Chapter 462: Heavenly Emperor’s Gravestone; Supreme Flood Dragon
This fellow is crazy. Xiao Chen did not remain any longer. He turned around and left the place.
Since he had obtained the secret manual that he wanted, there was no more need for him to continue looking around. So, he left the streets and prepared to the fly up.
However, just at that moment, a cultivator wearing a black cloak, with his face hidden in the shadows, descended down in front of him. Then, he immediately headed to the north.
Xiao Chen felt that this person was very familiar, so he quickly extended out his Spiritual Sense. Upon probing him, Xiao Chen’s expression could not help but change. “It’s Chu Chaoyun! What is he doing here?
“He must be here to see if he can find anything good. After all, even I came here, So it is not strange that he came as well.
Xiao Chen withdrew his Spiritual Sense and no longer cared about him. However he suddenly realized that something was strange.
After Chu Chaoyun had landed, he simple kept heading north, not even bothering to look at the stalls around him.
How strange!
Xiao Chen’s pupils constricted. He decided to quietly follow Chu Chaoyun. He withdrew his aura and walked behind him, maintaining a distance of two thousand meters.
Soon, Chu Chaoyun left the boundaries of the market. Xiao Chen found this even stranger. What in the world is this fellow planning to do here?
The outside of the market was just a patch of desolate land. There were only some wild weeds growing there. A cold wind blew noisily. All these made the place look very bleak.
Chu Chaoyun did not stop moving for a single moment, he was very clear of his destination. He kept moving forward until he arrived before a gravestone.
There was a deep pool of water beside the gravestone. The pool was filled with ice and looked very strange.
Chu Chaoyun removed the black cloak he was wearing. Unexpectedly, he was wearing golden long robes from the Tianwu Dynasty beneath the cloak.
Chu Chaoyun’s usually carefree face revealed a faint melancholy. He knelt down and started to clear the weeds around the gravestone with his hands.
The gravestone was already very broken down. The stones had already split open in the places where the words were carved. After looking for a long time, he could finally make out was written on it. He read out softly, “Grave of Chu Jiaoyang.”
Chu Jiaoyang…Chu Jiaoyang…Xiao Chen repeated this name twice in his heart. Then, his expression changed greatly.
The Great Tianwu Emperor who had been praised for ten thousand years, the one who had established the Tianwu Dynasty and ruled the continent, wasn’t his real name Chu Jiaoyang?
That is impossible!
This is absolutely impossible, Xiao Chen was extremely astonished. The Great Tianwu Emperor, Chu Jiaoyang, was an outstanding talent. He had been unrivaled and his deeds were spoken about even after ten thousand years.
Even to that day, he was still a legend who could not be surpa.s.sed in the Tianwu Continent. The t.i.tle of Number 1 after the Ancient Era belonged to him and him alone.
However, his gravestone was so simple and ordinary. It looked like it was about to collapse and was covered in weeds.
The gravestone of a City Lord of a small city would be several times more luxurious than this. As the Great Tianwu Emperor, how can his gravestone be so simple?
Doubts appeared in Xiao Chen’s heart. He could not understand what was going on or how could a Heavenly Emperor’s Grave be so simple.
[TL note: I can’t recall whether the term Heavenly Emperor appeared before but this should be another t.i.tle for the Martial Emperors, just like how Martial Sages are also called Sages.]
What Xiao Chen could not figure out was why was Chu Chaoyun here. Furthermore, this gravestone did not seem to difficult to find. Thus, it was strange that no one had any designs on this Heavenly Emperor Grave.
After all, no matter how simple it was, it was still a Heavenly Emperor’s grave. Just the corpse of a Heavenly Emperor was worth cities. The value of the grave was immeasurable.
All sorts of doubts filled Xiao Chen’s mind, making him feel confused. He carefully thought back to his past memories.
Suddenly, Xiao Chen recalled that when he had first met Chu Chaoyun, there was a Heavenly Emperor Grave there as well.
