Chapter 273 The Dragon Palace Ruins and the Sea-Stabilizing Needle

The moment that dark gold tile fell to the ground atop the Jade Emperor Peak of Mount Tai, the whole world felt as if it had been stabbed in the back.

The human cultivators, the Yellow Zone hunters, and the demon army, who had been observing, testing, and wary of each other, almost simultaneously turned their eyes red. The fragile balance outside the ruins of the Southern Heavenly Gate lasted only a moment before being shattered by this piece of broken tile that rolled out of the Heavenly Court ruins.

But those who actually rushed up soon discovered that the threshold of the South Heavenly Gate was higher than they had imagined.

The ancient pressure that enveloped Jade Emperor Peak did not diminish; instead, it became increasingly chaotic and dangerous as the broken tiles fell to the ground. The first groups of cultivators, hunters, and demons who rushed forward were forced to retreat, coughing up blood, before they could even truly establish their footing in the area in front of the gate. The scene instantly descended into chaos.

Amidst this chaos, the dark gold tile that had fallen onto the charred rock began to lose its luster rapidly.

The wisp of ancient immortal energy that had previously seeped out of the crack seemed to be the last trace of divinity it brought to the mortal world. As the immortal energy rapidly dissipated, the broken tiles themselves could no longer hold together, and the first crack quietly crept onto the edge.

Click.

Immediately afterwards, a second and third crack appeared one after another, quickly spreading to the entire tile.

In just a few breaths, the dark gold tile that should have attracted countless people to fight desperately for it quickly cracked and weathered under the watchful eyes of countless crimson gazes from Jade Emperor Peak, and finally silently shattered into a pile of grayish-white powder.

No one actually managed to get it.

But the more this happened, the more the greed of everyone in the room was ignited.

A mere piece of broken tile that rolled out from behind the South Heavenly Gate, carrying a wisp of immortal energy, was enough to increase the concentration of spiritual energy within a hundred miles tenfold. Just how terrifying must what is truly buried behind that gate be?

It was under this assessment that, after the initial fervor, the top leaders of all parties almost simultaneously reached the same conclusion.

Mount Tai must be kept under close watch, but it's simply impossible to take it down in a short period of time.

The East China Sea is different.

The ruins of the Dragon Palace are already exposed, the sea eye continues to expand, and the oppressive aura of the true dragon overflows wave after wave. Most importantly—that place holds more than just the Dragon Palace.

Thus, just as Mount Tai ignited the emotions of the entire world, coastal defense lines, military fleets, powerful cultivators, and deep-sea demons began to converge on the depths of the East China Sea at an unprecedented speed.

Therefore, before the fighting even truly broke out on Mount Tai, the military fleet, powerful cultivators, and deep-sea demons from the East China Sea had already gathered there.

The gale-force winds whipped up torrential rain, pounding hard on the undulating black sea.

Inside the flagship command center of the Kyoto Alliance's Third Fleet, the pounding of everyone's heartbeats nearly drowned out the raging waves outside. On the radar screen, the terrifying sea eye, its diameter now nearly thirty kilometers, resembled a gaping maw suddenly split open on the Earth's surface.

"Sonar feedback is back! The vacuum zone on the seabed is stable!"

"The projection is now fully realized!"

As the soprano's shrill scream changed pitch, the image on the holographic screen instantly became clear.

Two thousand meters below sea level.

Billions of tons of seawater were forcibly pushed aside by some extremely tyrannical ancient law, forming a massive waterless dome. And beneath that dome, the blurry afterimages previously captured by satellites were no longer what they seemed.

A real crystal palace complex, bearing the marks of countless ages and the unique desolation of a collapsed underwater dynasty, was completely exposed to the sight of all humans and sea monsters.

To be precise, it is the ruins of an ancient crystal palace that has been destroyed and corroded by time, yet still retains the majesty of the dragon race.

That palace complex is enormous.

