Chapter 300: An Ancient Starry Sky (2/2)

The ancientness felt like the decay of more than a hundred thousand years. It was filled with an incomparable exhaustion, as if it were struggling to find a single breath within which pulsed the will to live.

This field of stars felt unfamiliar to Meng Hao. The starry sky that he normally saw when he looked up at night… was completely different!

There didn’t seem to be even a single star that was the same. These heavenly bodies emanated ancientness; after gazing upon them, it was clear that this was not the night sky of the Southern Domain. Meng Hao felt a tiny sensation, as if he were somehow melding together with these stars. When the feeling rose up, a profound sense of confidence and hope suddenly floated in his heart.

It was a strange feeling.

Meng Hao knew that every person who was teleported from the corpse into this place, and then returned, all saw something different. However, all of the places that people had seen before, were now being revisited by the people currently inside. Except for this starry sky….

From beginning to end no one, neither those who had lived, nor those who had died, had laid eyes on this scene.

Meng Hao was the only one!

As he contemplated matters, Meng Hao suddenly looked down toward his feet. He could sense that far beneath him was a particular heavenly body that was emitting some sort of beckoning power. He felt himself being rapidly pulled toward it.

The speed was hard to describe. He saw the heavenly body growing larger and larger, until it filled his entire field of view. He saw clouds, and then a sea, and then land.

The land stretched out limitlessly. Meng Hao could see mountain peaks and rivers, and then, suddenly a particular mountain appeared in front of him. It was nighttime, and overhead, the stars were visible. Without thinking about it, Meng Hao compared the sky to that of the Southern Domain. His heart trembled.

It was true! This starry sky was absolutely different!

The stars were clearer, as if there were nothing obscuring their glory; their ancientness, their archaicness, was clearly visible. It was impossible to tell how long they had hung there in the sky.

All of the stars were strange. Not a single one was a star that existed in the sky of the Southern Domain.

“These are the ancient stars which exist in my memory,” said a calm voice from behind Meng Hao. Meng Hao slowly turned. He wasn’t sure when, but at some point a middle-aged man had appeared there, sitting on top of a boulder.

The man wore a simple but elegant robe. His long, black hair flowed over his body. He was handsome, with a bit of a heretical aura in his face. He looked different than the corpse Meng Hao had seen back from the Tower of Tang; however, if you looked closely, you could see that it was the same person.

Surprisingly, a small campfire burned in front of the man. Above the flames, he was roasting… a snake-like creature.

“Sit,” said the man coolly.

Meng Hao stood there thoughtfully for a moment, then approached and sat down. He looked at the bizarre snake roasting over the fire. It had claws, and despite being charred, it wasn’t completely dead yet; it was still struggling.

Even more shocking to Meng Hao was that the snake had horns like that of a deer. He stared at it even closer; its body was almost as black as a piece of coal, but even still, he could pick up some clues. He suddenly gasped.

“This is….”

“A White Dragon, that’s all,” said the man casually. “It has a limitless Cultivation base that brings it close to the first level of the Immortal Realm. I ran into it on the Eighth Mountain. It was hungry and wanted to eat me. However, I was also hungry.” Meng Hao wasn’t sure how powerful the first level of the Immortal Realm was, nor exactly what the Eighth Mountain was. However, he was able to sense that this White Dragon was shockingly powerful.

“Want to have a bite?” asked the man, looking at Meng Hao. He lifted up the White Dragon, which was about the length of an arm, and then quickly chopped it into two pieces. “Do you like the head more, or the tail?” he asked.

Meng Hao hesitated, causing the man to laugh scoffingly.

“Uh… I’ll have the head,” Meng Hao said finally.

“You sure know how to eat, kid,” replied the man, handing over the front half of the White Dragon.

Meng Hao took it, feeling somewhat trepidatious. He looked over as the man took a large bite from the tail part of the White Dragon. After the first bite, he took another, then another, crunching the creature into pieces as he did. Meng Hao took a deep breath, eyeing the front half of the White Dragon. Telling himself that this was just an illusion, he placed it into his mouth.

Crunch, crunch, he began to eat it. The head was very crispy, and the flavor was actually quite delicious. His eyes lit up and he quickly consumed the entire thing. Soon, the whole front half of the White Dragon was in his belly.

“Good?” asked the man with a laugh, looking at Meng Hao. “I used to eat one every year.”

“It doesn’t taste bad at all,” said Meng Hao, looking a bit embarrassed.

“Actually, you know what tastes even better than White Dragons? Flying Rain-Dragons, just like the one you have inside of you. Boil them into a soup, and the flavor is amazing. Unfortunately, Flying Rain-Dragons are quite rare. Once they grow up, tangling with them is very difficult. If I’m lucky, I might pursue one for thirty thousand years before being able to have some of that soup.” The man licked his lips and looked down toward Meng Hao’s dantian.

The look in the man’s eyes caused Meng Hao to take a deep breath. This was because he had suddenly noticed that his first Dao Pillar, the one with the Flying Rain-Dragon Core inside of it, was suddenly trembling in intense fear.