Chapter 0172: The Mysterious Map

Huang Long disappeared.
Under the watchful eyes of hundreds of billions on the Hengyuan Continent, he vanished for half a month. Throughout that time, no news of Huang Long came from anywhere on the Hengyuan Continent.
The battle at the Snowstorm Empire’s palace also caused great concern, as Huang Long had three powerful warriors at the peak of the Sacred Realm among his forces.
Three warriors at the peak of the Sacred Realm! Not just high-ranking ones. How many Sacred Realm warriors were there on the Hengyuan Continent? And how many high-ranking ones? As for those at the peak? Even if all the Sacred Realm warriors hidden in every corner of the continent were counted, there would likely be no more than ten at that level.
Yet on Huang Long’s side, including Huang Long himself, there were four such warriors!
Four at the peak of the Sacred Realm!
When the Dragon Clan and the Church learned of this, they broke into cold sweats at their earlier decision to pressure the Kingdom of Lutong. Back then, if Huang Long’s three peak Sacred Realm warriors had also joined the fight, how many Sacred Realms could the Dragon Clan and the Church have escaped to?
However, after disappearing after the battle at the Snowstorm Empire’s palace, some speculated that Huang Long might be afraid of the Four-Winged Death Angel Tobid and thus dared not attack the Holy Mountain.
“Perhaps Huang Long was severely injured in the battle against that god-tier warrior at the Snowstorm Empire’s palace, so he’s hiding to recover and doesn’t dare attack the Holy Mountain,” said the head of a major family in the Snowstorm Empire.
“That’s likely. I heard that the Four-Winged Angel Tobid, the Beast God of the Orc Empire, and the Sea God of the Sea Folk are all trying to find out more about Huang Long. After all, that god-tier warrior’s divine body is in Huang Long’s hands, along with that divine artifact.”
“That’s truly a divine artifact. No wonder these deities are interested.”
Everyone discussed this.
The elders of the Dragon Clan cursed bitterly, “It’s infuriating! That god-tier warrior couldn’t even kill Huang Long; instead, he was killed by Huang Long. What terrible luck does Huang Long have!”
Of course, the Sacred Realm members of the Church and the elders of the Dragon Clan also secretly resented that god-tier warrior of the Snowstorm Empire for not killing Huang Long.
While everyone was searching and discussing, Huang Long and his group arrived at the Prime Forest of the Dark Forest Empire after half a month.
The Dark Forest Empire got its name from the Prime Forest, as it was located there. In essence, it was an empire within the forest.
The Prime Forest was home to many rare races from the Hengyuan Continent, such as the elves, treefolk, ant-people, titan giants, golden giants, and dozens of other races.
These races rarely left the Prime Forest, and they were seldom seen in the countries of the Hengyuan Continent.

After the battle at the Blizzard Empire Palace, the Yellow Dragon did not rush to attack the Holy Mountain. Instead, it focused on consolidating its newly attained Tribulation Stage cultivation. Before attacking the Holy Mountain, it planned to first deal with the minor trouble posed by the Obu family of the Dark Forest Empire.

The night sky was quiet.

The Yellow Dragon sat cross-legged beneath the night sky, practicing the “Water-Fire Primordial Dragon Art” to continuously absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The water and fire dragons coiled around it, illuminating the area around them for hundreds of feet.

Over the past few years, the Yellow Dragon’s cultivation had advanced rapidly, and it no longer lacked spiritual energy, but its physical body struggled to keep up, especially after absorbing the divine powers of Angus and Lin Youwu in succession. The body served as a vessel—the stronger the physical body, the greater its capacity. Although this body had been continuously tempered and strengthened by the Yellow Dragon over more than a decade, it was still too weak. Not to mention Lin Youwu’s divine power, even Angus’s divine power remained trapped within it and could not be fully absorbed. If this rapid improvement continued, the body might burst.

After a long time, the Yellow Dragon opened its eyes, with two sharp glints appearing in them. Seeing that dawn was approaching, it slowly descended to the ground.

Upon reaching the ground, the Yellow Dragon pondered whether to practice the Nine Turns Mysterious Art from the Pangu World. The Nine Turns Mysterious Art was one of the supreme techniques for cultivating the physical body, but mastering it was extremely difficult. Each subsequent turn required an increasingly long time—ranging from thousands of years to hundreds of thousands of years. To reach the ninth turn would likely take millions of years. Although it had sufficient spiritual energy, mastering the Nine Turns Mysterious Art had nothing to do with spiritual level; it was purely about absorbing celestial energy to temper the physical body and enhance its strength.

With a thought, a space appeared ahead, and the Yellow Dragon released Lin Youwu’s divine body.

“Galaxy Vortex!”

After releasing Lin Youwu’s divine body, the Yellow Dragon gathered a galaxy around itself. As the galaxy spun, a vortex formed, which then absorbed Lin Youwu’s divine body and began to crush it. Although Lin Youwu’s divine body no longer possessed divine power, it had been tempered by divine energy for over six thousand years and was far stronger than the Yellow Dragon’s physical body. The Yellow Dragon now wanted to see if it could use the Galaxy Vortex technique to crush this body into purest energy, which it could then integrate into its own body. Lin Youwu’s divine body was nearly as powerful as a lower-grade divine artifact. The Yellow Dragon wasn’t sure if it could succeed in crushing it.

