SSS-Rank 10x Reward System: Accepting Disciples to Live Forever-Chapter 174: Ancient Winged Race
The Seven Cloud Convergence World was composed of seven vast continents.
For most cultivators, traversing even two of them within a lifetime was nothing more than wishful thinking. To witness all seven was already a fantasy.
To witness all seven continents merging into one?
That was something spoken of only in ancient records and mad legends.
In those stories, the convergence was described as a glorious spectacle—heaven and earth uniting, continents embracing like destined lovers, the birth of a new era written in blazing light.
Reality, however, was far crueler.
Drawn by an unseen force, the seven continents collided at the heart of the world. The moment they touched, unimaginable heat erupted outward, as if a second sun had crashed down upon the land. Space screamed. The ground liquefied instantly.
For tens of kilometers in every direction, solid earth ceased to exist.
It became a sea of liquid fire.
Molten land flowed like raging rivers, glowing white-hot, devouring mountains, forests, cities—everything. The world itself seemed to be burning, as if the concept of "ground" had been erased and replaced with endless flame.
The sight was undeniably majestic.
And utterly uninhabitable.
The ambient temperature alone was enough to incinerate a Deity Transformation cultivator into ash within moments. Worse still were the invisible radiations emitted by the liquefied exotic materials—twisted energies capable of tearing apart the mind. Even Unity Realm experts would not die immediately here; instead, they would lose themselves, driven into irreversible madness.
Only cultivators who had stepped into the Resonance Realm could hope to survive within this hellscape for more than a short time.
Explosions thundered without pause.
Toxic gases burst skyward in violent plumes, poisoning the heavens themselves. Waves of molten fire surged hundreds of meters high, crashing and collapsing like burning oceans, as though trying to claw their way into the sky.
Then—
The space at the edge of this inferno rippled.
Reality folded inward, and a figure stepped out.
Murong Sichen appeared in the corner of this hellish domain, his robes fluttering in the scorching wind. His expression was tightly controlled, but the pallor on his face had not yet faded.
Cold sweat still clung to his back.
"No..." he muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing as he recalled the encounter.
"That old monster was definitely at the Causal Immortal level."
His fingers curled slowly.
"Not even a Domain Immortal Lord can steal another’s fate so casually..."
The realization sent a chill through him that no amount of heat could erase.
A Causal Immortal had appeared in the Lower Realm.
That single fact overturned countless assumptions.
Murong Sichen took a deep breath, forcing his turbulent thoughts into order. The Dragon Race Legacy was awakening—of that he was now certain. But the scale of what was unfolding had already surpassed his initial estimations.
Far surpassed them.
What he thought was merely a struggle for inheritance...
...was rapidly revealing itself to be something that could shake the balance of realms.
And this time, even immortals might not be mere spectators.
There was no way the Sword Hegemon was unaware of this phenomenon.
That was precisely what unsettled Murong Sichen.
If she knew the Seven Continents were converging, if she knew the Dragon Race Inheritance Ground was awakening, then why would she send someone at his level to this place? Why not descend personally, or dispatch a true Domain Immortal Lord?
It didn’t add up.
After a moment of brooding, Murong Sichen shook his head.
The Sword Hegemon’s way of thinking had never aligned with conventional logic. To her, the Dragon Race—its inheritance, its bloodlines, its extinction—were nothing more than background noise. A fading echo of a bygone era.
What she truly cared about was something else entirely.
The first Sword Saint of Sword Saint Heaven.
Any trace. Any remnant. Any lingering karmic shadow.
Compared to that obsession, even the revival of the Dragon Race was insignificant.
With that thought anchoring his mind, Murong Sichen pressed forward through the searing heat, his figure gliding above the molten land as he searched for the Dragon Race Inheritance Ground.
Normally, his immortal sense would have blanketed this entire region effortlessly.
Yet now—
It was distorted.
Warped.
As if something unseen was stirring the fabric of space itself, disrupting perception and blinding even immortal awareness. Forced to rely on his own eyes and instincts, Murong Sichen slowed, every step measured.
Then—
His expression changed.
"Ancient Winged Race..."
The words escaped his lips in a low, tight whisper.
Thousands of kilometers away, hovering above what remained of the fire sea, stood a group of figures cloaked in black robes. At a glance they appeared human—but from their backs unfurled enormous wings, their feathers sharp and metallic, reflecting the hellish glow below.
The Ancient Winged Race.
One of the primordial powers that had survived the ancient cataclysm—the same catastrophe that had erased the Dragon Race from existence.
Murong Sichen’s heart sank.
What are they doing here...?
The thought had barely formed when a sudden chill ran down his spine.
Among the Winged Race stood a woman.
Her face was flawless, coldly beautiful, carved as if by divine hands. Long silver hair flowed down her back, threaded with streaks of dull gold that shimmered faintly even in this inferno.
Her eyes turned.
Straight toward Murong Sichen’s position.
His blood ran cold.
"Damn the heavens—just how bad is my luck today...!"
Without hesitation, Murong Sichen activated his trump card.
A True Immortal–grade Heavenly Treasure.
A weathered tortoise shell flashed into existence, layers of ancient runes igniting across its surface as it wrapped him in a cocoon of concealment. His presence vanished—qi, soul, fate—all sealed beneath its protection.
In the distance, the silver-haired woman frowned slightly.
She had felt it.
A fleeting disturbance.
A gaze.
But before she could pursue the sensation, a member of the Ancient Winged Race stepped forward and bowed deeply.
"Your Highness," he said in a grave tone, "the residual fire sea is severely interfering with our investigation. At this pace, it may take one full year to locate the entrance to the Dragon Race Inheritance Ground."
The woman’s expression remained calm.
Too calm.
"We don’t have that luxury," she replied coolly. "Our competitors already know the precise location. If we fall behind, we lose the initiative."
Her gaze drifted downward, toward the endless molten expanse beneath their feet.
"This... sea of fire."
Her lips curved ever so slightly.
"It dares to obstruct my Ancient Winged Race?"
The air trembled.
With her as the center, a golden-red ring expanded outward, unfurling like a divine halo. In a heartbeat, it stretched across tens of thousands of kilometers, enclosing the entire inferno within its bounds.
Murong Sichen’s breath hitched. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
"D-Domain Sovereign...?"
The words barely escaped his throat.
Before he could even process the terror of that realization, her voice echoed—cold, distant, yet terrifyingly close, as though she were whispering directly beside his ear.
"Anything that stands in the way of my Ancient Winged Race..."
"...has no right to exist."
The ring pulsed once.
And then—
The sea of fire vanished.
Not extinguished.
Not dispersed.
Erased.
The molten oceans, the raging heat, the ancient destruction that might have existed longer than civilization itself—gone without a trace. As if it had never been there to begin with.
Murong Sichen did not move.
He did not breathe.
His heart thundered as he waited, terrified that he might already be standing within her domain, that the next thought she had might end his existence.
Thankfully—
The tortoise shell shimmered faintly.
Its ancient runes held.
The True Immortal treasure shielded him from her perception, hiding him from the gaze of a being who could erase worlds with a thought.
Only then did Murong Sichen realize something terrifying.
The Dragon Race Inheritance Ground was no longer the greatest danger here.
It was the company it had attracted.
