Coiling Dragon

by welyjesch

There was a grassy yard in front of Linley’s room, which had a stone table placed in the middle of it. The stone table had a bottle of wine atop it, and Linley was currently holding a book in his hands. Linley’s four clones were all training, while his original body was enjoying the peace.

  Delia walked out from her room, holding two plates of food in her hands. Seeing Linley reading, she couldn’t help but chuckle. She walked over, gently placing the plates down on the stone table.

  “Eh?”

  Linley suddenly smelled a fragrant odor, and he turned to look at the platter. His eyes couldn’t help but to light up. “Delia, haha, it smells so delicious. Your culinary skills have improved greatly.” As he spoke, he flipped the book shut.

  He immediately went to go for a taste, and ate while praising, “Not bad, not bad. The taste is comparable to that of the restaurants in the cities.”

  “Far from it.” Delia laughed, her face blushing. “This is based off of one of several cooking recipes I bought on my last trip to the city. The ingredients for these dishes, I acquired by asking those who went to the cities to buy for me.”

  Delia sat down across from him, resting her chin on her hands as she watched Linley eat.

  As Linley ate, he suddenly began to chuckle.

  “Why are you laughing like an idiot?” Delia couldn’t help but smile as well.

  “I’m just thinking!” Linley let out a sigh. “Training in the Laws, adventuring in the boundless Infernal Realm…then, when free, reading some books, drinking some fine wine, then eating the delicious food prepared by my wife. This sort of life is simply…haha, perfect!” Linley laughed, absolutely delighted.

  Delia laughed as well.

  “Linley, if you always want to live such a comfortable life, you can, you know.” Delia said. “As long as in the future, you don’t go to Bloodbath Gorge, that’ll be enough. I keep on having the feeling that the Four Divine Beasts clan care too much about their face…if it was me, I would’ve ordered the Four Divine Beasts clan to remain locked in the mountain. The members of the clan would all live quiet lives. Why go battle against those eight great clans?”

  Linley put down his chopsticks.

  “Enough, Delia.” Linley laughed. “Life, especially for those who possess unending life, is all about face. The glory of the clan is particularly valued. Unless it is absolutely necessary…the clan won’t choose to retreat into the mountains and completely turtle up.”

  Delia laughed. “It doesn’t matter to me, as long as you don’t have to go to Bloodbath Gorge.” In Delia’s heart, she didn’t feel too much of a sense of belonging to the Four Divine Beasts clan. All she cared about was…that Linley had to be safe.

  “Hehe…” Linley chuckled.

  “Come, you have a taste as well. This flavor really is excellent.” Linley laughed as he spoke.

  In the blink of an eye, a hundred years of this sort of life passed. With Linley by her side, Delia naturally didn’t feel bored at all. Every day, her face was wreathed in smiles, and she also learned how to cook one delicacy after another, to Linley’s great delight, as he could now often taste new food.

  As for Bebe…

  He occasionally would be with Linley, or joke around with the members of the Yulan branch, but when bored, Bebe would still join the clan’s squadrons and head out to the city for a stroll.

  Bloodbath Gorge. The Grand Palace of the Four Divine Beasts. The four clan leaders were assembled there.

  “It’s only been a century!” Gislason’s face was gloomy.

  “In the past century, it seems as though those eight great clans have gone mad! They don’t care about casualties at all, nor about wasting Sovereign’s Might. They insist on killing our people!” The Patriarch of the White Tiger clan said furiously.

  “In the past century, our Vermillion Bird clan has lost three Elders. The rest of you?” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan said, a long, gloomy look her face.

  “Our White Tiger clan has lost four Elders!” The Patriarch of the White Tiger clan’s words held boundless rage. “Third Brother, how about your Black Tortoise clan?”

  The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan let out a low sigh as well. “Our Black Tortoise clan’s losses have been severe as well. We lost two Elders. It has only been a century!”

  “Elder Brother.” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan looked towards Gislason.

  “Our Azure Dragon clan has lost three Elders.” Gislason sighed. “By my calculations, in a short century, our Four Divine Beasts clan has lost a total of twelve Elders!”

