Chapter 186: Treasure Room
The room beyond was circular, its walls lined with shelves filled with jade slips and scrolls.
A single pedestal stood at the center, holding a crystal orb that pulsed with a soft blue light.
Dust covered everything, undisturbed for centuries.
Mio followed him inside, her gaze sweeping across the room.
"This looks like a library."
Damon walked to the nearest shelf and picked up a jade slip.
He pressed his spiritual energy into it, and information flooded his mind.
Azure Dragon Movement Technique.
Heaven Grade.
He set it down and picked up another.
Azure Dragon Palm.
Heaven Grade.
Another.
Azure Dragon Body Tempering Art.
Saint Grade.
His heart raced.
This room was a treasure trove of techniques, all tied to the Azure Dragon lineage.
He turned his attention to the pedestal standing at the heart of the room, the only object that had truly caught his eye since they had entered.
Everything else on the shelves had been catalogued and claimed, but this remained — the crystal orb sitting atop its ancient stone perch, pulsing with that slow, rhythmic blue light like the steady heartbeat of something long dormant and waiting to be woken.
It was calling to him. He could feel it in a way that went beyond instinct, a subtle pull threading through his spiritual energy like a current drawing him forward.
Damon approached it slowly, each step deliberate, his golden eyes fixed on the orb’s soft glow as his hand rose and reached out toward it.
The moment his fingers touched the orb, a surge of energy rushed through him.
Images flashed before his eyes.
A dragon soaring through the clouds. A cultivator standing atop a mountain, sword raised. A battle that shook the heavens.
The vision dissolved as quickly as it had come, the vivid images crumbling into wisps of light before vanishing entirely.
Damon withdrew his hand from the orb slowly, his breathing measured and controlled despite the weight of what he had just witnessed.
He stood still for a moment, letting the echoes of a forgotten dynasty settle into the back of his mind — a dragon, a sword raised against the sky, a battle that had unmade mountains.
Then his golden eyes swept across the shelves.
"We’re taking everything," he said, his voice quiet but absolute.
Mio had been watching him from across the room, her deep purple eyes flickering between concern and curiosity.
The moment the words left his lips, her expression shifted entirely.
The uncertainty vanished, replaced by a broad, gleaming grin that lit up her whole face.
"Now you’re speaking my language," she said, already moving toward the nearest shelf with her storage ring raised.
She began stuffing jade slips into her storage ring while Damon moved to the next shelf.
The room held enough techniques to arm an entire sect — perhaps two.
Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling on every wall, each one packed with neatly arranged jade slips and tightly rolled scrolls, their surfaces inscribed with faintly glowing seals that pulsed like slow heartbeats in the dim light.
The sheer volume of accumulated knowledge pressed against the air itself, dense and reverent, as though the room understood what it held.
And it was all his now.
Damon and Mio worked in silence for the next hour, moving with quiet efficiency between the shelves.
There was no need for words.
Mio swept one side of the room while Damon took the other, their storage rings drinking in scroll after scroll, slip after slip without complaint.
The soft chime of each item disappearing into a ring was the only sound between them.
Techniques for movement arts. Combat forms rooted in draconic power.
Body cultivation methods that carried the unmistakable weight of something ancient and severe.
Formation scripts so intricate that even a glance at the surface inscriptions made Damon’s eyes sharpen with interest.
Everything was tied to the Azure Dragon lineage — every method, every scroll, every sealed slip bearing some variation of that great creature’s mark along its edge.
This was not a library assembled for convenience. It had been gathered with singular purpose, curated over generations by someone who had devoted themselves entirely to preserving a legacy that the rest of the world had forgotten.
Damon kept moving, leaving no shelf untouched.
When the last shelf was empty, Damon turned to the crystal orb on the pedestal.
He touched it again.
A section of the wall behind the pedestal slid open, revealing a narrow passage.
Mio stepped beside him, bow in hand.
"More?"
Damon nodded and entered first.
The passage sloped downward, the walls lined with the same silver veins as the cave where he’d met Seraphina.
The air grew colder.
The light dimmer.
At the bottom, the passage opened into a chamber.
A single stone altar stood at the center, and on it rested a black scale the size of Damon’s palm.
It shimmered with an iridescent sheen, shifting between colors as he watched.
Damon approached slowly.
The Chaos Devourer hummed in his storage ring.
The scale called to him, just like the sword fragment had.
He reached out and picked it up.
The moment his fingers touched the scale, information flooded his mind.
[Azure Dragon’s Scale]
[Description: Fragment of the Azure Dragon’s true body. Contains a remnant of the dragon’s original power. ItGrants the wielder a fraction of the Azure Dragon’s defensive might. Can be absorbed to strengthen bloodline.]
Damon’s eyes narrowed.
This wasn’t just a treasure.
This was a piece of the Azure Dragon himself.
He turned to Mio.
"This is worth more than everything else in that library combined."
Mio’s eyes widened.
"Then we take it."
Damon nodded and stored the scale in his ring.
The chamber rumbled.
Cracks spread across the ceiling.
"We need to leave," Damon said.
They ran.
The passage collapsed behind them as they burst back into the library room. The walls were cracking now, the entire structure destabilizing.
Damon grabbed Mio’s hand and pulled her toward the main hall.
They reached it just as Ariel, Mia, and Seraphina emerged from their own corridors.
"What happened?" Ariel asked.
"The temple’s collapsing," Damon said.
"We need to move."
They ran through the main hall and out the entrance, the ground shaking beneath their feet.
Behind them, the temple crumbled into rubble.
Damon stopped at the edge of the crystal forest and looked back.
Dust rose into the air.
The structure was gone.