A normal dantian could be filled. Strengthened. Stabilized. Pushed upward.
Long Shenyu's dantian was not normal. The Primordial Devouring Dragon foundation made every layer a cavern without visible end. His Source Energy did not simply gather; it compressed, refined, devoured impurities, and demanded more. His dragon body rejected shallow advancement. His meridians would rather tear apart weak energy and rebuild it than accept a soft breakthrough.
Every layer required enough power to build a foundation that would crush ordinary cultivators alive.
Long Shenyu opened his eyes.
A faint dragon shadow moved behind his pupils.
"So that's how it is."
The room was silent.
He smiled.
Not frustrated.
Interested.
"The body refuses to grow cheaply."
That was good.
Annoying, but good.
In his previous life, speed had been useful. Foundation had been everything. He had seen countless geniuses rise quickly, dazzle a generation, then break when they touched a true threshold because their early strength had been inflated by pills, inheritances, and praise.
Long Shenyu had no intention of building a tower on mud.
If his reborn foundation demanded absurd amounts of power, then he would feed it absurd amounts of power.
If Origin Core wished to become deeper than other men's Sky Lord foundations, he would allow it.
If every step forward required conquest, women worthy of Sovereign Bonds, and enemies foolish enough to bring treasures to his door, then the world was being very considerate.
What interested him more was his soul.
It had not advanced.
The Primordial Dragon Soul remained at the same awakening stage.
No matter how much his cultivation surged, no matter how much his dantian deepened, the soul's deepest layer stayed still. Vast. Awake enough to be used. But not moving forward.
Long Shenyu closed his eyes and sank inward.
There, in the darkness beneath consciousness, the Primordial Dragon Soul coiled.
It was not sleeping.
It was waiting.
That was the sensation.
Not sealed.
Not damaged.
Waiting.
As if this level of Source Energy, this level of body, this level of Dao contact, was not enough to stir it further.
Long Shenyu laughed quietly.
"Picky bastard."
The dragon soul gave no answer.
He was not worried.
His current combat power was already enough to make ordinary Noble Domain powers regret existing near him. Average sects with Sage Ruler ancestors did not frighten him. Even so-called Great Noble Domain powers did not inspire fear.
Curiosity, perhaps.
What treasures would they bring?
What inheritances would they reveal before he crushed them?
Which daughters, heiresses, saintesses, or proud geniuses would cross his path believing themselves untouchable?
That thought amused him far more.
But the most curious matter was not himself.
It was his arrogant sister.
Long Shenyin spent most of these weeks away from the others.
She came and went without explanation.
Sometimes she left before dawn, Black Sun Tyrant Spear resting across her shoulder, expression bored, as if the world had failed to entertain her and she was going out to punish it. Sometimes she vanished for two days. Sometimes three.
When she returned, the scent of blood around her was always thicker.
Sometimes beast blood.
Heavy, musky, wild.
Sometimes human.
Sharper.
More familiar.
Long Shenyu noticed.
Naturally, he did not give a shit who she killed.
If they died to Long Shenyin, they had either offended her, bored her, attacked her, followed her, looked too confident near her, or simply existed in the wrong place while carrying enough strength to make killing them mildly useful.
All were acceptable reasons by her standards.
And, if Long Shenyu was honest, not entirely unacceptable by his own.
What made him curious was not the killing.
It was her progress.
Despite not sharing his Sovereign Bonds, despite not receiving the exact compounding multiplier that flowed through him and his women, Long Shenyin kept pace.
Great Perfection Origin Core.
The same as him.
She reached it through a path far uglier and far more direct.
Battle.
Pain.
Slaughter.
Her Asura Wargod Body drank danger like wine. Her Primordial Asura Dragon Blood sharpened every time killing intent flooded her veins. The Asura Dragon Slaughter Art did not ask for peace, meditation, or balanced refinement. It demanded enemies. It demanded pressure. It demanded the kind of combat where a lesser cultivator would lose nerve before losing blood.
Long Shenyin gave it all of that.
…
Compared to the pressure gathering outside River Ridge City, the private room inside the Three Spirit Inn was almost peaceful.
Long Shenyu sat lazily beside the window, one leg crossed over the other, his posture so relaxed that anyone seeing him might have thought he was listening to poetry rather than reading reports about half the Noble Domain sharpening its knives.
His arm rested along the back of the couch.
Ning Huang sat beside him.
Not far from him. Not politely apart. Close.
Close enough that his fingers occasionally brushed her sleeve. Close enough that when he shifted, the back of his hand grazed the curve of her waist. He did not hide it. He did not exaggerate it either. To Long Shenyu, such contact was natural. He had claimed her before enemies, defended her before sects, and spoken of her as his woman with the casual certainty of a man stating the color of the sky.
