The Abyss.
Among the many Outer Planes, the Abyss is one of the most terrifying, home to demons dedicated to destruction and chaos, and a nesting ground for countless evil gods, demon lords, and ancient malevolences. Even the gods do not know how many layers the Abyss truly contains.
An infinite plane of existence, countless transformations, ugliness, evil, chaos, and brutality reign here, where slaughter is endless and danger is boundless.
The 483rd layer of the Abyss.
In this vast world, not a trace of light can be seen, engulfed in pitch-black darkness that covers every inch of land and sky. An intangible cold oppressiveness and a sense of desolation and terror follow like a shadow.
Or rather, light does exist here.
But only as the light of darkness.
All other forms of light are devoured or expelled by the darkness, unable to exist even in the slightest.
On the vast dark land, countless terrifying beasts surrounded by black light, many of legendary strength, inhabit every corner of darkness, every inch of land, engaging in ceaseless slaughter, consuming each other for sustenance. Blood and black light richer than the darkness fly incessantly, while roars and howls resonate throughout the world.
For creatures from other planes unfortunate enough to fall here, the endless darkness and the twisted monsters within are their worst nightmares.
Even those who can resist the darkness and fight the aberrations will find their spirits assaulted by the omnipresent whispers of the Wild God, gradually descending into madness over time, eventually becoming one with this world, a twisted creature of black light.
Today, in this endless dark world, the monotonous chaos of day-to-day existence was disrupted.
Buzz! The entire world trembled violently.
At the same time, as if heavy and oppressive breaths sounded in the ears of every twisted monster.
Above the dark skies, a black light deeper than all darkness converged, highly conspicuous, like a black sun.
If a powerful creature were to carefully observe, they would be shocked to find that the endless darkness emanates from this black sun, which sits at the center of this world, the source of the black light, endlessly radiating dark luminescence.
Just one glance upwards, and a sense of tremor and madness pervades the entire brain of the beholder.
This is the true form of Aeon.
This primal deity, born with the universe, retreated to the Abyss after the wars between the Wild Gods and deities, transforming the 483rd layer into His own divine realm.
Deities can use extraordinary divine power to create and fortify their divine realms, becoming invincible within their own domains.
The best way to kill a god is to lure His true form out of His divine realm.
Or to cut off His worship in the multiverse, weakening Him further.
Invading a god's divine realm is the last resort.
Divine realms are constructed from divine power.
The Wild Gods, emulating this, created their own realms using primal forces.
Within the divine realm of the primal Sun God, vast primal dark light fills the space.
Already powerful, He is the sole ruler within His divine realm, where a simple thought can cause cataclysms, His joy, His rage, every emotion He experiences causes drastic changes in this world.
At this moment, atop the black sun, a massive vertical pupil slowly opened.
Aeon loomed in the sky.
His gaze swept over every inch of His divine realm.
All twisted monsters caught in His gaze knelt, halting their actions, showing signs of madness, trembling violently.
With the will of the primal Sun God present, all twisted monsters ceased their slaughter.
Then, the aberrations on the ground, as if receiving a unified command, began converging around a particularly powerful aberration, using their bodies as nourishment. With the infusion of primal force, they nourished the strongest among them, making its aura increasingly potent.
Gradually, several divine-level terrifying aberrations were born, roaring loudly in the darkness.
These aberrations' divine levels were not high.
The strongest were merely equivalent to weak divine powers, mostly at demigod levels, but their numbers were vast, enough to cause alarm.
"God of Light, Dragon Gods, if you dare come..."
The primal Sun God's gaze was indifferent.
He was ready for battle.
"You will return without success."
He was also prepared to abandon this world.
The primal Sun God wasn't foolish; staying within His divine realm, if the God of Light and Dragon Gods dared to invade, it meant they were not alone, surely gathering a sufficiently powerful force.
Preparing for battle, the primal Sun God's gaze also turned towards the many worlds under His control or those He had touched.
Incarnations, avatars, and black sun sculptures were condensed and dispatched to different worlds.
Moments later, the dark sun's luminescence brightened slightly.
Such a change, on the primal Sun God, indicated a significant consumption of His primal force.
The primal Sun God foresaw a future where He would be besieged.
But He did not seek assistance from other Wild Gods.
Because Wild Gods and deities are different.
Deities, though varying in power due to their domains, share the same essence of extraordinary divine power, belonging to the same species.
But each Wild God possesses a unique primal force.
Primal force is just a general term for many divine-like powers born with the universe.
The primal dark light of the primal Sun God, the primal nightmare force of the Night Serpent... are utterly dissimilar.
Form, appearance, way of thinking, preferences, the essence of their powers—Wild Gods are inherently different, making cooperation difficult. The war against deities countless years ago was the Wild Gods' last and only large-scale collaboration.
