Late afternoon cast long, purple shadows across the Clear Stream River Valley. The twelve agricultural terraces glistened in the twilight, their newly sprouted sweet potato vines fluttering like emerald ribbons in the mountain draft. The singing ice-slow stream wound steadily through the stone channels, filling the air with the crisp sweetness of high-sky karst springs.
Yet high up near the northern cliffs. There, the underground brook plunged into the deep limestone basin known as the Dragon-Pool Cave, the water was no longer singing.
It was boiling.
Lin Xiao, resting upon the porch rail of the Willow-Bank Pavilion, suddenly felt a violent, rhythmic pulsation resonating through the second node of his Primordial Soul Circuit.
It wasn’t a sensation of external danger or hostile intrusion. It was an overwhelming, fiery surge of raw, uncontained aquatic life-force. Through the psychic filament linking his Dantian Void to Xiao Long, Lin Xiao felt waves of intense, feverish heat, with the muffled, distressed groans of a young beast pushing against the limits of its physical vessel.
“Lord Xiao,” Su Ling’er called out. She stepped quickly to the edge of the cedar deck, her three white tails bristling with intuitive alarm. “The river leylines... They’re spiraling inward toward the upper karst pool. The water is churning like an overturned cooking pot!”
Down by the forge, Tie Shan dropped his tongs. His golden titan arm glowed brightly as he turned his gaze toward the northern gorge.
“The little drake!” Tie Shan boomed, his heavy footsteps shaking the gravel path. “He’s undergone the great work of guiding the mountain spring and soaking the twelve terraces. The aquatic leylines of the entire valley have came together upon his core! He’s facing the Molting of the Azure Horns!”
Lin Xiao didn’t hesitate.
“Tie Shan, watch the lower camp! Ling’er, stay with Old Ba!” Lin Xiao commanded.
With an elastic, high-pressure contraction of his basal ring, Lin Xiao launched himself from the porch rail. He didn’t travel by foot. Transforming his non-Newtonian body into a sleek, wind-cutting teardrop, he skipped across the surface of the river like a skimming sapphire stone:
Splash-skip-splash-skip!
Covering five hundred paces in the span of six breaths, Lin Xiao arrived at the mouth of the Dragon-Pool Cave.
The scene within the granite tiered arena was awe-inspiring and terrifying.
The seventy-foot-wide pool had transformed into a roaring, frothing whirlpool of deep turquoise water. Huge waves crashed against the upright limestone walls, sending geysers of white spray high into the mist. At the swirling vortex of the pool, Xiao Long was thrashing in painful convulsion.
The fifteen-foot river drake’s golden-veined scales were smoking with intense heat. Large patches of old, semi-clear carp scales were peeling away from his flanks, shedding like molted armor into the churning foam. But the center of his agony was centered upon his broad, noble brow.
There, his twin pearl-white horns—the small, rudimentary bone spikes that had sprouted when Lin Xiao first named him—were glowing with blinding, blazing bright turquoise fire.
The bone was cracking.
Fine, spiderweb fissures glowed white-hot along the horn bases, threatening to fracture the skull plate beneath. Xiao Long let out a hoarse, keening cry that sounded like weeping jade chimes, his snake-like body coiling and lashing against the underwater granite boulders in sheer agony.
Master... Xiao Long’s voice echoed weakly across the soul circuit, trembling with feverish pain. The fire of the dragon veins... It’s too heavy for my bones. My horns are breaking... My core is burning...
“Tactical analysis requested,” Lin Xiao communicated urgently to his inner mind.
A crisp bronze chime echoed instantly:
“Report,” the Dao Spirit’s cool voice broke through the roar of the waterfall. “When a freshwater carp breaks mortal shackles to become a True Flood Dragon, its rudimentary calcium horns must be shed. In their place, sky leylines crystallize into True Azure Coral Antlers. If the host entity lacks high-thickness stone marrow to anchor the skull plates, the outward pressure of the dragon core will shatter the skull.”
Not on my watch, Lin Xiao thought with fierce resolve. You were swimming in my belly when I had nothing but a dry brook and a broken tea basin. You’re not dying in a pool today, little brother.
Lin Xiao sprang from the rocky ledge, diving head-first into the raging whirlpool:
SPLOSH!
In the churning, churning water, Lin Xiao was in his total sovereign element. While ordinary creatures would have been crushed against the rocks by the hundred-ton high-pressure currents, Lin Xiao’s stretchy non-Newtonian body simply melted into easy water-flow harmony. He slipped through the swirling vortex like a drop of ink. He dropped thirty feet into the dark turquoise depths of the basin.
He reached Xiao Long at the bottom of the cave lake.
The young drake had curled his fifteen-foot snake-like frame tightly around an underwater granite pillar, his teeth bared, his golden eyes clouded with the blindness of approaching death. The skin around his horn roots was torn and bleeding, leaking glowing turquoise ichor into the water.
Lin Xiao swelled his fluid body. He wrapped his cool, semi-clear sapphire mass around Xiao Long’s burning head like a soothing, protective helmet.
Xiao Long! Look at me! Lin Xiao’s thought roared across the Primordial Soul Circuit with the calm power of an ancient mountain. Breathe! I’ve got you!
The young drake’s golden eyes flickered, recognizing the clear, gentle warmth of his master.
Master...
Lin Xiao opened his internal Dantian Void.
