The Oracle who had stopped Wu Qi from bringing Ao Buzun and the dragon python sisters into the Secret Palace was sitting cross-legged beneath a stone pillar outside the entrance. The dragon python sisters had coiled up together calmly, their bodies shrunk to about a foot long each. They were carefully glancing at the surroundings, seemingly curious about everything here.
But, Ao Buzun was in a sorry plight. Sprawling on the ground, he was cursing the Oracle's ancestors at the top of his voice.
Just now, Wu Qi had tied his mouth up by using his own body, but it did not take him too much of an effort to undo the complex bow. Subsequently, he was quite restless and wild: he was either making obscene comments about the appearances of the female Oracles walking past them, or was constantly trying to sneak into the Secret Palace.
It had greatly annoyed the Oracle who was responsible for keeping an eye on them. Although most of the Oracles in the Secret Palace were mild in disposition, that did not mean they would not flare up upon repeated provocation. When Ao Buzun tried to sneak into the Secret Palace using an escape art combined with an illusion for the thirty-seventh time, the Oracle produced a talisman and placed it atop his body, locking him in place.
Lying flat on his belly, Ao Buzun could not move his body, except for his mouth and eyeballs. Fuming with rage, he began to curse the Oracle's ancestors. However, the Oracle just turned a deaf ear to him, sitting cross-legged beneath the stone pillar and paying him no heed.
As the air rang with Ao Buzun's vicious curses, a very old Great Oracle walked up the long flight of stone steps to the entrance with dozens of white-robed Oracles. The clamor drew his attention, and he halted to look over. "Oh, a black dragon!" said the old Oracle as his eyes gleamed. "A black dragon with five claws! And look at the shape of his scales...He seems to be a pure-blooded heir of the ancient Five-clawed Black Dragon! How strange! Is there still a pure-blooded black dragon nowadays?"
He smacked his lips, then turned to look at the dragon python sisters. "Amazing, these two are dragon pythons!" He exclaimed while clapping his hands, "…And not only that, they are the fiercest Dragon Pythons of Fire and Ice! Aye, it's said that their viscera and blood can be used to concoct supreme-grade spirit medicines, and their skins, bones, and tendons can be used to craft supreme-grade magical artifacts! How wonderful!"
Like the dozens of Oracles behind him, the old Oracle wore the standard white robe of the Secret Palace, but on his chest was a ferocious image sewed with blood-red threads, which looked very different from Yu Chen's star map. The image was the skull of a six-horned celestial fiend, with a strange bone dagger stabbed into its crown. A bloody vine twisted out of the skull's mouth and coiled around the bone dagger, then bloomed into a blood-red flower near the hilt with a hideous grinning face of a Ghost God inside.
He was Wuchang Chi, the First Master of the Thousand Spirit Palace, which was one of the Secret Palace's divisions, and the Elder of the Wuchang clan from the Directorate of Celestials. As the current holder of the Right Minister of Directorate of Celestials position, his clan held great reputation and power amongst all the Oracles of Great Yu.
Today, the post of Grand Oracle was held by Baihuang clan, who together with Gouchen clan and Wuchang clan was known as the three great divine magus clans of Great Yu. Among them, Wuchang clan was ranked the third. Its members were fond of studying the spells and mystic arts of Evil League and Ghost League, and the Thousand Spirit Palace, presided by Wuchang Chi, was a place where the Oracles specialized in the study of evil mystic arts.
The favorite trick of the Oracles in Thousand Spirit Palace was transplantation. For example, they had taken the head of an azure dragon and sewed it on the neck of a black tortoise to see if the new creature could possess the formidable power of an azure dragon and the bloodline magic of a black tortoise. They had also tried transplanting the heads of a fire phoenix and an ice phoenix to the body of a green luan to see if the new freak could possess the attributes of ice and fire, and if it could breathe fire and ice at the same time while having the ability to control the wind.
They had conducted other bizarre experiments as well, such as forcing the people of Long Bo Kingdom and Featherman mate with each other, feeding them all kinds of secret medicines while they were having sexual intercourse to see if they were able to give birth to a brand-new race with a massive body and a pair of wings. They had also forced different kinds of demons who had cultivated their human forms to mate with each other, with the hope that they could produce some new powerful demons. All in all, ethics and morality had never been their concerns.
For seasoned Oracles of Thousand Spirit Palace like Wuchang Chi, their happiest moment would be when they discovered some strange and eccentric specimens, especially those with ancient bloodlines which were thought to be extinct. Whenever they came across a rare specimen, they never listened to the specimen's opinion, but would bring it to the Thousand Spirit Palace by means of threatening, seducing, or even violence, and then...
Most of the time, specimens brought into the Thousand Spirit Palace never showed up again. Once, when some apprentice Oracle of Thousand Spirit Palace was chatting with apprentices of other divisions, he had accidentally mentioned things like 'the stewed dragon tendons were chewy', and 'phoenix wings roasted with honey tasted fragrant and sweet'.
