I’m Hurrying You? Like Hell!

Cang Ming shuddered.

Extracting the heart-blood of the dragon?

That was the lifeblood of the merfolk royalty, the essence of the true dragon bloodline.

Once extracted, one's vital energy would be severely damaged, equivalent to destroying one's own foundation.

"Father, he..."

"Brother, go to the sea eye quickly!"

Cang Che interrupted him. "Lord Primal Phoenix and I are holding the line here at the Dragon Palace. We can last for a bit longer."

"But if the sea eye is lost, the entire Eastern Region will collapse."

"When that happens, the black spots will erupt from underground, and the entire Endless Sea will become a dead zone!"

Cang Ming asked, "Then you..."

"I'm fine."

Cang Che grinned, revealing a row of white teeth.

"I am the second prince of the Eastern Region; I won't die that easily."

"Besides, with Lord Primal Phoenix here, what do these black-spot monsters even matter?"

He spoke lightly, but Cang Ming could see the bloodshot veins in his eyes and feel the chaotic aura within his body.

His younger brother was reaching his limit.

Poison-Wing, perched on the eaves of the hall, heard this and nearly spat his poison fire wide.

Hold the line?

Hold my foot!

My feathers are practically burnt bald!

A Zhen's lethal toxins were all contained within their feathers, each one imbued with a terrifying, poisonous divinity.

By breathing poison fire so frantically now, he was actually burning his own feathers and consuming the toxins stored within them.

If he kept burning like this, the best-case scenario was becoming a plucked bird. Any worse, and he'd lose his life.

The Dragon Palace was clearly the most difficult front!

In the vast Eastern Region, there was actually only one seventh-stage powerhouse—the Sea Emperor—who could take action. Yet he had to stay and oversee the sea eye, leaving it to him and Lord Rat, two Auspicious Ones in their third transformation of eerification, to shoulder the burden.

Now that another seventh-stage combatant had finally returned, they were sending him to the sea eye too?

Poison-Wing cursed inwardly, but on the surface, he had to maintain his persona as a cold, aloof Auspicious One.

He could only glare fiercely at Cang Che and squeeze out a sound from his nose.

"Hmph!"

Cang Che didn't seem to catch the subtext. Instead, his eyes lit up as he said to Cang Ming, "See, Brother? Lord Primal Phoenix is also urging you to hurry to the sea eye."

Poison-Wing: "???"

I’m hurrying you? Like hell I am!

Can a fish with so little social awareness really be a prince?

Poison-Wing desperately wanted to let out a stream of profanity, but he couldn't speak.

Lord Rat had said that an Auspicious One had to have dignity and couldn't bicker with these commoners.

The moment he spoke, the spell would be broken, and his image as an Auspicious One would crumble.

He could only grit his teeth and continue breathing fire, cursing Cang Che a hundred times in his heart.

Looking at his brother's determined gaze and then at the cold, aloof Lord Primal Phoenix on the eaves, Cang Ming took a deep breath and nodded.

"Alright, I'll go to the sea eye."

He patted Cang Che’s shoulder, his voice low. "Che'er, hold on."

"Mm."

Cang Che nodded heavily, his eyes slightly red. "Brother, be careful."

Cang Ming said no more, turning to fly toward the depths of the Dragon Palace.

On the eaves, Poison-Wing watched Cang Ming's departing figure, his feathers puffing up in anger.

"Chirp—!"

He let out a furious bird cry, his poison fire erupting even more violently, incinerating several nearby black-spot monsters into nothingness.

Cang Che looked up at him, a face full of emotion. "Rest assured, Lord Primal Phoenix! I will definitely hold the Dragon Palace and not fail your expectations!"

Poison-Wing: "..."

I expect nothing from you!

I expected you to call your brother back to help!

...

As soon as Cang Ming entered the Dragon Palace, he felt a bone-chilling cold rush toward him.

The Dragon Palace was already cold to begin with, but the chill here was terrifyingly heavy.

Cang Ming flew along the familiar passages toward the sea eye. The closer he got, the lower the temperature of the surrounding seawater dropped.

By the time he entered the area of the sea eye, the seawater had already condensed into fine ice crystals, drifting around like snowflakes.

With every breath, white mist puffed from his mouth and nose, and even the flow of blood in his body slowed down.

"So cold..."

Cang Ming circulated his demon power to protect himself, but he could still feel that piercing chill.

The extreme cold emitted by the earth-core cold spring could freeze souls and seal life.

And within that cold was a mixture of plague fiendish qi.

Cang Ming’s heart tightened, and he increased his speed.

Passing through the final frozen corridor, the space before him suddenly opened up.

It was a vast underground cavern. Above his head were hanging icicles, and beneath his feet was a bottomless abyss.

In the center of the abyss, a massive whirlpool slowly rotated—the sea eye, the convergence of all waters.

But at this moment, the area around the sea eye was covered in a thick layer of mysterious ice.

The ice was a ghostly blue, emitting a grim chill that sealed the sea eye tight.

Above the ice, a platform of frost floated in the air.

Two figures sat cross-legged upon the platform.

One was the Sea Emperor, Cang Yu, his father.

The Sea Emperor was currently encased in a thick layer of ice, sitting there silently like an ice sculpture.

The ice spread upward from his feet, covering his legs, torso, and arms, eventually masking most of his neck and face, leaving only his eyes, nose, and mouth exposed.

The other figure was a man in black robes wearing a mask.

He sat beside the Sea Emperor, his body radiating emerald-green fiendish qi.

The fiendish qi drifted out like mist, enveloping the space around the ice platform. Any black-spot monsters that crawled out of the cracks in the ice would rapidly fester and rot the moment they touched the mist.

"You're back?"

Sensing someone entering the sea eye, the Plague Rat spoke without turning his head, his voice muffled by the mask and tinged with exhaustion.

"Hurry and help your old man. The geezer can't last much longer."

Cang Ming dared not delay, leaping onto the ice platform.

Up close, he finally saw how dire his father's condition was.

The ice on the Sea Emperor's body was seeping out from within.

His flesh, bones, and even his meridians had been thoroughly saturated by the power of the cold spring; he was freezing from the inside out.

The Sea Emperor was turning himself into a part of the cold spring in exchange for even stronger sealing power.

"Father..."

Cang Ming's voice trembled. He reached out to touch him but hesitated.

"Don't touch him,"

The Plague Rat said coldly. "He is a living glacier right now. If you touch him and the ice cracks, he really will die."

Cang Ming pulled his hand back, gritting his teeth as he asked, "What should I do?"

"Use your true dragon bloodline to commune with the cold spring and share the burden with him,"

The Plague Rat said quickly, while manipulating his fiendish qi to corrode several newly emerged black-spot monsters.

"The old man seems to have extracted his heart-blood earlier; he's only hanging on by a thread of residual true dragon power."

"You are his flesh and blood, sharing the same origin. You can help him stabilize the fluctuations of the cold spring."

"Does Lord Rat really need to teach you something so simple?"

Cang Ming nodded heavily and sat cross-legged opposite the Sea Emperor.

He closed his eyes and circulated the heart-blood of the dragon within him.

Hum—

A faint golden light radiated from his body, resonating with the residual dragon blood within the Sea Emperor.