Chapter Twenty: The Battle of the Three Dragons

The man in black stood on the riverbank, gazing at the shimmering water along the tranquil, clear winding channel. The fish and shrimp within had either been devoured by the crown prince or driven away by the aura of the dragon, leaving no other living creatures in these waters for the time being.

Ji Feichen smiled. “That makes things all the simpler.” He had been concerned that his actions might destroy the local water-dwellers, but now that the Dragon Crown Prince had either expelled or eaten them all, he was alone in this section of the river, freeing Ji Feichen from any further qualms.

Ji Feichen paced along the bank, measuring out a hundred paces in each direction, then submerged three Verdant Tide Pearls at either end of the waterway. These pearls, treasures of the water element refined by clam spirits, floated of their own accord on both sides, forming twin screens of water that sealed off this stretch of the river.

With the flow blocked, Ji Feichen swiftly produced a jet-black jade bottle—a treasured artifact from Tiger Departure Mountain, containing a poisonous water brewed from a thousand kinds of spirit herbs refined by demon foxes. Humming a tune, he poured the toxic water slowly into the river.

Just a few drops sufficed to cloud the once-clear lake with a purple mist, and the limpid river rapidly grew murky and impenetrable.

Finally, he scattered six more Verdant Tide Pearls onto the surface. The pearls spun and rolled, stirring up swirling ripples that churned the water. He placed a barrier overhead to cut off the prince’s escape.

The crown prince, healing from the wound inflicted by Jing Xuan’s sword, was submerged in the water. Yet suddenly the currents became turbid and poisonous, aggravating his injuries instead of mending them.

“Strange…” The prince sensed something amiss. Discovering that the water had ceased to flow and the poison was spreading, he transformed into a flood dragon and shot skyward. But overhead, Ji Feichen’s spell activated: six Winter Chill Pearls—Lidong, Light Snow, Heavy Snow, Winter Solstice, Minor Cold, Major Cold—rose above the water, forming the “Frozen Heaven Array.” A thick sheet of ice pressed down, barring the prince’s escape.

Ji Feichen began chanting. The six pearls exuded ever-increasing cold, freezing the entire river segment from the surface down.

“I did not wander the Northern Realm idly,” he murmured. With Jing Xuan’s help, he had fused profound frost energy into the six pearls, granting them a new power: to freeze rivers and summon snow and frost.

In an instant, the whole river was locked in ice. The Dragon Crown Prince, unable to flee in time, was trapped, frozen within a block.

“Seal!” Ji Feichen clapped his hands. The remaining Verdant Tide Pearls plunged into the water, and twenty-three of them formed a cube, lifting the entire stretch of the river out above the ground.

A massive rectangular “ice chest” now sealed a flood dragon within, its golden scales gleaming.

The prince, paralyzed by poison and locked in ice, could not move, but his eyes darted to the man in black standing on the bank.

“How odd… This man’s methods feel strangely familiar.”

Not long ago, Ji Feichen had ambushed the prince with the Verdant Tide Pearls, but amid the blinding white light, the prince could not see clearly what had happened. So he had yet to realize that this was the very same person who had attacked him previously.

Nevertheless, escape was now his only thought.

A cube has six faces; ideally, twenty-four pearls would create six flawless planes, with four pearls at each corner, fourfold symmetry, and thus a perfect seal. But one pearl had been given to Jing Xuan to gather water vapor, leaving a flaw: at one corner, only three pearls spun, leaving a gap—just the chance the prince needed.

Of course, Ji Feichen was aware. He covertly gripped his Demon Dragon Mace, ready to strike down the prince should he attempt to escape through that gap.

This was a contest of patience. Ji Feichen was in no hurry.

“He is wracked by poison, chilled to the bone. I can afford to wait—he cannot.” Thus, Ji Feichen calmly awaited the prince’s desperate gambit.

The Dragon Crown Prince also understood that escaping through the flaw would leave him exposed to the cultivator’s full assault. He must wait for a moment’s distraction.

Time crept by; neither moved.

Wind swept the clouds as thoughts stilled.

Suddenly, from beneath the riverbed’s mud—now drained of water—came a dragon’s roar. Blue light exploded upward as a lump of pitch-black sludge shot toward the “ice chest” overhead.

“There’s someone else?” Ji Feichen and the prince were both startled. But in Ji Feichen’s moment of distraction, the prince mustered his power and spat forth his dragon pearl, hurling it at the cube’s flawed corner.

The three pearls met the dragon pearl head-on, and the ice chest cracked open. The prince transformed into a water snake and slipped away through the gap.

Noticing another dragon beast lurking in the black sludge, Ji Feichen hastily brandished the Demon Dragon Mace, flinging the mud lump far away, then threw the “Blood-Eye Divine Blade” he’d recently acquired.

The crimson blade soared overhead as Ji Feichen shouted, “Sever!”

Like a panther, the enchanted blade—gleaming with dragon scales—slashed at the fleeing prince. A wail of agony echoed between heaven and earth. The prince, rather than be caught, severed his own tail, accelerating his escape, leaving only a bloody stump behind.

It must be admitted: the Blood-Eye Divine Blade, a relic of the Western demonfolk, was indeed formidable—especially effective against dragons.

