Huang Xiaolong was genuinely alarmed. The energy gushing up from below the array formation was far more powerful and turbulent than the energy coursing through his body when refining the primordial divine dragons!
Was this… the Beast God's power?!
Huang Xiaolong discovered that this overwhelming energy actually integrated perfectly with the bloodline power of the Beast God Scepter. At this point, the Beast God Scepter flew out of his hand, hovering high up in the shrine center, emitting a faint ruby luster that shrouded Huang Xiaolong entirely.
In the next second, the many mythical beast statues placed in the hall also burst out in a dazzling light, spewing out whorls of energy from their mouths that looked like spheres, a total of three hundred of them.
These energy spheres then landed on Huang Xiaolong's body. Their scorching heat burned him as if they wanted to melt his body to nothing! While this was happening, the powerful Beast God power gushing out from the array drilled madly into his body as well.
Throwing hesitation out of his mind, he quickly sat down cross-legged, running the Asura Tactics faster than ever before, cycle after cycle, refining and absorbing the Beast God energy gushing from the array and the energy spheres from three hundred mythical beast statues.
Even so, both of those energies were too ferocious. Despite his freakish True Dragon Physique, he felt his body expanding, stretching out. Pain shot through his nerves. If it wasn't for his True Dragon Physique and experience from refining eight primordial divine dragons, the very instant both energies touched his body, he would have exploded and died!
Time trickled by, a day passed.
Finally, the tearing pain gradually subsided. As he ran the Asura Tactics at a manic speed, the Beast God power and the mythical beast's energy spheres continued to fuse with every part of Huang Xiaolong's body. He then noticed the change in his Qi Sea; his battle qi began to transform, influenced by the Beast God's power, and his True Dragon Physique was being tempered, becoming tougher. The same was happening to the true essence in his dantian.
Two days passed
Huang Xiaolong felt like he was bathing under the warm sunshine, enveloped in the eternal brightness.
Half a month passed.
A faint ruby red glow enshrouded Huang Xiaolong, the same faint ruby red glow emitted by the Beast God Scepter. Behind Huang Xiaolong emerged, one after another, shadows of mythical beasts.
In the beginning, it was only a dozen or so, but the shadows increased as time passed, reaching an even three hundred. Together with these shadows, some images and memories appeared in Huang Xiaolong's mind.
By the time one month had passed, the mythical beast shadows behind Huang Xiaolong had grown more vivid and real, the Beast God aura exuding from his body was more powerful, spreading out in every direction.
On this day, the dazzling light from the array dissipated all of a sudden, followed by the three hundred energy spheres from the mythical beast statues' mouths. The faint ruby red light from the Beast God Scepter high above the hall also dimmed, retreating back into the scepter as it slowly descended.
Huang Xiaolong opened his eyes and stretched out his right arm to catch the Beast God Scepter. Only at this moment did he feel a true bloodline connection with the Beast God Scepter, truly becoming a part of him, of one body.
He put the Beast God Scepter away, allowing it to submerge under his skin. With a thought, a ruby red light exploded from his body as shadows of mythical beasts flew out from within him, proof that Huang Xiaolong and the Beast God Scepter had merged together, that he had received the previous generation Beast God's heritage from refining the Beast God power, becoming a bona fide beastmen tribes' Beast God!
It could be said that for the current Huang Xiaolong, merely relying upon the Beast God power residing in him, even without the Beast God Scepter itself, it was sufficient to deter all beastmen tribes' experts. Moreover, the pressure from the Beast God power in his body was much stronger than the Beast God Scepter.
He slowly checked his internal condition.
Receiving the Beast God heritage and refining the Beast God power actually propelled his cultivation to rise all the way to late-Ninth Order Saint realm! Between shock then delight, he focused on the latter.
Initially, he didn't have full confidence in being able to defeat the Nine Dragons Temple's Ao Kun, now however, his confidence was overflowing! As long as that Ao Kun had yet to breakthrough to God Realm, Huang Xiaolong had absolute certainty that he could defeat him relying on his own strength!
