Chapter Nine

I pondered as I walked, finally deciding to go with the mechanized dragon to see what exactly had happened to the Phoenix Clan. Only if the mechanized dragon could hear it would prove that the mobile nest of the Phoenix Clan was nearby. The Phoenix Clan had a bizarre habit of moving their nest, but they should not be moving now.

"The mobile nest of the Phoenix Clan, I always knew about it but never went in, after all, I am not the Dragon Emperor," the mechanized dragon said happily, gazing at the mesmerizing barrier in front of us.

"It has nothing to do with being the Dragon Emperor, I was once their son-in-law."

"Once?"

"I died later, and so did she."

"Oh, I see, it's the 'Dragon Spirit Covenant,' or the privilege of the Dragon Emperor."

"I find that you speak very disrespectfully."

"Your Majesty, the Dragon Emperor, I also find that you do not care about respect for dragons."

"Let me think, how to open this mesmerizing barrier of the mobile nest." The mesmerizing barrier was right in front of us, a transparent mirror surface in the jungle, and it seemed like the surrounding jungle had not moved in ten years. What has Marutian been up to since thirty years ago?

"Is this kind of barrier difficult to open? Is it a complex and lengthy process?"

"No need, just one key to open!" I clenched my fist against the surface of the mesmerizing barrier. We couldn't just go in like this, otherwise we would enter the illusion of the Phoenix Clan, and unraveling the illusion of the Phoenix Clan is very troublesome, taking at least a few days.

After measuring the distance, I used a very precise force and distance to strike the barrier with my fist, and then the mesmerizing barrier opened.

"The simpler it is, the harder to think, the designer is clever!" The mechanized dragon stepped into the mobile nest, which turned out to be a city full of traditional colors. The more powerful and long-lived a creature is, the slower its reproduction rate. This scale was the result of hundreds of thousands of years of prosperous living, but despite its size, it was lifeless, a dead city.

"It's easier for the Phoenix Clan to transform people than the Dragon Clan!" The mechanized dragon saw the Phoenix Clan, who had died with human skeletons.

"That is indeed a human, perhaps hired by the demon clan, who knows? Look around, see if the Phoenix Clan left any clues."

"Don't you already know who did it? Why look?"

"To find the reason, to see if the Phoenix Clan left anything that could tell us the reason."

"What about the other dragon clans?"

"I've changed the plan. The dragon clan in The Demon Realm will be looked into by the Frost Lord, The Human Realm is left to my dragon concubines, and The Divine Realm will depend on Hisa's capabilities."

The mechanized dragon and I split up to search in two different directions. In this mobile nest, I recalled some memories. It was common for the Demon Dragon to come and go here. Although the Phoenix Clan did not like me, when I and the Rainbow Phoenix of the Qin Family's ancestors appeared together, they all opposed it unanimously. However, the Demon Dragon was never afraid, and this place was as easy to enter or exit as spoken.

Seeing the skeletons of the Phoenix Clan inside the mobile nest, I also understood why I had never seen any real Phoenix Clan since I was resurrected. It was once again the masterpiece of the Dragon clan, Marutian really annoyed me.

Picking up a Phoenix Clan skeleton, there were dragon claw marks, indicating that the Phoenix was torn in half while alive, with a style typical of dragon warriors. However, the Phoenix Clan was supposed to have followed the Dragon clan since the beginning of the "old timeline," showing no emotion at all.

"A corpse?" I suddenly thought of someone, and my fingers drew an empty space beside me, plunging my hand into the void, feeling something slippery and soft. I brought it over, passing through the spatial hole, and saw... Zi Sirou naked!

"Ah!" The piercing scream became a highlight in this dead city.

Five minutes later, Zi Sirou, neatly dressed, ruthlessly kicked me to the ground!

"Are you courting death, you jerk Qin Yang! What's the point of using spatial Magic to bring me to this desolate place when I was taking a shower!"

"Who would expect you to be showering in broad daylight…"

Zi Sirou, hands on her hips, bent down and said, "You have no clue when girls shower."

"Exactly! I have no clue, why do you like using a Flaming Rat towel, don't you find it ugly? Who drew the rat?"

"What rat, this is a hamster! What did you grab, give it back to me!" Zi Sirou put away her towel, a bit shyly changing the subject, "Why did you bring me here? The UV rays in The Demon Realm are so intense!"

"This is still a desert, what's there to fear about the sun…" I cut open another spatial hole in Zi Sirou's room to get some sunscreen.

"Why are you so familiar with my room?"

"You might not want to know about that."

"Back to the point, what do you want to do?" Zi Sirou naturally took the sunscreen and started applying it.

I pointed to the phoenix skeletons, wanting to borrow her ability to see the moments before their deaths.

Zi Sirou was excited to see the phoenix bones for the first time. There were still feathers on the ground, maintaining magic and vitality after many years, similar to dragon scales.