The problem was that Ning Huang was not yet used to him being so natural about it.
She sat straight-backed, proud, beautiful, and visibly trying not to react every time his fingers touched her.
Across from them, Mei Qingxue and Shen Lanyue sat at the table.
Several stacks of reports lay before them. Some were written on ordinary paper. Some were thin jade slips. Some had been copied from merchant ledgers. Others were coded scraps seized from branded River Ridge leaders, Moonveil remnants, and hidden channels once connected to Night Ledger.
The more they read, the colder the room became.
Mei Qingxue was usually soft in expression, but now her brows were drawn together. Shen Lanyue's face was calm, yet her fingertips moved over each report with the careful precision of a sword testing where to cut. They were not frightened. After following Long Shenyu this far, fear had become difficult to hold for long.
But they were serious.
That alone said enough.
River Ridge City had been conquered too quickly. Too brutally. Too publicly. Sky Lords had fallen. Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace had been humiliated. Verdant Edge Sword Sect had lost face. Demon and beast forces had stretched their claws toward Ning Huang and had nearly had those claws torn off from thousands of miles away.
For a few days, everything had been quiet.
Now they understood why.
The Noble Domain had not ignored them.
It had been inhaling.
And soon, it would breathe out killing intent.
Ning Huang read through one of the jade slips, her eyes growing sharper with every line. The glow from the slip painted her face in pale gold, making the hard elegance of her features even clearer. She was trying to focus.
Trying.
Long Shenyu kept watching her.
At first, she endured it.
Then she ignored it.
Then his fingers brushed her waist again, and the corner of his mouth curved as if her effort to stay composed amused him more than all the dangers written in front of them.
Ning Huang finally turned her head.
"Are you listening?"
Long Shenyu smiled. "You look prettier when you are annoyed, so partially."
Her eyes sharpened. "Long Shenyu."
"There. Even better."
Mei Qingxue lowered her head at once, pretending to study the paper in front of her. Her shoulders trembled faintly.
Shen Lanyue did not hide her reaction as well. She sighed, calm but faintly exasperated.
"You are making her forget the report."
"I am improving morale."
"You are distracting her."
"She is still reading."
"I am reading despite you," Ning Huang said coldly.
"That sounds like discipline. Good. Heaven's Edict did teach you something useful."
Her glare deepened.
Long Shenyu looked even more pleased.
Ning Huang's ears turned red.
That small change did not escape anyone in the room. Mei Qingxue noticed it and pressed her lips together to hold back a smile. Shen Lanyue noticed and looked down at the report again, wisely pretending she had not.
Long Shenyu noticed first.
Of course he did.
Before, Ning Huang would have pulled away the moment affection became visible. To her, closeness in front of others had been an exposure, almost a flaw. She had been raised beneath judgment, authority, rivalry, and the pressure of a sect that turned strength into doctrine. A War Heiress could be admired. Feared. Envied. Challenged.
But held?
Teased?
Made to blush in front of others?
That was another battlefield entirely.
Yet now, though her face was red and her eyes were sharp enough to cut paper, she did not move away from him.
Long Shenyu's smile softened for half a breath.
Only half.
Then it returned to its usual shameless curve.
Ning Huang saw that softness, and for some reason it made her more flustered than the teasing.
She looked back at the report, voice stiff. "There are three matters."
"Mm."
"Do not 'mm' me like you were listening all along."
"I was listening to your voice."
"Long Shenyu."
"There it is again."
Mei Qingxue nearly failed to hide her laugh.
Shen Lanyue closed her eyes for a moment, as if silently asking the heavens why the man who could crush Sky Lords also behaved like this in private.
Ning Huang inhaled slowly.
Then she forced herself to continue.
"First. Jadeflow Exchange City will soon host a hidden auction involving the Sage-Root Heaven Marrow."
The name settled over the room with visible weight.
Even Long Shenyu's eyes shifted slightly.
Not alarm. Interest.
Mei Qingxue lifted one of the copied reports and added softly, "The source appears reliable. Three different merchant channels recorded movement from medicine brokers, hidden auction guards, and a Night Ledger-linked courier route. The details are not identical, but they point to the same city."
"Sage-Root Heaven Marrow," Shen Lanyue said. "Heaven Rank, but not ordinary Heaven Rank."
Ning Huang nodded. "It forms beneath ancient spirit trees that have absorbed Sage Qi for centuries. Root, stone, marrow, and law trace fuse into a pale-gold substance. It is not enough to create a Sage Ruler, but for cultivators below that realm, its value is enormous."
