"Beast, stop!"
This is Tian Nan Nation, at Chu Yun City.
The sky was laden with dense clouds, and a gust of wind carried with it the scent of blood, howling through flames.
In a dilapidated courtyard in a corner of the city, a youth stood in a metal cage, his eyes bloodshot and filled with rage.
Before him, the entire courtyard had been transformed into a blood lake amidst a sea of flames!
In the courtyard, a group of martial warriors wielding blood-soaked swords were slaughtering the fleeing servants.
The roaring young man is named Yang Ling, who used to be the eldest son of the Chu Yun City Master.
At the age of eighteen, he had already reached the ninth stage of body refining, he was the number one prodigy in Chu Yun, and no one could surpass him.
But now, he could only stand in a metal cage, witnessing his own family members being slaughtered!
He was banging the cage like a madman, his hands drenched in blood, and he screamed with a throat filled with blood.
However, his efforts couldn't change anything.
"Hehe, Yang Ling, still fancy yourself the number one talent in Chu Yun?"
"Now, you are nothing but a waste without a martial spirit. Miss Xu Jiao is going to marry the third son of the Liang family today! "
"And your Yang family, will be annihilated today. Does that upset you?"
Those martial warriors were all laughing cruelly.
"Xu Jiao!"
Upon hearing this name, the young man in the iron cage grinds his teeth in rage, his neck veins bulging out in fury!
Xu Jiao, the daughter of the Xu family, one of the two great clans in the Cloud City, is hailed as the utmost beauty of the city!
She and Yang Ling are childhood friends, known to all as the most destined pair in the world!
However, everything changed on the day of his eighteenth birthday, when he awakened his third-grade Flame Python martial soul.
When Xu Jiao plunged a dagger, capable of absorbing martial soul energy, into her own abdomen, Yang Ling's heart plummeted into an icy abyss.
"Haha, don't blame me, Yang Ling. It's not my fault that someone important needs your martial soul," said Xu Jiao.
Even now, Xu Jiao's cold, ruthless, and disdainful laugh still echoes in Yang Ling's mind.
Having lost his martial soul, he was severely injured and tossed back to his family home.
Simultaneously, his family was accused of collusion with the demon race, stripped of their position as city lord, his parents executed, family scattered, and he himself confined within this iron cage!
He helplessly watched as his kin were mercilessly slaughtered.
"Young Master, Young Master!"
"I don't want to die!"
The maid, Huan, who had been with Yang Ling for eighteen years, was being stepped on by the Liang family's martial brute. With one hand covered in blood, she reached out to Yang Ling.
Thump!
But what awaited her was a sword, penetrating her neck.
Before her words were finished, her head rolled into the pool of blood.
“Huan'er!”
“Ah!”
Yang Ling gritted his teeth, kneeling abruptly in the iron cage, his hand clenching the green stone.
He wanted to prevent it, but now, he was even less than an ordinary mortal!
At this moment, his eyes were dyed red with blood, igniting a blazing fire within.
His pupils, at this moment, narrowed and elongated, like a flood dragon, much like a dragon!
"My humble servant has finally waited for Master's awakening."
But at this time, a sound suddenly entered Yang Ling's ears.
He looked sideways, but found that it was actually a tortoise that had crawled into the iron cage!
He had picked up the tortoise when he was little, and despite his family's downfall, this old tortoise had followed him here!
And now, it was actually speaking human language!?
But before Yang Ling could express his surprise, the old tortoise opened its mouth and spit out a crystal-clear pearl, holding it in its mouth.
“With the Young Master's awakening, you may swallow this Dragon Orb and regain the bloodline of the Divine Dragon.”
"What?!"
Yang Ling was shocked and doubtful.
The old turtle spoke, a pearl held in its mouth!
Everything was so unreal.
"This Dragon Pearl is heaven-balancing, earth-conquering, sea-covering, mountain-moving, wind-penetrating, and god-driving. It's created by the pure essence of the seven saints, the blood of the nine divine dragons, the fire of creation, the blade of the Heaven's Hell that opens the nine heavens, and the dragon suppressing qi hidden within."
