Just A Daoist Who Occasionally Kicks Ass

Inside the pitch-dark cavern, on an uneven stone platform, a lump of viscous black substance slowly oozed. A tall figure pressed his palm upon the platform. The black sludge crept up along his arm, seeping toward the dragon scale on his forehead.

That man was none other than the Crown Prince of the Chu River Dragon Palace, Ao Ang!

His eyes flickered between moments of clarity and demonic madness, muttering to himself as though possessed. When lucid, terror filled his gaze, he struggled desperately to pull away from the black corruption. But soon his eyes turned increasingly strange and venomous, his smile twisting with hysteria.

From the dragon scale on his forehead, an eerie blurred, warped human face slowly pushed its way out.

“Hehehe... Stop resisting. Isn’t this the power you’ve always dreamed of? Fuse with me. I shall grant you an immortal body, and boundless might!” The blurred face’s voice dripped with temptation.

The clarity in Ao Ang’s eyes faded, leaving only venomous, twisted obsession.

Seeing this, the blurred face grinned. Long ago, by a fluke, he had escaped from the underworld, attaching himself to a young man. He thought possession would be easy, but the youth carried the legacy of the taotie[1]. Instead, he overpowered him and pinned him down in a pitch-black cavern, even diverted an entire river to this place, and sealed him here forever.

Were it not for his undying physique, he would have been killed long ago!

Only when a flood dragon later discovered this place and built its palace upon it did he glimpse hope again.

By fate’s irony, that flood dragon even gained a true dragon pearl, but fearing him, only dared siphon his power, never daring to swallow him outright.

He thought he would languish here until the old dragon perished. But then, one of the dragon’s sons sneaked inside while his father was away.

With painstaking whispers, he lured Ao Ang into tasting his power, bit by bit unraveling the ward left by the old dragon.