon that throne while the Titans knelt before the dais.

But all of that was now gone. The once-glorious hall had been frozen solid by the chill of the Forbidden Spell. The beautifully painted dome was draped in icicles, making the space look as though it had weathered countless ages.

The King of the Thunder Prison retracted his massive foot.

"This door is good quality."

With the posture of conquerors, the dragons trampled over the fallen gates and strode into the Tower of the Ice-Bound.

As a supreme power on a Medium Material Plane, the Tower of the Ice-Bound possessed wealth accumulated over tens of thousands of years. Even to High-Tier Legendary Dragons, this was a massive windfall. The group highly anticipated the spoils of this trip.

Crimson Flame Streamer looked around the ice-sealed tower.

"Everyone, how about we make things exciting? Whoever finds it, keeps it."

The White Dragon Lord raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, let's see whose treasure-hunting talent is the best."

Flame of the Molten Mountain said, "I am the most sensitive to the scent of treasure."

Not willing to be outdone, the rest of the dragons quickly voiced their desire for a proper contest.

"Alright," Crimson Flame Streamer said. "I'll count to one, and then we move. How about it?"

"Agreed."

Seeing no objections, Crimson Flame Streamer chuckled.

"Get ready, I'm starting the count."

"One!"

With that, Crimson Flame Streamer immediately bolted forward. The other dragons were momentarily stunned before snapping to their senses.

"You sly bastard!"

Cursing Crimson Flame Streamer's cunning, the group didn't slow their feet in the slightest. They quickly scattered, sprinting toward the various rooms in the Tower of the Ice-Bound.

Since none of them knew the magic tower's layout or the distribution of its treasures, they were all starting from the same line. Whatever they managed to haul in would purely depend on their luck and methods.

Elemental Sight!

The White Dragon Lord buffed himself with the auxiliary magic—Elemental Sight. Instantly, the elemental energy in the world materialized in his vision as sparkling motes of glowing dust.

Because the Tower of the Ice-Bound was naturally aligned with ice, coupled with the effects of the ice-type Forbidden Spell, the vast majority of the elements within the tower were blue Ice Elementals. Any other elements were sparse and stood out starkly.

The White Dragon Lord sprinted toward a room with an exceptionally rich concentration of elemental energy and kicked the door.

Bang!

The interior doors of the magic tower lacked the immense defenses of the main gates. The White Dragon Lord's monstrous strength instantly smashed a massive hole through the barrier, and he squeezed his way inside.

Once inside, he discovered it was a storage warehouse for magical materials. Various precious ores, bizarre plants, and a myriad of strange magical materials were neatly arranged on the shelves.

With no time to sort through them, the White Dragon Lord shoved the magical materials—shelves and all—straight into his Dimensional Bag. After clearing the room, he immediately rushed to the next area rich with elemental energy.

Sprinting down the corridor, he ran into Crimson Flame Streamer. Sensing the magical auras radiating off each other, the two dragons exchanged a smile and brushed past one another.

In the brief moment they crossed paths, the White Dragon Lord caught a clearer read of the peculiar aura clinging to Crimson Flame Streamer, and a wave of shock crashed through his heart. The energy signature on the copper dragon was actually the legendary fortune magic.

No! To be precise, it was a divine spell of fortune!

Crimson Flame Streamer had actually managed to cling to the Goddess of Fortune's golden thigh. The White Dragon Lord couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy.

If one were to name the strongest deity in the multiverse, the title would undoubtedly go to the God of Justice and Light. But if there were a vote for the most popular deity in the multiverse, the Goddess of Fortune would win without contest.

Practically everyone wanted to cling to the Goddess of Fortune's golden thigh, but those who actually succeeded were pitifully few.

On one hand, the goddess had no fixed temple and loved to wander, making her whereabouts highly unpredictable and nearly impossible to track down. On the other hand, the Goddess of Fortune's personality was just as elusive as her divine portfolio. Even if one were lucky enough to meet her, it could easily be a blessing in disguise; if the goddess found a fawning sycophant annoying, a single drain of their luck could instantly turn that sycophant into the unluckiest wretch alive.

Despite his fleeting envy, the White Dragon Lord quickly readjusted his mindset. No matter which plane one resided in, the importance of personal effort far outweighed ethereal luck.

Harboring these complicated thoughts, the White Dragon Lord kicked open the door to another room. Seeing the vanity table and an abundance of female clothing inside, he realized this was the residence of a female Titan.

To have a permanent room inside the magic tower, this female Titan had to be someone of great importance to the Ice-Bound.

