Among the Dragon God's greatest sorrows, there was never any memory belonging to the Divine Star; it was all scenes of the fall of the Dragon Clan and the myriad dragons.
Therefore, at the very beginning of this grand ceremony, Gu Yuena had already decided to give up the Divine Star. Everything was taking place within the divine consciousness brand left by the Dragon God, everything was illusory. Even if she suffered a backlash from failing to achieve the Divine Star, even if she died in this illusion, so what? The Dragon God's test was to prevent the Dragon Clan's tragedy from happening and to avoid this great disaster.
If the Divine Star was not achieved and the Dragon God died, would it lead to the Dragon Clan's great disaster and tragedy?
The answer was no.
The Dragon Clan still had the Crown Prince and the other Nine Great Dragon Kings. Combined, the Ten Great Dragon Kings were still the strongest force, an unrivaled existence in the Dragon God Realm.
With them around, the Dragon Clan would still be the strongest in the Dragon God Realm. It just meant the Dragon God Realm would remain the original Dragon God Realm, temporarily losing the chance to achieve a Divine Star, but the Dragon Clan itself would not be affected.
Precisely because of this, at the critical moment, Gu Yuena pushed the Dragon Clan Crown Prince away from her front and returned all the power he had let her devour back to him, bearing all the pain herself.
When that massive explosion came, she even heard the Dragon Clan Crown Prince's panicked and anxious roar, calling out to her.
And when that massive explosion came, Gu Yuena felt relieved in her heart—she had grasped a sliver of a chance of survival in this nearly impossible task.
What she knew even more clearly was that the one who had just called for the Dragon Clan Crown Prince to come up and help replenish the Dragon God's bloodline was the traitor of the Dragon Clan's grand ceremony...
In the next instant, her mind went blank, unable to think, her six senses sealed. Everything seemed to have been lost... After an unknown amount of time, her consciousness gradually revived, and all her perceptions gradually returned.
Severe pain, intense severe pain struck again.
The next moment, she suddenly realized something was wrong. When her vision recovered, she found that she was still there. Yes, still on that massive altar, still in the center, still madly converting energy.
And clinging to her body was a form that was gradually withering away—it was the Dragon Clan Crown Prince.
The Dragon Clan Crown Prince's body became increasingly withered, his life aura barely audible, gradually disappearing. Yes, he was about to die, his bloodline completely exhausted. Everything was irreversible.
Gu Yuena could not only see the Dragon Clan Crown Prince and feel the Dragon God's current condition, but she could also simultaneously see everything else on the altar.
Around the altar, among the eighteen God Kings releasing their divine power for this grand ceremony to assist the Dragon God in completing the final sublimation, the Time and Space Dragon Kings exuded peculiar energy fluctuations—twisting, changing, flashing, and shielding.
At this very moment, the Time Dragon King and the Space Dragon King were releasing their powers.
Time plus space equaled the power of space-time. Powerful space-time energy lingered in the air, emitting bizarre changes.
The distorted energy made everything different. For instance, the acceleration of time caused the power of faith to inject into the Dragon God's body at a much faster speed, accelerating the entire process of converting the Divine Star and making the impact the Dragon God endured much more intense.
The distortion of space shielded the divine consciousness of the other God Kings, making everything look normal. This was the effect of space-time alteration.
Even the God Kings on the outside, who were clearly looking in this direction, seemed not to see the Dragon Clan Crown Prince's body withering and showing signs of approaching death.
Everything looked so eerily normal!
Gu Yuena knew that this was not her previous self. The one currently completing the Divine Star conversion ceremony was the Dragon God, the former Dragon God, the true Dragon God!
And the scene unfolding before her eyes was exactly the great disaster the Dragon Clan faced back then, the changes that occurred within the Dragon Clan.
Huo Yuhao had told her that she could not stop the traitors from disrupting the completion of this grand ceremony.
If everything had gone normally, the Divine Star would inevitably have been completed. If the Time Dragon King hadn't accelerated time and the Space Dragon King hadn't covered it up, the possibility of the Dragon God achieving the Divine Star would have been very high.
Moreover, the severe pain the Dragon God endured was so intense, absolutely not added by these God Kings. The intensity of that severe pain had exceeded the scope of normal perception, even severely tainting his divine consciousness. That was why the Dragon God could not discover the changes when he devoured the Dragon Clan Crown Prince in front of him.
This was the rejection of the universal laws! The interference of the universal laws!
Gu Yuena sighed inwardly. At this very moment, it was the residual divine consciousness of the Dragon God showing her how the tragedy of the past had occurred...
Gu Yuena's heart clenched involuntarily. She couldn't bear to look, knowing the massive tragedy she was about to witness next.
Right at this moment, the severing of a life force suddenly caused Gu Yuena's mind to tremble violently. That was the shock of a connected bloodline—the Dragon Clan Crown Prince had finally perished amidst the Dragon God's continuous devouring...
