Chapter 106: The Deterrence of Heaven
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“Heavenly Kingdom has gone too far!”
Within an ancient, venerable manor, a furious roar rang out. Though more than ninety years old, Chen Cang, the patriarch of the Chen family, still possessed astonishing vitality. He bellowed, “They actually dared send us a letter demanding our surrender? Who do they think they are?”
“A fledgling organization that has existed for less than four years dares to climb over our heads?”
“This is rebellion! Absolute rebellion! Do they not know who rules this land? Do they not know who has guarded it for thousands of years?”
“How dare they? How dare they? Does possessing power give them the right to do whatever they please?!”
His agitation caused his golden pupils to emerge involuntarily. Yet at that moment, the old patriarch of the Chen family was already in a state of uncontrollable fury. He slammed his fist into the table, and the tremendous force split the dragon-blood-stained Cangran-wood table, worth a fortune, cleanly in two.
“Father...” Chen Qiong, standing nearby, could not remember how long it had been since he had seen his father so furious and out of control. He was startled and hurriedly reached out to support Chen Cang.
“Get away! I do not need your help!” the old patriarch snapped, pushing his butler aside before continuing to curse. “Do they really think I am dead? How dare they send me such a thing? Do they truly believe they can do whatever they please on this land? A pack of bastard descendants of the White King, who crawled out of God knows where. Good. Very good indeed...”
“Ahem.”
Just as Chen Cang raged on, two soft coughs sounded from nearby. A man in a white robe slowly emerged from the room. His appearance was that of an old man, yet somehow also that of a middle-aged man, while his bearing possessed the vitality of youth. He, too, had a pair of golden pupils.
His gaze fell upon Chen Cang, and he said calmly, “Old Chen, try to get angry over fewer useless things. If your illness flares up again, I will not be able to help you. Besides, the heads of the other families are about to arrive. Surely you do not want them to see you in this state.”
“Hmph!”
It was obvious that this man held a unique position in Chen Cang’s heart. Even his own son had been unable to persuade him, yet a single brief sentence from this man was enough to restore the old patriarch’s calm. Of course, it was also possible that Chen Cang had merely been putting on a performance from the beginning, displaying his anger deliberately.
To govern a vast family was much like an emperor ruling a nation. One must never allow others to see into the deepest recesses of one’s heart, yet neither could one prevent them from understanding it entirely. Chen Cang knew this principle well.
The Heavenly Kingdom they spoke of was an organization that had suddenly emerged from Ice Sea City on the coast four years earlier. Its members came from every corner of the world and belonged to different races. Using the Black Prince Group as its foundation, it had expanded recklessly in recent years. New members appeared one after another, as did new abilities.
Unlike ordinary mixed-bloods, the members of the Heavenly Kingdom possessed two kinds of extraordinary pupils: ordinary golden pupils and the vertical pupils of serpents.
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To date, the Words of Spirit displayed by members of the Heavenly Kingdom included, but were not limited to, Blazing Sun, Sovereign Flame, Land Without Dust, the Eye of the Wind King, Serpent, the Bronze Throne, and Sword Mastery.
Even their weakest combat members possessed qualities no lower than those of an A-rank mixed-blood. No one knew where the Heavenly Kingdom had found so many super mixed-bloods, nor how it had solved the problem of their unstable bloodlines.
But what inspired the greatest fear was that, perhaps because they were descendants of the White King, the Heavenly Kingdom’s high-ranking mixed-bloods almost invariably possessed more than one Word of Spirit.
This shattered the ironclad rule that a mixed-blood could possess only a single Word of Spirit.
One had to understand that when Words of Spirit were layered together, the result was not merely greater than the sum of its parts. It represented a complete qualitative transformation.
If there had been only one or two such individuals, it might have been possible to dismiss them as Dragon Kings in disguise. But according to the intelligence available so far, more than thirty mixed-bloods of the Heavenly Kingdom possessed multiple Words of Spirit.
Where in the world could anyone find thirty Dragon Kings?