Even though most of it had collapsed, even though the crystal walls and sea pearls that should have illuminated the deep sea had long since dimmed, even though countless palaces were reduced to ruins, the nobility and pressure of the absolute overlord of the ocean and the true dragon clan still pressed down on people through the screen, making their breathing heavy.

The white jade dragon-carved corridor, which stretches for hundreds of miles, has been broken into several sections, lying diagonally among the silt of the sea trench.

The once towering coral towers, hundreds of feet high, are now just bare, broken pillars, covered with deep, bone-revealing claw marks, charred black from lightning strikes, and large holes pierced by some kind of sharp weapon.

In front of the main hall, a torn section of the dragon-patterned jade staircase lay askew in the seabed rock. At the end of the staircase, where the throne should have stood, lay a huge, deep pit. Scattered around the pit were the remnants of several dragon banners, almost reduced to mere frames, gently swaying with the turbulent currents at the edge of the waterless dome, like some long-dead court ritual that still refused to completely dissipate.

Scattered among these ruined palaces are enormous skeletons.

Some are giant sea monsters the size of mountains, while others have human heads and fish tails, with long, thin, and strange bones, clearly not sea monsters of the present world.

What's most chilling are the several massive dragon skeletons lying horizontally in front of the main hall.

Each of them was over a hundred meters long, and even when only their stark white skeletons remained, a faint golden light still emanated from between the bones. In particular, the largest dragon skeleton, whose spine almost ran through half of the outer palace, had its head raised and its horns broken, as if it were still letting out a final roar in some direction before its death.

The ruins before us can no longer be summed up by the four words "Dragon Palace Ruins".

It's more like an underwater royal court that has been completely destroyed.

An ancient battlefield built by the dragon race using countless corpses.

Stop looking at the outside!

A high-level cultivator who had accompanied the ship suddenly stepped forward, his face almost pressed against the porthole, his eyes filled with a mixture of greed and shock. "Look at the center of the main hall! Look at the area surrounded by the dragon bones!"

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing.

Surrounded by those enormous dragon bones.

A massive iron pillar, extremely thick and of unknown depth, covered entirely in dark red rust, is firmly embedded in the seabed rock vein.

It's too heavy.

It's so heavy that even through a screen, it gives you the absurd feeling that "the reason the entire sea area didn't collapse is because of it pressing down on it."

The reliefs that should have been clear on the surface of the iron pillar have long been blurred by the erosion of time, but the ancient power that is heavy, domineering, and seems to be able to suppress the sea eye, quell the raging tide, and stabilize the world is still clear enough to make people tremble.

Around the base of the iron pillar, several dark gold scales were scattered. The edges of the scales were broken and stained with blood that had long since turned black, but the pressure of the true dragon emanating from the depths of the scales made everyone in the command room afraid to even breathe.

"The Heavenly River's Bottom-Fixing Divine Iron..."

The high-level cultivator's throat bobbed violently, his voice trembling so badly it sounded more like he was talking in his sleep than speaking.

"That is... the Sea-Stabilizing Pillar."

"Legend has it that this divine object was used by Yu the Great to measure the depth of rivers and seas and to control the tides of the four seas during his flood control efforts. Later, it fell into the East Sea and became the supreme weapon used by the Dragon Clan to suppress the sea's eye..."

boom!

The moment those words were uttered, the entire flagship command center, along with the Kyoto executives who were watching the footage simultaneously via an encrypted channel, erupted in chaos.

A pillar that stabilizes the sea.

These four words can no longer be measured by ordinary treasures.

It's not something like spirit stones, spirit materials, or cultivation techniques at all.

Whoever can master it, even if it is just a trace of the Sea-Suppressing Law, or even just scrape off a layer of rust and take it back to forge a weapon, will have a significant advantage in the coming era.

What's more, there are real dragon scales next to the base of the magic needle!

"Prepare to descend immediately!"

