He walks until he arrives at the end of the Draconic Fortress. There are three doors. He can sense the calling in all of them, but two have high level seal blocking them, very well constructed, requiring a specific object to open them.
So he enters the meddle gate and walks, walks, walks until he reaches a large room, the room has very little light, but he continue to walk. Then, from one moment to the next, a formation activates, causing light stones to turn on, illuminating the dark room. At the same time, three pedestals begin to emerge in the center.
Feicui Long approaches the pedestals. At a certain point, he can somewhat see it. on each pedestal is an item. On the one in center, there is a crown, the one on the left has a necklace, and the one on the right has a ring.
Because of this, he decides he needs to see what these artifacts are, as they are calling him.
...
While this happens, the dragon sighs in relief, saying to herself: "My sovereign is still as dominating as ever. This queen can barely handle it, but that person must not be angered. I sorry my sovereign, I'm really sorry..."
This time, Isabella can understand the dragon, because she forgot to speak in that strange language, probably because she is ignoring Isabella, that was what she was thinking.
Then, at one moment, the dragon extends her head toward Isabella and says: "You didn't heard anything, understand? By the way, I don't know how you managed to conquered my sovereign's heart, but I have to say this: at this moment, you are not worthy of him. So, start preparing to fight for him against any other dragon."
The dragon looks around for a moment. When she confirms they are alone, she says: "This is my advice for you, get strong, so strong that anybody can defeat you or Otherwise, resign yourself to not marrying him, because the dragon race is not like you mortals think. Anyway, I wish both of you luck."
At this moment, Isabella is even more confused than before, but she understands that she can't ask questions, so she remains silent.
...
Feicui Long is finally in front of the artifacts, feeling slightly surprised and confused. He knows these artifacts. Each one features two dragons: one is a western dragon and the other, an eastern dragon.
Each dragon had emerald-green scales, four golden horns, and three gemstones on its forehead, an amethyst, a topaz, and an emerald. Its golden lower scales, and finely detailed golden claws and white fangs. A flowing emerald mane extended from its head to its tail.
However, their most striking feature was their eyes. Each pair was vertically split, half emerald and half amethyst, with a black dragon's pupil running through the center like a rift. From this rift, golden clock hands emerged, turning as if marking the passage of time. Around the edges, golden symbols resembling numbers added to their mysterious presence.
It is a little obvious, but these items are connected to him since they represent two of his forms. These artifacts were created by him; he made them to be his symbol. However, contrary to the expectations, they do not possess any crazy and powerful features.
He created them only so he could be easily identifiable, as a sign of his authority, this is why he designed them as mere space storage, a very, very good one, since space is really big and stable, even capable of sustaining life inside. Additionally, the time flows slightly slower withing them. But that's all, they have nothing unique or even a skill, they even lack an artifact spirit, soul or even mind, they only possess a basic consciousness.
He simply carries all three artifacts within himself, storing them inside of him. He doesn't need to mark them with blood, as he created them to be connected to his soul, allowing him to sense their location.
Then he goes outside, and the three pedestals begin to hide in the floor again.
...
Now, in front of the first room he enters, he can see the other two doors. Now he understands, the key to both rooms is his artifacts.
Feicui Long can finally sense which room is calling him more strongly. It is the left room, but something inside him tells him it is better to start with the right.
So, he does just that. He takes out his ring and places it in the socket for a moment. Then the door starts to open upwards. It is the same situation as in the previous room, the corridor is very "long".
Now that the call is a bit weaker, he notices something. The corridor is not actually that long. The problem is the space formation in the corridor which expands the distance.
Even so, he doesn't care and continues walking.
...
He has been walking for about 30 minutes, and he estimates that the path will soon come to an end. He is not wrong, as just a few steps later, he enters the room.
This time, the room is not empty. As it has many statues of different beings, from dragons to phoenixes, from demons to devils, from angels to titans, every statue is part of a bigger formation, aiming its eyes at a large well-decorated crystal coffin. Any being that dares to try to take the coffin will be killed.
He knows this, yet despite the risks, he steps forward. because with just one look, he can feel the familiarity with the coffin...
As he nears the coffin, he senses the formation gathering energy, a savage and powerful energy, capable of vaporizing him.
Although he ignores it, he can now touch the coffin. In the next moment, its lid begins to turn transparent, revealing a woman, a very beautiful woman, well developed with attributes between medium and large. Her skin is as white as a pearl, flaw. She has full red lips, jet-black hair like onyx and pointed ears.
At the sight of the woman, he feels his heart nearly stops. Desperately, he tries to pull her from the coffin, but it does not open. He attempts different methods, yet none are successful.
In his desperation, he slips his finger under the lid and pulls, again and again, refusing to stop even as they begin to bleed. After a few minutes, the coffin's formation is almost covered in his blood. Somehow, this manages to activate the formation, allowing him to lift the lid.
Now, he sees the woman surrounded by priceless treasures, though tempted, he ignores them and lifts her carefully with grace.
After taking the woman, the coffin closes back at an incredible speed, meaning he can only take one thing from it. But he doesn't care, nothing is more valuable to him, since this woman is more important than everything else in the universe.
He carries her like a princess, bringing back memories of the past. But this time, he can't let them take over his mind, he needs to leave the room.
...
After leaving the room, he carefully places the woman on the floor of the Fortress. Then he takes a health potion and pours it over his fingers, closing the injury. Next, he applies an ointment to prevent scarring, and finally, he takes a blood restauration pill to replenish his lost blood.