After ransacking the place, the White Dragon Lord moved to the adjoining room next to the dressing area. It was an immensely spacious bedroom. The most eye-catching feature was a massive circular bed, large enough for the White Dragon Lord to roll across three times over.

He looked at the portrait hanging above the headboard. The painting depicted two Titans—one tyrannical and the other mean-spirited. The two were pressed cheek-to-cheek in an intimate pose. The tyrannical one was the Frost Titan, Prudhomme the Ice-Bound.

Without even needing to guess, the one holding such an intimate posture with the Ice-Bound had to be his wife, Sivana Frost Dancer.

It suddenly dawned on the White Dragon Lord that he had wandered straight into the master bedroom of the ruling Titan couple.

After another thorough sweep of the room, he inadvertently glanced back at the massive bed just as he was about to leave. He remembered the habit from his past life of hiding valuables under the bed.

Operating on the principle of leaving no stone unturned, the White Dragon Lord approached the bed and tried to flip it over, only to find the bed didn't budge an inch.

He was astonished. Even if the bed had been bolted to the floor, his monstrous strength should have easily torn it apart. Yet, under the grip of his dragon claws, the bed frame didn't even suffer a single scratch.

The material of this bed was abnormal!

The White Dragon Lord swept the frozen bedding and all other clutter off the circular bed, revealing the frame underneath, which looked like it had been carved from a single, seamless block of jade.

"Huh!"

Suddenly, he noticed a depression carved into the frame. The shape of the groove looked strikingly familiar.

After a moment of thought, the White Dragon Lord pulled out the two rings he had taken from Prudhomme the Ice-Bound. One was a token of love, while the other was a faction insignia. The faction insignia matched the indentation on the bed frame perfectly.

Aligning the insignia with the groove, the White Dragon Lord pressed it in.

Click!

The magical mechanism activated. A hidden compartment sprang out from the side of the previously seamless bed frame. Inside the compartment rested a single box, no larger than a palm.

The White Dragon Lord took out the box and pushed the hidden compartment shut. Opening the lid, he found a single, dark-gold coin inside.

Seeing the image of a smiling woman stamped on the coin, shock gripped his heart, quickly followed by wild elation. This was the Goddess of Fortune!

"A Lucky Gold Coin?!"

Thrilled, the White Dragon Lord took the coin out and flipped it over. He froze instantly, discovering that engraved on the back was the image of a woman with an eerie smirk. She looked utterly identical to the Goddess of Fortune, yet her aura was the exact opposite.

This was the Goddess of Misfortune!

"It's actually a Coin of Fate!"

The White Dragon Lord felt a jolt of shock.

Legend had it that if someone was lucky enough to encounter the Goddess of Fortune and win her smile, she might bestow a small parting gift upon them. That gift was a Lucky Gold Coin.

While a Lucky Gold Coin wouldn't directly turn its holder into a winner in life, it would elevate their luck significantly above that of a normal person.

If the bearer of that coin was "lucky" enough to then run into the Goddess of Fortune's twin sister, the Goddess of Misfortune, that temperamental deity would very likely destroy her sister's blessing by corrupting the coin with a Curse of misfortune.

When the powers of fortune and misfortune intertwined within the same vessel, they birthed the bizarre Coin of Fate. A Coin of Fate provided absolutely no passive buffs to its bearer and instead became a one-time-use consumable.

When a Coin of Fate was tossed into the air, the gears of destiny would begin to turn. If it landed revealing the smiling goddess, the bearer would be blessed with heaven-defying luck for a short period of time. However, if the wicked smirk faced upward, the bearer would suffer a catastrophic Curse. The devastation of the Curse was exactly proportional to the magnitude of the luck it could have provided.

Its harsh creation conditions, combined with its bizarre ability to instantly overturn any situation, made the Coin of Fate one of the most precious magical oddities in the multiverse.

The White Dragon Lord placed the Coin of Fate back inside its box and carefully stowed it away. Should the day ever come when he was driven into an inescapable corner, this coin would be his final lifeline.

Certain that he had missed nothing else in the room, the White Dragon Lord hurried toward his next target.

After a competitive scramble of looting, the seven High-Tier Legendary Dragons finally stripped the Tower of the Ice-Bound completely clean. They gathered in the control room at the pinnacle of the tower, bringing out the spoils they had no use for to trade among themselves.

Because both the Ice-Bound and the White Dragon Lord shared the ice attribute, the vast majority of the tower's collection was highly useful to him. The White Dragon Lord continuously pulled from his own past accumulations, trading with the other dragons for what he needed.