As Lin Youwu’s divine body was drawn into the Galaxy Vortex surrounding its body, the stellar energy generated by the vortex continuously cut and compressed it.

Zizzz! Just like a sword cutting through a diamond, white flames burst forth from Lin Youwu’s divine body.
No?! Seeing this, the Yellow Dragon was stunned.
But it didn’t give up. It immediately channeled all its magical power, with its innate vital energy surging forth. The galaxy vortex accelerated, and even a faint howling sound emerged in the surrounding space.
Half an hour later, under the Yellow Dragon’s full effort, Lin Youwu’s divine body finally began to crack and disintegrate. White lights radiated out and were continuously absorbed into the Yellow Dragon’s flesh through the galaxy vortex.
By using the galaxy vortex to transform Lin Youwu’s divine body into the purest vital energy to strengthen its flesh, it wasn’t like the Nether Divine Tree, which absorbed his divine power and converted it into life energy in one go. So, the Yellow Dragon didn’t have to worry about its flesh being unable to “digest” it.
After some time, Lin Youwu’s divine body gradually disappeared, and the Yellow Dragon’s flesh, having absorbed the purest vital energy from it, also underwent astonishing changes at a visible pace.
The entire Yellow Dragon seemed to be coated in a layer of white jade-like luster. With each breath, the vital energy emanating from every pore in its body stirred the air around it.
Standing there, the Yellow Dragon resembled a volcano whose lava could erupt at any moment.
Indeed, every part of its flesh contained the power of erupting volcanic lava.
A stream of purple energy shot out from the top of its head, reaching straight into the sky.
Each of its meridians was like a silver dragon hidden within its flesh, crisscrossing with each other. These silver dragons kept moving, emitting silver light.
Huh! Huh! The Yellow Dragon opened its mouth. With each inhale and exhale, its magical power surged, creating whirlwinds in front of it that howled and turned everything into dust.
As its flesh grew stronger, the Yellow Dragon’s breathing power also increased countless times over. It was likely that now, with just a breath, it could even swallow an entire dragon.
Inside the Yellow Dragon’s body, its internal organs glowed with multicolored light, like crystals.
After absorbing Lin Youwu’s divine body, the Yellow Dragon felt delighted by the changes in its flesh.
This body was finally becoming decent—no longer extremely weak.
The Yellow Dragon was confident that, with just its flesh, it could crush the Dragon Emperor and the Pope.
“Hm? What’s this?” After stopping the galaxy vortex, the Yellow Dragon was surprised by the changes in its flesh when it noticed a map on the ground where Lin Youwu’s divine body had disappeared.
With a single palm motion, it seized the map and put it in its hand.

This map must have been hidden by Lin Youwu within his divine body. Just now, even Lin Youwu’s divine body was torn to pieces by the galaxy vortex, yet this map remained unharmed? The map resembled fabric or brocade, with only a strange symbol on it, somewhat resembling an earthworm. This symbol was somewhat similar to the runes used in the ancient times of Pangu’s world, but only superficially so. Huang Long felt a stir in his heart; he condensed a sword energy with his finger and slashed downward, leaving no trace on the map at all. This only increased Huang Long’s curiosity. After all, with his current cultivation level at the Tribulation stage after merging with Lin Youwu’s divine body, even a divine artifact would leave a mark from his sword energy. When Huang Long extended his divine sense to try to enter the map, he was blocked by a force. After being shocked, he fell into deep thought. The fact that Lin Youwu had hidden this map within his divine body clearly showed how precious he considered it. So what secret did this map conceal? For now, apart from its indestructible material, Huang Long couldn’t see anything else. After a while, unable to discover anything further, he had no choice but to give up and store the map in the Five Pits Divine Cauldron, planning to study it later. Not far ahead was the territory of the Obu family; it should take another half day to reach there. Just as Huang Long and his companions were about to head toward the Obu family’s territory, they heard sounds of fighting and shouting in the distance. “Young master, shall we go take a look?” At that moment, Bogu and the others also heard the noise and came behind Huang Long, asking. “Let’s go and see,” said Huang Long. In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the scene of the fight. To Huang Long’s surprise, the fighters were a dozen golden giants. Each golden giant was five or six meters tall, with a faint golden glow on their skin. Opposing them were over a hundred descendants of human families. Judging from the two sides, although the golden giants had a physical advantage, they were outnumbered and in grave danger. “Obu family, you deluded fools! Thinking that capturing our young clan leader will force our clan leader to hand over the Golden Divine Artifact? Tch! Stop dreaming!” snapped one of the golden giants. The Obu family? Huang Long and the others were stunned, not expecting to encounter people from the Obu family here. At that moment, Gusta laughed heartily. “Haha, young master, who would have thought that even before reaching the Obu family’s territory, we’d run into these brats from the Obu family.” “Who’s there? Come out!” shouted a descendant of the Obu family in their direction.

Since the few people from Huanglong did not hide their movements or auras, Gusta’s voice “alerted” both sides in the fight.