"Where was I?" Mo Wang turned back to Amon. "Ah, yes, the technique to bypass the final cultivation chokepoint. So, the Divine received the news. Hence, he came."

"What a weird outcome," Amon remarked. "Your Lordship said the Divine came to prevent Your Lordship from reaching the True Devil cultivation level, but both Your Lordship and the means by which Your Lordship attains it are still alive and well."

Mo Wang chuckled. "She is not exactly well. I mean, look at her."

"Speak for yourself, demon! You also still suffer the wound he gave you!" Di Yu hissed.

"Wound?" Amon asked.

Amon could see that Mo Wang’s face showed that he was not amused by Di Yu revealing the fact. In response, he told Amon, "Well. I brought you here so you can see her with your own eyes. That should make our next conversation easier. Now that you have seen her, let us speak elsewhere."

Mo Wang turned and walked to the exit without waiting for Amon. Amon looked at Di Yu, who had turned frenzied again.

"Don’t you walk away from me, you vile demon! Come back here! Face me fairly if you dare, you bastard! Curse you!!!"

She stomped the floor and bumped her titanic body into the energy dome, but she refrained from firing her black breath again. The energy dome kept her fury contained. All she achieved was producing tremors and cracking the floor. Even the cracks couldn’t go outside the energy dome.

The large gate closed after Amon and Mo Wang were out. Mo Wang resealed the gate, and they returned to climbing the stairs on foot.

"Why didn’t the Divine just kill both Your Lordship and the dragon, or at least one of you?" Amon asked. If they were going to travel slowly, he wasn’t going to waste it in silence when there were topics he wished to understand.

"That will be the easy route," Mo Wang answered. "He didn’t eliminate me and Di Yu for different reasons. In my case, he did plan to eliminate me, but changed his mind after arriving here. He saw how effective I am in ruling and decided to use me in his plan for the purge."

"Really?" Amon asked.

Mo Wang chuckled. "I can hear the sarcasm in your tone. I was a different man back then. I had lost my naivety but not yet lost my desire to be among others. I am still good at asserting my will over those weaker than me. Nowadays, I want nothing to do with others."

"I can see that," Amon remarked.

"Don’t need to be cheeky. You might be a fearsome dictator in our past world, but you are nothing to me here. I can easily slay you if I wish to."

"I am aware of that," Amon said.

"Mm... Anyway, while the Divine spared my life. I wasn’t exactly left unscathed. You heard what Di Yu said. I still carry a wound from that day. The Divine used a cursed weapon that left me an unhealable wound. That was his way of ensuring I would never be able to reach the True Devil Stage."

"Your Lordship can’t figure out a way to undo the curse?" Amon asked.

"I have, though I never put it to the test. You see, to concoct the cure, I also need the blood of a deity-class dragon."

"One that you have in your basement."

"Yet, can’t touch," Mo Wang said. "I was not the one who chained her to that condition. It was the Divine’s doing."

"Why go through the trouble? It will be so much easier to just kill her."

"Not really. He would plunge his world into a lot of trouble if he did."

"Why?"

"Dragons are the apex spirit beasts, but they are few in number, especially the ones with a noble bloodline. The total number in existence can be counted on two hands. Though all of them live in solitude. They are connected. If one of them is killed, the others will sense it. They will also know who the killer is."

"Did you not plan to kill Di Yu when you captured her to harvest her blood?"

"Not really. I plan to draw her blood little by little without sacrificing her life. As long as she does not die, the other noble dragons can’t detect her well-being or whereabouts. Anyway, that option is out. Those chains on Di Yu were from the Divines. He put them on her not only to constrain her but also to protect her from being harmed by outside forces. While I have the power to break those chains, the Divine will know it the moment I do. He will come, and he warned me that his second coming won’t be pretty."

"It should take him some time to come here, shouldn’t it?"

"If what you mean is for me to quickly concoct the cure for my cursed wound and apply the technique that allows me to break the True Devil chokepoint before the Divine arrives, it will require me to drain all of Di Yu’s blood. Even then, it is not a guarantee that I can succeed in a short time. Even if I can, I will be a cultivator freshly entering the True Devil Stage. My chance of winning against someone who had been a True God for eons is slim at best."

"I see... But Your Lordship has a plan, is it not? I understand this plan has something to do with me learning about Di Yu’s existence?"

Mo Wang nodded. "I do, although I am doubtful if there is any point in telling it to you. Don’t take this the wrong way. Your reputation in our past world precedes you, and from what I heard about your past, your time in this world is not even past sixty years old yet. For you to reach this cultivation level and for Yao Ai to bring you to this Lord’s meeting, I can tell you are an abnormally capable person. In my incredibly long lifespan, I dare say I have never seen someone whose cultivation level increases as quickly as yours. Nevertheless, you are still too weak for this task."

"If Your Lordship doesn’t mind, I still wish to hear it."

"Hehe," Mo Wang snickered. "Alright. It’s not like I lose anything if you lose your life in the process. So, here it is. Since I can’t touch Di Yu, my only other choice is to find another noble dragon. That is easier said than done. The circumstances under which I captured Di Yu were peculiar. It is unlikely I can repeat it even if I can correctly locate another noble dragon. However, I learned of a suitable target not long ago."

"A suitable target? Another noble dragon?" Amon asked.

"A noble dragonling, or more correctly, Di Yu’s offspring," Mo Wang answered.

"Di Yu’s...? Wasn’t she already confined a long time ago? If she has an offspring, shouldn’t it have already grown up by now?"

"A noble dragon might be an apex spirit beast, but their reproduction chance is abysmally low. A new noble dragon might not appear for many millennia. Even if it does, it might not survive to adulthood. That’s the reason their population was so low. In a rare chance that a noble dragon gives birth, the embryo inside the egg can remain in development for many millennia. Some might not even hatch for eternity. That’s why Di Yu can have a new offspring even when she has been in captivity for a long time."

"Forgive me, but how did Your Lordship learn about the dragonling?"

"I learned it from the chains that bound her. I cannot destroy the chains because the Divine will know, so I try to hack them. I’m not yet successful, but at least I can also read whatever information those chains pick up. It turns out that the chains not only constrain their subject, but they also provide a very thorough scanning mechanism. The connection between the noble dragons activates when one of them dies, but another circumstance also triggers a connection, one that is even more powerful."

"The connection between a parent and its offspring," Amon said.

"Yes," Mo Wang confirmed. "Di Yu can sense the egg she left behind long ago hatching. This connection lasts for quite some time until the offspring matures sufficiently. Thanks to that, I can use the reading from her chains to determine this offspring’s location."

"I see. It is impossible to capture another noble dragon, but it will be different if it is an offspring. Will its blood remain as potent as the adult noble dragon’s for Your Lordship’s purpose?"

"It will," Mo Wang answered.

"That’s great. I understand from our talk that Your Lordship wants me to go and capture this offspring. But since Your Lordship knows its location, what is stopping Your Lordship from capturing it?"

"Because the offspring will sense me if I get anywhere near it. The offspring has a special connection with Di Yu during this period. While this connection doesn’t allow her to communicate normally with her offspring in spoken language, she can project her feelings. She would have no doubt shared my aura and warned her offspring about me. Even if I use concealment aura, she will still sense me. Noble dragons have uncannily keen senses, mature or not."

"Won’t I be the same since Your Lordship showed me to Di Yu just now?"

"She saw you, but she couldn’t sense you from inside her prison barrier. Hence, she didn’t know your aura."

"I see... I understand my role now," Amon said.

"I’m glad you do." Mo Wang smiled.