That was the last Emperor of the Tianwu Dynasty. That emperor was far from being comparable to Chu Jiaoyang.
As the biggest winner of that fortuitous encounter, not only did Chu Chaoyun obtain the body of a Martial Emperor, he had even absorbed a tenth of the Heavenly Flame and obtained the Life-Extinguis.h.i.+ng Blood-Reversing Swordplay.
Seeing that Chu Chaoyun appeared here in such a strange manner, perhaps finding the grave that time was not a coincidence. Maybe everything was flowing according to his plan.
Thinking deeper into this, the map that the Yue Clan had obtained in the past might have been a result of his plans.
If all this was true, then Chu Chaoyun’s shrewdness was simply terrifying.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Suddenly, the pool that was filled with ice started to shatter. An lingering aura rushed up to the sky from the cracks.
The aura resembled a long straight line. It soon pierced the barrier of the underground market and entered the lake.
This startled Xiao Chen. He realized that the aura that he had sensed when he first came to the Hidden Dragon Lake had come from here.
“Boom!”
The ice completely shattered and a snow-white flood dragon emerged from the pool. It was more than two hundred meters long.
Rows of white scales lined its entire body, and it was surrounded by clouds. It also emitted an ancient Dragon’s Might.
The entire underground market felt a heavy pressure. Suspicious gazes filled the whole place.
“Why did the old ancestor come out out of the blue?!”
“Is someone having designs on that Heavenly Emperor’s Grave? They are too daring! Don’t they know how to spell the word ‘death’?”
[TL note: Don’t they know how to spell the word ‘death’: This means, do they not fear death? It’s said in a rather sarcastic fas.h.i.+on.]
However, no one dared to check out what was happening. They all simply remained where they were and continued with whatever they had been doing.
No matter how curious they were, they could not muster up the courage to find out what was going on.
Unexpectedly, this Hidden Dragon Lake actually has a dragon hidden within it! Xiao Chen thought in horror.
This was a Rank 10 Frost Flood Dragon—a being that was comparable to a peak Martial Sage. Gauging from the clouds surrounding its body, it was clearly on the verge of morphing into a true dragon.
It was unknown for how long this flood dragon had lived for. Even if a Martial Emperor came, he would not be able to do anything to it. This flood dragon was a peak existence that stood above them all.
No wonder no one dared to touch the simple Heavenly Emperor’s grave that was placed there.
Xiao Chen, who was two thousand meters away, withdrew all his aura. He even carefully laid p.r.o.ne on the ground, not even daring to extend out his Spiritual Sense.
Such a strong Frost Flood Dragon would be able to detect Xiao Chen with a single thought, and no matter how strong Xiao Chen’s Spiritual Sense was, it would not be at a level that could compare to a flood dragon’s.
Before the gravestone, Chu Chaoyun waved to the Frost Flood Dragon in the air. He said, “Ao Yang, it has been a long time!”
“Indeed, it has been a long time. The last time you came seems to be four years ago,” the flood dragon spoke in human language with an extremely hoa.r.s.e voice.
Chu Chaoyun smiled faintly and did not say anything else. He took out a stack of yellow paper and other items for honoring someone’s death and placed them one by one before the gravestone.
A golden light flashed in Chu Chaoyun’s eyes and all the items was set ablaze.
Chu Chaoyun looked distracted as he watched the yellow paper burn. The melancholy on his face became even more intense.
Chu Chaoyun touched the mottled gravestone with his right hand and muttered in a voice that only he could hear, “You might have had peerless talent and unrivalled cultivation. You might have become matchless in the world. However, in the end, you still became a patch of sandy soil and a broken gravestone.
“Even though a long time has pa.s.sed, and your stories are being pa.s.sed down even until now, your empire no longer exists. Your descendents do not even have the rights to exist properly.”