His body had completely withered away, and the dragon scales that had surfaced on his skin during the devouring process had all lost their luster.
Yet, on his withered face, there was actually a smile—a smile of relief. It was as if he was saying, Father, I protected you. I used my life to guard you.
His mouth was slightly open, as if calling out to his father, blessing his father.
The Divine Star was accelerating its conversion. With the support of the Dragon Clan Crown Prince's bloodline and life energy, it was finally approaching success—
But the death of the Dragon Clan Crown Prince and the violent bloodline tug caused the owner of this body, the former Dragon God, to awaken in severe agony.
When the dragon eyes just regained clarity, they still carried a bit of confusion, and even a bit of joy.
Because he could feel that the Divine Star was about to finally be completed under his efforts!
This had always been his greatest dream, and the greatest expectation of the entire Dragon God Realm!
He could feel that the completion of the Divine Star was only one step away. It could even be said it only lacked the final accumulation. As long as this final accumulation was completed, the Divine Realm would thoroughly transform and enter a brand new realm!
At this very moment, large swaths of illusory light and shadow had appeared around the Dragon God Realm, like points connecting with each other, or like the existence of reflections. Those were the mappings of the Dragon God Realm—
By connecting with them, the entire Dragon God Realm would control even more distant spaces, growing by geometric multiples. Given time, when the accumulation following this growth began, the Divine Star would gradually stabilize and ultimately step into the level of a six-dimensional space.
Reaching the realm of a six-dimensional space meant being a nearly immortal and indestructible existence in the universe. As long as the universe existed, the possibility of a six-dimensional space collapsing was extremely small; only another six-dimensional space could possibly affect it.
Thereby allowing the Divine Realm to become an existence that lasted nearly for all eternity, and even continue to evolve. Everything was developing according to the set goals; everything was so beautiful...
However, this perception of his only lasted for an instant before an immense sense of loss filled his divine consciousness.
What awakened me? Why is my bloodline throbbing so violently at a time like this... The Dragon God subconsciously lowered his head, following his consciousness to look—
When his eyes fell on his embrace, looking at the completely withered Dragon Clan Crown Prince still clinging tightly to his body, the confusion in his eyes instantly cleared, and all excitement vanished into nothingness in that split second!
The Dragon God's incredibly powerful body trembled violently in this instant! He remembered now. Just when he was in the most pain, a force suddenly injected into him. It was precisely the injection of this force that allowed him to stabilize everything and continue the conversion of the Divine Star!
This force made him feel so comfortable, greatly alleviating all the pain. It was also this force that allowed the energy madly pouring into his body to be converted!
But, this force actually came from...
In an instant, the Dragon God's clear eyes gradually changed. The original clarity gradually turned into a sheet of blood red. His arms carefully closed, embracing the child in his arms... But just as his arms touched his son's body, the Dragon Clan Crown Prince's body had already turned to dust and began to dissipate, slipping through his fingers.
Only that final smile of relief was deeply branded into the Dragon God's divine consciousness.
"No, no, no..." The Dragon God threw his head back, madly screaming and roaring—
And at this very moment, the entire Divine Realm also trembled because of his mad roars.
Dead. His son was dead...
One of the eighteen God Kings of the Dragon God Realm, the Crown Prince of the Dragon Clan, was dead...
To help him achieve the Divine Star, he sacrificed his own life—
Tears flowed uncontrollably from the Dragon God's eyes. He almost madly tried to scoop up the powder dissipating in the air with his palms.
But there was nothing. He caught nothing. Only that dust quietly disappeared, leaving not a single trace behind.
The Dragon Clan Crown Prince had given everything he had to his father, without any reservation. Even when he sensed that he was about to be drained dry by his father, he didn't struggle in the slightest, choosing to sacrifice his all...
The Dragon God's consciousness began to blur. He seemed to see that scene from thousands of years ago again—
The Dragon God's wife was also of the Dragon Clan. But she was only an ordinary dragon.
In the long river of the universe, it took an unknown number of years of evolution for the powerful Dragon Clan to emerge. They were the darlings of the universe, powerful existences capable of traversing time and space.
Ever since he gained consciousness, the Dragon God had been the hope of the entire race, leading the race to become stronger.
His wife was gentle and kind, accompanying him even before he became the Lord of the Clan. Even with so many powerful clansmen and excellent female dragons, they never once caught his attention. Because in his heart, there was only that "big sister" who healed him every time he fought with clansmen when he was young.
Later, the Dragon God grew up. He began to display his bloodline talent, evolving through continuous sublimation, surpassing the powerhouses of his clan step by step, defeating opponent after opponent, and earning a place in the universe relying on his powerful strength. He was the first existence in the Dragon Clan to break through to the God King level. For this, he put in thousands of years of effort. The moment he achieved the Divine Realm, he was finally recognized by all the dragons and became a true God King.
