Chapter Forty-Seven: The Heavenly Calamity of Slaughter

Outside the Dragon Splendor Hall, white jade railings gleamed in the light. The Candle Dragon stood silently beside the balustrade, his gaze calm as he watched the battlefield where Nan Luo clashed with the coalition forces of the Five Clans.

“Your Highness! Ao Hai has sent a dragon to inquire whether we should continue the assault!” Ao Run stood behind the Candle Dragon. Upon receiving Ao Hai’s message, he promptly and respectfully relayed it.

Ao Hai, after all, was the leader of the five hundred Dragon Kings sent by the Dragon Palace to suppress Nan Luo this time—a Water Dragon King at the peak of the Divine King realm. As the chieftain of the water dragon lineage, Ao Run naturally was the first to receive Ao Hai’s message and pass it on to the Candle Dragon.

With his back to Ao Run and Ao Yan, the Candle Dragon kept his eyes on Nan Luo, who was massacring the enemy without restraint, and spoke in a tranquil voice, “Withdraw our forces.”

“They are of no further use,” the Candle Dragon continued, turning to fix his golden dragon eyes on Ao Run and Ao Yan, his tone unwavering.

“Yes, Your Highness!” Ao Run answered respectfully and, with a thought, issued the order to retreat.

A lance of blue light, dazzling as the most brilliant radiance between heaven and earth, streaked across the sky.

A roar broke out as five golden lions, each eight thousand zhang in length, sounded their final lament. Without a sound, a faint blue glow appeared on their heads, and like meteors, they plummeted toward the earth.

After a single combined assault from the coalition’s greatest powers, the five hundred Titan Giants—avatars of the Titan race’s Divine Kings—were instantly repelled and slain. From that moment, the armies of the dragons, phoenixes, qilins, lions, and black tortoises began their countdown to death.

Before a Primordial God Lord’s slaughter, even though Nan Luo seemed almost indifferent, with every casual strike he could obliterate five Divine Kings or more. The coalition couldn’t even pierce Nan Luo’s defenses—how could they possibly oppose him?

From the start of battle to now, less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea had passed, and already more than half the coalition was dead, with not a single wounded survivor.

Clear, ringing bells suddenly echoed across the heavens.

All the great powers, as if by prior agreement, sounded the call to retreat, summoning their armies back from the field.

The Five Clans’ coalition, overjoyed, withdrew in haste, all the while keeping a wary eye on Nan Luo, fearful he might pursue.

Yet as they fled, Nan Luo merely watched in silence, making no move to intercept, allowing the coalition to escape unscathed.

Standing atop a cloud, Nan Luo gazed deeply at the assembled powers, astonished in his heart: “So the Alliance of the Gods has arrived, every one of them.”

Just as Nan Luo was about to give chase, a trace of divine sense from the gods reached him. This sliver of divine will, infused with the strength of the gods, slipped cautiously past the senses of the great factions, skilfully evading the aftershocks of Nan Luo’s battle, for fear of being destroyed.

Taking advantage of the lull as both sides called a ceasefire and withdrew, the thread of divine sense swiftly reached Nan Luo’s hand.

Upon receiving it, Nan Luo was captivated by the message it bore and thus let the retreating coalition go.

“They actually wish to proclaim the establishment of the God Clan at this very moment, seizing the opportunity to break through. Their ambition is not small,” Nan Luo thought as he perused the message, silently calculating whether the gods’ plan was wise—should he establish the God Clan now?

His original intention had been to defeat the besieging races atop Buzhou Divine Mountain, spread his fame, and then found the God Clan to build momentum.

By first demonstrating his power, Nan Luo had already drawn the attention of all living things in the primordial world. Once he announced himself as God Lord and coupled it with his victories, he would surely secure a place among the legends.

Still, to declare the founding of the God Clan at the height of his triumph, letting the gods leverage its fortune to break through together, was also a sound strategy.

Once established, and with the gods ascending to God Lords on the back of the clan’s destiny, the God Clan would boast a dozen or more God Lords—enough to shake the world and suppress all races.

After careful consideration, Nan Luo resolved to support the gods’ plan: to found the God Clan, attain the title of God Lord, and awe the world.

As Nan Luo pondered these matters, within the Dragon Palace, the conversation between the Candle Dragon, Ao Run, and Ao Yan quietly signaled the dawn of a chaotic era.

Returning to his throne in the Dragon Splendor Hall, the Candle Dragon seated himself, with Ao Run and Ao Yan standing to either side.

“Your Highness, this chaos you spoke of—what do you mean by it?” Ao Run, curious beyond measure, gathered his courage to broach the subject again.

The last time it had been mentioned, dark clouds had blotted out the sun, thunder rolled, and heaven itself seemed enraged. Awed by this display, Ao Run had not dared to press further.

Yet the more he thought of the word ‘chaos,’ the stronger his sense of unease grew. As the chieftain of the water dragons, even in troubled times he should stand unshaken—was this not already an age of chaos? The myriad races of the world waged constant war over resources, slaughter was endless.

But the chaos the Candle Dragon spoke of sent chills down Ao Run’s spine, as if some great calamity approached. Compelled by anxiety, disregarding heavenly wrath, he pressed for an answer.

Ao Yan, too, looked intently at the Candle Dragon, his curiosity equal to Ao Run’s.

The Candle Dragon regarded them both, their faces full of bewilderment and expectation, then after a brief silence, spoke: “Do you know why our dragon clan hastened its unification of the Eastern Sea?”

The dragons, though long settled in the Eastern Sea and its greatest early power, had once faced rivals. But as their strength grew, they set about consolidating control. At first, their methods were gentle, assimilating rivals rather than waging open war—a full-scale conflict would only drain the sea’s vitality, making governance difficult.

Yet in the last hundred thousand years, the dragons had abandoned caution for aggressive expansion, intent on unifying the seas at any cost. Though they devoured countless powers in short order, the price was exhaustion, leaving them unable to contend on land.

Curiously, the other great powers—the lions, phoenixes, and so on—had all begun swallowing up their neighbors at the same time. Thus, each could consolidate without interference.

At the Candle Dragon’s words, Ao Run blurted out, “Because of chaos!”

“Exactly—chaos,” the Candle Dragon replied, his golden eyes burning with fierce fire, though his face remained calm. “As far back as a hundred thousand years ago, His Majesty foresaw that the world was approaching the first Great Calamity since creation. That is what I mean by chaos—the first killing tribulation since the dawn of time.”

A strange light flickered in the Candle Dragon’s eyes, and though his words were measured, they carried a terror beyond description.

At the mention of the first killing tribulation, Ao Run and Ao Yan both turned pale as death.

None in the primordial world were ignorant of what such a tribulation portended. When it arrived, all beings would wail, the heavens and earth would lose their color, and rivers of blood would flow.

“So, it’s the tribulation…” Ao Run murmured, his face ashen and his eyes vacant.

Though chieftain of the water dragons and a Divine King at his peak, in the face of the killing tribulation, life and death were uncertain—survival a matter of luck, perhaps one in ten thousand.