Chen Zhou was momentarily stunned, his expression turning strange.
He could tell that Cangming had clearly been trying to curry favor with him during the earlier banquet.
He had assumed the Eastern Region wanted something—likely an alliance against Yin Wudao or a joint effort to divide the Golden Buddha’s spoils.
He hadn’t expected this guy to directly claim him as an ancestor.
Chen Zhou did indeed possess dragon qi. Because the Dragon Carp was constantly restless, black smoke of merit would puff out from his body from time to time.
Perhaps it was also because he was still holding a trace of dragon vein qi he had drawn from underground.
He truly hadn’t expected the Sea Race to mistake him for a true dragon descended into the world.
“Lord Dragon Ancestor, when will you return to the Eastern Region with Cangming?”
“You have been gone for ten thousand years. The entire Eastern Region race has been waiting for your return.”
Cangming knelt on the ground, his voice trembling and his words earnest.
“If my Father Emperor knew you had returned, he would surely lead hundreds of millions of aquatic kin to welcome you back to the palace, prostrating every three steps all the way from the East Sea.”
Chen Zhou looked at the tearful Cangming kneeling before him, and his expression quickly regained its calm.
He calmly accepted his new identity.
He was already the Bone God, the master of the Bone Temple, and the Lord of Two Domains. He had plenty of aliases and didn't mind adding the title of "Dragon Ancestor."
Even if it was fake, as long as people believed it, it was real.
“Stand up and speak.”
“I indeed have some origins with dragons. However, there is no need to keep the title of Dragon Ancestor on your lips at all times, lest it attract too much attention.”
To Cangming’s ears, those words were a tacit admission.
“Yes, Cangming understands.”
“Since Lord Dragon Ancestor is traveling incognito, you naturally dislike being flashy.”
Cangming’s voice shook with excitement. He stood up and sat on the seat where Wu Gou had been just moments ago, very close to Chen Zhou.
Wu Gou found his seat stolen and got a bit prickly.
He grumbled, “If you want to claim relatives, go ahead, but don’t steal this monk’s seat!”
Cangming completely ignored Wu Gou’s words, his heart and eyes full of only Chen Zhou.
“Then, my Lord, when shall we return to the Eastern Region together?”
Chen Zhou said indifferently, “There is no rush to return to the Eastern Region. I still have matters to attend to in the provincial capital.”
Cangming was not disappointed upon hearing this; instead, he became even more excited.
“The matters you speak of, my Lord... are they for that Golden Buddha?”
“Cangming understands! I am willing to mobilize the entire strength of the Eastern Region to follow your commands!”
“If you obtain the Golden Buddha, you will surely be like a tiger with wings. When the time comes, you only need to display a sliver of dragon might, and the Eastern Region will be saved!”
Cangming was incoherent with excitement.
The reason the Eastern Region had opened Shanhe Pass and many clansmen had left the territory—even attending the Red Rain Night Banquet at the provincial capital—was because they wanted to take advantage of the once-in-a-millennium descent of the Golden Buddha.
They intended to seize its flesh and use the Golden Buddha’s characteristic of purifying all things to cleanse the deep-sea black spots throughout the Eastern Region.
But now, it wasn't necessary.
He had actually found the Dragon Ancestor who had been missing for tens of thousands of years.
The great power of the Dragon Ancestor was above all else. Purifying mere sea-region black spots would be as easy as turning over his hand, wouldn’t it?
Kneeling beside Chen Zhou now, just bathing in the slight dragon might dissipating from the Lord Dragon Ancestor made him feel much clearer in his sea of consciousness.
The sense of madness caused by the erosion of the black spots had been suppressed significantly by the dragon might.
It was more effective than any miracle pill.
Chen Zhou keenly caught the keyword.
“The Eastern Region will be saved? Why, what happened in the Eastern Region?”
Cangming’s face darkened. Not daring to hide anything, he laid out everything about the Eastern Region.
“Reporting to my Lord, the Eastern Region has long been at its wit's end.”
“For this past millennium, deep-sea black spots have slowly begun to spread in the depths of the boundless sea.”
“At first, only a few scattered spots appeared in the trenches, and we sent people to deal with them.”
“But in just a few decades, more black spots erupted.”
“They spread like a plague, blackening the coral, corroding the seawater, and even invading the bodies of the Sea Race.”
“The Hanhai Dragon Palace—the current royal court of the Sea Race—is temporarily managed by my merfolk race because you disappeared.”
“But our imperial bloodline, because it contains a trace of true dragon blood, has instead become the favorite host for the black spots.”
“Over this past millennium, under the erosion of the deep-sea black spots, the power of our bloodline has become weaker and weaker.”
“The birth rate of the merfolk has plummeted, and the deformity rate among young merfolk is terrifyingly high.”
“Some are born stillborn, some have two heads, and some are simply a mass of scaly flesh tumors.”
Cangming’s voice choked up slightly.
“And the experts of the Sea Race, even if they break through to the seventh-stage Symbiosis stage, will lose their sanity within a hundred years after being eroded by the black spots, turning into crazed sea beasts that only know slaughter.”
“The Dragon Palace has suppressed the news and temporarily driven other ordinary Sea Race and human cultivators out of the Eastern Region to prevent them from being harmed by the black spots.”
“To suppress the black spots, my Father Emperor has been in secluded cultivation in the depths of the sea eye for many years, using earth-core cold springs to freeze himself. Even so, he is about to reach his limit.”
Chen Zhou’s gaze narrowed. “What exactly are the black spots you mentioned?”
Cangming shook his head, looking bitter. “I don’t know.”
“It is something even more filthy than death qi.”
“It can not only pollute living beings but even actively turn into monsters.”
“To defend our territory, the Sea Race has to battle the monsters formed by the black spots. But often, once we kill one batch, another appears—the more we kill, the more they become.”
“Even after the battle, one can be infected by the black spots.”
As Cangming spoke, as if to prove he wasn't lying, he dispelled his transformation technique and revealed his lower-half fishtail.
He saw that his beautiful fishtail, which should have been covered in azure scales, now had many scales missing, revealing blackened, rotting flesh beneath.
And upon that rotten meat, countless black spots were densely attached, sucking onto him.
Chen Zhou’s gaze intensified.
He stood up, walked to Cangming’s side, and crouched down.
“Don’t move.”
Chen Zhou reached out his hand, a tiny flicker of Hatred Fire igniting at his fingertip, and lightly touched those black spots.
Sizzle—
The black spots made a sound like grease falling into hot charcoal and began to twist violently.
The divinity of hatred contained within the fire actually repelled and eroded the black spots.
Cangming trembled all over from the pain, cold sweat instantly breaking out, but he gritted his teeth and didn't make a sound.
“No wonder I felt an eerie aura on you during the banquet earlier.”
Chen Zhou withdrew his hand, his brow furrowed. “So this is what’s causing the trouble.”
Chen Zhou was inwardly shocked.
Hatred Fire was a karma-fire that ignored defenses; he had never encountered anything that could resist divinity before.
Furthermore, the aura on the black spots was actually somewhat similar to the broken divinity.
“Sigh, it's this stuff.”
Wu Gou poked his head over to take a look and covered his nose in disgust.
“There’s also this stuff all under the provincial capital, with the exact same aura.”
“Though the ones underground seem even more fierce—they’ve all grown into monsters.”
Chen Zhou was lost in thought.
In the Western Desert, in the Eastern Region, and even under the provincial capital.
These black spots were like a giant net, slowly swallowing the entire Gloomlight Province.
Rate on N.U.