After a round of trading, every dragon had reaped a bountiful harvest.

"Amos, this is for you."

The Ancient Gold Dragon pulled out a frozen corpse of a female Titan. Her face was identical to the female Titan depicted in the portrait hanging in the bedroom.

"Take it. Put her together with the Ice-Bound and use them as teaching materials for the Dragon Beast Academy."

"I think I just heard a rather novel term. Dragon Beast Academy?"

Crimson Flame Streamer leaned in with a look of immense curiosity.

"What is the Dragon Beast Academy?"

"Hm... it's a school that Amos opened," the Ancient Gold Dragon explained. "Its primary purpose is to protect underage Chromatic Dragons and provide basic education to dragon beasts. I have to say, after receiving systematic education, those dragon beasts have truly formed a combat force that cannot be underestimated. Plus, dragon beasts can also give birth to True Dragons..."

As the Ancient Gold Dragon introduced the academy's curriculum and its results, Crimson Flame Streamer's eyes grew brighter and brighter. Flame of the Molten Mountain and the King of the Thunder Prison remained indifferent, the Matron of Venom looked deep in thought, while the Black King maintained an expression of complete apathy, as if it didn't concern him.

While the Ancient Gold Dragon was telling the story, the White Dragon Lord stored away Sivana Frost Dancer's frozen corpse.

"A family should be kept together."

"Speaking of the Ice-Bound's family, it seems there is also an underage young Titan," the Black King suddenly spoke up.

Saying this, he dug through his dimension bag and pulled out a portrait encased in a gold frame, displaying it for the White Dragon Lord.

The painting depicted a young Frost Titan who bore a striking resemblance to the Ice-Bound. The youth looked exceptionally valiant, wielding a spear of ice and stepping upon the corpse of a red dragon. His posture radiated arrogance.

Flame of the Molten Mountain immediately exploded into a furious rage.

"Where is the corpse of that little whelp?! I'm going to tear him to pieces!"

"Haven't seen it. He probably wasn't in the Tower of the Ice-Bound."

After asking around, none of the dragons had found the body of the Frost Titan prince. Flame of the Molten Mountain looked intensely displeased.

"Better hope I never run into that little whelp! Otherwise, I'll make him understand the price of provoking the Red Dragon Clan!"

...

From a vantage point invisible to mortals, the eternally surging River Styx carried the souls of countless planes across the multiverse toward an enigmatic realm. Densely packed souls of wildly different shapes were crammed together within the waters, drifting with the current. Semi-transparent hands reached toward the sky, trying to grab hold of anything they could.

Following the waves of the River Styx, the souls eventually flowed into the final destination of all life—the Underworld.

Death god attendants carrying Soul-Gathering Lanterns fished the souls out of the river and sorted them. The souls of the faithless were taken away to plaster the Wall of the Faithless, while the believers of The Gods were sorted and confined according to their faith, waiting to be collected by the envoys dispatched by their respective deities.

An envoy of Astraeus, God of the Dark Titans, easily navigated his way into the solemn and gloomy Grand Hall of the Death God. Stepping before the death god attendant in charge of soul management, he presented the receiving seal of the God of the Dark Titans.

After verifying the authenticity of the seal, the envoy was led to the corresponding holding area, where he smoothly met with the souls of recent believers. Seeing a quantity of souls vastly exceeding the usual numbers, the envoy was startled and immediately asked how they had died.

Upon learning that many of these believers hailed from the Sincaro Titan World and had died at the hands of dragons, the envoy knew something had gone wrong. He hastily gathered the souls and returned to the Divine Kingdom.

Within the Divine Kingdom of Astraeus, God of the Dark Titans, the envoy knelt before the divine throne resting atop the clouds. Alongside the multitude of giant souls and a few Titan souls he had just retrieved, the envoy recounted the tragedy that had befallen the Sincaro Titan World.

"A dragon invasion?!"

Divine might descended like a prison. Driven by the fluctuations of Astraeus's wrath, a sweeping, oppressive aura radiated in all directions. The petitioners living within the Divine Kingdom hastily threw themselves to the ground, loudly chanting holy hymns of praise to their deity.

The oppressive might lasted for only a brief moment before vanishing entirely. Astraeus's expression returned to a blank slate.

"What kind of dragons made up the main force of their army?"

"Your Majesty, they were Chromatic Dragons."

Astraeus muttered to himself.

"Tiamat, are you trying to start a war?!"