At the dragon’s head lay a cavernous void; unlike the rib-carved hollows of the body, spirit-sense read the head as an irregular oval, dim as a moon behind mist.
Spreading spirit-sense too wide would let magic laced with dragon power seep in, and the over-extended mind gave those spirit-illusions a chance, like reeds parting for wind.
Silver Luan only unfurled his spirit within a few hundred meters, a sphere of sensing like a lantern of awareness in dark water.
Wary of dragon power’s sway, he didn’t scan the entire sea within the dragon’s remains, a sea within a sea like nested shells.
So when they reached the head, both were startled; they skimmed the winding neck, veered left, and silence dropped like a net.
A vast, radiant membrane glowed over the head’s region, a luminous veil that polished darkness bright as burnished jade.
Beyond the veil the light softened, like dawn through paper screens; that’s why, though the bend wasn’t sharp, they felt no glow until they rounded it.
“Uh…”
Silver Luan’s spirit-sense disagreed with his eyes, a split between mirror and water.
When his magic touched the membrane, there was no drag, only blur—like fog on glass.
It was hazy, but the terrain and any sea beasts still showed in outline, brushstrokes more than edges.
Yet even after seeing the veil, spirit-sense stayed blurred; that meant the light film itself deceived the mind, a mirage woven into breath.
To be safe, Silver Luan checked himself first, spirit combing soul like silk on a loom; finding no kink, he tugged Cerqin forward.
Cerqin stared, surprised; without Silver Luan’s magic as a medium, mind-type illusions didn’t trouble her, a calm lake refusing ripples.
In that field, the Love God’s rules resisted better than any high-tier cultivator’s mental bulwark, a vow stronger than iron.
Hand in hand, they slipped through the veil, and the world flipped; ocean dark became a dazzling garden, colors like lacquer poured into sight.
Strange blossoms and grasses breathed perfume into their lungs, honey and spice curling like smoke.
They hovered, steadied their hearts; their bodies whispered land beneath, soil and stones under silk.
This scene fit a mythic treasure realm of a divine dragon, a legend stitched into petals and paths.
But the more perfect it looked, the more false it felt, a painted scroll against a living sky.
The dissonance pricked sharper than before, thorns under velvet.
They held steady and flew barely ten meters; the world snapped again, a drumbeat between breaths.
This time a peculiar mental pulse rolled out with dense dragon magic, a tide of force brushing the skin.
Volcanoes reared undersea, their throats rumbling like war drums.
Ten meters more, a familiar twitch tugged; the scene shifted again, a deck of worlds dealt in quick hands.
From lush forest, to snowfields with drifting white, to damp caves glistening, to valley meadows green as tea.
In barely a hundred meters, the scenes changed a dozen times, a string of beads flipping colors.
Then the visions turned harsher, danger walking close like a shadow at noon.
Battlefields, behemoths, killing intent—steel, roars, the smell of hot blood.
The pressure from the swelling mental waves grew clearer, a weight settling like mountains on mind.
Silver Luan kept his face light, eyes straight; he flew forward simply, a needle stitching a clean line through cloth.
Even as the pressure rose, he had to split a strand of mind to hold it back, a hand bracing a door.
After roughly a kilometer, true weight landed; the illusion pressed hard on spirit and soul, a millstone grinding.
“Silver Luan, you okay…”
Cerqin sounded like nothing touched her, yet worry flowed first, then her glance.
That pressure didn’t bite her; she felt the massive force shoreward, and she welcomed it, waves taken as wine.
It was built of Negative Energy and dragon aura; absorbing it fed her spirit with euphoria, sweet and heady.
Her body toughened fast in response, bones like tempered steel.
“I’m fine…”
Silver Luan let out a breath and answered low, then sighed, humor thin as thread.
“You feel nothing… I thought I’d have to spare a mind to shield you.”
“It’s not my first time with Negative Energy…”
Cerqin scratched her head, then looked forward, a spark of hunt in her eyes.
“Feels like the core’s close… maybe twenty meters?”
Ahead, the air thickened with power, concentration like resin.
“Huff… Cerqin, don’t use the Love God to help me.”
“Mm…”
She hesitated, then nodded; she toggled off the Love God’s pendant-mode, and its aid stopped, a lantern snuffed.