The fleet commander abruptly turned his head, his eyes filled with madness. "All deep-sea submersibles, all cultivators above the Golden Core stage, stand by! At all costs, retrieve the divine needle and the dragon scales!"

However, before the human command was actually given, the siren's instincts had already spiraled out of control.

"roar--!"

The third-tier mutated shark closest to the sea eye was the first to lose its composure.

It was over five hundred meters long, its body covered in ferocious bone spikes, and its back was writhing with highly venomous black fins. In its scarlet beast eyes, there was now only the purest greed for the remnants of a true dragon's scales.

Just swallow one piece.

Just one piece.

It would then have the opportunity to cross the threshold that trapped countless sea monsters and truly step into a higher level.

The next instant, the monstrous shark's massive body swung its tail violently, like a giant black arrow shot from the deep sea, tearing through layers of ocean currents and plunging headlong into the waterless dome.

Its goal is extremely clear.

Not those palaces, not those dragon bones.

Instead, it was the few remaining scales of a real dragon, radiating a dark golden luster, next to the base of the Sea-Stabilizing Needle.

100 meters.

Eighty meters.

Fifty meters.

Just as it was less than a hundred meters away from the nearest dragon scale—

The rust-covered pillar that had stood silently in the center of the ruins suddenly trembled very slightly.

hum.

A very low, deep sound rippled out from the bottom of the magic needle.

A thick, unimaginably heavy black wave, centered on the divine needle, silently rolled outwards in all directions.

The moment the third-tier berserk shark made contact with the ripple, its massive demonic body was as if it were being gripped from all sides by an invisible giant hand.

The next moment—

boom!

The entire mad shark exploded into a huge cloud of blood mist in mid-air!

Before the shattered bones, internal organs, and blood foam could even disperse, they were all pressed down by the terrifyingly heavy sea-suppressing law, along with the seabed silt, and disappeared completely in the blink of an eye.

In the command center, everyone froze.

At the edge of the sea eye, the sea monsters that were originally restless stopped in their tracks.

A third-tier sea monster.

He was killed on the spot before he could even touch the magic needle.

And his death was completely predictable, without any struggle.

"This place..."

"I'm afraid it's not something you can get through just by having high cultivation levels."

"It rejects all living things that carry impure thoughts and attempt to taint the divine needle."

The fleet commander's order to "dive immediately" was stuck in his throat.

If it had been one of their men who charged down instead of Mad Shark, it would have been different.

The outcome will be no different.

The East China Sea fell into a brief silence.

The human fleet dared not make the first move, and the deep-sea monster horde was also frightened by this attack and retreated in unison. The huge encirclement tightly surrounded the sea eye, and no one was willing to take the second step.

But everyone knows—

The freeze is only temporary.

The magic needle that stabilizes the sea and the dragon scales are there, as if they have dragged the greed of the entire era to the depths of the sea.

As long as there is a sliver of hope, no one will ever truly be willing to give up.

……

And at this moment, high in the heavens.

Kunlun remained as quiet as if it were separated from the rest of the world by a layer of sky.

The sea of ​​clouds churned, and the mountain gate stood solemnly.

Ruins outside the city exploded one after another, and strange phenomena, pillars of light, and spiritual pressure fluctuations appeared in Emei, the desert, the East China Sea, and Mount Tai, driving even ordinary people in the mortal world into utter madness. Yet, atop Mount Kunlun, an almost inhuman tranquility remained.

At the edge of the White Jade Plaza, several inner disciples stood before the Cloud Cliff, gazing at the faintly visible strange celestial light in the distance, their eyes filled with barely suppressed fighting spirit and restlessness.

"Senior Brother."

A young disciple carrying a long sword finally couldn't help but speak up.

"Emei has the Sword Tomb of Shu Mountain, the Dragon Palace and the Sea-Stabilizing Needle have appeared in the East Sea, and even the Southern Heavenly Gate has emerged from Mount Tai. The outside world is in turmoil, with all sides vying for power. Why has Kunlun remained inactive?"

