Chapter 58: Four Symbols Shake the Four Directions, Summoning the Divine Dragon

Tonight, Jiayuguan, and indeed the entire world, was destined to know no peace.

Zhu Jinzhen, accompanied by figures such as Changsun Wangqing, Li Chengen, Yang Ning, Cao Xueyang, Shentu Yuan of the Changyun, and Song Senxue, was followed closely by a majestic procession of over a hundred soldiers at the Heavenly Phenomenon realm.

On the ground, Vajra realm warriors formed arrays while Profound-Pointing masters sat in vigil.

Tiance and Changyun soldiers were deployed in all directions.

Five miles out. Ten miles out.

The Tiance and Changyun forces formed an absolute perimeter, tightly guarding Zhu Jinzhen and his companions within.

Some individuals, noticing the unusual movements of Changyun and Tiance, came forward to investigate, only to find themselves pinned under the gaze of hundreds of Vajra and Profound-Pointing experts, receiving a chilling and terrifying command.

"Within ten miles, anyone who crosses the line dies."

The command allowed no room for debate, laden with a dense, murderous intent.

It successfully deterred the vast majority of so-called experts who harbored intentions of sneaking in.

"Swish!"

A sound of something tearing through the air pierced the night sky, startling the surrounding wilderness. Like a streak of light, it erupted from an unknown provenance, pinning down and executing several experts one by one—experts who had fancied themselves infallible in blending their bodies into the shadows and concealing their presence.

"That person is..."

"Ghost Child, an peerless expert from a nameless island overseas, who has crossed paths with numerous Profound-Pointing grandmasters of the Great Ming without ever tasting defeat."

"A single arrow, and a Profound-Pointing grandmaster is dead??"

"The Ghost Child is nothing; that fellow with a gaping hole blasted through his torso looks like Xie Fu, the Soul-Snatcher of the Mandate Cult!"

"It's him??"

An uproar erupted among the crowd.

If that person truly was Xie Fu, the Soul-Snatcher, then the mere Profound-Pointing realm Ghost Child was indeed of little account.

Years ago, due to his practice of abducting and slaughtering children for his martial arts, Emperor Hongzhi, Zhu Houzhao, flew into a rage and dispatched the Six Doors and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, alongside imperial-appointed grandmasters, to pursue him across a thousand miles. In the end, they returned after suffering heavy casualties and the loss of seasoned soldiers.

The news they brought back was that this man's cultivation had reached the realm of perfection, possessing a tangible might comparable to the Heavenly Phenomenon realm.

Now, over a decade later, he had likely quietly stepped into the realm of a Heavenly Phenomenon Grandmaster. Yet, he had died a miserable death right here, utterly devoid of any ability to fight back, unable even to escape.

With such a deterrent in place, who would dare to step even half an inch across the forbidden line?

***

With his back turned to the Tiance and Changyun soldiers behind him, watching the various factions and martial arts heroes whose expressions had drastically changed before him, his outward demeanor remained unruffled, yet a profound sense of shock still lingered in his heart.

They all knew the origin of that arrow of light.

It was the commander of the Flying Feather Vanguard drawing his bow and notching an arrow, aiming directly at these petty figures harboring ulterior motives.

Shentu Yuan, commander of the Flying Feather Vanguard, went by the moniker "Meteor in a Hundred Paces." When he held a bow in his hands, no one could approach him before he exhausted his supply of arrows; even Grandmasters did not dare to casually enter his lethal range.

In recent years, his Highness had sought out numerous secret manual arrow techniques from the rivers and lakes for Shentu Yuan, and he had even obtained a fragmentary scroll of the ancient Four Symbols Sun-Shooting Archery. The might of his archery had consequently grown even more terrifying.

He had reached a stage within five thousand zhang where whoever he targeted died, with a god-ghost-defying unpredictability.

Yet, they had not expected that Shentu Yuan's cultivation would have advanced once more, using an arrow across thousands of zhang to slay a Heavenly Phenomenon expert. Such martial prowess was enough to chill the hearts of everyone below the level of Land Immortals.

***

On the other side, deep within the Tiance Manor.

Zhu Jinzhen could not help but cast a surprised glance at Shentu Yuan. "Your mastery of archery has advanced once again. Right now, even a Land Immortal, if caught off-guard by your Four Symbols Sun-Shooting Arrow, would likely suffer severe injuries if not outright death."

