Gift
The hall was dead silent.
That low laugh was followed by a prolonged, suffocating silence. The old turtle prime minister crouched on the ground, even the slightest trembling of the edge of his shell stopped, as if he had become part of the dead matter on the seabed.
Ao Guang didn't turn around, nor did he look back at the darkness outside the hall. His gaze fell on his hand, which was pressed against his heart. His knuckles were slender and pale, forming a shocking contrast with the black sleeves of his robe.
millennium.
The word rolled silently between his teeth, carrying the taste of rust and blood.
It wasn't the fleeting moments of meditation in seclusion, nor the muddled years of drunken sleep in the clouds. It was the extreme of the East China Sea, beneath the abyss, day after day, night after night, counting the hours with uncanny clarity, listening to my own heartbeat, in absolute silence and darkness, waiting for a return.
He once thought that the return would bring light.
"What does she want..." He suddenly spoke, his voice flat and without any ups and downs, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him. "Glass? Pearls? Or... those 'vulgar things' accumulated over ten thousand years in my East China Sea Dragon Palace, which she once scoffed at?"
Prime Minister Laogui didn't dare to answer, and his head almost hit the jade brick.
Ao Guang slowly lowered his hands, clasping them behind his back. He turned and looked back at the prostrate old minister. The storm in those dragon eyes seemed to have subsided, leaving only a bottomless, cold emptiness.
"Send an order."
Those two words, uttered silently, shook the entire frozen Dragon Palace slightly. It wasn't a coercion, but a more fundamental, shifting order.
"Open the Treasure Cave."
The old turtle prime minister suddenly looked up, his cloudy eyes filled with unconcealable horror: "Your Majesty! The Treasure Cave is the foundation of the four seas and the lifeblood of the dragon race. It is not..."
"Open it." Ao Guang interrupted him, his tone not aggravated, but filled with unquestionable determination, "Take out all the ten thousand year old glass cores."
"All of them?!" The old turtle prime minister's voice changed sharply. "Your Majesty, the ten thousand year old colored glass core maintains the operation of the East China Sea's spiritual vein. If all of them are taken out, the spiritual vein will be exhausted, the four seas will be in turmoil, and the aquatic creatures..."
"Then there will be turmoil." Ao Guang looked at him, his eyes frighteningly calm. "She's getting married, so she'll need a... decent gift."
He pulled the corners of his mouth, it wasn't a smile, but an extremely weird, muscle-pulling arc.
"I will use all the power in the world to prepare ten thousand acres of colored glaze as a betrothal gift...I just said this back then."
The old turtle prime minister trembled all over and wanted to persuade him again: "Your Majesty, think twice! The Yinglong God of War...she has already chosen the Crown Prince of the Heavenly Palace. This move is tantamount to, tantamount to..."
"Why?" Ao Guang asked, his voice still flat.
The old turtle prime minister opened his mouth, but the word "declare war" rolled in his throat and he didn't dare to spit it out.
Ao Guang stopped looking at him and walked straight into the depths of the Dragon Palace. His figure merged into the deeper darkness, and only his cold voice could be heard back:
"Do as you say."
---
The opening of the Treasure Cave was silent, but it set off a terrifying undercurrent in the bottom of the entire East China Sea.
That was no ordinary treasure house, but rather a place where the dragon race's spiritual energy had converged and its laws had been precipitated for eons. The moment the cave's doors opened, it wasn't a shower of jewels and precious stones that soared into the sky, but rather a deep, humming sound, as if from the dawn of time. The dark blue, almost black, waters were pushed aside by an invisible force, revealing a winding passage deep within, crisscrossed with ancient restrictions.
Ao Guang walked in alone.
He didn't use any magical power to illuminate the darkness; to him, darkness was no different from light. His footsteps landed on the cave passage, which was covered with spiritual dust, making a soft rustling sound.
At the end of the passage, the view suddenly opens up.
It was a vast space beyond description. There were no mountains of gold and silver, no dazzling array of rare treasures. Instead, there were countless enormous, crystalline glass pillars, like towering ancient trees or the backs of silent dragons, rooted in the very core of the seabed's spiritual veins, extending upwards, fading into the darkness beyond sight.
