The Demon Dragon Mountain Range

"One thing — when exactly does that trial start?"

Lu Yuan asked.

Yeye thought for a moment, then answered.

"I'll need to break through to Battle King Rank first and inscribe a new Transcendent Gene. That puts it roughly a month out in Origin time."

Lu Yuan thought it over. He'd still be in the Land of Origin at that point, so he nodded.

"Works for me. Just send word when you're ready."

"Mm."

Yeye gave a small nod. Then she cut the connection, saying she had cultivation to get back to.

Lu Yuan turned things over in his head and decided to stick with his earlier plan — head out into the wild and see what was out there.

He returned to Red Maple City, rented a room, and left a spatial coordinate behind so he could jump back at any time.

Then he took out his Communication Crystal and called Si Tingxue.

White light shimmered. A moment later, Si Tingxue's face appeared on the crystal, a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead — clearly she'd been mid-training.

"What is it?"

Her expression was as cool as ever.

Lu Yuan smiled. "I'm planning to head out and hunt some Feral Beasts — gather some resources. Any recommendations? Have you two been doing that sort of thing?"

Si Tingxue rolled her eyes. "Of course. We don't rely entirely on our family. A fair amount of what we need, we go out and collect ourselves."

At that, Rebecca leaned into the frame from the side, large eyes bright with curiosity.

"Lu Yuan! Lu Yuan! You're running short on resources too? I've never seen you go out into the field before!"

Lu Yuan laughed. "Things have been a little lean lately. Figured I'd go take a look around."

Si Tingxue paused, then asked: "At your current level, how do you fare against a Battle Sovereign?"

Lu Yuan's smile stayed easy. "A couple of days ago I was called out to deal with an Aberration Event that had escalated in rank. The target turned out to be Battle Sovereign-level."

That news would come out sooner or later anyway — no point keeping it to himself.

Both Si Tingxue and Rebecca went quiet.

Si Tingxue pressed out two flat words: "Absolute freak."

Lu Yuan put on an expression of complete innocence. "How am I a freak? Ice Block, watch what you say — I've never been *that kind* of freak toward you."

Si Tingxue leveled a sharp glare at him, declined to engage, and got back to the point.

"In that case," she said, "you might look into the Demon Dragon Mountain Range. It's home to a heavy concentration of dragon-bloodline Feral Beasts — plenty of Beast Kings and Beast Sovereigns, and reportedly even Beast Emperor-level Demon Dragons. That said, the beasts there are exceptionally powerful. The Demon Dragon Feral Beasts carry formidable bloodlines, many at Sovereign Grade, so even a Beast King out there far outstrips one of the same tier elsewhere. The danger is genuine." She paused. "And it's not only people from Great Qi Star who venture there. Neighboring races like the Blood Bone Gnolls and Kaman also operate in those zones, fielding Battle King and even Battle Sovereign-level fighters. Your name has spread quite far by now. Once you show up, there's a good chance you'll be targeted — especially by the Blood Bone Gnolls. After what happened at Ice Vein Star, they haven't forgotten you."

Lu Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly, a thin smile on his face. "Don't worry about that. A few gnolls won't be a problem."

Si Tingxue gave a slight nod. She knew full well that he wielded formidable Spatial Type Combat Techniques, so she wasn't truly concerned — just making sure he went in with his eyes open.

Lu Yuan's curiosity surfaced. "By the way — doesn't access to the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin open up at Battle King Rank and above? So why are so many Battle King and Battle Sovereign-level fighters still hanging around down here?"

Si Tingxue glanced at him. "The Upper Layer is far more lethal. Die there, and you stay dead. Not everyone chooses to spend most of their time inside it."

Lu Yuan thought about his own plans — he'd been intending to grow a bit stronger before venturing up there himself. *Ah. Right.* He nodded slowly.

"That makes sense. Where is the Demon Dragon Mountain Range? I'll go check it out."

"Southeast of Red Maple City. Around eighty million kilometers out."

Lu Yuan blinked. "That's quite a distance."

"Zones where powerful Feral Beasts concentrate always are. There are places across White Cloud Continent that even Battle Emperors have never been."

Si Tingxue was entirely unbothered.

Lu Yuan nodded.

"If there's nothing else, we're going back to our training," Si Tingxue said.

"That's everything."

Lu Yuan smiled. Si Tingxue cut the connection without ceremony.

*Her temper really hasn't softened at all.*

Eighty million kilometers.

Lu Yuan narrowed his eyes and poured his focus into Starfield Roaming.

In the rented room, unseen, Spirit Power surged through him. The space ahead split open, forming a compact Spatial Rift.