His purpose in going to the Nine Dragons Temple wasn't as simple as 'requesting' them to hand over the Lion Tribe's Jesse. Huang Xiaolong wanted to subjugate the Nine Dragons Temple!
With the Nine Dragons Temple under his control, taking over the remaining two temples would be more or less effortless. Subduing the demonic beast clans' three main forces inevitably meant that he had the whole lot of them under his command. Adding the beastmen tribes' forces, he was one step closer to conquering the entire Ten Directions Continent.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Huang Xiaolong then exited the Beast God Shrine.
Catching a last look at the ever mysterious and ancient Beast God Shrine, Huang Xiaolong's silhouette flickered into a blur, disappearing from sight.
'It's been more than a month, the Nine Dragons Temple is probably annoyed from all the waiting.' Huang Xiaolong smirked inwardly as his figure whistled through at breakneck speed toward the demonic beast clans' territory.
However, the human race territory stood between the beastmen tribes and demonic beast clans. Therefore, to reach Nine Dragons Temple, Huang Xiaolong had to pass through the human race lands.
Two days later, he arrived at the first human territory on the Ten Directions Continent.
The sunlight was slightly hazy as Huang Xiaolong stood before the city gates of a human governed city, staring at the city name written in ancient characters: Vermillion City.
"Vermillion City." Huang Xiaolong was dumbfounded and speechless for a second. Recalling the young man Zhu Yu he met more than a month ago in the Elf Forest, he was none other than the Zhu Family's disciple. The same Zhu Family that ruled this Vermillion City.
He laughed self-mockingly wondering if he'd run into that Zhu Family's disciple, Zhu Yu? Throwing the random thoughts at the back of his mind, Huang Xiaolong walked toward the city gates following the crowd.
The Vermillion City, although slightly subpar in comparison to certain imperial cities on Snow Wind Continent, was still grander than royal cities on a kingdom level. The streets were packed with people hurrying about, from humans, dwarves, to those from the demonic beasts clans, sea tribes, and even beastmen could be spotted.
This was Huang Xiaolong's first visit to a human governed city on the Ten Directions Continent, there was novelty in everything he saw in the Vermillion City.
But he also noticed an obvious attitude amongst the humans. When a human came across a beastmen or demonic beast clan member, they would hasten to give way just like how commoners would give way to the nobles deemed more superior than themselves.
This made Huang Xiaolong's heart feel uncomfortable.
Although he had taken the position as the new Beast God, at his core, Huang Xiaolong was of the human race.
While he was minding his own business walking along the street, a commotion happened not far in front of him. Other pedestrians exclaimed in fright, quickly running to the sides, giving way.
Huang Xiaolong looked over, watching several demonic beast young men in peculiar robes riding on a Flaming Beast and dashing through the street in his direction, raising a trail of dust behind them. In the blink of an eye, they were thirty meters away from Huang Xiaolong.
At this point, all other pedestrians, especially of the human race, had fled to the sides of the street, leaving one sole figure at the center of the street.
The leading demonic beast young man had no idea if the human standing still on the street was dazed due to shock or fear, but a sinister grin emerged on his face. Exerting more pressure on the mount beneath him, the Flaming Beast let out a roar and charged at Huang Xiaolong even faster.
The Flaming Beast ridden by the several young men was gigantic, four meters in height on thick-muscled legs. Moreover, the Flaming Beast mount had reached the Xiantian realm. An average Xiantian realm expert would either die or be crippled if they managed to survive a collision with this meat tank.
Huang Xiaolong sneered watching everything. When the mount was ten meters away from him, a fierce tempest rose, blowing the several young men and the Flaming Beast off the street, whirling them to the air before plummeting to the ground from a ten-meter height.
Strong trembles shook the street from the crash and zig-zagged crack lines appeared on the street's surface.
A short while later, the several demonic beast young men crawled out from underneath the Flaming Beast's corpse. All of them covered in dust from head to toe, caught between anger and fear looking at Huang Xiaolong.