Within each glazed pillar lies a flowing, liquid-like aura of pure light, each of varying colors, swirling and shimmering, casting a bizarre light throughout the cavern. They are the "heart" of the East China Sea's spiritual veins, each slow beat sustaining the vitality of the vast expanse.
At this moment, these hearts are being forcibly removed.
Ao Guang stood in the center of the cave and raised his hand.
There were no incantations or spells. He simply made a precarious grip on the nearest glass pillar, which glowed with a blazing white flame.
“Crack—”
A crisp and heart-pounding cracking sound exploded in the empty cave.
The glazed pillar, so thick it required several men to embrace, began to develop a spiderweb of cracks from its center. The blazing white light within it throbbed wildly, as if in a near-death struggle. Then, the cracks rapidly widened, and the entire pillar groaned under the weight before shattering with a loud bang!
The upper half of the giant pillar fell, and before it even touched the ground, it disintegrated bit by bit under the invisible force, turning into the purest, flowing, incandescent white glass liquid, suspended in the air like a huge, burning tear.
The spiritual vein was abruptly severed, and the entire cave, no, the entire East China Sea seabed, trembled violently. A loud rumble like muffled thunder could be heard in the distance, the sound of the underwater mountains collapsing.
Ao Guang had a blank expression on his face. He didn't even look at the suspended glass liquid. He turned to the next glass pillar with flowing blue waves.
“Crack—”
"boom--!"
One after another.
The sound of shattering continued, like the tolling of a death knell. The colorful liquid glass continued to gather and float behind him, becoming more and more numerous and larger, like a strange and beautiful nebula suspended in the land of death.
The light within the cave quickly dimmed. The crumbling of the glazed pillars took away both light and life. Spiritual veins wailed, and the seawater grew murky, carrying a scent of decay.
Ao Guang's face, illuminated by the gradually fading spiritual light, was transparently pale. Every time the glass pillar shattered, it seemed as if something was drained from him. His figure remained upright, but he exuded an extreme weakness from within.
But he didn't stop.
Until all the huge glass pillars as far as the eye could see turned into suspended liquid, until the entire Treasure Cave was plunged into a true absolute darkness that even dragon pupils could not see through.
He stood in front of the "nebula" formed by countless glass liquids and emitting the last remaining glimmer of light, slowly stretched out his finger and drew in the air.
Liquids flow, condense, and deform.
Finally, in front of him, a miniature yet detailed palace model was formed.
It was a thousand years ago, beneath a shallow sea barely pierced by sunlight, that altar, carved from ten-thousand-year-old warm jade. Surrounding the altar were swaying corals, pristine white sand, and even a few small fish, formed from the most vibrant emerald liquid, frolicking around it.
There were two small figures on the altar.
One in black and the other in red.
The one in black turned slightly and extended his hand to the one in red. The one in red raised his head, his posture agile, as if he would put his hand into his palm in the next moment.
It was so lifelike that it condensed the most beautiful moment in his memory of that shattered dream.
It was also a tomb that he had built for himself with all his wealth and resources.
Ao Guang stared at the miniature glazed scene for a long time.
Then he raised his hand and pushed gently.
The miniature landscape that condensed ten thousand hectares of colored glass core and exhausted the essence of the spiritual veins of the East China Sea floated up silently, penetrated the top floor of the Ten Thousand Treasures Cave, passed through the silent Dragon Palace, passed through the deep sea, and headed towards the unreachable and golden Ninth Heaven.
It will be a congratulatory gift.
A unique gift that declares the "submission" and "obedience" of the East China Sea Dragon Clan.
After all this, Ao Guang's forced aura suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon. He stumbled, almost losing his balance, and only managed to hold on to the base of a nearby, already dim and cracked, broken glazed column to avoid falling.
Finally, a mouthful of hot, golden blood could no longer be suppressed, overflowing from the corner of his lips, dripping onto the cold dust on the seabed and quickly swallowed by the darkness.
He raised his head and looked towards the ceiling of the cave. His gaze seemed to penetrate layers of rocks and sea water. He saw the rising "gift" that was destined to shock the three realms, and also saw the wedding that was about to take place in the Ninth Heaven, which had nothing to do with him.
The last glimmer of light in his eyes was completely extinguished.
Only endless, cold madness remained.
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