Xiao Chen could not hear what Chu Chaoyun was saying. However, when he saw the burning items, a thought suddenly arose in his heart.
Could this Chu Chaoyun be a remnant of the Tianwu Dynasty’s Royal Court?
“Xiu!”
Just at that moment, an extremely cold gaze landed on Xiao Chen.
Xiao Chen’s chest tightened. He knew that when his emotions fluctuated earlier, the Frost Flood Dragon sensed it.
“Zoom!”
Without hesitating, Xiao Chen pushed off the ground with his hands. His body immediately shot up into the air.
The patterns on the Blood Flame Shoes suddenly lit up. Xiao Chen’s speed immediately reached Mach 4 as he rushed into the sky.
“Ca! Ca! Ca!”
The moment Xiao Chen left, the place where he had laid earlier became covered in a layer of frost that extended ten meters deep into the ground.
All the soil in that area turned into ice and shattered. Countless ice fragments shot into the surroundings.
A cold Qi spread out amidst the frosty howling wind, and a huge deep pit appeared on the ground. All of this had happened in the blink of an eye.
Xiao Chen did not even know how the Frost Flood Dragon made his move, nor did he feel it. As he flew towards the sky, he felt extremely anxious.
All Xiao Chen thought of was how to get out of this place as soon as possible; he did not even think of retaliating.
The Frost Flood Dragon looked at Xiao Chen, who was flying in the air. Its eyes moved slightly as he prepared to sent out more Dragon Qi to intercept Xiao Chen.
However, it suddenly discovered something else. It stopped, opened its jaws, and by simply raising one of its claws it sent out an extremely sharp frost Qi.
“Bang!”
Xiao Chen felt the frost Qi explode behind him. The horrifying energy caused the lightning-attributed Essence in his body to crumble without being able to resist.
“Pu ci!”
Xiao Chen vomited out blood. The huge force pushed him forward continuously. Soon, he reached the barrier and arrived at the lake.
The huge force did not diminish and continued to push Xiao Chen upward. After a while, Xiao Chen got blasted out of the the Hidden Dragon Lake together with a pillar of water.
Xiao Chen heaved a sigh of relief. He checked on his injuries, but was surprised to find that there were none.
The frost Qi that had surged within Xiao Chen’s body and had caused him unimaginable pain did not cause him any harm. Instead, it even forced out some of the impurities in his Essence.
That was to say, not only had Xiao Chen not suffered any losses, he had even benefited.
The pillar of water fell back down, sending ripples through the lake surface. After a long while, the surface of the lake calmed down..
Xiao Chen stared at the lake at a loss of what to make of this situation. He could not understand why that Rank 10 Frost Flood Dragon helped him.
The hoa.r.s.e voice of the Frost Flood Dragon sounded out beside the Heavenly Emperor’s gravestone once again, “Chu Chaoyun, don’t let anyone tail you here again, not even if they are the inheritors of the Azure Emperor.”
Chu Chaoyun said somewhat helplessly, “I really did not know that he followed me. Furthermore, who knows when I will be back here again.”
The Frost Flood Dragon’s voice resounded again, “I don’t care what you want to do. Don’t you dare have any designs on the items within the Heavenly Emperor’s Grave.”
After the Frost Flood Dragon spoke, its huge body moved and re-entered the deep pool.
Chu Chaoyun clenched his fists tightly, and his eyes became resolute. He looked at the simple Heavenly Emperor’s Grave and muttered, “Those who are dead are dead, but I still have that basic amount of respect for you.”
Xiao Chen cautiously returned to his courtyard. Then, he sat down cross-legged below the small tree and closed his eyes. He started to carefully sense the frost Qi that the Frost Flood Dragon had given him.
He found that there were still some remnants in his body that had not been used. It would be too wasteful if he did not use it properly.
“Chi! Chi!”
As Xiao Chen was circulating his Essence, the Frost Qi that remained in his flesh, meridians, and his internal organs was all being quickly absorbed.