And even that was more of fighting independently than true cooperation.
Only the enemy was unified—all deities, having a common foe.
Some Wild Gods even joined the side of the deities, fighting alongside them, but no deity chose to aid a Wild God.
As ancient primal existences born with the universe, Wild Gods possess formidable power, but their defeat was almost destined from the moment extraordinary divine power was born.
After the wills of the God of Light and Dragon Gods disappeared.
The metallic dragon race began to handle the aftermath.
The true dragons who responded to the Dragon Pact did not come to work for free. Even though they primarily came to defend the dragon race's dignity, the metallic dragon race still needed to provide sufficient compensation.
The metallic dragon race is the strongest force on Noah Continent, unquestionably.
They possess vast wealth, lavishly displaying it on the Metallic Dragon Island, where dragon lairs made of gold, silver, emeralds, and other precious materials are commonplace.
The dragons that responded to the Dragon Pact and arrived here in time were not many, mainly from the metallic dragon race.
Providing compensation was not difficult for them, but due to dragons' greed for wealth, each metallic dragon wore a pained expression on their faces.
After dealing with the aftermath of the Dragon Pact, the Ancient Gold Dragon, like Nehemiah, invited Garon and Yuna to visit the Metallic Dragon Island.
The Ancient Blue Dragon invited them to visit the territory of the Blue Dragon clan.
Facing two young legendary dragons, these ancient dragons were quite friendly.
"Doris, these two are our guests from the Metallic Dragon Island. Don't try to cozy up to them."
"Hmm? Do you want to taste my lightning and thunder? I guarantee you'll never forget it."
The Ancient Blue Dragon sneered unapologetically at the Ancient Gold Dragon.
Garon had yet to respond to the Ancient Gold Dragon and Ancient Blue Dragon when a strong tension erupted between the two ancient dragons.
Not just them.
Other dragons also looked at each other with disdain, exchanging glares, then trash-talking, escalating to physical scuffles, their tempers flaring more and more.
After the death of the Wild God's Avatar, the previously cooperative and bloodied five-colored dragons and metallic dragons became adversaries in an instant. The scarce gem dragons and the two tungsten dragons quietly distanced themselves from the metallic and five-colored dragons.
Some gem dragons, enjoying the spectacle, stretched their necks, keenly watching the metallic dragons and five-colored dragons.
Garon and Yuna exchanged glances.
They also sensed the gradually spreading tension in the air and quietly retreated along with the gem dragons.
Then, a blue dragon and a silver dragon, not far from each other, suddenly entangled in the air, marking the beginning of the brawl between the five-colored dragons and metallic dragons.
"These five-colored dragons and metallic dragons still can't coexist in the same place."
Watching the sea area quickly turn into a large brawl scene, Garon shook his head slightly.
Then, he and Yuna moved further back, eagerly watching the fight unfold.
Due to the large number of metallic dragons, the fight was unfair from the start, falling into a one-sided situation where several, even a dozen metallic dragons ganged up on a single five-colored dragon, beating it furiously while it fled cursing and roaring.
Under such circumstances, the Ancient Blue Dragon and Ancient Gold Dragon also started fighting.
Nehemiah, too, joined the Ancient Gold Dragon, chasing after the female Ancient Blue Dragon.
"Nehemiah, Lockwood, you two useless fellows, have the guts to face me one-on-one!"
The Ancient Blue Dragon felt aggrieved.
In reality, she couldn't defeat Nehemiah or Lockwood, any one of the ancient metallic dragons, but even so, the two metallic dragons chose to gang up and bully the Ancient Blue Dragon.
"Heh, we metallic dragons are united. Who's going to fight you one-on-one?"
Having just paid a significant Dragon Pact compensation to the Ancient Blue Dragon, Lockwood couldn't stand the sight of her, especially since they had deep-rooted grievances, having fought numerous times big and small. Now, teaming up with Nehemiah to vent their frustrations made Lockwood feel extremely satisfied.
Many adult or elderly metallic dragons on Metallic Dragon Island had been beaten up by her when encountering the Ancient Blue Dragon near the coastal areas.
Now that they had the chance for revenge, the metallic dragons naturally wouldn't let it go.
The brawl among true dragons, though not lethal, was quite fierce.
Shattered dragon scales flew, and blood of different elemental attributes fell into the ocean, adding streaks of crimson to the area.
But such injuries were mere flesh wounds for the robust and resilient true dragons.
With the metallic dragons having the upper hand, the five-colored dragons, not wanting to endure the beating, fought while retreating, scattering in all directions. The metallic dragons pursued in groups, creating a chaotic scene.
Garon watched with great interest.
"Garon, the situation with your dragon race here is... quite interesting."
