Chapter 128: Dragon Island Emerges

Golden light dazzled, and the air was saturated with dense, swirling spiritual energy. The entire island was permeated by this thick, viscous essence; a single breath was enough to make one feel refreshed and ethereal, as if they were about to take flight.

"Look over there!" someone in the crowd suddenly shouted.

Ye Feng turned his gaze toward the depths of the Sea of Blood. Surrounding the elusive, shimmering island, a golden energy barrier was slowly manifesting. It turned out that the restriction that had just repelled the foolish skeleton was this massive golden dome. As his eyes traveled upward, he spotted a hole several meters wide at the very apex of the barrier. From this aperture, streams of nearly tangible, potent spiritual energy surged outward.

"Where is that skeleton?" As everyone stood in astonishment, Kongkong suddenly realized something grave: the white jade skeleton was gone...

No one knew where it had vanished. In the instant the blinding light had flared, everyone vaguely remembered that the white jade skeleton... had seemed to shrink.

"Forget the skeleton. Let’s head up the mountain. I can already sense that my destiny awaits within," Xiao Chong said, turning to gaze at the low hill at the end of the path.

The others nodded in agreement.

"Indeed, I have the same feeling."

"Me too."

Listening to their back-and-forth, Ye Feng furrowed his brow slightly. "My destiny does not seem to be on the mountain."

*Rumble...*

Just as doubt clouded Ye Feng’s mind, the earth began to shake violently, as if hit by an earthquake. Simultaneously, the Sea of Blood, which had just returned to calm, erupted with towering waves of gore. From the center of the sea, a colossal stone stele slowly rose.

Finally, a massive monument, over a hundred zhang tall, shot into the sky, churning up a tempest across the sea. The stele was covered in bloodstains and pitted with countless craters.

*Boom...*

With a thunderous crash, the hundred-zhang monument plummeted, slamming into the blood-red beach and sinking three thousand fen into the earth. Only then did Ye Feng discern the two archaic, twisted characters carved upon it: "Dragon Island."

The bloodstains had long since dried. As the group looked closer at the pitted surface, they realized it was covered in countless tiny, chaotic inscriptions, though they were too far away to read them clearly.

The moment the stele appeared, the broken fragment of the Dragon Blade in Ye Feng’s hand began to hum violently, radiating intense fluctuations.

*Whoosh...*

In the next instant, the blade broke free from Ye Feng’s left hand and shot toward the monument.

"My destiny is there!" Ye Feng pointed at the stele and smiled helplessly at the others. "Let your hearts lead you forward; everyone’s destiny is different. Go."

With those words, Ye Feng spoke no more. He stepped out of the protective barrier and walked toward the monument.

"Fire Domain’s Galand... Remorse!"
"War Clan Saint Lord Zhan Fan... Remorse!"
"Golden Winged Great Peng Saint Lord Hentian-di... Remorse!"
"The Skeleton Clan will surely consume the puppet-master... Remorse!"
...

As Ye Feng approached, he saw that the dense surface of the stele was covered entirely by messages left by ancient powerhouses. Merely reading the first four lines sent a painful jolt through his eyes and a buzzing resonance through his mind. There was no spiritual power fluctuation in the script itself; the sheer, desolate intent contained within the words alone was enough to overwhelm him.

With a calm, composed expression, Ye Feng sat cross-legged on the ground. He closed his eyes and released his consciousness, enveloping the stele.

While Ye Feng sat in silent meditation and the members of the Heavenly King Alliance climbed the mountain in search of their own fortunes, the Martial Soul Continent was descending into chaos.

One day, a pillar of spiritual energy erupted from the depths of the vast Eastern Sea, instantly spreading across the heavens. Within a single breath, even the lowest-level cultivators could feel a drastic shift in the spiritual fluctuations of the world. The source of this change was the long-lost site of Dragon Island.

In an instant, the world was set in motion.

At the Misty Pavilion in the Eastern Land, an old man gazed at the horizon, his brow furrowed with deep sorrow. "My Misty Pavilion has avoided the world for a thousand years, but now the catastrophe approaches—it seems we can no longer hide. Issue the order: send out all the young elites. In this coming calamity, they must fight for their own survival."

Hearing the elder's command, several middle-aged men behind him bowed and retreated.

At the Sunset Gate, Tian Nanfang had just returned and immediately gathered the younger generation. "Go! Success or death—it rests on you. That little brat Kongkong actually did something right for once by following the Ye boy."

With the reappearance of Dragon Island, the sects and families of the Martial Soul Continent acted with unprecedented consensus, sending out their young generations. Even some reclusive sects began to open their gates. Experts from all over the world gathered, and by tacit agreement, every faction chose the shore of the Eastern Sea and the borders of Dragon Island as their first destination.

In the secret chamber of the Imperial Palace, Ye Tianya sat in an armchair, dressed in white, his expression calm and indifferent.

Seeing him like this, the anxious Tang Hen could no longer sit still. "Say something! When are we going to act? We cannot let the Holy Lands continue to run rampant on our soil!"

"In five days, we kill," Ye Tianya said, slowly setting down his teacup as if discussing something entirely unrelated to himself.

Everyone present froze, looking at Ye Tianya in disbelief.

"Five days from now—that is the day the ruins close. You don't intend to drag all those youngsters into this, do you?" an imperial elder asked.

"The world has changed! Our previous plans can no longer proceed as scheduled. When I say kill, I do not mean driving those few people out of the Imperial Capital; I mean declaring total war against the Holy Lands." Ye Tianya swept his gaze over the room. "If our descendants are merely hothouse flowers, then no matter how much the older generation sacrifices, we will never be able to protect this world. In the end, we will only face defeat and extinction. If we win the war against the Holy Lands, we might survive for a while longer, perhaps finding a glimmer of hope when the end arrives. If we lose, consider it a form of escape. Out of sight, out of mind..."

"This... this is too reckless..."

Hearing Ye Tianya's words, everyone was stunned, staring at him blankly, unable to process his resolve.

"With our centuries of preparation, wiping out the Holy Lands might not be a problem. But what about the Star Palace?" the same imperial elder asked.

"Heh! Now that Dragon Island has emerged, those who sealed it away must have already taken note. Do you think the Star Palace still has the capacity to deal with us?"