He stepped through.

Across an endless sweep of grassland, space shuddered — then tore apart. A Spatial Rift blinked into existence.

An immense surge of energy radiated outward, and a nearby herd of colossal wild bulls sensed the danger and broke into a panicked stampede.

Lu Yuan emerged. Behind him, the Spatial Rift slowly sealed itself.

He swept his gaze around. He didn't immediately recognize the terrain, but he could estimate: he was now roughly ten million kilometers from where he'd started.

Starfield Roaming at full power had nearly drained his Spirit Power. He consumed a Seventh-tier Spirit Crystal to replenish, and once the energy had returned, he tore open another Spatial Rift and stepped through.

Shortly after it sealed, a group of Elf men passed by — wary expressions on their faces. They scanned the area carefully, found nothing, and traded bewildered looks.

"What just happened? How could there be an aura that powerful out here?"

"That felt like Battle Sovereign strength. How did it just... vanish?"

The Elves stared at each other, baffled, then shrugged and went back to hunting Feral Beasts.

Eight jumps of Starfield Roaming later, Lu Yuan emerged before a vast mountain range.

He launched himself into the air and took in the view.

The peaks of this range cleared ten thousand meters without effort. Some of the truly massive ones surpassed one hundred thousand meters. These colossal summits, linked end to end, formed a mountain range that stretched well beyond the limits of sight.

**"ROAR!!"**

A bone-deep bellow shook the air.

Lu Yuan looked up. Two enormous Demon Dragons swept across the sky — jet black, each bearing a pair of wings, their bodies stretching seventy to eighty meters long. Their auras crashed over the landscape like a physical tide, setting the massive trees along the mountainsides swaying. They dove into a cavern near the summit of a peak somewhere around seventy to eighty thousand meters tall and disappeared from sight.

Lu Yuan's eyes narrowed as he watched them. Those two Demon Dragons were clearly at the Beast King tier — but their auras were far, far beyond what any typical Beast King should possess. Bloodlines of a higher caliber entirely.

*So this is the Demon Dragon Mountain Range.*

**"SCREE!!"**

A sharp, piercing cry cut through the air.

On the slope of a thirty-to-forty-thousand-meter peak, fire erupted. The next instant, a massive crimson bird burst skyward — four wings spread wide, its entire body ablaze, wingspan stretching over two hundred meters. It streaked toward the heart of the mountain range like a blazing meteor.

Every stretch of forest it passed over was reduced to a sea of fire. Flames roared and churned.

From within the burning trees, Feral Beasts howled in a cascading chorus, Spirit Power flooding the area as they fought to smother the blaze.

Lu Yuan could sense the density of it — a heavy concentration of Battle Venerable-level Feral Beasts throughout, with a notable number already at the Beast King tier.

His eyes widened.

This was only the outer perimeter, and it already held this many Beast Kings. The sheer scale was staggering.

No wonder the Ice Block had mentioned Beast Emperors lurking in these peaks.

Still — for his purposes, this place was ideal.

A smile tugged at his lips.

He streaked into the mountain range.

The interior of the forest was staggering in scale.

Peaks tens of thousands of meters tall. Trees hundreds of meters in height, some reaching thousands. Every single tree was a skyscraper in its own right. Back in his previous life, something like this would have been unimaginable. Here, it was the ordinary landscape.

Compared to the trees, the Feral Beasts were almost modest in size.

Most of what Lu Yuan encountered stood no more than ten or so meters at the shoulder — practically small against the surroundings.

Of course, that was relative to the trees.

Compared to *him*, they were still enormous.

Walking through this forest felt like stepping into the realm of giants. The Ultraman-scale kind.

Fortunately, in the Land of Origin, size meant nothing.

Before long, Lu Yuan came across his first target: a four-legged beast clad in jet-black scales, a single horn jutting from its forehead, its expression savage, standing roughly four meters at the shoulder.

The instant it spotted him, its eyes blazed red. It roared and charged, black light erupting across its hide as its aura surged sharply.

To Lu Yuan, it barely registered.

Just Battle Venerable-level.

He raised an eyebrow, reached out, and caught the beast by its horn. One casual palm strike landed square against its skull.

**BOOM.**

The creature crumpled to the ground and went still — brain pulped by the single blow.

Several Spirit Crystals materialized from within its corpse, along with two glowing blue clusters of condensed material.

Lu Yuan collected everything and had a look.

Twelve Fourth-tier Spirit Crystals. Two Chief Grade Fourth-tier Feral Beast materials.