Yuna pondered for a while, finding no better way to describe the situation between the metallic dragons and five-colored dragons on Noah Continent than "quite interesting."
"Oh? How are the dragon races in the Elemental Plane of Air where you were before different from here?"
Garon turned to the Power Dragon, curious.
"The Elemental Plane of Air is vast, with a low density of creatures. You might not see a living being for hundreds or thousands of miles. I only saw one family of crystal dragons there."
"My inherited knowledge mentioned the deep conflict between metallic dragons and five-colored dragons, often leading to battles, but I didn't expect them to fight like this."
Yuna had just witnessed a brass dragon and a green dragon starting off quite amicably, showing no signs of conflict, but after staring at each other for a few seconds, they suddenly erupted into a brawl, scattering dragon scales everywhere.
"You'll get used to it. This is a unique way of interaction between different true dragon species."
Garon wasn't sure about the situation among dragon races in other primary material worlds, but on Noah Continent, although dragons often fight among themselves and friction is constant, overall, it's still peaceful, with very few dragon casualties.
"Such a large-scale true dragon brawl is quite rare."
Garon added.
Five-colored dragons are mostly solitary, and metallic dragons, though united, also live alone except in special places like Metallic Dragon Island. Such an occurrence of many five-colored and metallic dragons in the same area is quite special and rare.
As time passed,
The five-colored dragons scattered in all directions, and the metallic dragons, after pursuing for a while, gave up and returned to Metallic Dragon Island, each with a genuinely happy smile on their faces.
The Ancient Gold Dragon and Ancient Silver Dragon, the two most powerful metallic dragons, chased the Ancient Blue Dragon to an unknown destination.
Just as Garon was about to leave, he heard several voices speaking Dragonic with reverence: "We honor you, respected legendary dragons, and thank you for your assistance."
Garon turned to look.
Two massive dark green tungsten dragons appeared in his vision.
These two heavy metal dragons were quite attractive, a male and a female.
In the previous battle against the Wild God's Avatar, the male tungsten dragon was unfortunately hit by several dark lasers and fell into the ocean, later resurrected by Garon reversing time. He and the female tungsten dragon beside him, his spouse, now showed grateful expressions.
"As dragons, opposing the Wild God's Avatar is our duty."
Garon replied casually.
The relationship between heavy metal dragons and the metallic dragon race is one of deadly enmity, with deeper grievances than between five-colored dragons and metallic dragons. However, there are exceptions like tungsten dragons that are close to the metallic dragon race. Although Metallic Dragon Island welcomes them, they can only sigh at their desire to join the metallic dragon race.
Being expelled from the dragon registry by the Platinum Dragon God himself, the metallic dragons dare not privately agree to the tungsten dragons' request.
Who would dare bear the responsibility of provoking the dragon god's wrath?
"We only know we once belonged to the metallic dragon race but were expelled for offending the Platinum Dragon God due to a mistake."
"As for what mistake we made, there's no record in our inheritance."
The male tungsten dragon shook his head, his face adorned with small spikes showing a trace of melancholy.
Without any record, Garon pondered a bit, thinking about what the Brass Garon had said.
"Then, do you know about the Iron Dragon King?"
"I heard the Iron Dragon King is very powerful."
Garon inquired.
Under the salty sea breeze, the male tungsten dragon solemnly said, "Of course, only a Primordial Iron Dragon of at least ancient level has a chance to become the Iron Dragon King and earn the title of Garulgotheng."
"There's no Iron Dragon King on Noah Continent, not even many of our Iron Dragon kin."
"Garulgotheng? Sounds like a name."
Garon noted.
The Iron Dragon King mentioned by the two tungsten dragons clearly differed from the one Brass Garon spoke of.
"Yes, every Iron Dragon King, regardless of their previous name, inherits this name upon ascending."
The female tungsten dragon clarified.
"Who did this name originally belong to?"
Garon had some guesses.
If not surprising, Garulgotheng was the name of the first Iron Dragon King, also the divine-level Iron Dragon mentioned by Brass Garon, who dared to claim supreme dragonhood, the all-knowing, all-powerful being.
"It belongs to the first Iron Dragon King."
"We only have snippets about that Iron Dragon King. We know it was the first Primordial Iron Dragon in the multiverse, a true Iron Dragon."
"After the first Iron Dragon King's death, subsequent Iron Dragon Kings continued to inherit its name."
"As for its deeds, no records remain."
The two tungsten dragons shared everything they knew with Garon.
Had other dragons asked, they might have been too lazy to answer, but Garon's inquiry was met with enthusiasm.
"Garulgotheng, did this being have a conflict with the Platinum Dragon God?"
Garon shook his head slightly.
After further communication, he bid farewell to the two tungsten dragons and returned to the Polar Ice Plains with Yuna.
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