Chu Tian, ​​who was standing at the very front, did not answer immediately.

He simply looked at the sea of ​​clouds, and after a moment, he calmly spoke.

"It's not about holding back, it's about not allowing any movement."

The young disciple was slightly taken aback.

"The Dao Master has decreed that Kunlun disciples are not allowed to go down the mountain to compete for the external relics resources at this stage."

Why?

The young man finally turned his head and glanced at him.

"Because for those outside, the ruins are an opportunity to change their fate."

"But for Kunlun—"

"Just an extra."

As soon as those four words were uttered, the surrounding disciples fell silent.

The young man remained calm, but his tone left no room for argument.

"The spiritual veins, secret realms, inheritances, and cultivation techniques within the mountain gate are more than enough for the cultivation needs of Kunlun disciples. What others would risk their lives to seize is merely icing on the cake for Kunlun."

"The Dao Lord forbids us from going down the mountain, not because he's afraid we can't win the competition."

"There's no need to add these extra burdens and disrupt Kunlun's own path."

He paused, then looked back at the chaotic human world beyond the sea of ​​clouds.

"Those outside now need to fight, they need to grab, they need to risk their lives to pave those roads."

"But Kunlun is different."

"What Kunlun needs is stability, accumulation of strength, and patience."

"Wait until the day when it's truly worthwhile for us to step out of seclusion."

The young disciple wanted to say something more, but in the end he just gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and responded.

"Disciple understands."

Meanwhile, deep within the bronze hall.

Gu Qing sat still, her expression calm to the point of indifference.

The fierce and bloody struggles in the outside world were, from the very beginning, a millstone prepared for all living beings.

Kunlun shouldn't have gone down to rob him.

The ruins at the foot of the mountain were built to fight for the lives of all living beings.

If Kunlun had also rushed down to grab it, he would have fallen behind.

What it truly needs to wait for is never this superficial hype.

……

East China Sea, above the eye of the sea.

The human fleet and the sirens' army remain locked in a standoff.

The moment the Sea-Stabilizing Needle struck had brought everyone, including the demons, back to their senses. Everyone knew that this thing couldn't be touched simply by rushing forward.

Being able to stay awake doesn't mean you've given up.

On the contrary, the more untouchable it is, the more terrifyingly valuable it is.

In this stalemate that had reached its limit—

"Look!"

An officer on the lookout tower suddenly cried out.

Almost simultaneously, everyone's gaze turned to the deepest part of the sea eye.

On the surface of the rust-covered "Sea-Stabilizing Needle," a dark red rust layer the size of a tabletop, extremely loose due to the erosion of time on the seabed, slowly peeled off under the scouring of the deep-sea currents.

It did not sink to the bottom of the sea.

Instead, under the combined effect of the chaotic ocean current and the law of calming the sea, it slowly floated upwards against the edge of the waterless dome.

It's very slow.

But at this moment, it was more dazzling to everyone than the appearance of any divine weapon or magical treasure.

That's not the real needle.

But that was something that had peeled off from the magic needle that stabilized the sea!

Even if it's just a layer of rust, even if it only takes away a trace of the material, or a wisp of the lingering charm of Zhenhai, it's enough to forge something beyond the imagination of the current system.

"Rob!"

The fleet commander was the first to come to his senses; his eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and his voice ripped through the entire communication channel.

Beneath the surface of the sea, the sea monsters that had been suppressed for a time also completely lost control at this moment.

"roar--!!!"

Thousands of deep-sea aliens roared simultaneously, and the seawater exploded instantly.

The brief stalemate finally collapsed completely.

Hundreds of human-made deep-sea submersibles.

Thousands of cultivators walked on the sea and rode swords through the air.

And an overwhelming army of sea monsters, surging in like a black tide—

At the same time, they rushed towards the slowly rising dark red rust.

Two thousand meters deep in the East China Sea, the string that had been stretched to its limit finally snapped.