That single arrow moved like lightning and fleeing stars, carrying the might of the Azure Dragon of the Four Symbols.

Even an ordinary Heavenly Phenomenon Grandmaster, despite being prepared, would still find it difficult to withstand.

Shentu Yuan slung his bow across his back, smiled, bowed with cupped hands toward Zhu Jinzhen, and said, "Your Highness flatters me. This subordinate's meager skills are not even a ten-thousandth of yours."

In front of others, Shentu Yuan could afford to be arrogant.

Yet, facing the praise of his own Highness, Shentu Yuan appeared exceedingly humble.

"You."

Zhu Jinzhen shook his head with a chuckle, not dwelling further on the topic, and prepared to attend to the matter at hand.

"Whoosh, whoosh!"

Seven Dragon Balls were neatly arranged on the ground, their yellow and golden radiance shimmering and intertwining continuously. Amidst the flickering brilliance, faint, inexplicable dragon roars seemed to echo from within.

That sound, resembling the soft murmur of a divine dragon, was soul-stirring.

Looking at the glowing Dragon Balls on the ground, Zhu Jinzhen nodded slightly, a sense of anticipation rising in his heart. Following the incantation to summon the Dragon Ball, he shouted clearly, "Come forth, Divine Dragon, and grant my wish!"

Crack~!

A bolt of golden lightning suddenly flashed across the darkness, plunging the already midnight sky into an utterly lightless abyss.

***

At this moment, lightning continually slithered across the sky, leaving fleeting flashes of brilliance and transient illumination in the ink-black firmament.

"Boom!"

Another bolt of golden lightning cleaved downward, as if someone had provoked the wrath of the heavens, prompting the Azure Firmament to send down divine punishment to obliterate them. It instantly tore open the ink-like dark clouds and the sky, striking straight down toward the converging point of the seven Dragon Balls.

While the thunderous roar was deafening, the seven Dragon Balls were already continuously flashing with golden light, emitting a series of brilliant radiances.

When the golden lightning from the sky struck the ground, the light of the seven Dragon Balls instantly merged with that golden lightning, as if attempting to banish all darkness from heaven and earth.

Although Zhu Jinzhen had witnessed this apocalyptic scene more than once in anime before his transmigration, seeing it with his own eyes and experiencing it personally was incomparable to viewing it through the screen of a television or computer!

"Awoo~~!"

Accompanied by an earth-shaking dragon roar, the seven Dragon Balls suddenly erupted with golden beams of light that shot straight into the sky!

"Your Highness, be careful."

Changsun Wangqing and the others instinctively stepped in front of Zhu Jinzhen to shield him.

"No matter, just watch quietly."

Zhu Jinzhen held them back, pulling them behind him.

Shadows of dragons flickered indistinctly within the towering golden light, weaving as they soared toward the sky. The flickering lightning in the firmament seemed to sense this, instantly descending a bolt of thunder that merged completely with the dragon shadow within the golden radiance.

With a spectacle this earth-shaking, it was hard not to attract attention.

Just as Zhang Sanfeng of Tiance Manor walked out of his room, intending to investigate, he found that the entire Tiance Manor was under a state of comprehensive martial law. No one was permitted to leap across roofs or trespass arbitrarily, and anyone caught wandering would be executed on the spot.

He could only stand crestfallen by the doorway, gazing at the towering golden light and shadow piercing the sky in the distance.

"That kind of silhouette, such a grand array... could this be..." Zhang Sanfeng's body shook, an expression of sheer disbelief coloring his face.

As the golden light and the lightning in the sky merged, a green divine dragon seemed to bore out of the void, instantly appearing in Zhang Sanfeng's eyes. It continuously shuttled through heaven and earth, its body coiling into the dark clouds.

Its meandering body, spanning a thousand zhang, did not even need to radiate any powerful aura; the sheer oppressive weight of its divinity and higher spiritual hierarchy was overwhelming.

"One of the Four Symbols of Heaven, the Azure Dragon?" Zhang Sanfeng swallowed hard, feeling as though his horizons had been vastly broadened. He never imagined he would have the fortune to witness a divine dragon—something that existed only in myths and legends—at such close range.

Seeming to have stretched its muscles and bones, the divine dragon lowered its lofty head toward the ground, glared with crimson eyes, and spoke to Zhu Jinzhen below in a fawning tone: "State your wish, Master! No matter what wish it is, I can fulfill it for you!"