"Swallow this pill, young master, and you will awaken the ultimate dragon bloodline within you. You will break through the nine heavens and be respected for a thousand generations!"
The old turtle's words echoed in Yang Ling's mind like a ringing bell.
"Young master, I... I will go ahead."
At this moment, outside the iron cage, the house steward, who had taken care of him for eighteen years, was also pierced through his chest.
Until death, he was looking at Yang Ling.
"I'll swallow it!"
Yang Ling didn't have time to think. He couldn't just watch his family members die horribly one by one!
The city lord had been seized, the family tree had fallen, the servants scattered, but these servants remained loyal. They were his family!
Yang Ling reached out to take the so-called Dragon Pearl.
The Dragon Pearl was lustrous with nine colors, a divine sword suspended within, and intense flames surrounding it.
Yang Ling directly swallowed it!
Ah!
The fire from the Dragon Pearl seared his heart, making Yang Ling feel as agonizing as a shrimp boiling in water.
But he needed power!
Power sufficient to slaughter all his enemies!
No matter how painful, he could endure it!
With the Dragon Pearl inside his body, his entire blood began to boil.
Illusions after illusions, appeared in Yang Ling's mind.
There were astonishing macaques stamping the mountains, their roars shattering the skies.
There were sky-covering peng birds, flapping their wings for thousands of miles, soaring with no inhibitions.
There were ancestors of the earth immortals, preaching from the nine heavens, their holy voices thunderous.
There were sword saints wielding sharp swords, opening the heavenly gates and shaking the universe with their might.
Each one of them possessed earth-shaking momentum!
A drop of dragon's blood from above the nine heavens fell on the Dragon Pearl, diffusing in Yang Ling's Dan Tian.
At this moment, Yang Ling only felt heart-wrenching and bone-tearing pain as his blood surged like a raging tide.
His cultivation level began to surge rapidly from the first level of body furnace!
First level!
Third level!
Sixth level!
Ninth level!
Body Furnace Ninth level!
In just a moment, he managed to restore his previous cultivation level.
But it's not stopping!
Countless filthy, pitch-black substances began to seep out from his pores.
His bones became thicker, muscles bulging!
Boom!
At this moment, Yang Ling let out an angry roar.
Body furnace peak, blood refining turns into qi!
Refining Qi first level!
At this very moment, Yang Ling directly broke through the body furnace, reaching the Qi refining realm.
Refining blood into qi, from henceforth transcending the mundane martial arts, stepping into the path of cultivation!
"Is this... could it be a divine-level Martial Soul?"
Yang Ling asked himself while looking at the dragon soul shadow that was twined around the divine sword within his Dantian, sleeping in a baptism of fire.
"A divine-level Martial Soul would have to bow before the Dragon Orb!" the old turtle sneered.
At this moment, Yang Ling could not pay attention to his doubts. Dragon scale-like patterns emerged on his body, the teeth on both sides of his lips sharpened, and his pair of blood-red eyes had become narrow and ferocious amidst the flames.
At this instance, Yang Ling appeared as if he were becoming a dragon, appearing ferocious and terrifying!
Inside the iron cage, Yang Ling's roar resounded like a dragon's chant.
This shocked the Liang family's martial artists who were performing a massacre in the courtyard.
They looked in horror, unable to comprehend the situation.
"Enough staring! Kill all these slaves first, and then take care of this madman!"
One of the martial artists yelled, sending a woman in front of him flying with one punch.
"Mother Lin!"
That was Yang Ling's wet nurse, who had regarded him as her own since he was young.
Bang!
Yang Ling's rage soared to the sky, and he punched the iron cage.
The iron rod, forged from mysterious iron and as hard as a rock, was bent by a punch.
The first punch, weighed five hundred jin!
Not enough!
Boom!
The second punch weighed eight hundred jin, breaking the iron rod.
Still not enough!
Boom!
The third punch, accompanied by Yang Ling's roar, shattered the iron cage.
This punch, it comes with a force over a thousand jin!
"Die!"
Yang Ling used his hands and feet, running out wildly.
At this moment, baring his teeth, kicking up a gale.
Like a dragon emerging from a chasm, breaking out of the cage!
Those who stand in his way must die!