  Based on how things had previously progressed in their war of attrition, the loss of twelve Elders was something which would happen in a thousand years.

  But now, they reached that number in a mere century.

  “Those eight great clans have gone mad.” The Matriarch of the Vermillion Bird clan said angrily. “In the past century, each time, they’ll send out three or four Seven Star Fiends. And each time, one of them will be holding a Sovereign’s Might! They don’t begrudge using the Sovereign’s Might at all, if it means they can kill all our people.”

  “They’ve lost quite a bit in their madness as well.” Gislason said. “Our Azure Dragon clan alone has killed four of their Elders.”

  “Our Vermillion Bird clan has killed three.”

  The four clan leaders all reported their results.

  “In the past thousand years, the losses of the eight great clans have been even greater than ours. They lost fifteen of their Elders.” Gislason said.

  “But the eight great clans have the advantage of numbers.” The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan said in a low voice. “Ever since our four ancestors died, our Four Divine Beasts clan has lost, in total, nearly a hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends…now, our entire Four Divine Beasts clan has, all combined, roughly around a hundred surviving Seven Star Fiends. But the enemy? They have more than three hundred Seven Star Fiends in total!”

  Any of the eight great clans could compare with the Azure Dragon clan in terms of experts.

  Early on, the Azure Dragon clan had over sixty Seven Star Fiends as well.

  The eight great clans originally had nearly five hundred Seven Star Fiends as well. After so many years of warfare, they had killed nearly a hundred and twenty Seven Star Fiends of the Four Divine Beasts clan, while they themselves had lost more than a hundred.

  But despite that, the combined forces of the eight great clans still numbered more than three hundred Seven Star Fiends?

  If this sort of attrition continued…

  Even after all of the experts of the Four Divine Beasts clan were dead, the enemy would probably still have two hundred or more Elders. In addition, the enemy also had many supreme experts. The Patriarchs of the eight great clans were all extremely powerful figures!

  “Madness. Madness! They ignore the cost in Sovereign’s Might and in deaths of Seven Star Fiends. They’ve all gone mad!” The Patriarch of the Black Tortoise clan said unhappily.

  “What’s going on? In the past ten thousand years, they’ve never been as wild as this. Why have they gone so mad in the past century?” Gislason simply couldn’t understand it.

  But how could the leaders of the Four Divine Beasts clan have imagined…that the reason these eight great clans had gone mad and sent out three or four Elders to join forces each time was, first of all, in the hopes that when they ran into Linley, they would be able to kill him.

  And the second reason was, they wanted to speed up the pace! They didn’t dare to waste more time, for fear that as time went on, Linley might suddenly break through and become that which they feared the most; a ‘Highgod Paragon’.

  Although the Four Divine Beasts clan and the eight great clans had entered a wild state, the Skyrite Mountains were still very quiet and calm. Linley lived this sort of calm life with no struggles, while his four clones constantly improved as well.

  After his retirement from Bloodbath Gorge, two hundred years had passed.


  In the past two hundred years, Linley had made the greatest improvements in his divine water clone, which could in fact be described as having made ‘monstrous gains’. The speed at which he gained new insights into the profound mysteries was absolutely ‘astonishing’. It was on a full level faster than even his divine earth clone and his divine wind clone.

  Naturally, it was countless times faster than his divine fire clone.

  By now, his divine water clone had already reached the God level long ago, and had mastered three profound mysteries and was currently working on the fourth…but actually, if one closely considered it, this wasn’t too astonishing. After all, after the Ancestral Baptism, Linley had naturally understood one of the profound mysteries.

  His divine wind clone had gained mastery into a sixth profound mystery, but since the Laws of the Wind had nine profound mysteries in total, it was harder to advance in.

  As for his divine fire clone, it was still working on the third profound mystery, advancing at a slow pace.

  “Linley, your life is quite comfortable.” A loud laugh rang out.

  Linley, Delia, and Bebe were seated around a table, eating while chatting.

  Linley turned to look. The person who had walked in was Elder Garvey.