He created the Dragon God Realm, giving the Dragon Clan a true home of their own, granting them the power to control galaxies, and making them stronger by absorbing the faith of those galaxies.
He bestowed the various attributes from his bloodline evolution upon the most outstanding Dragon Clan geniuses, allowing them to respectively possess the nine great attributes: Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Light, Darkness, Space, Time, and Stability.
The Nine Great Dragon Kings recognized him as their father and called him Lord.
Under his leadership, the Dragon Clan entered an unprecedented era of glory, displaying incomparably dazzling brilliance.
He opened the Divine Realm, allowing the outstanding individuals from the major galaxies to become deities within the Dragon God Realm, including absorbing the embryonic Divine Realm created by Lucifer to develop together!
He made every effort to make the country prosperous, making the Dragon Clan the King of Ten Thousand Races!
He himself also became an incomparably powerful Supreme God King. Even when the Phoenix God King invaded, it was crushed by him!
He was the recognized King of God Kings, the strongest in his realm!
However, the one he truly loved in his life was still only that Red Dragon who had accompanied him since childhood and silently gave everything for him.
When he successfully established the Dragon God Realm and became a generation's God King, he announced in front of the entire Dragon Clan that she was the Matriarch of the Dragon Clan, his legal wife, and would be his only wife.
How revered was the wife of the Dragon God? Yet she never changed, remaining as gentle and kind as ever, taking care of his everything, and silently making her own contributions to the Dragon Clan.
She led the dragons to stabilize the Dragon Realm, and when he was exhausted, she still guarded by his side. Every moment, she was encouraging him and giving him the warmth of home.
But compared to the Dragon God, her bloodline level was simply too weak. Therefore, she had never been able to bear offspring, which was also secretly criticized by the powerhouses of the Dragon Clan.
Rumors inevitably emerged. What the dragons worried about most was: what if one day their King fell? Who exactly could inherit the Dragon God's mantle?
Because of this, rifts appeared among the Nine Great Dragon Kings. With nearly equal cultivation bases, almost all of them had the qualification to inherit. After all, they all revered the Dragon God as their father.
How could she, as the Matriarch, not know about the instability within the Dragon Clan? Therefore, completely unbeknownst to the Dragon God, she secretly forced a pregnancy. By the time the Dragon God found out, it was already too late.
She ultimately gave birth to the Crown Prince for the Dragon God. However, the powerful Dragon God bloodline drained all her life force at the final moment. No matter what methods the Dragon God used, he could not extend her life.
In the final moments of her life, she received the faith and mourning of the entire Dragon Clan, and at that moment, she was hailed as the Savior Red Dragon.
After leaving her final words, the Savior Red Dragon turned to ash due to life exhaustion, just like the son who was fading away in the Dragon God's arms right now.
It was exactly because of the Dragon God Crown Prince's existence that the internal fighting among the Nine Great Dragon Kings disappeared. They all understood that if the Dragon God truly fell one day, only the Dragon Clan Crown Prince could inherit his mantle.
The Dragon Clan Crown Prince possessed the most excellent bloodline and talent, and also inherited his mother's kindness. He treated all dragons well, had a good relationship with every Dragon King, was respectful to his father, and gentle to his clansmen. He was extremely talented; in a very short time, under the Dragon God's guidance, he had already stepped into the God King realm—
The Divine Star was about to succeed. But the price paid was the life of this Dragon Clan inheritor...
The Dragon God had never told his son that he achieved the Divine Star not because he had great ambitions. Rather, he hoped that when he passed the Dragon God Realm to his son, the realm would be more stable, able to last forever, and make his son's rule smoother...
The Dragon God's body began to tremble slightly. The final achievement process of the Divine Star was still subtly proceeding. But at this very moment, how could he have even the slightest mind to pay attention to this?
In his eyes, there seemed to be the rotation of the entire universe, and the flow of time of everything around stagnated along with it. Everything began to twist.
The evolutionary process of the Divine Star came to an abrupt halt. The entire Divine Realm trembled slightly, and the massive energy that had previously integrated showed a tendency to dissipate at this moment. But to the Dragon God, this didn't matter at all.
Everything before him began to distort and change, presented in the form of light and shadow. This was the Divine Realm. Even he could not reverse what had already happened and save his son. He could only reverse time to retrace what had happened earlier.
The dissipated figure recombined, but it was only light and shadow, not a physical entity. When he once again saw the smile left on his son's face right before death, the Dragon God's body swayed, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
The Dragon Clan Crown Prince's withered body gradually filled out during the process of time reversal. The emotions on his face were also constantly changing. Anxiety, resolution, firmness—various emotions continuously appeared on his face.