Ji Feichen’s expression darkened. Before he could give chase, the “black mud” on the bank came for him again.

The sludge spewed filth. Ji Feichen took a deep breath; his right arm, sheathed in dragon scales, unleashed the “Black Dragon Arm” as he raised the Demon Dragon Mace and smashed it down on the muddy thing.

“Die!”

With a thunderous blow, something snapped with a loud crack. His hand suddenly felt light, and then—thud!—something struck his forehead.

“The Demon Dragon Mace broke?” Ji Feichen was stunned. The mace had been his first forged treasure, his signature weapon among the demon sects—and now it had broken?

Ignoring the pain in his forehead, Ji Feichen looked up, his eyes ablaze. Instead of pursuing the prince, he summoned the Verdant Tide Pearls again: “You’re a dragon beast too. If I can’t catch him, you’ll do!”

The black sludge, seeing the white radiance descend, burst out laughing. With a sweep of five-colored light, it swallowed three pearls whole, severing Ji Feichen’s link to them.

His mace broken, his pearls lost, Ji Feichen was truly dumbfounded. Since forging these two treasures, he had never encountered such a setback. Heart pounding, he resorted to slashing with the Blood-Eye Blade.

The blood-edged blade flashed, but it too could not pierce the “black mud’s” defenses.

The mud rumbled as if mocking him.

Yet the blade’s blows stripped away the surface muck, revealing faint traces of spiritual patterns beneath. Ji Feichen began to suspect something.

After several more slashes, he had not harmed the creature in the least, but the rumbling laughter continued, and it once again targeted his remaining pearls.

But the sword wind finally stripped away all the mud, exposing a massive tri-colored spiral shell, shimmering with iridescent light and reflecting the sky.

At the sight of the shell, Ji Feichen understood at last. “So it is of the conch and clam kind! No wonder it could take my pearls!”

All things in the world generate and restrain one another, and so it is with magical treasures. The Verdant Tide Pearls are endlessly versatile: they can stir tides, summon rain, form arrays, become swords or whips—but they have one nemesis. These pearls, refined by clam spirits from the essence of the sun and moon, are uniquely vulnerable to conch and clam shells; any such shell can absorb them with perfect ease.

This spiral-shelled beast had cultivated for a thousand years at the riverbed, slumbering so deeply that even the Dragon Crown Prince was unaware of it. But when Ji Feichen suppressed the river with the Verdant Tide Pearls, it was startled awake.

The pearls, infused with the essence of heaven and earth, were a rare tonic for such shell-spirited dragon beasts. Driven by greed, it emerged to seize the pearls, inadvertently allowing the prince to escape.

“This shell beast’s defenses are formidable; no wonder my mace could not break through.” Ji Feichen retrieved his remaining pearls and the broken mace, then drew forth another treasure.

All things have their counter: while this creature’s defense is peerless, there are artifacts it must fear.

Ji Feichen gave a cold laugh and summoned the Ninefold Abyssal Demon Flask. A jet of black light sucked the shell beast inside. This was Tiger Departure Mountain’s guardian treasure, filled with myriad toxic waters. Once inside, the conch was assailed by waves of poison, its agonized shrieks echoing from within the flask.

Bubbles streamed from the shell as Ji Feichen watched impassively. “If only I had the Netherwater of the Nine Hells, or the Divine Trilight Waters—I could have killed you outright, but this poison will have to suffice.”

The demon flask shook violently as the shell beast struggled, slowly revealing its true form: a dragon-headed monster extended its long neck, spewing sludge in an attempt to resist. But the sludge, while it could defile other treasures, was powerless against the poison within the flask, and only made it stronger.

“So you are a Jiao Tu.”

Jiao Tu, another dragon child—dragon-headed, two-legged, bearing a spiral shell upon its back, resembling a clam or conch.

Cracks began to spread across the surface of the flask, prompting Ji Feichen to suppress and repair it with his magic. After a while, all was quiet, and only a tri-colored spiral shell remained at the bottom of the flask.

“This shell bears the marks of the Dao, formed by heaven and earth. How could it perish so quickly?” Ji Feichen did not open the flask, but continued to wash the shell with poison.

After some time, pus and blood oozed from the shell, a sign that the Jiao Tu had succumbed and died.

Only then did Ji Feichen open the flask. Inside, apart from his own pearls, were the decayed remains of the Jiao Tu and a dragon pearl core.

“The beast was poisoned, so its blood is useless for cultivation. But the shell and the core are valuable treasures.” After some thought, Ji Feichen left the corpse as it was, using the shell to scoop up all the mud from the riverbed.

With the pearls no longer blocking the flow, clear water soon refilled the river. Ji Feichen once more used the pearls to control the current and collected the ancient silt into the shell.

These sediments, accumulated over a thousand years, could be refined with the shadowy arts of the Nether Sect into a fine magical tool.

With the mud cleared, the riverbed was spotless; the channel gleamed, teeming with fish and shrimp as new life blossomed.

After gathering up the mud and the severed dragon tail, Ji Feichen departed.

“That dragon prince may have escaped, but I’m not concerned. With the cinnabar mark on him, he cannot elude me. Now gravely wounded, he won’t get far. Better to let others whittle down his luck, and then I shall reap the final reward.”