On the small sandy island, Aotian and the enormous dragon stared at each other.
At that moment, Aotian felt an immense burden on his body, as he was sustaining not only the pressure imposed directly upon himself by the creature, but also bearing most of the impact of the aura that his companions should have been receiving.
And the dragon did not seem to be holding back much on the spiritual pressure it imposed on them, which was like a mountain crushing down, transcending the limits of physical strength and acting directly on the spirit.
Even so, Aotian remained standing, without falling to his knees like the members of Dragon Peak.
Not to mention that his own mind had grown immensely stronger after countless experiences, whether lived through himself or inherited from his disciples. Even without relying solely on that mental strength, his many avatars were already enough to share the pressure he felt, allowing him to face that terrifying dragon.
On the other hand, the reaction of the Dragon Peak disciples was shameful.
They immediately knelt under the imposed pressure, with their heads deeply buried in the ground, not even daring to look at the beast that had arrived, seemingly not even trying to remain standing.
Such a reaction, besides arousing the dragon's disdain, did not seem to hold any value. In contrast, the firmness of Aotian—a mere Golden Core cultivator—and of his companions was what truly drew the creature's attention and admiration.
Even Cang Song, cowardly as he was, knew that he could not kneel, because what he represented at that moment was not himself, but the sect that, in his heart, was his home.
As for Aotian, he not only remained standing, but even dared to look the dragon directly in the eyes, without fear or arrogance—only confidence.
Of course, he was not acting like the common reckless protagonists, challenging an absurdly powerful being just to protect his own ego, especially when his family was by his side, which could put them in danger.
No. What he did came purely from the confidence that that dragon would not go mad enough to kill him, Rihai's main body, nor Cang Song and Hui Lang, who did not possess the privilege of a second body.
That confidence came from the danger detector ability that the elders of the Mission Pavilion possessed.
And as expected, the flood dragon looked at the fearless human with great interest and appreciation, then shifted its gaze behind him, noticing a blonde girl—equally fearless, yet visibly worried—watching the back of the man standing in front of her.
'These two are special, and the two behind them aren't bad either…' the beast reflected, narrowing its light-blue eyes.
Its draconic gaze then fell upon the Dragon Peak people, laden with displeasure.
["Hmph… your little worms have grown spoiled over time, believing they can walk sideways through the world and forgetting who truly makes the rules here."]
The beast snorted with majesty, making all those cultivators tremble in fear.
"We wouldn't dare!"
Before the dragon, they only dared to shout this in a terrified and submissive manner, not even attempting to justify themselves.
["But it seems that you do dare."]
It snorted once more and no longer wished to look at that pleading trash. It preferred to turn its attention back to the silent and courageous Aotian and his group.
["You seem to be new here, so I'll have to explain how this testing ground works. The first test is… survival."]
The dragon said only that, with a trace of amusement in its eyes, and then its gigantic head suddenly sank back into the water, raising another huge wave that swallowed the island as the pressure vanished.
When the water receded, this time without the paralyzing pressure, all the cultivators were standing and alert, without the ugly image of bodies fallen on the ground, covered in seaweed and fish.
But they were not alone.
Around them, thousands of shrimp—each twice the size of an adult human—spread across the island, staring at them with red eyes and an evident thirst for blood.
Aotian and his companions immediately positioned themselves back to back, eyes narrowed, attentive to the beasts surrounding them.
The battlefield plunged into a brief silence as humans and shrimp stared at each other without moving.
Then—
ROOOAAAARR!!
A deafening dragon roar, like thunder shaking the heavens, echoed from the sea, shaking the earth and raising enormous waves.
At that same instant, as if it were a signal, the shrimp charged fearlessly, hungry for destruction.
Aotian acted immediately, swinging his arm and throwing three swords from his storage ring, which flew like bullets, decapitating several attacking shrimp with extreme ease.
He showed no mercy to the marine beasts, which were, in fact, extremely irrational creatures.
Before, he had already tried to have the Red Tiger communicate with one of them when they trained at sea, but after the creature tried to kill it frantically, without any trace of sapience, Aotian stopped hesitating to exterminate such beasts and use them as materials and food.
The beasts attacking him were all at the advanced stage of the third level, equivalent to his own realm. To him, they were just french fries, being killed effortlessly.
Hui Lang and Cang Song also faced beasts of the same level, while Rihai was the only one among the four being attacked by shrimp at the initial stage of the fourth level—which, for her, also posed no difficulty at all.
Calmly observing his surroundings while killing as if it were trivial, Aotian noticed that the other cultivators were also being attacked by beasts of levels similar to their own.
However, they were nowhere near dealing with it as easily as the disciples of the Infinite Dao Sect. In fact, it was incomparable.
Not only did they struggle to kill, they could barely attack, focusing all their strength on defense while being surrounded by beasts of the same realm, quite literally taking the dragon's words of 'survive' to heart.
Aotian and his companions, on the other hand, killed so quickly that, just moments after the battle began, they were already standing amid shredded beasts, with nothing to do but watch the Dragon Peak disciples desperately fight for their lives.
Only then, exchanging glances with strange expressions, did they arrive at a single conclusion.
'I think we did the test wrong… apparently it was meant to survive with difficulty, not kill the opponent in moments.'
Scratching his head, Aotian turned to Rihai, Cang Song, and Hui Lang, then to the roughly forty shrimp corpses around them, his expression thoughtful.
'Well, if we killed them, we killed them.'
With that conclusion, he suddenly had an idea and smiled, looking at his companions.
"Is anyone hungry? We have some fresh seafood here…"
The other three looked at Aotian strangely, then shrugged.
