Evil dragon has a warm heart
Chapter 623 - 623 621 The Tree of the Universe

Chapter 623: Chapter 621: The Tree of the Universe Chapter 623: Chapter 621: The Tree of the Universe The promotion of the Harpy Dragonbeast Hape that night, rapidly spread throughout the Shadowflame Duchy by way of Thunder Sound Station and then resonated throughout all human realms via the Thunder Voice Conference.

A surge of congratulatory thunder sounded incessantly.

Russell paid no heed and simply let the on-duty Cabinet Minister handle it while he himself returned to Cigar Manor to rest.

The night had grown deep.

He wasn’t sleepy, instead, he sat cross-legged on the terrace, facing the incessant northern winds, silently experiencing and summarizing Hape’s promotion experience.

On a trellis, Hape stood ramrod straight.

In his heart, it communicated with Russell in painstaking detail, recounting its own journey of cultivation, as well as the details and psychological states before and after its promotion to a Phantom Dragon, over and over.

Under the light, Russell wrote and sketched in his notebook, noting down their insights, then further refined them. He repeatedly revised his notes, summarizing old experiences and deducing new insights, eventually systematizing them.

“The Life and Death Dragon Tribulation… worldly refinement of the heart… The body needs to endure a calamity, and so does the spirit… It is both a disaster and a sublimation, overcoming the trials bestowed by heaven and earth, as well as conquering one’s own will.”

He wrote into the wee hours of the night, finally concluding a complete system of cultivation for Dragon Domain Lords and Phantom Dragon Knights.

It was intended for Knights and for Phantom Beasts alike.

“Only with the combined efforts of Knights and Phantom Beasts can the shackles of Phantom Beast Knights be broken and advance toward new summits on the Way of the Knight!”

Returning to his room, Russell named this cultivation system “The Way of Man and Dragon,” a path for everyone to become as dragons.

Here, “man” refers not only to Knights and Phantom Beasts but to all beings.

“It’s done, tomorrow I will use the Thunder Voice Conference to spread ‘The Way of Man and Dragon’ throughout the Dragon Sleep Continent.”

Lying down, he glanced at the wall clock and saw it was already 3:15 a.m.

“Ah!” Yawning, Russell quickly drifted off to sleep; at his level, sleeping three to four hours a day was sufficient.

Without the constraints of Gloomy Dreamland, his dreams were a whirlpool of thoughts, where he could dream of any and all sorts of scenery.

And that night.

He dreamed he had returned to his old home on Earth, and to that moment when he was buying Dream Dragon Ice Cream, licking the ice cream and about to cross the street when a dump truck ran a red light, roaring past right in front of him.

At that moment, his body was flying, then falling downwards.

Whenever he dreamed of falling from high altitudes before, he would always wake up, but this time, although Russell thought he would awake, he just couldn’t manage to do so. Moreover, his body continued to fall, from Earth into the cosmos.

Even as his consciousness became clear, he was still unable to wake from the dream.

Instead, he fell deeper and deeper, sinking into the boundless depths of space.

“What’s going on?” Russell felt increasingly desperate, as if he had fallen into a nightmare, or sleep paralysis.

Wanting to wake, but unable to rouse himself.

“Ice Cream is the Master of Dreamscape, and rounding up, I am the Master of Dreamscape. As the Master of Dreamscape, am I actually experiencing a nightmare?”

But no matter how Russell pondered, he simply couldn’t struggle free from this peculiar dream, his body rocking unsteadily as he plummeted.

Time passed aimlessly, and Russell was nearly dozing off.

Just then, he suddenly noticed strange lights appearing in the starry sky, not starlight but fine, bright threads. As he fell deeper, the bright threads in the starry sky grew denser and slowly formed a pattern.

“Is this… a tree?” Russell blinked and saw an immense tree winding through vast cosmic spaces.

The bright tree, nebulous yet clear.

Its roots delved into the depths of the cosmos, drawing unknown sustenance from the darkened starry skies; its trunk pierced through stacked layers of time and space, connecting in every realm; its branches reached into countless galaxies, then budded leaves resembling planets.

But before long, this cosmic tree flourishing across the universe began to wither rapidly.