Moreover, it was obvious that these people did not stand at the summit of the Heavenly Kingdom. Above them, there clearly existed figures who rarely took action, yet truly possessed the power to suppress all opposition.
Two such figures were known.
The first was a man confirmed to possess both Sovereign Flame and the Eye of the Wind King. His codename was the Blood-Soaked Asura. His greatest known feat was burning an entire Second-Generation Dragon’s ruin, along with the Second-Generation Dragon itself—already awakened and at the peak of its combat strength—into ashes.
The Chen family had sent people to inspect the battlefield after the incident. The specialists’ report read as follows:
It appeared that a thermobaric weapon had been used to scour the area. The sturdy alchemical walls had been torn apart by countless fissures, with cracks hundreds of meters long visible everywhere. The cavern, nearly ten kilometers across, was covered in traces of fire. Dragon-shaped shadows could be seen throughout the site. Shattered scales had been driven deep into the metal walls, as though fused with them. It was difficult to imagine that this had been a battle between two intelligent life-forms.
The other was an entity without a codename, designated Entity X. Its only known achievement was this:
That damned thing had cleaved an ancient city apart with a single strike, blasted open the earth to a depth of nearly one hundred meters, then seized a newly awakened young dragon and raced five thousand kilometers back to the Heavenly Kingdom’s headquarters at almost twice the speed of sound, all while flying ten thousand meters above the ground.
Even setting aside the Blood-Soaked Asura, it was obvious that Entity X had already surpassed the limits of mixed-blood power. If the Nibelungen Project had not still been lacking even the necessary resources—and if its theoretically optimal result could not reach this level—then the Chen family might have suspected that some mixed-blood sovereign with Dragon King-level combat power had emerged from nowhere.
The reason no one suspected Entity X of being a Dragon King was that reliable intelligence showed him maintaining an ordinary human physique throughout combat. Satellite images also confirmed that even while racing through the sky ten thousand meters above the earth, Entity X retained a perfectly normal human form.
If he were a Dragon King, that would have been absolutely impossible.
As everyone knew, unleashing a Dragon King’s true power required a sufficiently powerful body. Carrying a young dragon weighing several tons, suppressing all of its resistance, and then racing through the sky at supersonic speed ten thousand meters above the ground— even the King of Sky and Wind, the greatest master of such feats, could not accomplish this while retaining a normal human appearance.
Thus, the mixed-blood world provisionally named him Entity X, signifying the unknown.
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However, after Entity X displayed such overwhelming power a year earlier, Cassel College, which had been preparing to gather its forces and demand justice, quietly lowered its banner and abandoned the matter.
After all, the strongest known mixed-blood, Hilbert Jean Angers, might still have had some chance on the ground if he unleashed his full strength and relied on Time Zero to launch a surprise attack.
But no one could expect a one-hundred-and-thirty-year-old man who could not fly to attack a humanoid object moving at the speed of sound ten thousand meters above the ground.
No one dared risk angering Entity X. No one dared provoke the Heavenly Kingdom while risking a bombardment from ten thousand meters above the earth. They could only watch as the Heavenly Kingdom expanded wildly, even taking the initiative to clean up the aftermath in order to conceal the existence of mixed-bloods from the world.
This was power.
This was the deterrent force of a complete Dragon King-level combatant—a Dragon King-level mixed-blood without restraints or any clearly defined weakness.
Events had proven that when other people believed you possessed Dragon King-level combat power, you had better truly possess it.
And the Heavenly Kingdom did.
An hour later, all irrelevant personnel had been dismissed. The only people remaining in the room, apart from the patriarchs of the various mixed-blood families, were a number of extraordinary specialists who had reached the pinnacle of their respective fields.
After surveying the room, Chen Cang drew a deep breath. It was as though the fury he had displayed earlier had been nothing more than an illusion. Then he slowly began:
“Everyone, we absolutely cannot hand this land over to the Heavenly Kingdom.”
With those opening words, Chen Cang sought to establish the theme of the meeting. He intended to unite everyone’s strength and drive it firmly into this land.
But would his plan proceed so smoothly?
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