Chapter 2247: Self Will Have Successors

Coiling Dragon

Even powerful ancient gods must abide by inherent laws. If a divine soul shatters, it shatters. To unleash even greater power afterward, one would have to detonate another mighty supreme treasure.

He Lingchuan was the first to recover from the shock:"Did It shatter Its divine personality? Was that all-consuming black hole the manifestation of the shattered Death Divine Personality?"

Recalling what he had seen yesterday, Mitya had initially been at a disadvantage in the psychic sea battle, about to be dragged into the sea of mist by the Dragon God. Yet, It suddenly rallied, demonstrating immense power. In the end, the Dragon God had no choice but to perish with It. The method Mitya used to turn the tide of battle was truly defying nature.

"Precisely, or rather, It used Its divine personality as a final trump card," General Hong nodded. "According to Mitya's understanding of laws, the Death Divine Personality contains the most extreme destructive power. Only by unleashing such power could It hope to truly shake and annihilate the Dragon God."

They could not even begin to imagine how terrifying Mitya's desperate struggle was.

He Lingchuan and Xu Shichu exchanged glances, both unable to help but ask, "The Dragon God... has It truly perished?"

No one dared to believe it. That was the Dragon God, who had endured the Ancient War, brought down fragments of the Celestial Net Star, resided in the Grand Square Pot for over three millennia, and then fought a great battle with Mitya! Who could believe that It would simply vanish so quietly?

General Hong was silent for a moment, organizing her thoughts. "I think 'perished' isn't quite the right word," she said slowly. "Even Mitya can't be considered to have 'perished'."

Xu Shichu looked thoughtful, while He Lingchuan recalled what the Dragon God had said during the psychic sea battle:Neither born nor dead, neither silent nor extinguished!

"At the end of the great battle, Mitya knew It was beyond redemption, so It simply shattered Its divine personality, unleashing all the power of deprivation and extraction contained within, attempting to achieve a mutual destruction." Mitya's aim was complete annihilation, self-detonating Its divine soul and shattering Its divine personality.

"'Deprivation and extraction,'" He Lingchuan murmured. "The Dragon God once told Lord Zhong that Mitya's understanding of life was order resisting chaos; its understanding of death, however, was the opposite: chaos overcoming order, negative pressure triumphing over positive, and thus all things eventually perishing."

Therefore, the process of death, whether fast or slow, is essentially the process by which energy—such as power, vitality, and nutrients—is extracted.

A divine personality is the embodiment and manifestation of a deity's or demon's understanding of power. By shattering the Death Divine Personality in the final battle, Mitya intended to unleash its most violent characteristics in a short time—to extract and deprive General Hong's psychic sea of all its energy, whether from the Dragon God or from Zhong Wugan!

Xu Shichu said, "This Death Ancient God truly has an extreme temperament."

"It's said that during the Three Sacred Gods era, the Death Ancient God didn't have a very harmonious relationship with the other two ancient gods," General Hong continued. "Fortunately, the Dragon God was ultimately a cut above the Death Ancient God. It accurately assessed that the Death Divine Personality's power within my psychic sea was not 'infinite,' and therefore allowed its own power to be extracted."

In simple terms, the Dragon God allowed Mitya to absorb its power freely and forcefully, until the black hole was overloaded and exploded!

Of course, there was a prerequisite: her psychic sea battlefield was very special, completely unsuitable for the divine personality to fully exert itself. Had they been in the real world, Mitya might have used the Death Divine Personality in countless ways, and the Dragon God might not have dared to be so audacious.

"After the Dragon God defeated Mitya, it took advantage of the Death Divine Personality's tendency to self-repair once more, seizing the opportunity to merge its own power with Mitya's, forming a brand-new core of power, or perhaps a divine energy core—" General Hong paused. "—that is the dark red entity you saw, which I still don't know how to describe."

He Lingchuan responded without hesitation: "Chaos?"

"'Chaos?'" General Hong savored the word. "Hmm, that's quite fitting indeed."

For a long time since he first encountered the Grand Square Pot, He Lingchuan had wondered about the enigmatic chaos that constantly roamed within the vast red sea. Keeping a fish in a pot, it seemed strange no matter how he looked at it. Now he finally understood that what appeared to be a living creature was, in fact, one of the core powers of the Grand Square Pot. It embodies the Dragon God's philosophy: an entity neither living nor dead, neither silent nor extinguished; it is the fusion of the two realms' peak powers and their respective laws. No wonder it was incredibly powerful.

Xu Shichu asked, "And the Death Divine Personality?"

"It was also integrated into it."

"Truly worthy of the Dragon God," He Lingchuan applauded in admiration. He had yet to pass the second trial of the Destiny Divine Personality, yet the Dragon God had integrated the shattered Death Divine Personality in an instant, developing new uses for it. This deconstruction and utilization of laws represented a new height he had never conceived of. Observing the psychic battle between the Dragon God and Mitya had greatly inspired him.

"This battle within the psychic sea represents two great deities' differing understandings of the mystery of death," He Lingchuan mused. "The Dragon God believes that life and death themselves are not important; they are merely the migration and circulation of energy. Even if It and Mitya 'perished' in the conventional sense, their energy has migrated into the chaos. This migration is precisely the Dragon God's embodiment of Its own understanding."

Just as the Dragon God had once told Zhong Shengguang, its battle with Mitya would ultimately be a conflict of laws.

"Well said! General Huyi's insights are profound," Xu Shichu nodded repeatedly. "Energy exists, therefore the Dragon God exists, hence 'neither born nor dead, neither silent nor extinguished.'"

