Young Noble Be Monster Slaying
Chapter 930: Yield (I)

Beneath a sky thick with ominous clouds and rumbling thunder, the Whale-Riding Immortal held up a map and said, "Cross Dragonspike Ridge, pass Devil-Slaying Ravine, travel through Watermoon Cave, and arrive at the Divine Ruins Monastery."

He compared it with the pitch-black mountain range looming ahead, then gave a slow nod. "This must be the Dragonspike Ridge marked on the map."

He had come to the Divine Ruins with the Sword Emperor of the West Sea, Jiang Yuebai, and Chu Liang. Following the path outlined on the map, they pressed forward. The Whale-Riding Immortal had roamed these lands for many years and was well acquainted with the terrain, so the first stretch of their journey went smoothly.

The desolate mountain range stretched from north to south, sealing off miles of land in an unbroken wall of black stone. Its peaks pierced the clouds, and not a trace of life could be seen anywhere along its slopes. In the Divine Ruins, lifeless terrain was not uncommon, but a silence this absolute, where not even the wind dared stir, was deeply unsettling.

The Divine Ruins Monastery lay ahead, known as one of the most mysterious and perilous places in the world. The road leading to it was equally unpredictable.

"Let me scout ahead first," the Whale-Riding Immortal said.

He raised both hands in a beckoning gesture and sent a wisp of spiritual energy drifting upward with the breeze. Moments later, a seven-colored divine bird appeared from the distance. With a shrill cry, it streaked through the air and dove toward them at incredible speed.

The Whale-Riding Immortal pointed his polearm forward, guiding the stream of spiritual energy toward the mountain range. However, as the divine bird neared the outskirts of Dragonspike Ridge, it suddenly stopped flapping its wings and refused to fly any closer.

Even the lure of spiritual energy from someone with a Transcendent Spirit constitution wasn't enough to push it past its fear. It hovered just outside the forest's edge, circling in the air and letting out one sharp cry after another.

"It seems the demonic beasts in this area are all terrified of this mountain," the Sword Emperor of the West Sea remarked.

Seeing this, the Whale-Riding Immortal abandoned the idea of summoning spirit beasts. Instead, he pinched a clump of soil between his fingers and flicked it forward. The moment it touched the ground, it transformed into a replica of himself and soared into the mountain range using the Immortal Art known as External Manifestation.

The clone flew steadily, gliding over the terrain atop Dragonspike Ridge. It passed through the area slowly, and for a while, nothing seemed to happen.

"Could it have been a false alarm?" Chu Liang asked, watching with a puzzled expression.

Just as the Whale-Riding Immortal's clone crossed the boundary of Dragonspike Ridge and began to circle back, a sudden change occurred.

A streak of black light flashed across the clone’s body. In the next instant, a wisp of yin qi surged out and exploded.

Boooooooooooom!

In the blink of an eye, the clone that had been whole just moments ago was reduced to a scattering of airborne dirt.

"A wisp of yin qi latched onto it and detonated the moment it left the mountain range," Jiang Yuebai, being finely attuned to fluctuations in spiritual qi, explained. "There are ghosts beneath this ridge."

"Ghosts?" the Sword Emperor of the West Sea narrowed his eyes.

Had they remained ignorant of what lay beneath, they might have hesitated. But now that they knew, there was nothing to fear. Their group included someone who had slain an enemy who had attained the Heavenly Origin.

The Whale-Riding Immortal rose to his feet and stepped forward, landing atop Dragonspike Ridge. "Whatever ghastly thing you are," he said, "you might as well come out and show yourself."

There was no response. Only a thin wisp of yin qi slithered toward him through the air.

The Whale-Riding Immortal gathered his focus and spiritual energy, then raised a foot and stomped down with force.

Booooooom!

The mountains of the Divine Ruins had withstood centuries of wind and lightning, their stone harder than anything found in the outside world. Ordinary attacks could not even leave a mark. Yet this stomp, infused with the full power of a peak eighth-realm cultivator, carved a deep fissure into the ground.

The crack followed the trail of yin qi downward, slicing through the rock like a razor-thin blade and burrowing deep into the mountain. Sharp crackling sounds echoed all the way into the depths.

Far below Dragonspike Ridge, two ghostly flames suddenly flared to life!

…

As the Whale-Riding Immortal's foot struck the ground, the yin qi dispersed. For a brief moment, everything fell silent.

That's it?

The thought flickered through their minds but was quickly dismissed. They knew it was impossible. No creature living in the depths of the Divine Ruins would be so easily frightened.

Something was still down there, hidden in the dark. It was something truly vicious.