  “Garvey seems to have a rather unhappy look on his face. He’s worrying about something.” Linley could tell this at a single glance. For an expert such as Elder Garvey to so easily reveal his thoughts meant that something major had definitely occurred.”

  “Elder Garvey.” Bebe was the first to welcome him happily. “Hurry on over. This is the first time my Boss cooked. Have a taste…it is so delicious, you could die!”

  “Bebe.” Linley couldn’t help but feel his face heat up.

  He clearly had done exactly as the cookbook described, but the difference in flavor between what he had cooked and what Delia cooked was…simply too vast. However, it wasn’t so bad as to cause someone to ‘die’.

  Book 17, Indigo Prefecture – Chapter 38, Most Powerful Attack

  “Haha…” Elder Garvey couldn’t help but laugh. He immediately pointed at Linley and said, “Elder Linley, I didn’t imagine that you are able to cook. I have to taste your dishes.” Garvey walked over as he spoke.

  Elder Garvey was going to eat?

  If Elder Garvey was to eat, the terribleness of the food would definitely be spread throughout the clan.

  “Elder Garvey.” Linley hurriedly stood up, blocking in front of Elder Garvey. Laughing, he said, “Elder Garvey, this is my first time cooking. There’s no need to taste it. Right. Judging from your face, it seems as though you are worrying about something?”

  Linley hurriedly changed the topic. And indeed, as Linley did, Elder Garvey couldn’t help but let out a long sigh, then sit down to one side.

  “What’s happened?” Linley asked.

  Elder Garvey laughed bitterly. “Elder Linley, in the past two centuries, you haven’t gone to Bloodbath Gorge, have you?”

  “Right.” Ever since he had been summoned by the four clan leaders and then instructed not to participate in Bloodbath Gorge, he hadn’t gone there a single time.”

  “It’s only been two hundred years!” Elder Garvey seemed to have a belly full of resentment and pain. “Linley, do you know? In these two short centuries, our Azure Dragon clan has lost five Elders!”

  “Five?!” Linley was shocked by this number.

  The Azure Dragon clan usually lost two or three Elders in a thousand years. To lose five in two centuries…this was too significant.

  “Factoring in what happened to Emanuel and Arhaus…our Azure Dragon clan only has twenty or so Elders who truly have the power of a Seven Star Fiend!” Elder Garvey said, his eyes turning moist. “My teacher lost his most powerful clone just yesterday on a mission. He no longer has a Seven Star Fiend level of power either.”

  Linley couldn’t help but fall silent.

  As for Delia and Bebe, it wasn’t appropriate for them to interject right now either.

  “It’s only been ten thousand years. Ten thousand years ago, the Elders of the clan numbered more than sixty. In ten thousand short years, we’ve lost more than half!” Elder Garvey sighed. “Based on this sort of speed, the number of Elders in Bloodbath Gorge definitely won’t be enough. We’ll probably be recruited earlier this time.”

  Normally, the Elders of Bloodbath Gorge were swapped out every thousand years.

  However…

  They were losing them at too fast a pace. As this continued, the number of Elders available in Bloodbath Gorge would be insufficient. Those idle Elders such as Garvey would have to go make up the numbers.

  “What is going on? How could there be so many casualties?” Linley couldn’t understand it. “Defeating a Seven Star Fiend is easy, but killing a Seven Star Fiend is very hard.”

  “The eight great clans have gone mad!”

  Elder Garvey snorted angrily. “In the past two centuries, they’ve gone completely mad. Each battle, they’ll send out three or four Seven Star Fiends, and one of them will definitely be holding a Sovereign’s Might! Our Elders have barely any chance to survive each battle.

  As Linley heard this, the look on his face couldn’t help but change.

  “Why are the eight great clans acting like this?” Linley felt rather puzzled.

  The eight great clans had never gone so mad before, but ever since that last battle of his, the eight great clans had gone mad.

  “Could it be that it has something to do with me or Phusro? Or was this the original plan for the eight great clans all along?” Linley couldn’t help but speculate.