That was why as soon as Wuchang Chi saw Ao Buzun, his mouth began to water, and when he saw the dragon python sisters, his body shivered violently. 'The pure-blooded heir of the ancient Black Dragon, and the heirs of Dragon Pythons of Fire and Ice who were thought to be extinct... they are three precious specimens, and the ingredients for three delicious dishes...'
Wuchang Chi lightly patted his belly. 'Well, putting aside the delicious dishes, I should bring them back for some experiments first. Maybe I can force them to mate with each other...It's said that the bloodline of a dragon python is extremely powerful, so strong that the crossbreed between any flood dragon and dragon python will only produce dragon python offspring. If that is the case, I wonder what are they going to give birth to when the pure-blooded heir of the ancient Black Dragon and dragon python mate?'
A Black Dragon of Fire and Ice?
Upon thinking of the endless possibilities, Wuchang Chi felt his cold blood suddenly begin boiling, and his heart racing. In his long life, he had already tortured all the creatures he could find on Pangu Continent, and now, he had found his new targets!
An ancient Black Dragon and two Dragon Pythons of Fire and Ice. He decided that he would spend at least ten thousand years to slowly play with these three specimens!
Standing only about four feet tall and as skinny as sticks, Wuchang Chi swaggered toward Ao Buzun with his hands reaching out like a pair of chicken claws. He wagged his head and laughed strangely, then said, "Hehe...What a fresh and juicy little black dragon! Come, show me you're a*s and let me see if you are a male or a female!"
Ao Buzun, who had been cursing at the Oracle, growled, "Male or female? You old twerp, do I look like a female dragon to you? B*stard! Your parent must have raised you in a wrong way, feeding your a*s instead of your head! Why else would you ask me if I am a male or a female?"
While cackling, Wuchang Chi waved his arms in excitement and said, "Aye, what an energetic little fellow! Well, well... that means you are still fresh. Now tell me, what is the length of your true form? I think I should just cut a few kilograms of flesh off your body, then fry it and give it a taste. I reckon the meat of a pure-blooded heir of the ancient Black Dragon must taste..."
The middle-aged Oracle responsible for keeping an eye on Ao Buzun and the sisters flicked open his eyes and jumped to his feet. But, as soon as he saw Wuchang Chi, his pupils constricted and he cried out in terror as cold sweats seeped out of his forehead. With one swift move, he grabbed Ao Buzun and the sisters, then shouted at the top of his lungs, "Master Wuchang, the three of them are..."
Wuchang Chi's body blurred into motion. No one could see his movements, but in the next moment, the middle-aged Oracle was flying backward with blood spewing out of his mouth, falling out of the steps and plunging straight down. Losing his conscious mid-air, the Oracle landed on the ground that was dozens of miles below the entrance with a thud. The impact had broken at least eighty percent of his bones.
After getting rid of the unlucky fellow who had tried to stop him, Wuchang Chi grabbed Ao Buzun by the neck and licked his face with a pale green tongue, smearing the black dragon's face with stinky saliva. "That's the pure aura of a black dragon!" He cried out in wild joy. "Well, well... there is no way those crossbreed black dragons can compare with him! Such a fresh and sweet taste!"
It had always been Ao Buzun who ate others, and he had never been licked by someone else as if he were some delicious dish. He was so furious that his body was shivering. He howled and growled, but the talisman stuck on his back was so powerful that he could not move at all, let alone resisting Wuchang Chi's nasty behavior.
After a few more licks of Ao Buzun's face, Wuchang Chi turned his sly glance toward the dragon python sisters.
While cackling, he stuck out his tongue to lick the sisters. But all of a sudden, the sisters let out a jarring dragon roar together and their bodies began to expand rapidly. In just the blink of an eye, they had turned into two massive dragon pythons with bodies stretching a few miles long and about a hundred feet thick. The air rang with heaven-shaking dragon roars as one of them grabbed Ao Buzun with her mouth, and the other shot out a beam of silver light, which immediately engulfed Wuchang Chi and the Oracles around him.
Since the Secret Palace was founded and built in the ancient times, there had never been a fight breaking out in front of its entrance, not even during the Apocalypses or the warring periods when the Celestial Emperors of the Heaven and the Human Emperor of Great Yu had fallen.
But today, the fierce dragon python sisters had struck without considering the consequences. A silver beam of light whistled through the air and struck the dumbfounded Wuchang Chi and his apprentices, sending them into the air. Then, countless chunks of dark ice flew out of the beam of light, smashing and crumbling the cliff walls surrounding the Secret Palace and destroying many of the finely carved statues.
A dull siren went off thunderously: the Secret Palace's alarm system had been triggered.