In the very next instant, heaven and earth seemed to crumble.

Ruuuuuumble!

A massive section of Dragonspike Ridge collapsed in a violent roar. Beneath the shattered black stone, an expanse of ghastly white walls came into view. But the surface wasn’t a solid sheet. It was made up of individual segments, each one shaped like an enormous white bone.

Just then, as the Whale-Riding Immortal soared into the sky, something below began to rise. With another deafening rumble, it pushed aside the remains of the collapsed mountain, unleashing a fierce wind of yin qi as its full form finally emerged!

It was an enormous skeletal dragon. Aside from its dragon torso and four bone claws, a row of scythe-like curved bones extended from its spine like blades.

Ghostly green flames burned within its hollow eye sockets, flickering with bursts of spiritual energy. Threads of that energy coursed through its body like strands of silk. From these threads, yin qi spread outward, and countless similar strands extended in all directions around the skeletal dragon.

"So it’s a big one," the Whale-Riding Immortal said with a booming laugh.

His body suddenly expanded, and in the next moment, he activated the Form of the Heavens and the Earth, growing until he matched the height of the skeletal dragon.

However, the skeletal dragon’s body stretched endlessly into the distance and he couldn’t match it entirely. Still, he was big enough. He raised his massive palm and slammed it down, striking the skeletal dragon just as it was about to rise.

That mighty palm strike forced the skeletal dragon back to the ground. Only then did it seem to fully awaken. It raised its skull-like head and let out a thunderous dragon chant.

"Hrooooooooooooh."

The roar shook the land in every direction. Even from far away, the sounds of startled chaos echoed through the air, as if every sentient creature nearby had sensed the danger and fled in panic. The sky responded with a chorus of wind and thunder.

Yet none of the group showed the slightest concern. No matter how fearsome this creature might be, it could not possibly surpass the power of a cultivator at the peak of the eighth realm, especially one who could summon Mount Shu Sect’s Vessel of God at will.

The Whale-Riding Immortal raised one hand and formed a seal, summoning divine lightning from the sky. Drawing on the strength of his cultivation, he cast the Five-Lightning Heart of the Sky, unleashing a vast sea of sacred lightning. He had chosen this technique deliberately, knowing that righteous divine lightning was especially effective against ghastly creatures.

However, even after taking a direct hit, the skeletal dragon’s ghostly flames only flickered. It twisted its massive body and lashed out, swinging the scythe-like bones along its spine toward the Whale-Riding Immortal. Each blade gleamed with a deadly edge, sharper than any legendary weapon.

The Whale-Riding Immortal reacted swiftly, retreating nearly a hundred zhang in an instant and narrowly avoiding being cleaved in half.

Despite its enormous frame, the skeletal dragon moved with startling fluidity. It flowed like a river, swift and relentless. At any moment, it could turn and strike with its deadly bone blades.

However, while it attacked, the others did not remain idle.

The Sword Emperor of the West Sea leapt into the air. A torrent of sword qi burst forth from his blade, crashing toward the skeletal dragon. The strike landed with precision, slamming into the ghostly flames burning in the creature’s eye sockets and forcing its skull to lower.

Yet aside from leaving countless fine scratches across its bones, the attack did little real damage.

Jiang Yuebai's attack was just as ineffective. She summoned the powers of yin, yang, and the five elements, unleashing a storm of strikes against the skeletal dragon, but none of them left so much as a mark.

Chu Liang joined the fray, drawing the Demon-Slaying Sword. Although the weapon held a natural advantage against ghostly beings, even its power failed to injure the skeletal dragon. The creature seemed utterly indestructible.

"Hrooohhhhhhh." The skeletal dragon let out another furious roar. It swung its massive tail, sweeping the air and forcing all four of them back. Then it coiled in midair, rising high above the ruined ridge. Even after exchanging blows with some of the top experts of the current era, it remained completely unscathed.

"What kind of dragon corpse has turned into a ghost? This thing is unbelievably powerful," exclaimed the Sword Emperor of the West Sea.

Normally, whether human or beast, once a creature became a ghostly entity, it would abandon its physical body. After death, the body would usually become too fragile to serve any purpose.

However, dragons were different. Their physical forms were so powerful that even after death, they retained tremendous strength, allowing them to take on a new existence as skeletal dragons.

Even so, a skeleton was still considered a weakened form. No matter how durable the remaining bones were, they had to possess weaknesses. Without flesh and blood to sustain it, the loss of spiritual essence should have significantly diminished its strength.

Yet this dragon possessed such power even in death, reduced to nothing but bone. If it had been alive, could its strength have rivaled that of the Dragon God?

This was simply outrageous.