While Wu Ling kept watch over his surroundings, the silver-purple crescent moon in the sky had somehow become a full moon.
Rose suddenly took Wu Ling's hand. She was not afraid. She was using that contact to awaken the memories in Wu Ling's mind related to this Dragon Tomb.
A few seconds later, Wu Ling's eyes brightened. The information about this place returned to him. After passing over the memories, Rose became like a little money-grubber, constantly choosing and collecting dragon bones from the ground.
Through those awakened memories, Wu Ling finally remembered. This place was known to the outside world as the Dragon Domain. It was not some sacred land of the dragon race. It was the dragon race's graveyard, the shared burial ground of the western dragons of the Qin Emperor universe and the Seven Dragon Cities.
Only true dragons above the seventh rank came to this Dragon Domain when they approached death, spending the last stretch of their lives here.
Over countless years, this place had accumulated a terrifying number of dragon bones and dragon souls. Even dragon kings, and beings stronger than dragon kings, had slept here.
So many dragon remains were already a treasure beyond measure. Now all of it had caught Wu Ling's eye. What he wanted was not one or two sets of dragon bones. He wanted the entire dragon graveyard.
The reason was simple. These dragon bones all came from dragons at the seventh rank or above. In energy terms, the weakest among them was at least comparable to a Spirit King. If he could bring the whole Dragon Tomb back and turn it into a workshop, Wu Ling was confident that even Lucius Cross would enter and never return.
Before that, however, Wu Ling remembered something else. There should still be the dragon soul of a tenth-rank sacred giant dragon in this place.
Just as Wu Ling stayed alert, a sudden change appeared. The purple moon swelled in size, and the light it cast over the Dragon Domain naturally grew brighter.
Under that moonlight, the violent energy storms that had been raging across the Dragon Domain shrank at an astonishing speed, constantly pouring into the gigantic dragon skeletons scattered across the plain.
Beneath the silver-purple full moon, magical elements flowed faster and faster. Clusters of white air began gathering and sinking into the skulls of the dragon remains. Only then did Wu Ling realize that those white currents were dragon souls. They had previously been scattered through the air, but under the moonlight, they were condensing again.
Creak, creak, creak.
The grating sound grew sharper and more intense. The dragon bones that had lain silent began to move. Piles of huge, pale, deathly bones slowly rose from the black earth in grinding motions. Beneath the purple moonlight, their bleak white frames were painfully clear.
As Wu Ling had discovered earlier, this Dragon Domain was not as enormous as it appeared. Its illusion of boundlessness came from something like a mirror reflecting the space. The true Dragon Domain was only the plain before him, the graveyard where countless dragons from ancient times to the present had been buried.
As Wu Ling and Rose watched that rare and horrifying scene, many dragon skeletons had already fully stood. There was not the slightest trace of life on them, but they radiated enormous energy fluctuations and soul power.
These were bone dragons, legendary undead creatures. One of the two great protectors of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Bone Sage Lucius Grimm, had a Martial Soul based on such a being.
When dragons died without accidents such as being dismembered, then after long ages and certain special causes, they could become undead beings known as bone dragons.
A bone dragon usually retained a portion of its battle strength from life. It was inferior to a true living dragon, but it remained extremely powerful.
The key problem was quantity. Too many dragons had been buried on this plain. With only a rough count, two or three thousand bone dragons had awakened.
After countless white soul currents entered the dragon skulls, each skull ignited two ghostly flames like eyes. There were seven colors of flame, matching the seven colors represented by the Seven Dragon Cities and corresponding to the dragons' attributes in life.
While Wu Ling kept observing the dragon graveyard, an old and resonant voice suddenly sounded from all directions.
"Who dares trespass into the dragon race's sacred land and disturb the sleeping souls?"
Unlike ordinary dragons whose wills had been ground away by death, leaving only instinct behind, this voice spoke clearly and possessed intact intelligence. It was obviously no ordinary dragon.
After that voice appeared, the huge heads of the bone dragons all turned toward the silver-purple full moon in the sky, as if waiting for an order.
Wu Ling looked toward the depths of the graveyard and smiled in a way that was hard to read.
"Let me think. You should be the Sacred Giant Dragon Noxis, right? Are you hiding in the center of the Dragon Domain?"
The old voice sounded again, now carrying a trace of surprise. "You know me? Who exactly are you?"
"Who am I? You may call me the Arbiter of Death. I sensed the presence of dead souls, so I came to guide the souls here back to the place where they should go. For example, into my pocket."
"Arbiter of Death? I have never heard of such a title. I do not know how you entered, but you wish to claim the dragon souls here? Ridiculous!"
The old voice roared. The bone dragons under its control raised their heads and howled together, releasing unprecedented pressure.
The dragons were dead, but their souls had not scattered. In this dragon graveyard, their bodies remained here while their souls usually existed in a free-floating state. Only when the silver-purple moon became full did the souls return to their bodies. These bone dragons possessed half the strength they had held in life. Now that the restraint was gone, instinct and the sacred giant dragon's suggestion drove them into attack.
A change rippled through the mass of bone dragons. Their ghostly flames locked onto Wu Ling, who had made no effort to hide. With a strange sound, at least a hundred bone dragons rose into the air, beating skeletal wings as they rushed toward him.
The bone dragons' wings were formed from their original magical elements and bones. Their flight speed was far slower than that of true dragons, but they had more than enough numbers.
Wu Ling smiled faintly. He had already expected to encounter dark-type creatures here, so although he still lacked large-scale attack power, he had prepared in advance.
He took a golden bead from his storage ring. Surging flames seemed to tumble inside it.
"Heaven and earth without limit, borrowed law of the cosmos, urgent as a command. Sacred Flame!"
With that very un-dignified chant, Wu Ling simply threw the bead out.
When the bead collided with the bone dragons, it exploded. Vast golden flames swept across the dragons charging toward Wu Ling. Through the fire, Wu Ling could vaguely see countless dragon souls dancing joyfully in the flames. He sighed with feeling.
"Look at that. They have not seen firelight in all these years, so the moment they see it, they start partying."
Here, the source author adds a power-scaling explanation. In the Qin Emperor world, human ranks are divided by rainbow colors, while magical beast ranks run from one to ten. Broadly, seventh to ninth rank beasts and purple-rank human experts correspond to the high Soul Land bands around Spirit King and Spirit Emperor, while white-rank experts and tenth-rank magical beasts correspond to Titled Sage or hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast level. The comparison is approximate, but it explains why Wu Ling treats the seventh-rank dragon bones as high-grade materials rather than ordinary remains.