Chapter 17
Chapter 17: The Grand Void Dragon Transformation Chapter—A Hundred Fleeting Years, Rising as a Demon Lord
When the Mountain Soul's will let slip a thread of subtle relief and wild glee—its perception sensing that the furnace within was nearing completion—
The moment had come.
Jiang Linxian moved.
The terrifying pressure born of his body's sudden expansion, channeled through his cultivation into the barely-manageable Mountain Bearing and Guidance techniques, caused his originally slender serpent body to swell several fold in an instant.
He transformed into a colossal white-scaled serpent phantom—horns just beginning to emerge, claws faintly visible.
Though he had not yet reached a hundred zhang, the dense and weighty sense of power had already set the entire cauldron space groaning under its strain.
Break!
The great serpent phantom slammed upward in the most brutish manner possible.
Crack—!!!
A thunderous crack like a collapsing mountain rang out. The black cauldron fire, along with a century's worth of pent-up demonic energy and pill energy, found their outlet at last—and erupted in a mad torrent.
Outside the cauldron.
The Mountain Soul, who had been reaching out its withered, bony hand in eager anticipation to open the cauldron and collect the pill, gave a violent shudder. The expression of greedy ecstasy frozen on its face instantly turned to disbelief and horror.
"Impossible! The pill hasn't formed—how could the cauldron—"
Before the words had finished—
A streak of white radiance burst into view amidst the flying shards of the shattered cauldron lid and cascading black flames.
Jiang Linxian's true form followed close behind the phantom, his speed pushed to its very limit. Carrying the overwhelming momentum of his furnace-shattering escape, along with a century's worth of imprisoned rage and refinement-born hatred, he lunged straight for the Mountain Soul's true body.
The Mountain Soul was, after all, an ancient creature. Startled but not broken, it let out a furious roar and slammed its withered palm into the earth.
The entire Seven Absolute Mountain's earth veins let out a resounding rumble as countless stone spikes erupted from the ground.
The Mountain Soul's icy Mountain Soul force manifested into countless ghost-claws, clawing toward Jiang Linxian in an attempt to block and subdue him once more.
Jiang Linxian twisted nimbly through the air, using Abyss Diving and Ground Shrinking—a faint glimmer flashing past—and effortlessly evaded the densest cluster of stone attacks.
Mountain Bearing flowed throughout his body, smashing apart what remained in his path. When the Mountain Soul condensed its earth vein yin-force into a supreme strike and sent it crashing toward him—
A fierce gleam flashed in his eyes. He neither dodged nor retreated. His massive tail, bearing the force of ten thousand jun, met the blow head-on!
Boom—!!!
The terrifying shockwave sheared away an entire layer of stone from the mountaintop.
The Mountain Soul let out a muffled grunt. Countless hairline fractures split across its withered husk, oozing foul black blood that reeked of rotten incense smoke.
The horror in its eyes deepened—because it had sensed that the opposing force was not merely powerful.
It also carried a kind of essence that countered and assimilated its own.
The Mountain Soul's most prized control over the earth veins felt sluggish and unresponsive in the face of that force.
"You... you swallowed the immortal pill?! You stole this deity's fortune!"
The Mountain Soul let out a shrill, venomous howl. Like a creature gone mad, it threw caution to the wind and burned what remained of its primal essence.
Its entire body began to swell and twist, transforming into a hulking monster—half stone, half rotting flesh—for one last desperate stand.
But burning dry kindling is only hastening one's own end; this body had long since been hollowed out by decay.
No wonder it had been in such a hurry.
Jiang Linxian's gaze was ice-cold, utterly without mercy.
His serpent body coiled. Though he had not fully unleashed the corresponding divine ability, his gathered aura formed at his back a vague and towering spiritual manifestation—enormous, majestic, only just taking shape.
Though still an embryonic form, it already carried a grand and sovereign presence—one that commanded earth, water, fire, and wind; that perceived the depths of the netherworld; that could contain all of heaven and earth.
This spiritual manifestation sent a silent roar toward the monster the Mountain Soul had become.
The Mountain Soul's burning momentum shuddered to a halt, as though it had been suppressed by a being of a higher order.
Jiang Linxian seized that fleeting instant and coiled around it.
By this point, the outcome was already decided.
"No—!! This deity is a... righteous spirit of mountain and... peak..."
The Mountain Soul's final wail cut off abruptly.
The stone-flesh monstrosity, stripped of its core, crashed and crumbled—dissolving into countless shards of inert stone and foul blood scattered across the ground.
Jiang Linxian hovered in midair, slowly absorbing the Mountain Soul's last residual spirit essence and its chaotic, fragmented memories.
These memory fragments were saturated with madness and venom—yet they also contained partial records of Seven Absolute Mountain's hidden secrets.
He did not inherit any of the Mountain Soul's divine authority. He had simply excised the tumor entirely, and in so doing gained a slight affinity with the earth veins.