With the Dragon Clan Crown Prince's cultivation, when he realized something was wrong, he could have completely detached from the Dragon God. But he didn't do so. From beginning to end, he didn't have the slightest intention of detaching. He was using his life to protect his father, helping his father fulfill his greatest wish.
He died, and he also took away all the Dragon God's hope of living.
Time retraced, finally reaching the moment before the Dragon God Crown Prince came up.
That voice also sounded.
"The Lord's divine consciousness is unstable, his bloodline is unstable. We must help him stabilize his bloodline..."
"Crown Prince, only you can stabilize the Lord's bloodline. Please go up and help the Lord stabilize his bloodline..."
"Crown Prince, you only need to transfer your bloodline power and life force to the Lord, that should be enough..."
The Dragon God clearly saw that beside the Dragon Clan Crown Prince, the Crown Prince's best friend, the youngest among the other Nine Great Dragon Kings, the Time Dragon King, was urging the Dragon Clan Crown Prince. And it was precisely under his urging and persuasion that the Dragon Clan Crown Prince rushed towards him without hesitation—
As all time reversed and retraced, the God Kings present could see it clearly. Seeing this scene, the Time Dragon King's face turned pale. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't speak, his face a ghastly white.
"Roar—" The Dragon God's painful and maddened dragon roar erupted in this very instant.
Terrifying nine-colored light almost instantly enveloped the entire altar. At the same time, the evolution of the nearly formed Divine Star completely stagnated. Terrifying massive explosions instantly appeared in every corner of the Dragon God Realm.
The massive energy originally accumulated to fuse into the entire planet and help it evolve expanded to the extreme at this instant. Because of the instability, those fusion nodes began to madly explode, bursting forth with terrifying fairy spirit energy that almost swept across the entire Divine Realm in this instant.
"Why? Why did you kill my son? Why?!" The Dragon God's eyes had completely turned blood-red. The mad aura even filled his entirety with a flavor of destruction.
Loud rumbling sounds constantly rang out on his body. As the host of this ascension ceremony, abruptly interrupting the evolution of the Divine Star caused him to suffer an incredibly strong backlash almost instantly.
However, the Dragon God at this time was incomparably powerful. After fusing with his son's bloodline and life energy, his strength had taken a step further, elevating to an even more terrifying degree—
Disregarding the intense backlash he was suffering, he violently thrust his right hand out.
A massive nine-colored dragon claw appeared in the void, grabbing the Time Dragon King in one fell swoop. The terrifying strength that erupted in that instant made it impossible for even the God King-level Time Dragon King to resist!
The intrinsic characteristics of the Nine Great Dragon Kings were bestowed by the Dragon God. The power he had over time could not be displayed at all in the Dragon God's grasp!
Showing no mercy, from the Dragon God's mouth came only mad roars and screams. The next instant, a terrifying massive explosion detonated within the Dragon God's palm.
He had actually forcefully crushed the Time Dragon King between his own dragon claws. The fall of a God King brought about a massive energy explosion that instantly blew the flesh and blood of the Dragon God's right claw everywhere. The terrifying energy fluctuations even caused the altar to collapse.
The other seventeen God Kings were all shocked and flew backward.
"Roar roar roar—" Mad roars continuously burst from the Dragon God's mouth.
"The Lord has gone mad! We must stop him! Take advantage of the Lord suffering a backlash to stop him! Otherwise, the entire Divine Realm will collapse! Quick, everyone join forces and stop the Lord!" The voice came from the other traitor, the Space Dragon King. Watching the Time Dragon King die, his eyes were filled with sorrow.
The Eight Great Dragon Kings each spread out, transforming into ten-thousand-meter giant dragons, encircling the Dragon God in the center. At this time, the Dragon God had completely fallen into a state of madness.
The other Seven Great Dragon Kings were shocked but also filled with terror—their power came from the Dragon God, so they naturally knew how powerful he was. Once the Dragon God truly went mad and attacked without holding back, the entire Divine Realm would definitely collapse!
The Dragon God roared at the sky. Terrifying divine power madly expanded, transforming into a massive light sphere that forcefully knocked all Eight Great Dragon Kings back at the same time.
And right at this moment, the energy previously absorbed when forming the Divine Star thoroughly erupted. The surface of the entire Dragon God Realm fluctuated violently like tides, erupting with unprecedentedly terrifying energy.
The Dragon God's body suddenly stagnated in mid-air. Wave after wave of terrifying energy seemed to concentrate together, fiercely crashing into his body, causing his body to erupt with terrifyingly massive air currents.
Almost all the numerous God Kings around were blown away by this massive energy at the first moment. The Dragon God himself, amidst his roars, had his body rapidly collapse and continuously reorganize.
In a short time, the originally incredibly powerful and stable Dragon God Realm had plunged into total chaos.