They kept holding hands to catch any trap quickly, fingers a tether in shifting light.
If it stayed attached, Silver Luan feared distractions would snag him, thoughts unspooling.
He told her not to call the Love God mostly out of stubborn dislike, a grit he wouldn’t swallow.
They went another dozen meters; pressure spiked severalfold, a sudden storm beyond the reef.
To Silver Luan, it felt like standing close before a sky-large god-dragon, clouds for scales.
“Really don’t need my help?”
“N—no.”
Cerqin felt sweat beading in the hand she held, warmth slick as dew.
His breath and mental state wobbled, choppy like wind-cut water; he’d burned spirit and strength in a short rush.
Scales on his body showed lines on their own, life force knitting him back, a loom working fast.
But the effect was weak; his own dragon power met the surrounding dragon power and bowed, lines dimmer than before.
After a rest of more than ten seconds, Silver Luan drew Cerqin onward, step by step like stones across a stream.
They entered a zone of different mental density; the expected crush didn’t strike, pressure pausing like a held wind.
Cerqin had prepared to invoke the Love God, to keep him from collapsing, spirit and stamina spent to white.
But that moment never came.
As the scene shifted once more, the pressure ebbed like a tide at dusk.
The far walls returned to a vast cavern, and the faint glowing film lay visible again, a sheen like fish-scale light.
Before them floated a platform a hundred meters wide, a pocket garden hanging like a cloud.
Cerqin and Silver Luan traded a look and dropped down, footsteps soft on the green.
On the floating platform, the aura was strong and heavy, but the pressure held no spear point, no aim.
At the garden’s center, before a small pavilion, ink-blue breath gathered on the bench, smoke pooling into shape.
It drew into a hazy figure; the face stayed unclear, but you could glimpse finery, a golden crown and dragon horns, a shape slender yet full.
The moment that silhouette appeared, a strong one’s presence spilled out, a blade wrapped in silk.
Silver Luan sensed the dragon power streaming from the figure and bowed, spine like bamboo.
“Greetings, senior.”
Cerqin felt a sudden illusion of seeing Archbishop Mingxi; she bowed with Silver Luan, then peeked, curious as a sparrow.
She studied the figure’s shape and couldn’t help her thoughts, conjecture blooming.
Moved by instinct, Cerqin cast the Hand of Space at the non-corporeal remnant soul, a reach through still air.
A blurred white clump of breath popped into her palm, inexplicable as frost in summer.
The mood went awkward all at once, silence heavy as stone.
“Why did that even work…”
“…”
“…”
The Hand of Space only grasps entities without a magic aura; it shouldn’t move a clump of magic, a cloud made of power.
Realizing that, the clump dissolved fast, smoke losing form.
“So it was an illusion…”
Cerqin muttered, a hint of regret threading her voice, a missed fish slipping the net.
“Little girl, your courage’s quite fat.”
The dragon soul spoke, voice low and even; emotion pressed close, not hollow like a mere remnant.
“Uh…”
Bang.
Silver Luan smacked Cerqin on the head, glare sharp as an arrow; he bowed again, words tripping.
“Senior Sea Dragon, truly sorry… this one, she… uh.”
He couldn’t find a clean word to absolve Cerqin, tongue tangled.
“Each divine dragon has a different nature,” the figure said, tone like cold tea, “and calling a clan by an individual trait is rude, little one of silver-dragon blood.”
“Uh…”
Silver Luan flushed with embarrassment, face tinged like sunset.
“I’m Xuanyou. I’m not a Sea Dragon. My aspect is Illusion, so call me an Illusion Dragon.”
The hazy figure spoke on, lifted its head to regard them, then sighed, breath thin as reed-flute.
“Forget it… sit. In all these long years, you’re the first to enter. A pity—neither of you suits my legacy.”
“Illusion Dragon… wasn’t the legend about a Sea Dragon?”
Cerqin whispered, no malice felt; she pulled Silver Luan down opposite Xuanyou, a low table between like calm water.
“Just now, the Hand of Space actually triggered, Senior Xuanyou—”
Silver Luan swung and covered her mouth, and asked the doubt lodged in his chest, a pebble in a shoe.
“Isn’t this the place where the Sea Dragon senior fell, as the rumors say…”