He withdrew his aura and returned to his normal state, touching down on what remained of the mountain's disfigured peak.
He looked out over all directions. Seven Absolute Mountain stood unchanged—yet the distribution of demonic energy and spiritual energy throughout the mountain had shifted in ways subtle but unmistakable.
With the survival crisis resolved, Jiang Linxian finally had time to assess his current situation.
The commotion on Seven Absolute Mountain had sent many sprites fleeing. He idly locked onto a yellow weasel sprite and interrogated it directly.
"G-g-g-great King! Spare me! Great Serpent Immortal King, spare my life! This little demon... this little demon barely has any meat, I'd taste awful! You... whatever you wish to ask, this little demon will tell you everything, hold nothing back—I'll serve you with my very life!"
It could barely get its words out, its whole body trembling like a sieve, terrified that the next moment it would become a post-meal snack for this dread demon who had just shaken heaven and earth.
Jiang Linxian had no patience for lengthy talk. He seized its mind directly with his demonic energy and asked the most pressing questions.
"What year is it now? Is this place still Seven Absolute Mountain? What is the dominant power in the mountain? Where is the nearest human settlement, and what is its condition?"
The yellow weasel sprite dared not conceal a single thing, spilling everything it knew like beans tumbling from a split bamboo tube.
Its intelligence was limited and its knowledge sparse—but several key pieces of information caused a quiet unease to settle in Jiang Linxian's heart.
From its fragmented, panicked account, Jiang Linxian pieced together a single truth:
Since the day he had been thrown into the cauldron, almost a full hundred years had passed in the outside world!
Golden Butterfly Manor and the Toad Sprite's stronghold, once prominent powers in the mountain, had long since been abandoned—their demons gone and their halls empty. The smaller sprites had no way of knowing the exact circumstances.
As for the mortal world...
The silhouettes of settlements were faintly visible in the distance, but this sprite had never dared venture close enough to know anything about them.
Having obtained the information he needed, Jiang Linxian did not trouble the utterly terrified little sprite. He released his demonic energy and let it scramble and tumble back into the depths of the mountain forest.
A hundred years...
In the furnace there had been no sun, no moon—only suffering and transformation intertwined, like a long and savage nightmare.
He had not imagined that outside the cauldron, the river of time had quietly flowed for nearly a hundred years.
He cast his gaze toward the directions he remembered.
The entrance to the cave dwelling where Golden Butterfly Manor had once stood was half-buried by vines and stone, the faint traces of lingering demonic energy having faded to almost nothing—as if long abandoned.
At the old site of Golden Butterfly Manor, he sensed not even a trace of familiar aura. It seemed to have been taken over by some nameless sprites.
Further out, the outlines of settlements were faintly visible—but their form was entirely unlike what he remembered from a hundred years ago.
A hundred years is more than enough to change nearly everything.
Jiang Linxian first returned to Golden Butterfly Manor and flushed out the sprites hiding inside.
"Ribbit ribbit—you're actually still alive, Serpent Immortal."
Jiang Linxian looked at the Toad Sprite bouncing about with a look of delighted surprise, and didn't quite know what to say.
It was clearly the same one that had led him up the mountain back then—still alive and well.
It seemed this kind of useless demon wasn't even worth using as kindling. Even the Mountain Soul hadn't wanted it.
"How are you still here?"
At that, the Toad Sprite looked as though it had suffered great grievance, and clung to Jiang Linxian sobbing.
"Ribbit, wah wah—I had nowhere to go, my cousins are all dead, I've been hiding in the manor, too scared to go out."
"Serpent Immortal, can I still follow you?"
Jiang Linxian looked at the Toad Sprite. He had no intention of building a faction. His current cultivation was only around three hundred years.
Even if willing demons came to pledge allegiance, they would only be minor demons—a force of scrubs and rabble was worse than none at all. But taking on a single follower? That was fine.
"You can follow me for now—but I'm leaving this place."
The Toad Sprite had no other virtues to speak of, save one: loyalty.
"Ribbit ribbit—wherever you go, Serpent Immortal, I'll follow."
Jiang Linxian gave a nod, then stated his plan. He was not heading further in—but turning around to retrace his steps.
He wanted to return to Hangzhou and Lanruo Temple to check on things. He didn't know how Elder Sister White or Elder Sister Green were faring—nor the scholar tree that had shown him kindness.
Here in this land, his cultivation was respectable. He could count as a demon lord of this region.
But once he stepped beyond these boundaries—that remained to be seen.
For now, what mattered most was this: after the Dragon Pearl had transformed into a Demon Core and fused with him as one, something had surfaced in the depths of his divine consciousness.
Scattered, profound, and cryptic—neither text nor image, yet somehow both—mysterious golden characters had assembled themselves into a single phrase.
Grand Void Dragon Transformation Chapter.
Was this a cultivation method? Or some form of inherited legacy?