Its roots were being gnawed by something, ragged and disjointed; its trunk had been pierced by something, warped and twisted.

Without its roots to absorb nutrients, and its trunk to transport water.

Its branches and leaves withered quickly, leaves falling one by one, as if the planets were being drained of something.

Once the planets were drained, they no longer had the essence of life.

After seeing the withered cosmic tree clearly, Russell’s descent was finally stopped, but a force began to pull at him. He rapidly crossed vast stretches of time and landed on a leaf of the cosmic tree that was on the verge of withering.

In his blurred vision, he saw another leaf, drifting through time and space, about to overlap with this one.

Boom!

The light of the cosmic tree disappeared, and he saw a planet covered in frost, as well as another planet, fracturing and on the brink of shattering.

The next moment, absolute darkness enveloped everything around.

Then, a spark of red bloomed—it was a pool of magma, nurturing a newborn flow. Russell was pulled by an unseen force into this surge of magma, feeling no burn, but rather as if he had returned to the womb.

Warmth was everywhere, and his heart was at peace.

Who knew how much time passed, the magma, driven by movements in the Earth’s crust, began to spurt upward, continuously erupting.

At last, it reached the surface.

The surface was blanketed in thick ice, preventing the magma from breaking through and from spreading its warm heat across the land.

Roar!

A resonant dragon’s cry echoed through the obstructed flow of magma.

Russell saw a giant dragon, composed entirely of magma. Its eyes held no signs of life, yet they contained endless warmth.

He and the Magma Giant Dragon gazed at each other.

“Are you… Ice Cream?” Russell inquired uncontrollably, but the Magma Giant Dragon did not respond.

Instead, it extended a limb of magma toward him and, astonishingly, formed a human hand from the molten rock. The hand opened slowly, revealing a seed of amber lying quietly in the center of the palm.

Russell carefully took the amber seed, and the moment he touched it, he could almost hear a familiar screech.

“Squawk!”

Then, he saw the M mark on his left palm flare up.

Boom, his whole being became clear again as he exclaimed, “So this is Ice Cream? No no no, this is the Ice Cream from before… All this is a scene from the past!”

With his left hand clenched tightly, he looked at the Magma Giant Dragon in the magma, “So, it was you who pulled me to Dragon Sleep Continent, you who gave Ice Cream to me! Then you are… you are Mother Earth, or rather, the will of the planet of Dragon Sleep Continent?”

The Magma Giant Dragon looked at him but gave no response.

Then its palm thrust forward, abruptly pushing against Russell’s chest, and thrusting him out of the magma that could not break through the icy seal.

Russell shot into the air.

He flew from the underground magma up to the surface, where he saw endless cold snowfields, and then ascended into the sky, arriving in the outer space of Dragon Sleep Continent.

Floating in outer space, his body beyond his control, he quickly turned half-circle, his back to Dragon Sleep Continent, gazing out into the vast starry expanse.

The cosmic tree, like a ghostly image, flashed by. Russell saw its withering and silence and also saw its leaves about to detach from Dragon Sleep Continent and another leaf completely severing from another shattered planet.

This shattered planet was rapidly approaching Dragon Sleep Continent, as if it would collide with it and meet their demise together.

“It’s Frost Star!” Russell realized with an enlightened soul.

As the ghostly image of the cosmic tree faded away, Russell seemed to understand something. He opened his left hand, with the M mark blazing.

An amber seed leaped out.

He carefully turned his palm over and planted the amber seed in the space outside of Dragon Sleep Continent.

Boom!

Like a ripple, it spread across outer space, bright amber waves expanding rapidly from the center of the amber seed, reaching the entire expanse of outer space around Dragon Sleep Continent in an instant.

Reverberating back and forth around the planet of Dragon Sleep Continent.

“I understand now, completely understand,” Russell carefully nurtured the newly planted amber seed as he watched it begin to sprout, “Mother Earth, I understand now; Dragon Sleep Continent is on the verge of death, the land holds no hope, only in space does a sliver of hope remain.”

He sat cross-legged in the heavens, watching the amber seed struggle to break free from its shell, encouraging it with a smile.

“Ice Cream, you are the hope of our… the entire village!”