"The Gu Clan pays deepest respect to the Dou Supreme!" Gu Yuan stepped forward and greeted him respectfully, his entire body shaking violently.
"The Lei Tribe bows to the Supreme!" echoed another voice, heavy with desperate fear.
Shen Yi ignored their subservience. He simply raised his hand, not in anger, but in final, cold judgment.
"The Hun Clan has gone against the natural order for too long. Their debt to the timeline is now due."
With a casual flick of his wrist, a single, boundless wave of pure Dou Supreme energy... the combination of creation and destruction lightning... was sent flying across the Central Continent, straight into the Hun Clan's ancient realm.
A moment later, a silent, yet massive and apocalyptic explosion of light erupted on the distant horizon, visible even from the depths of the void. The entire Hun Clan, their ancestral realm, and their entire existence was simultaneously cleansed and destroyed from the world.
He lowered his hand and looked at the figures of the ancient leaders around him.
"The war is definitely over," Shen Yi stated, his voice final and absolute. "Now, I want you all to search for a person named Xiao Yan of the Xiao Clan, which was one of the ancient clans."
After giving the serious task, he glanced deeply at Gu Yuan and said, "Soon I will personally visit all of your ancient clans."
The remaining clan leaders, including the chief of the Gu Clan, were surprised, their terror now replaced by deep, absolute respect. They bowed lower. "Yes, Supreme."
After looking at each other, their figures quickly disappeared, leaving him alone standing in the silent void.
'The whole story really is messed up,' Shen Yi thought to himself. He shook his head and glanced toward the east. His spiritual awareness spread through the whole region, reaching out to the ancient Jia Nan Academy.
The next moment, a flash of lightning zapped through the sky, and Shen Yi's figure appeared above the academy, the chaos lightning flickering lightly on the surface of his body.
His calm gray eyes, which now reflected the entire silent universe, focused on the massive, famous structure of the Heavenly Flame Tower. Deep beneath that huge tower, in the earth, was the true reason for his urgent visit.
With a faint, controlled ripple of space, Shen Yi's figure dissolved and instantly reappeared tens of thousands of feet deep underground.
A crushing wave of ancient, condensed heat hit him at once. The underground cave was not just hot; it was a primal furnace, old, sealed by powerful runes, and intensely heavy with the suppressed spiritual power of a true ancient entity. Folds in space, twisted by raw energy, warped the very surroundings, making the place completely unreachable and undetectable for anyone except a being who stood at his current, supreme level.
A giant, glowing seal dominated the space before him. Ten thousand feet wide, it was carved from runes so ancient their knowledge had been completely lost to history, an eternal prison that had remained unbroken for countless generations. Now, under the silent gaze of the Dou Supreme, it began to shake violently, a tremor of submission.
Inside, curled up and sleeping after ages of confinement, was a colossal Ancient Void Dragon... Zhu Kun.
Even curled in slumber, his majestic, oppressive presence filled the immense cavern, causing the very bedrock to groan. As Shen Yi took a single, silent step closer, the dragon's enormous golden eyes snapped open with the startling speed of a striking snake. Recognition... and then immediate, deep, staggering disbelief... flashed through their depths.
"Shen Yi...? How...?" The words were painfully breathed out, laced with a shock that vibrated with raw, ancient power. "This unbelievable energy... He had actually stepped into the legendary Dou Supreme Realm?"
His voice, a roar that should have shattered mountains, merely cracked the stone foundation around them, proving his astonishment was even greater than the power he instinctively unleashed. Zhu Kun had known the boy for years, often criticized him for his youthful recklessness, and constantly complained about how boldly he pursued the Dragon Empress. But this achievement... this was a realm far, far beyond anything the Ancient Dragon King had ever dared to imagine.
Shen Yi simply raised his hand.
There was no sudden burst of power, no dramatic shockwave of energy. He simply issued a soft, quiet command that went against all natural laws:
Primordial Art! Temporal Disintegration!
The massive, impenetrable seal did not crack. It simply faded... thousands of ancient, glowing runes dissolving into pure nothingness. Their history, their purpose, and their existence were erased from the timeline as if they had never existed at all. In a single, silent moment, the prison of millennia completely vanished.
Zhu Kun stretched his enormous, glorious wings, shaking off the literal dust and the psychological weight of ages of confinement. The dragon's body then began to quickly shrink, folding its immense power into its preferred human form: a tall, broad-shouldered man whose body was faintly lined with beautiful, strong golden scales along his skin.
"A power that controls time itself," Zhu Kun muttered, shaking his head in confused awe. "Even at my strongest, completely unsealed state, I couldn't dream of doing that. No wonder my daughter talks about you constantly."
Shen Yi allowed a brief, knowing smile to curve his lips.
"She's safely home, and she is waiting patiently. But before I return, I came here for something you once told us about."
Zhu Kun blinked once, trying to process the casual use of his new title and the immediate, amazing shift in conversation. "You mean... the legendary Ancient Emperor's Mansion?"
Shen Yi gave a firm nod. "You said the mansion isn't opened by just brute force. It opens only to someone whose destiny and cultivation meet the Ancient Emperor's unmatched standards."
Zhu Kun sighed deeply, the regret of his own long failure heavy in the cavern air. "I searched for centuries after I first found the seal, but the mansion completely ignored me, no matter what I tried."
Shen Yi turned toward the cavern wall, which was nothing more than hardened ancient magma, and raised his hand.
"Tou She Ancient Emperor's Mansion. Open."
The solid stone wall immediately rippled, as fluidly as water hit by a stone. Space folded inward upon itself, and with a silent, profound twist, a swirling gateway of brilliant starlight opened. It led not to another chamber, but into a silent universe sealed away for thousands of years.
Zhu Kun stared at the gate appearing, his regal composure utterly broken. "So that was the entrance... hidden right here beneath the academy all along..."
Shen Yi, the new Dou Supreme, stepped inside the vortex first, with Zhu Kun quickly following, his powerful golden eyes still wide with astonishment.
...
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