Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)
chapter-125

The Ethereal Palace is the heart.

The Starlight from countless nights had settled upon the surroundings of his Ethereal Palace, gradually accumulating, gradually tranquil, without sound, without disturbance.

Upon its understanding, the Black Dragon became even more dumbfounded.

Chen Chang Sheng’s guidance of Starlight for Purification hadn’t had any effect, forcing him to take the risk of entering meditative introspection. Yet, he couldn’t have guessed that in his nightly attempts at Purification, the Starlight had passed through his body and arrived before his Ethereal Palace, knocking at its entrance incessantly, night after night.

He wasn’t going through Purification, and had even skipped across Meditation; this was Ethereal Opening.

Since that time when he had illuminated his Fated Star, how many nights had passed?

The Black Dragon looked at the pool of blood and the youth within who was about to draw his last breath; it was so nervous it had almost forgotten to breathe itself.

Since the descending of the Heavenly Tomes, there hasn’t been anyone cultivating the same way as Chen Chang Sheng. This was because his unusual state of being naturally immaculate was extraordinarily rare, it was also due to there being very few people who had to live under the shadow of death itself, leading to unimaginable tenacity and will. Even if there was to be someone fulfilling these requirements, they would lack his fortune.

Without fortune, he would still die; even having skipped the realms of Purification and Meditation to successfully complete his Ethereal Opening, he would still die. The cultivation realms concluded upon by humanity in its entirety, was unquestionable; it was impossible to skip, without a successful Purification, a cultivator cannot withstand the energy produced in the instant Star Brilliance transitioned into True Essence.

Chen Chang Sheng’s heart continued to beat strongly, but the blood flowing from his perforated blood vessels became increasingly little. With his tightly shut eyes and ashen face, he looked to be no different from a dead person.

The Black Dragon quietly looked at him contemplatively, its eyes revealed its current turbulent feelings and indecision; its struggle and how loath it was to give up.

It knew very well that itself was the fortune Chen Chang Sheng needed.

Chen Chang Sheng at this moment was already close to the point of death, even the most precious of medicine and pills would be unable to save him; even if the Pope or some equivalent Saint were to raise their hand, it would be useless; yet, it could save him.

There existed only one method in existence that could save Chen Chang Sheng.

The Black Dragon struggled for a long time, especially upon remembering its imprisonment by humans for these past hundreds of years, it wanted to turn around and leave Chen Chang Sheng to his fate.

On what justification was there for it to sacrifice so much for this human youth?

Yet… this chance of survival for him was not an easy one to come by.

Not to mention, his aid is needed for completing that task.

Not to mention, this was the first person it had properly met for the past few hundred years.

His chance of life, was perhaps also its own chance of life?

The Black Dragon silently pondered, but it hadn’t noticed that it was merely trying to persuade itself to save the human youth.

After a long period of time, it finally came to a decision.

The Black Dragon moved before Chen Chang Sheng’s body and let out a low Dragon Roar, in conjunction with the roar, a scale between its eyes instantly lit up brightly.

It lifted its front claw on the right, slowly moving it closer to the dragon scale.

A crack resounded.

The dragon scale cracked.

A mass of blood came forth from this small fissure.

This was Primordial Dragon’s Blood.

A clashing sound resounded.

The mass of dragon blood splashed down from above and fell upon the ground, bathing Chen Chang Sheng’s entire body.

This simple action, seemingly took up the entirety of the Black Dragon’s strength. The mass of dragon blood in terms of volume, was enough to contain Chen Chang Sheng’s entire body, but in comparison to the Black Dragon’s enormous body, it should have been minute, yet it had greatly weakened the dragon.

The Black Dragon slowly landed upon the ground, its dragon whiskers weakly hovering, before becoming crooked; its massive body no longer had any vigour, akin to a listless mountain range.

Following this, something incredibly fantastical occurred.

Only the sound of scales scraping across the snow underneath could be heard, the sound of rustling abounded and then, a sound akin to the fracturing of rock could be heard.

The Black Dragon was in the process of slowly shrinking in length and size.

The listless, black mountain range, slowly transformed into a mountain ridge.

The Black Dragon continued shrinking.

The mountain ridge finally became a small bump upon the ground’s surface.

The ice and dust shrouded dragon scales, had transformed into an old-looking black dress.

After a brief moment, a hand slowly extended from within the black dress, a pale and delicate hand.

The hand touched upon the ground and lightly flexed, raising up her body.

Wearing the black dress was a young girl.

An extremely pretty girl.

The young girl had a frosty expression, her eyes had pupils that were vertical slits and she possessed an excessively bewitching charm. Though she looked very young, she gave the feeling of extreme apathy.

Between her brow was a singular red line, that spoiled this feeling.

This was a wound that was going to be difficult to recover from, but it was also alluring, akin to an adornment that was fashionable within the Zhou Empire’s Capital many hundreds of years ago.

She couldn’t stand up, because she was currently too weak, too tired; it was also because she had, around her ankles, two small, long chains.

The two chains were covered in rust and extended into the darkness, tightly grasped within the hands of two legendary Divine Generals that were depicted upon the wall.

She looked at Chen Chang Sheng who was within the pool of blood before her, saying, with a cold expression: “If you were to betray me, then I will withstand my disgust and devour you.”

She said those words calmly and coolly, but also assuredly.

She had used human speech, her voice clear and crisp. Coupled with her infantile look, she had the appearance of a little girl.

In truth, converting to human years, she was only around 13 to 14 years of age.

Upon Chen Chang Sheng’s heavily damaged body, blood stains permeated.

It was however, hard to distinguish whether the blood was his own, or dragon blood.

He was immersed within her blood.

The Primordial Dragon’s blood was slowly restoring his body.

The ruptured blood vessels, at a speed noticeable to the eye, gradually resealed; his ulcerated skin, under the glow of the Luminous Pearls, slowly recovered its smoothness; as for his broken bones and internals, they needed a longer time to heal, but everything was evidently recovering.

His face was still pale, but his breath slowly steadied.

The black-garbed girl stared at him; the stare lasted for an extremely long time.

After a long period of time, having confirmed Chen Chang Sheng would live, and that her precious drop of dragon blood had not been wasted, she could no longer endure her weakened state and thus, fell into a tired slumber.

Chen Chang Sheng was asleep within the blood pool opposite her.

The two of them, respectively slept within the icy cold underground.

White mist gently wandered and bloody corals fragmented throughout.

A scene that was filled with blood, yet strangely transcendent and divine.

Snow and wind, enmeshed the skies, the outside of the Imperial Palace was silent and devoid of people.

Two snow mastiffs were joyfully playing upon the cold, snow-laden ground, pouncing upon each other; only the cold gaze within the mastiff’s eyes reminded people that these were ferocious beasts.

The palace maid held onto the leash and stood to the side, showing that she was feeling somewhat bored. Snowflakes fluttered across her pretty eyes and you could make out the remnants of makeup across her brows; it was actually Mo Yu. She was originally a palace maid, if it wasn’t for Her Divine Majesty, The Divine Empress’ recognition, as the descendent of a convicted official, she would have spent her entire life in some secluded isolation palace.

A figure slowly emerged from within the blizzard; Mo Yu smiled as she went forward to receive them.

The Divine Empress ignored the snow mastiffs that had prostrated themselves upon the snow in a show of fear and deference; she expressionlessly walked over to the abandoned well.

After a moment, her brow gently quivered; she was rendered slightly speechless. He actually lived?