Then he takes off his shirt and places it behind the woman's head, improvising a pillow. After that, he can't help but hug her and shed a few tears. He knows he shouldn't be able to cry, but the emotion is slipping through a crack inside him. More importantly he is focused on the relief of being reunited with her rather than on something that shouldn't be happening.
Feicui Long with a few tears running down his cheeks, says: "My little disciple, this master of yours, thought that he was never going to see you again... I'm so glad... I'm so glad to find you, I don't care who did this, but you are the only thing that remains for me... my brothers, my sisters, my master, my empire, my treasures, my strength, and cultivation. I have lost everything, but that doesn't matter any more... because you are here with me..."
Feicui Long kisses her forehead and place her again on the improvise pillow: "My Mariane, your master has something to do before we can go. Wait for me a little longer."
Feicui Long doesn't realize that Mariane, even if she has not yet regained consciousness, can still hear some of what he says.
Feicui Long stands up and goes to the last door. The door has three places where he has to place the three artifacts.
He places them and quickly enters the room.
...
Feicui Long expected this room to be the same as the others, but it is actually different because, in the middle of the corridor, there's another little room. How does he know this is not the final room? Because he can see the continuation of the corridor on the other side of the room.
But even more surprisingly, he is now in front of another pedestal holding five things: a little dragon resembling his dragon form, three pearls or gems and something circular that depicts his two forms chasing one another, with his human form in the center. However, this circular object sometimes changes into different forms, like spheres, cubes and other shapes, all displaying the same images.
Regarding these objects, the first is his dragon core, where a dragon store his cultivation energy, the pearls are dragon pearls or dragon gems, a condensation and manifestation of the dragon's powers, and the last one is his dragon origin, the origin of a dragon's power.
He takes all of them, and each one merges into his body. Unfortunately, there's almost no energy in his dragon core.
After taking them, he goes further down the corridor.
...
In the final room, he can finally see what is calling him so strongly. Although he already knows what it is thanks to the previous room, the calling has weakened significantly, since he took the five things with him.
He is now in front of a dragon in a western form, lying dead in the floor. The magnificent floor, surrounded by mighty high walls, riddled with cracks and holes, the magnificent floor is tainted by blood. Blood once a celestial sight has now turned into a black darkness blood corrupted due to the powerful dragon-killing poison, specially designed to combat him.
In terms of body size, the dragon is medium-sized or even considered slightly small. However, its powerful constitution and the sheer aura emanating from its corpse alone leave no doubt its might.
The dragon has emerald scales covering almost his entire body, with brilliant golden lower scales on his ventral side. His head has four large horns rising like peaks to the sky and three gems on his forehead, one in the right, an amethyst, one on the left, a topaz, and the one in the middle, an emerald, each one once holds a power beyond imagination.
From his head, a mane of emerald color emerges, following the line of his spine all the way to the tip of his tail. His claws are also brilliant golden, and his fangs shine white, like the most valuable pearls. Feicui Long doesn't need to see the eyes to know how they look...
Because this is him! This is his body!
He sighs in front of this sight. Not many people can see their own death body, let alone their own body after being killed.
But Feicui Long left sentimentality behind. As he observes the new formation in this ancient battlefield and understands the logic of other rooms, he now can say there's another limit. Since he doesn't know what that limit is, he needs to move faster.
He calculates how much energy he can use from the dragon core. He can only use it ten times to extract something from his old body. The blood is discarded, because the poison, with a 100% probability, is corrupted.
So, he starts with the first thing he wants to take. Running in front of his dead head, he jumps onto it, using the space energy to take the eyes. Then, He quickly takes all of his horns and gems. Taking advantage of being on the head, he split one use of the energy to take the mane in behind the head and some scales with him.
Then, at the neck, he uses the energy to take the backbone with some effort. next he jumps out of the dragon and goes in front of its chest, taking his inverted scale, along with some of the golden scales. After this, he takes out his heart.
But he does not stop here. He now goes for the claws and the fangs, again splitting the energy. Then, he takes the wings. Just when he thinks he has everything, he remembers he almost forgot one of the most important things: the brain. Using the last bit of energy, he takes it.
Now he looks at his mutilated dead body and cannot help but admit it is not pleasant sight. Even more, he feels slightly strange dismembering his own body is almost offensive to him. But he only can say sorry to himself, because he needs it.
After taking the last piece, an energy force pulls him back to the exit of the three rooms, expelling him from inside.
The door closes as fast as possible, and he is now with Mariane again. It seems like the person who did this only allowed him to take ten parts...
Feicui Long has mixed feelings about whoever did this. They helped him a lot, even allowing him to reunite with his beloved disciple, but all of this is his property, and more importantly, it is his OWN BODY.
The reasons he does not take his entire body with him are simple. First, his core does not have enough energy to move the whole body. In fact, it is only because Feicui Long is highly skilled and familiar with the manipulation of his energy that he is able to use that small amount of energy to accomplish this.
Second, his spatial bags do not have enough space, and his space storage necklace would be almost full, and he doesn't want to remove all of his items. Besides, the other storage artifacts were at the door during this time. But more importantly, since the poison was specifically made to counter him, it contains things that can harm dragons, time and space itself. This means the poison could destroy his storage.
Even if he could, he does not want to take that poison with him. It is true that the poison is stronger against dragons or beings of the space clan or time clan and weaker against beings like mortals. However, since this poison is at the absolute emperor level, it is lethal to almost everything, making it a great menace to this world.
The last reason is not that obvious, but the formation that expels Feicui Long has also been restraining his body, so he can't take it with him.
But that is not something that matters at this moments, he sits beside a sleeping Mariane, he relaxes a bit, then starts taking the next step...