73- Scouring the City

Krahllak hid well. It had created the city, after all, and it appeared to have some means of shielding itself from Mason’s Divine Sense, as he found himself unable to sense its presence. Before his breakthrough, Mason was only able to properly sense singular targets, and he had to find them first. For larger scans, he could only locate extreme sources of Chi, like the Immortal Beasts.

His senses had been refined thanks to his breakthrough. Although his Divine Sense was not as precise as it would be with a single person, Mason was perfectly able to scan a zone for a presence. Maybe he would not be able to feel the intentions of all the people within, but he could distinguish between them.

So although the city was full of different signatures because it had been built using bodies, Mason should have been able to find Krahllak.

But he was not worried. He already planned to purge the city before leaving, so he would just do it first, and once there was nothing left, there would be nowhere left to hide for Krahllak.

Thus, Mason did exactly that, moving inexorably through the Eighth City, erasing everything in his path. It had to be said, the city was quite large, so it took him several days' worth of time, but he also did not have to sleep.

Another effect of this breakthrough of late was that his need for sleep had basically disappeared, and what little remained could be covered by meditation, which was needed for energy replenishment anyway, so Mason spent nearly 24 hours a day working.

The Eighth City was an even bleaker place than he had first thought, and a far harsher punishment than any of its denizens deserved. Mason had been told its opening would be a disaster because with it, all the demons and vilest criminals that had been sent there over the years would be freed, delivering a veritable onslaught onto the region. Krahllak would have been the largest problem, but not the only one.

But the reality was far worse, at least for those inside. Even with the way the prison had been built, Mason had first assumed the Beast had used the corpses of those who would have died of old age, offering them some kind of twisted faux-immortality.

So Mason still expected to see demons, or any other denizens of the Eighth City as he moved through it, but even after a few days of scouring through the city, only that black dragon attacked him.

He put it in its place, though he never killed it, because that was not how he did things. Recently, Mason had been forced to employ lethal force a lot because he found himself facing possessed people and demons, but that was not how he liked to do things.

And from what he could see, the black dragon was not possessed, at least not in the same way the people of the Hand had been. It was certainly being manipulated in one way or another, so Mason figured he would see what would happen once Krahllak was killed.

As for the Beast, Krahllak itself, it kept hiding from Mason, but it was a fool’s errand and only prolonged the inevitable, as indeed, after only a few days, Mason was close to purging the entire city.

But even when there was so little of it left that it was functionally impossible for Krahllak to hide, it remained hidden. Mason purged what little of it was left, and still, in the empty landscape that was the Eighth City, there only remained the still groggy black dragon, the seven Immortal Beasts who had been freed from the demon, and Mason.

No trace of Krahllak.

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Although puzzled, Mason did not panic, because he knew for a fact that Krahllak could not have possibly left its prison. No matter how crafty, he refused to believe it had created so many layered plans to escape a prison it could have teleported out of at any time.

And indeed, while he was pondering where Krahllak might be hiding, the black dragon, who was struggling to wake up, opened its mouth and spoke in the voice of Krahllak, "You will never kill me, little martial artist, and so you will forever remain trapped in here with me. That is, unless you open the door with the seven Immortal Beasts, and allow us both to leave."

Mason looked at the dragon, scanning it carefully with his Divine Sense as he replied, "You must think of me as a fool."

Krahllak laughed, "I think we got that covered already. But I am here in earnest to make a deal with you. If you open the door to the Eighth City, I can swear a soul oath to never set foot on Earth again. Isn’t that better than remaining trapped in here with me for eternity?"

Mason approached the black dragon with a smile, and Krahllak warned, "Do you think killing Yinglong will draw me out? Will make any difference? You will only lose our only means of communicating, since you’ve destroyed everything else. In reality, I am in a separate layer of space, somewhere you simply cannot attain-"

Mason ignored its voice and leapt atop its face. The black dragon, Yinglong, tried to fight him off, but Mason grabbed it by the whiskers and unleashed his powerful Spiritual Domain.

Although only a few days had passed, Mason’s Three Treasures had actually improved rather considerably. His earlier theory that his progress was tied to the Dao of the Sun had been proven correct too, as he found himself to be rapidly advancing as he purged this city.

Mason found the progress to his Three Treasures to have been synchronized, most probably because of the tripartite formation he created himself. It did not increase the energy he received, but this did mean that he no longer had to worry about raising one Treasure and not the other two.

Using this whole city as fuel, Mason found the energy within his Three Treasures to have more than doubled, his body growing to about five tons of strength from the previous two tons. And yet, Mason’s Essence was only partially filled with liquid Chi, by about 20%. Clearly, the upper limit to this realm was still quite far away.

Of course, Mason did not expect to progress as rapidly as he had in the future, since the Eighth City was the perfect place to exercise the Dao of the Sun.

Besides, while Mason did grow stronger in his Three Treasures, his cultivation of the Dao lagged behind. Following the Dao of the Sun helped cultivate his Three Treasures, but it did not increase his understanding of it, or only marginally. He still needed to meditate on the Fire and Gravity Dao.

However, with the marginal improvements he made to his understanding of the Dao, although the effects would be nigh invisible in battle, it should be noted that the Intents within his Three Treasures did not increase. He was pushing his understanding beyond them, but that power was borrowed.In practical terms, Mason could freely use the insights he had coalesced during his breakthrough, the baseline for creating his Intents, but everything he understood after that in this realm would be the same as before: borrowed power from the Dao that would cost him Divine Sense.

To put things into numbers, if Mason’s understanding of the Gravity Dao when he broke-through represented 1%, then Mason was capable of using 1% of the power of the Gravity Dao freely. If he came to understand 2% of it, however, he would have to expand 1% worth of Divine Sense to make full use of it. If he understood 10%, then he would have to pay 9%.

According to Mason’s guess, by the time he broke through to the next realm, he would once more coalesce his understanding of the Dao, taking whatever he understood at the time for himself, turning it into his.

But to return to the present situation, since all Three Treasures of Mason had improved equally, it also meant that his Spiritual Domain had become much stronger all of a sudden.

Mason’s Spiritual Domain instantly covered a large part of the Eighth City, and more importantly, enveloped Yinglong’s whole body, from snout to tail. It struggled to keep itself afloat, its face bearing an expression of effort.

Mason did not let go, and with his reserves multiplied compared to before, he was capable of holding his Spiritual Domain for about 20 seconds before running out of Spiritual Energy.

Ten seconds quickly passed, and Yinglong became unable to support its own body, crashing towards the nondescript ground of the Eighth City. Still, Mason did not let go, staring intently at the dragon as he kept himself attached.

It was on the 15th second that finally a dark shape separated itself from Yinglong with a frustrated and painful scream. At that, Mason moved instantly, crossing the distance between them as he arrived in front of Krahllak and grabbed it by the throat.