Long Shenyu leaned back. "So, I assume for ordinary geniuses, it strengthens the dantian and steadies the Sky Lord threshold."
"For terrifying geniuses at Great Perfection Origin Core," Shen Lanyue said, looking at him directly, "it can help push the transition into Sky Lord without damaging the foundation."
"Then it is worth taking."
Ning Huang's gaze sharpened again. "You say that as though Jadeflow is a roadside stall."
"Is it not?"
"No." She spoke flatly. "Jadeflow Exchange City is neutral only in name. It stands between sect territories, river routes, medicine valleys, old auction networks, and shadow traders. Inside the oath-protected districts, killing is forbidden. Outside them, people disappear for buying the wrong treasure in front of the wrong eyes."
Long Shenyu looked amused. "A market with rules where rules are profitable, and corpses where rules are inconvenient."
"That is one way to describe it."
"That sounds honest enough."
"It is not a compliment."
"It was not meant as one."
Ning Huang stared at him for a long moment before deciding, wisely, that this was not worth pursuing.
She continued. "Second. Rumors about you and Shenyin have spread across the Noble Domain."
"Only now?" Long Shenyu looked disappointed. "They are slow."
"They contradict each other on purpose," Mei Qingxue said, her voice becoming colder. "Some say you possess a damaged Saint Artifact. Others say you obtained an Emperor ruin. Some say Ning Huang carries Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace's forbidden lightning inheritance."
Shen Lanyue's fingers paused on one of the reports.
"There is another."
The room became quiet.
Mei Qingxue did not read it aloud at once.
Ning Huang's expression had already darkened.
Long Shenyu glanced between them.
Then Shen Lanyue said calmly, "Some rumors claim your strength comes from the women around you. That you use them as furnaces. That you steal yin essence to raise your cultivation."
The paper in Mei Qingxue's hand crinkled.
For the first time since the conversation began, her gentle aura carried a trace of killing intent. It was not loud. It was not wild. It was cold, thin, and precise, like a moonlit needle sliding from its sheath.
Ning Huang's face showed open disgust.
Shen Lanyue's expression did not change much, but the air around her cooled.
Long Shenyu laughed.
It was not loud.
That made it worse.
Ning Huang turned toward him. "You find that funny?"
"I find dead men imaginative."
"That rumor is aimed at them." Her voice dropped, each word clear. "At Qingxue and Lanyue. At me too."
"I know."
His tone changed.
Not sharply. Not dramatically. It simply lost its playful edge.
The three women looked at him.
Long Shenyu was still leaning against the couch. His hand was still near Ning Huang's waist. His posture was still lazy, his robes loose, his dark hair falling beside his cheek as if nothing in the world could pressure him.
But his eyes were different.
There was warmth in them, yes.
There was also something beneath that warmth that belonged to battlefields, ruined sects, and enemies who realized too late that they had insulted the wrong person.
"That is why the idiots who act on it will die uglier than the ones who only believe it."
The room quieted.
Mei Qingxue's anger eased slightly, though the coldness had not vanished. Shen Lanyue said nothing, but her gaze softened. Ning Huang looked at him as if she still wanted to scold him, yet could not find carelessness in his face to attack.
Long Shenyu gave her waist a light squeeze.
"Better?"
"No."
"Liar."
Her ears reddened again.
Mei Qingxue lowered her head, but this time her smile was gentler.
Shen Lanyue arranged the papers into three piles. "Third. Multiple Noble Domain sects are quietly moving toward Jadeflow. Not all of them trust the rumors. Some think Verdant Edge is using them. Some believe Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace is involved. Some suspect Night Ledger's hand."
"They suspect correctly," Long Shenyu said.
"Yes," Shen Lanyue replied. "But that does not matter. The possibility alone is enough."
Ning Huang took over. "Two Origin Core cultivators killing Sky Lords, resisting Sage Ruler-class means, humiliating Heaven's Edict, and carrying unknown inheritances. No sect can ignore that. Even if they think the rumor is bait, they still want to know what kind of bait is worth setting."
Long Shenyu smiled faintly.
"Good."
Ning Huang's brows tightened. "Good?"
"Of course."
"You heard everything we said?"
"I heard all of it."
"And that is your conclusion?"
"Yes."
Ning Huang stared at him.
Long Shenyu looked back with calm amusement.
After several breaths, she pressed her fingers against her forehead. "This is ba—"
"So they finally decided to stop acting like bitches?"
The voice cut in from the side.
Cold. Flat. Mocking.
The temperature of the room seemed to change.
Long Shenyin stood near the wall, arms crossed, Black Sun Tyrant Spear resting beside her within reach. No one had heard her enter. Or perhaps she had been there for some time and had simply decided the conversation was finally worth insulting.