Information fed into his mind from the Land of Origin:

*Black-armored Dragon Beast Horn. Black-armored Dragon Beast Hide.*

Both were crafting materials for Gene Armaments. In the hands of a capable Armament Forger, they could yield a Fourth-tier Chief Grade Gene Armament — a solid mid-to-high quality weapon for a Battle Venerable.

Lu Yuan pocketed everything and pressed on.

Throughout his advance, almost every Feral Beast he encountered carried dragon-type bloodlines.

Black-armored Dragon Beasts. Iron Dragon Beasts. Ground-stalker Brute Dragons.

Dragon-bloodline Feral Beasts were extraordinarily powerful — in fighting capacity, they were the equivalent of a Battle Venerable warrior inscribed with Lord Grade or even King Grade genes. Among Battle Venerables, they were elite by any measure.

An ordinary Battle Venerable who stumbled into this zone would need at least ten allies working together to bring down a single one of these creatures. And a Battle King without a King Grade Transcendent Gene inscribed would still find it a grueling fight.

By any standard, this was high-tier beast territory.

That said, from Lu Yuan's perspective, these creatures were just... manageable. Dealt with in passing.

The Feral Beast density inside the Demon Dragon Mountain Range was neither sparse nor overwhelming. After thirty minutes of working his way through — one-shotting every creature he came across — he had killed roughly forty Battle Venerable-level Feral Beasts. The haul came to somewhere between six and seven hundred Fourth-tier Spirit Crystals in total, along with close to a hundred crafting materials. No Gene Armaments. No Transcendent Genes.

Even at this elevated power level, Transcendent Genes and Gene Armaments were genuine rarities.

Half a full hour of effort, and the Spirit Crystals he'd earned wouldn't even cover the cost of a single round of Sovereign Grade Spirit Power Gene Fluid.

Lu Yuan moved deeper.

Before long, he arrived at the base of a peak somewhere around twenty thousand meters tall and heard it — the concussive pulse of an active battle, powerful auras clashing and reverberating from somewhere near the summit.

He raised an eyebrow and looked upward.

*Someone's fighting up there?*

His figure blurred. He closed the distance in moments.

What he found: near the upper reaches of the peak, two enormous Demon Dragons roared from within their cave-nest. Six Gene Warriors with formidable auras stood arrayed against them outside.

Lu Yuan's gaze swept the six. All Battle King Rank. All White Frost Race.

*Interesting. Even the White Frost Race comes this far out.*

The White Frost Race seemed to favor a consistent approach to gene selection — across Assault Type, Assassin Type, and Elemental Type alike, they almost universally paired their abilities with frost-elemental Transcendent Genes.

Powerful frost energy surged from the six warriors, icy force battering continuously at the two Demon Dragons.

But the dragons' auras were equally immense.

They roared back, blasting torrents of pitch-black hellfire, black radiance rippling across their scales. The attacks from the six White Frost Battle Kings landed on the two beasts and did little more than scratch the surface of their armor.

Yet that black hellfire sent the six warriors into relentless, frantic evasion.

Lu Yuan watched the chaos unfold, his expression caught between amusement and mild disbelief.

*These White Frost Battle Kings are genuinely terrible. Six against two, and it's still this rough?*

Though privately, he understood it. The six of them were mediocre in overall power — their highest inscribed Transcendent Genes were probably King Grade at best. And those two Demon Dragons almost certainly carried Sovereign Grade lineage. In that kind of matchup, six against two wasn't the advantage it sounded like.

Just as he'd predicted, the tide shifted. The slight edge the White Frost warriors had held at the outset gradually eroded. Their attacks weren't breaking through, frost proved nearly useless against opponents who breathed hellfire, and the balance tilted steadily against them.

**"ROAR!!"**

The larger of the two Demon Dragons bellowed. A massive sphere of black fire erupted from its jaws, twisted mid-flight into the writhing shape of a charging dragon, and hurtled directly at the White Frost Guardian Warrior holding the front line.

The Guardian Warrior's expression went rigid. Icy mist swirled around him, condensing into an ice shield just in time to intercept the blast.

**BOOM!!**

The concussion rocked the mountainside. The ice shield exploded into fragments. The Guardian Warrior cried out and was sent flying.

The other five felt it immediately. "Brother Yi!!"

"Fall back!"

One of the Assault Type White Frost Battle Kings lunged, caught the Guardian Warrior, barked the order, and turned to run. The remaining four scrambled after him — their retreat anything but graceful.

Lu Yuan stared after them.

*...Why were they picking a fight with those two Demon Dragons in the first place? The Battle Venerable-level beasts lower down the mountain were a perfectly reasonable target.*