The Dragon God had told Mitya that the psychic sea battle was, for both parties, a transcendence. It was precisely through this battle that It truly transcended life and death.

He Lingchuan felt deep regret that as a latecomer, he had not had the chance to meet the Dragon God in the Grand Square Pot—a truly immense pity. Yet, he understood that the Dragon God had never truly left, but had merely transformed into another form of existence.

He Lingchuan deliberately sighed deeply: "The Dragon God might have let go peacefully, but what will become of the mortal world now?"

"I asked. It said that even if It were gone, there would still be Coiling Dragon City," General Hong turned her head, looking at the setting sun in the west. "And even if Coiling Dragon City were no more, there would always be successors. In the mortal world, there will always be new hope."

He Lingchuan was slightly moved.

After General Hong's psychic sea battle concluded, statues in Mitya's temples, big and small, across the mortal world—whether dedicated to Mitya, the Moon God, or others—showed varying degrees of damage. Within Coiling Dragon City, where a massive stone statue of Mitya had originally stood, there were several dull thuds, and then its stone head suddenly fell off! Thus, the mortal world knew that something had happened to the deity Mitya. This scene was identical to the downfall of Miaozhantian in reality. Before long, the Demonic Realm would also know.

Mitya's demise had far-reaching consequences, but the eye of the storm it caused was only just beginning to form.

The victory in the Immortal Spirit Lake ambush battle prevented the Beijia army in the Hong River region from receiving reinforcements, forcing them to retreat in disarray. The Coiling Dragon Army thus secured the central and northern territories of Xiluo. Enraged, Beijia dispatched another fifty thousand troops.

However, Huang Jing, a power in Xiluo's central-eastern region, surrendered to the Coiling Dragon Army first! This move was completely unexpected by Beijia. Huang Jing's military strength was, of course, far inferior to that of Beijia or the Coiling Dragon Army, but he held a strategic position, controlling numerous passes and river mouths. Once he surrendered, the Coiling Dragon Army swiftly took control of these crucial locations, gaining a geographical advantage over Beijia. The next seven or eight battles were particularly difficult for Beijia.

At this point, news of Mitya's downfall also spread throughout the royal court of Lingxu City. Its sensational impact far surpassed the later demise of Miaozhantian. Miaozhantian had fallen in the Upside-Down Sea, perishing with Qianhuan in a mutual destruction caused by a conflict between powerful beings of similar caliber. But Mitya's downfall was not caused by a Celestial Demon!

Beijia initially couldn't figure out the reason, but Wu Xian had already submitted a report detailing the entire process of the great battle at Immortal Spirit Lake, naturally mentioning Mitya's grand divine descent. The deities of Lingxu, comparing these two events, discovered that Mitya had almost certainly fallen at that very moment. This meant that Mitya had descended in its true form at that time—otherwise, merely losing a clone would not have caused the main body to perish—and had disrupted the divine descents of three Heavenly Gods, only to then inexplicably fall.

Amidst all this, the most anomalous element was the Coiling Dragon Army! Logically, with the sudden downfall of their guardian deity, the Coiling Dragon Army should have been in extreme panic. Yet, their performance was unusually strong; they even advanced vigorously as if injected with stimulants after Mitya's downfall, capturing several locations consecutively! Especially after Huang Jing surrendered to Coiling Dragon City, General Hong reappeared on the battlefield, consecutively slaying two Beijia generals, her momentum even fiercer than before!

Lingxu City had already been tracking General Hong's movements. She was Mitya's vessel; how could she remain unharmed after Mitya's downfall? With this second anomaly emerging, Lingxu City and the Heavenly Palace could not help but suspect that Mitya's demise was actually connected to Coiling Dragon City! Could it be... that Coiling Dragon City had betrayed Mitya and ambushed It? Otherwise, outsiders truly could not imagine a second possibility for Mitya's downfall.

But could Coiling Dragon City and General Hong alone defeat the Demonic Realm's God of War? This sounded utterly unreliable; even the Heavenly Gods repeatedly shook their heads, saying it was impossible, absolutely impossible! Nevertheless, Coiling Dragon City, due to its dazzling display, once again became the focus of the Heavenly Gods' gaze.

Tonight, there was a rare truce. The Coiling Dragon Army was stationed in Ke City, which would later become the capital of the State of Yuan. At that time, Ke City was just a small town, without the Yuan Royal Palace, without the residences of the wealthy, and without excavated artificial lakes, yet its landscape seemed familiar. Standing on a high ridge in the outskirts, He Lingchuan gazed at the city and couldn't help but lament how the land remained while human affairs had changed beyond recognition.

In true history, this land experienced dynastic changes for over a hundred and fifty years thereafter and did not enjoy peace for long. He wondered if, in this Coiling Dragon world, its fate and that of Coiling Dragon City could both be altered.

He Lingchuan looked up at the night sky and yawned again. Recently, the Coiling Dragon Army had been advancing eastward rapidly, and the pace of war was intense. As a commanding general, he was truly exhausted and should have rested earlier tonight, but he had not dared to close his eyes. There were new tasks tomorrow.

However, the anomaly in the Coiling Dragon world had persisted until now. The moment he looked up, he saw a colossal shadow slowly drifting past beyond the celestial curtain. This giant entity had been swaying back and forth for a long time; was it also urging him to leave quickly? He was really worried that he would... the moment he opened his eyes tomorrow.

He Lingchuan sighed and turned to enter his tent. Before falling asleep, the last person he thought of was Master Sun.

The Scroll of Cang Yan concludes here. Thank you for your support. The next volume, "The Age of Great Strife," officially begins.

Fengxing Shuiyun Jian / Jiufang Ye,

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