Chapter 209 — The Eight Wilderness Fire Dragon

Deep within the hottest of the flames, something slowly parted. From a thin crack it widened, from a gap the size of a man it grew into a cavity several times larger, and amid that dazzling firelight filling the sky, within that fissure there seemed—incredibly—to be the deepest darkness of all.

Then something within the depths of that fissure cast a cold glance at the world outside.

A ferocity steeped in madness-inducing despair swept in an instant through every corner of the stone chamber.

The next moment, as if spurred to the utmost frenzy, all the flames burst forth in the most blazing light; the dragon's chant rose ever higher, like a revel without end. From the depths of the fire the dragon's cry surged up, bearing terror and despair, as that ancient divine spirit descended into this place from another world.

A colossal head slowly thrust forth, dazzling as the blazing sun and impossible to look upon directly—unmistakably a gigantic ancient fire dragon bathed in raging flame, every part of it fire.

The enormous dragon head seemed already to fill all space. Ming Li and Lu Xueling stared dumbstruck at this thing, so overweening that it almost surpassed the existence of this world; they even forgot to resist, and only by instinct did their two magic treasures' wall of light barely hold back the surging flames—yet that suffocating majesty seemed already to have proclaimed their fate.

The Eight Wilderness Fire Dragon!

In the ancient legends of the Southern Borderlands' shaman tribes, the dreadful beast that destroys all things in the world, the ultimate summoned spirit of the Eightfold Fierce Mystic Fire Formation, had at last, after a thousand thousand years, reappeared in the mortal world.

The colossal dragon head turned slowly amid the blazing flames; it made no move to destroy anything at once. Wreathed in fire, from its great horns to the fangs in its maw, it displayed that mysterious ruddy translucence that only the most extreme heat can bring forth.

Each deep breath of the giant dragon set the whole stone chamber trembling violently, as though this space were, to so mighty a being, but a narrow place—and it had not even yet brought forth its body.

Behind the dragon head, the spinning ring of light about the Eightfold Fierce Divine Statue seemed to have faded into the dazzling radiance of the Eight Wilderness Fire Dragon; faintly visible, that vast ring too seemed to tremble slightly.

Was it because of the fire dragon's despairing power?

Or because of the memory from ages past that clung to it?

No one knew.

Nor would anyone think of it again, for at this moment the giant fire dragon, which seemed slowly to be growing accustomed to the strange sensations of its new awakening, had the blazing flames in its ruddy, translucent eye sockets rise slowly higher, and the dragon head turned slowly around.

A moment later, this terrifying dragon head was facing directly the two figures in the stone chamber who clung to the corner, striving with all their might to resist.

"Roar!"

In an instant, a tremendous roar shook the whole of heaven and earth!