  “Alright, Linley. I won’t disturb you any further. You need to train hard…originally, I thought that this battle between ourselves and the eight great clans would keep on dragging out. But now, it seems, the final battle between us will come soon!”

  Elder Garvey finished his words, then immediately flew into the air and left, departing.

  “The final battle?” Linley couldn’t help but mumble.

  “Boss, what ‘final battle’?” Bebe’s eyes were shining.

  “Don’t ask. Based on your current power, you aren’t qualified to participate. When one day you become a Highgod, then we’ll talk.” Linley laughed.

  Once Bebe became a Highgod, given his innate divine ability, ‘Godeater’…he would be an absolutely monster.

  “Uhhhh….” Bebe couldn’t help but pout. “I’ve only mastered five profound mysteries. I haven’t even gained a basic understanding of the sixth profound mystery. Grandpa Beirut is really…ugh. Why didn’t he give me that sixth soul slice fragment to me early on? Wouldn’t that be much easier?”

  Both Linley and Delia laughed.

  Bebe had currently mastered five profound mysteries. The first one was one which he had naturally understood upon becoming an adult. As for the other four, he had gained them from soul slice fragments that contained understandings of profound mysteries that was at the bottleneck level.

  He had succeeded in taking this shortcut. To have Bebe gain insights on his own? Unlikely!

  “Bebe, if you can’t gain any insights, you can go try fusing other mysteries.” Delia chortled as well. “Once you successfully fuse something, your power will improve greatly.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. Although it’s a bit harder, I might just succeed.” Bebe grew animated. He immediately flew towards his own residence, and Linley and Delia both laughed.

  “I wager that Bebe will be able to hold on for one year at most.” Linley laughed.

  “A year? He might not even be able to hold on for half a year.” Delia laughed.

  “I will definitely persevere for two years!” Bebe’s voice rang out from above. Linley and Delia glanced at each other, then both began to laugh. Linley then said solemnly, “Delia, just now, from what Garvey said, I feel some pressure…I plan to have my original body begin training again, starting today.”

  “Alright.” Delia’s eyes became filled with worry as well. “I
feel rather worried as well. The situation is growing worse and worse. Train hard. I won’t disturb you.”

  Linley nodded and chuckled.

  The eight great clans continued to act with wild abandon. One Elder after another of the eight great clans and the Four Divine Beasts clan fell, while rows on rows of Six Star Fiends died as well…the situation was unbearably grim. As for Linley’s four clones and his original body, they were all quietly training.

  As he trained, time flowed on like water…

  Ever since acquiring the ‘black stone’, Linley had treated his divine earth clone as his primary divine clone, whole-heartedly focusing on the Laws of the Earth.

  When fusing profound mysteries, the further one advanced, the harder it became.

  With regards to the Laws of the Earth, Linley had fused three types. He had attempted to fuse a fourth, but was completely unable to fuse the ‘Worldwalking’ technique with the other three profound mysteries. At the same time, Linley had also attempted to fuse the not-yet-mastered ‘Profound Mysteries of Strength’ with the other three as well.

  Within the gorge. Linley was currently together with Delia. Linley looked into the distance, clearly able to see quite a few clansmen. It had been three centuries since Linley had left Bloodbath Gorge.

  “I’ve finally made a breakthrough.” Linley’s face was all smiles.

  “Look at how pleased you are.” Delia laughed.

  The greatest breakthrough he had made on this training session was that he had begun to link together and fuse the Profound Mysteries of Strength with the Throbbing Pulse of the World. However, to fuse the Profound Mysteries of Strength with the other three required that they had to all become as one.

  “Of course I’m happy. Delia, this Profound Mysteries of Strength is something that can allow me to unleash my power more effectively.” Linley said hurriedly. “The Throbbing Pulse of the World can allow me to unleash material attacks as well. Once I fuse them…I can unleash the strength I have in Dragonform in a much more effective manner.”

  His greatest advantage was his body!

  The power of his body in Dragonform was such that with a single fist, he could block the most powerful sword attack of a Six Star Fiend. And that was just by relying on a simple punch. Once he included the might of the ‘Profound Mysteries of Strength’, the power would greatly increase.