She picked up a bone and instantly dropped it, her expression as terrified as if she were watching the scariest movie.

"Is it very bloody and violent!"

"Even more disgusting than Anubis eating hearts…"

"I'll keep looking, you take your time."

Seeing the images of the moments before death was a painful ability. Looking at them one by one, each terrifying scene made Zi Sirou sick.

In this city of death, there were stone steles where crucial information about the phoenix clan was recorded. Obviously, Marutian, who knew this method well, had destroyed most of them. I could only try my luck to see if I could find any surviving and usable steles.

In such a huge city, finding them was challenging, but fortunately, I actually found one. After infusing it with magic, the stele reacted, and the inscriptions lit up one by one.

"Useless junk!" I tossed the stele aside; it only recorded some historical events.

Walking to the high point of the city, I saw a palace with a throne in the center, and there were bones on the throne.

"Seth…" I recognized the phoenix on the throne by the bones. This palace had also been glorious before, now only the desolate bones remained.

"If your soul can't rest, give me a hint! Seth, you were after all the king of the phoenix clan. Isn't there any information that can let others know why all this happened?"

"Should I help you take a look at him?" Zi Sirou walked in from the outside of the palace.

"Done throwing up? Feel better?"

"Getting used to throwing up, the sooner we find what we need, the sooner we can leave. This place is so creepy."

"Oh! Seth was a powerful phoenix, but he ended up dying on his own throne, very tragic!"

Zi Sirou poked my forehead with her finger and said softly, "What's the use of feeling sentimental! It's just a pile of bones now, think about how good we are."

"I have a hunch that Marutian must have had a reason for slaughtering phoenixes, it's a massive project, they wouldn’t do it if it wasn't tough and thankless."

We walked up to the throne and looked up at it from our height, which was like a giant mountain.

"What did you see?"

"The white dragon said: 'It's you in the end, there won't be anything else!'"

"What won't there be?"

"Not specified, but he gave us a hint. The last gaze is at the throne. What could be so worth his dying gaze!" Zi Sirou circled around the throne but didn't find anything.

"If it were easy to find, Marutian would have found it back then."

"Digging three feet deep? I can't lift or move anything!"

"The design concept of the illusionary nest-moving barrier is likely to be misleading. Could Marutian, clearly in front of him before dying, have not seen such an obvious action of looking at the throne? From what I see, there might be a better chance directly above the throne." I looked up at the top of the palace.

We searched every tile on the top, and on the tiles, there were some patterns that seemed decorative, but the lines were somewhat eerie. Although outlining a phoenix totem, some areas of the lines seemed incongruent. Perhaps the engraved design did not match the current appearance, perhaps designed to be dismantled and combined into another formation.

"Siro, do you like playing jigsaw puzzles? This seems to be a large-scale jigsaw puzzle!"

"Thousands of pieces! Do any of your student council members play? Apart from us in the news department."

"Great idea! I'm in!"

Among the idle members of our student council were Lin Wenxing and Liu Qingqing, both therapists. They should actually be sent to the front lines, the best candidates for medics. The news department had three people. It took us most of the day, reassembling the tiles. The compatibility of the original pattern was high, but reassembling required a lot of brainpower, and part of it might need to be redone, which was quite a mental torture.

"Thank you all. This should be the final assembled image - a hidden surveillance Magic array."

As the complete pattern emerged, what I saw was a clearly marked surveillance Magic array, disrupting the array pattern, likely to have disoriented Seth's life in his final moments instantly.

Activating the entire Magic array, the holographic projection within the palace made everyone present feel like they were right there. The fierce battle between the phoenix and the dragon was portrayed vividly. At this moment, the mechanical dragon quietly entered the palace, naturally blending in with the onlookers from the student council and the news department watching the surveillance recordings, as the battle was just too spectacular.

In the end, the phoenix, unable to withstand the injuries from the white dragon, lay on the throne. Its once vibrant feathers began to fade, a sign of its rapid demise.

"Dragon clan, we have followed you for countless ages, only to face extinction in the end!"

"No choice. The Dragon clan only needed one sacred object. The fact that the Dragon clan did not take you with us and still hasn't realized it, that without you, that thing will never exist again!"

"We have no idea what that thing you're talking about is. Our ancestor, the phoenix, left no information behind. Are you asking us to die?!"

"Only with all of you gone can I truly find peace!"

"You despicable traitor!"

In the end, as the dragon's claws pierced the phoenix's heart, the phoenix blood caused the palace to undergo various strange transformations. Yet the white dragon remained indifferent, stating, "It's you in the end, there won't be anything else!"

Those present were drenched in cold sweat. The Dragon clan killing the phoenix would probably be talked about for generations in The Human Realm.

"So it was a sacred object? What exactly is that thing..."