"Now that you mention it, I think I do feel a little hungry…"
…
Meanwhile, two beings watched the scene with their mouths twitching.
The enormous blue dragon looked at the small blue-haired girl with tiny horns on her forehead beside him, with evident perplexity.
"What kind of monsters did you find this time?!" the dragon cried, momentarily at a loss for words as he stared at the four people barbecuing his own shrimp soldiers.
They did it so naturally that it didn't even seem like, just a few thousand feet away, a frantic and desperate battle was taking place.
In fact, out of consideration for the nearby battle, which could interfere with the barbecue, Aotian had even moved to a corner of the island before starting.
"I wasn't the one who found them, they were the ones who dug up the gate and entered!" The little girl immediately pouted resentfully at the dragon and crossed her arms over her flat chest, visibly irritated.
"Uhh… big sister, don't be angry, this is a good thing. Maybe we've finally found the lord's heir."
The blue dragon—the same one administering the test—sighed inwardly, knowing very well why the little girl was truly irritated, and tried to comfort her with a gentle voice, which contrasted sharply with his colossal size and fierce appearance.
But the little girl seemed even more resentful, lowering her gaze.
"They took too long to arrive…" she murmured sadly. "If they were only going to arrive now, I think it would have been better if they had never come," her voice gradually grew softer.
Seeing her like this, the great dragon sighed, and his body began to slowly shrink, until what remained was an old man with white hair and beard, blue eyes, and small horns on his head.
He extended his hand and gently stroked the little girl's hair.
"Don't be like that, big sister. Even if they had come earlier… probably nothing would have changed. This was already something that even the lord, before everything happened, couldn't handle. We just need to fulfill his final wish, find a worthy successor, and then we can accompany him in reincarnation."
With those comforting words, the little girl still looked sulky, but the sadness and emptiness in her eyes diminished considerably.
"Old Long… I still don't want to die. I wanted to stay longer with everyone…" she murmured softly, as small tears gathered in her eyes.
Chuckling softly, he placed a hand on her shoulder, closing his eyes to hide his own sadness.
"I would like that too, big sister… I would like that too."
…
Very far away, in another small world where darkness covered the entire sky, a large camp stretched across a vast clearing.
The Shadow King was in a building at the center of the place, observing with thoughtful eyes several shadows dissecting a Shadow Beast that resembled a black heron with crimson eyes. The creature was still alive, thrashing violently on the table, bound by numerous chains.
Even as it was opened up and studied without any scruples, the beast only roared in pain and rage, its eyes filled with violence, without the slightest fear.
The Shadow King—or rather, Aotian—meanwhile, seemed lost in thought, analyzing what he had been learning by studying those beings over the past few days.
'They have no soul, there's no apparent hive consciousness, and they don't seem to be under the effect of any spell or being manipulated like puppets.'
'Extremely stupid, they attack anything that possesses spiritual energy with ferocity, trying to destroy it or pollute it.'
'They are attracted to energy of the same level as what they possess in their bodies. That is, cultivators or items with Golden Core energy attract impurities and beasts of that same realm, which often ignore greater or lesser energy than their own, only seeking those at the same level.'
'But there seems to be a detail to this. If a large amount of low-level energy is gathered in a single place, the attraction becomes intense, eventually drawing beasts like the previous rhinoceros king.'
'They're like zombies, trying to kill everything alive, but instead of targeting life itself, they target spiritual energy directly.'
He reflected for a moment, and the idea of sending ordinary humans, without spiritual energy, to explore the place arose in his mind, since theoretically this wouldn't attract the beasts.
However, he soon discarded that foolish thought.
'Although mortals don't directly attract them, there are many impurities in this small world, which would quickly kill people without cultivation when exposed to this environment. After all, even ordinary cultivators can't withstand this for long.'
'And even if that weren't the case, if mortals passed near a shadow beast, those things would certainly crush them just by sensing something alive moving near them.'
Aotian immediately set the matter aside. He didn't have a cold enough heart to use ordinary mortals as scouts, putting their lives at risk.
Sighing, he controlled the new Shadow King to turn around and leave the building, while the zombie beast's screams of pain and rage continued to echo behind him.
As he exited the door, he immediately came face to face with Wang Mei and Kong Huang, the pair of holy daughter and son, who seemed to be looking for him.
"Your Majesty, the shadow soldiers found a few more cultivators outside, but it seems fewer and fewer people are arriving."
Kong Huang reported respectfully, his voice heavy and bitter.
Fewer people naturally meant more dead.
The battle of the previous day had already caused 90% of the humans in the camp—who fled after the arrival of the rhinoceros king—to die tragically, leaving only about a hundred thousand people.
Now, there seemed to be very few humans left in the surrounding areas, making the news even grimmer.
It should be known that trillions of people had entered that small world on that day, and now it was impossible to say how many still remained. No matter what, everything pointed to a catastrophic massacre.
Aotian also felt his heart grow heavy at that information, after all, it was far too many lives to count.
Silently looking at the two in front of him, who wore bitter expressions, after thinking for a brief moment, he made a decision.
["Inform everyone, my troops and I are departing."]
The moment he said this, the two froze, eyes wide, as if a bolt of lightning had struck them.
But without caring about their reaction, he continued with regal authority.
["Don't just stand there, follow the orders. I'll take most of the troops, but I'll leave two million soldiers to continue rescuing humans and eliminating beasts in this region."]
["As for the rest of the troops, we'll go to other regions to continue the rescue. Those among the humans who wish to follow us, let them prepare."]
After giving this firm order, he passed by the two, who stared at him in shock, and moved forward with a clear goal in mind.
Considering the many new troops he had obtained from the previous battle, he was confident in what he was about to do next.
It was time to expand the battlefield.