From his refined stone reserves, Lin Xiao retrieved a dense, glowing pearl of melted bone-iron marrow. The high-thickness essence pulled out from the Iron-Tusk Boar, purified at the sub-core level and alloyed with cold-cooled black steel. At the same time, he soaked the metal marrow with sixty units of pure, pure ancient chaos dew.
Extruding a slender tendril, Lin Xiao pressed the glowing golden pearl directly against the cracked, smoking horn roots upon Xiao Long’s brow.
“Drink, Xiao Long!” Lin Xiao spoke aloud beneath the water. “Shed the carp! Become the Dragon!”
The molten star-iron marrow and chaos dew flowed into the fractures like liquid starlight.
The effect was instant and earth-shattering!
The cool chaos dew instantly put out the feverish, scorching fire burning in Xiao Long’s skull, numbing the agony with deep, calm life-force. Meanwhile, the refined star-iron marrow bonded directly with his skull bone plates. He formed an iron-hard honeycomb lattice that could withstand a million pounds of high-pressure spreading.
CRACK!
With a ringing, crystal sound that rang through the depths of the pool, the old, dull pearl-white horns broke fully free. It dissolved into harmless stone sand upon the lake floor.
And in their place, the true sky heritage of the Dragon Ancestors burst forth!
From Xiao Long’s broad forehead sprouted a pair of amazing, sweeping Azure Coral Dragon Antlers!
They didn’t look like rough animal horn. They were sculpted from living, semi-clear sapphire-and-jade crystal, branching outward like ancient ocean coral. Fine, detailed sharp-angled runes pulsed beneath their crystal-clear surface, crackling with arcs of harmless, radiant turquoise lightning that lit up the cave depths like high noon!
His entire body underwent a breathtaking metamorphosis.
Xiao Long’s fifteen-foot frame elongated, swelling with dense, coiled muscle until he stretched over thirty meters. Nearly a hundred feet of majestic, snake-like glory! His scales shifted from simple gold into deep, lustrous lapis-lazuli plates edged in burnished gold, overlapping like royal dragon armor. Along his jawline, twin thirty-foot ivory-and-silver whiskers unfurled, swaying through the water like sky silk ribbons that could sense every drop of moisture across fifty leagues.
Four powerful, pearl-scaled dragon talons, each tipped with iron-hard metal claws, emerged from his muscular belly, flexing with supreme aquatic sovereignty!
A crisp chime chimed in Lin Xiao’s mind. He was followed by the triumphant proclamation of the Omniscient Dao Spirit:
Xiao Long opened his eyes.
His golden irises were now burning with ancient dragon intelligence. It was flanked by rings of deep sapphire wisdom. The violent whirlpool around him ceased instantly, freezing into total, glass-like stillness at the command of his spiritual aura.
Looking at Lin Xiao, who was bobbing gently before his snout, the hundred-foot sky flood dragon purred. A deep, low, deep rumble that sent waves of pure joy rippling through the water.
Master! Xiao Long’s voice echoed across the soul link, rich, sweet-sounding, and brimming with uncontainable thanks. The chains of the river carp are broken! The waters of the nine heavens obey my spirit!
“Then show our valley what you can do, Xiao Long!” Lin Xiao laughed joyfully.
Xiao Long coiled his huge body, kicked his four pearl talons against the pool floor, and launched himself upward like an azure rocket!
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOO-SPLASH!
The surface of the Dragon-Pool Cave erupted!
The hundred-foot Horned Azure Flood Dragon burst into the twilight sky. He climbed in majestic, waving spirals through the rising evening mists! His azure coral antlers blazed with sky lightning. He cast brilliant arcs of sapphire light across the mountain cliffs.
High above the Primordial Spirit Willow, Xiao Long coiled amidst the purple evening clouds. That let out a long, ringing dragon roar that echoed across thirty mountain ridges:
ROOOOOOOOOOOO-AAAAAAARGH!
The sound was not an aggressive challenge of a feral hunting beast. It was the joyful proclamation of a river sovereign celebrating his rebirth.
Circling the valley three times, Xiao Long bent his azure coral antlers.
From the twilight sky, a gentle, shimmering shower began to fall.
It wasn’t a cold, dreary rain. It was a warm, sweet, micro-climate mist of pure spiritual dew. The droplets fell upon the newly planted sweet potato terraces, upon the cedar roof edges of the Willow-Bank Pavilion, and upon the broad branches of the ancient willow, washing away the dust of the day and filling the entire valley with the intoxicating fragrance of blooming river jasmine and clean ice-slow water.
Xiao Long dropped gracefully from the clouds, coiling his amazing hundred-foot azure body along the riverbank terrace.
He lowered his massive, noble dragon head until his snout rested gently upon the soft grass right before Lin Xiao. His thirty-foot silver whiskers brushed affectionately against Lin Xiao’s sides. The great dragon purred like a huge kitten. He closed his golden eyes as Lin Xiao reached out with an azure tendril to scratch the warm, smooth spot right between his radiant azure antlers.
Down the path, Tie Shan, Su Ling’er, and Old Ba stood watching in breathless, respectful awe.
A scrawny carp choking in a poacher snare had become a thirty-meter Horned Azure Flood Dragon, sovereign of waters and bringer of rains.
Lin Xiao smiled, leaning his floating blue body against Xiao Long’s cool lapis scales, basking in the sweet fragrance of the evening mist.
“Good boy, Xiao Long,” Lin Xiao murmured softly. “Welcome to the family.”