Mysterious mirror hanging high

"Slaughtering a spirit beast...and taking its head?"

A strong sense of unease rose in Jing Yu's heart. The behavior of this human cultivator was completely opposite to the natural harmony shown in the mural on the left, where the Creation Immortal Venerable held a baby ape and commanded all beasts. Instead, it was full of destruction and evil.

He suppressed his discomfort and looked at the third mural.

The scene changed again, and an even stronger sense of eeriness washed over us.

The main subject in the painting is still that monk, but his appearance has undergone a horrifying transformation!

His original human head was gone, and on his neck was a hideous horse head—the very same blue-maned horse head that he had cut off in the previous painting!

The horse's eyes were still wide open, filled with violence, greed, and madness. At this moment, the cultivator's horse mouth was slightly open, revealing its white teeth, as if it were neighing or grinning silently.

At this moment, the horse-headed, human-bodied monster was riding on the back of a rather large divine deer.

The divine deer was clearly badly injured; one of its antlers was broken, and it had multiple wounds on its body. It was kneeling on the ground, struggling, its eyes filled with terror and despair.

In the hand of the horse-headed monster, a short, sharp dagger was being plunged into the base of the other intact antler on the head of the divine deer, as if to dig the antler out by the roots.

The divine deer writhed violently in agony, blood flowing down its antlers, staining the horse-headed monster's dagger-wielding hand and the deer's back beneath it.

The monster's horse-like face held an expression that was a mixture of cruelty, focus, and enjoyment, sending chills down one's spine.

"To seize the form of living beings and steal the essence of demons... what kind of evil magic is this?" Jing Yu thought with a chill.

Jing Yu's gaze fell on the fourth mural, and suddenly a chill rose from her tailbone, rushing straight to the top of her head.

In the mural, the image of the horse-headed, human-bodied monster had changed again; now it had a pair of deer antlers on its head.

The monster was currently engaged in a fierce battle with a giant python that was hundreds of feet long in the forest.

But the giant python was no match for the monster and was killed in just a few breaths. The monster stared at the python's body, which was over a hundred feet long, and remained silent in thought.

The fifth mural, divided into several small panels like a comic strip, depicts the monster's relentless hunt.

In some scenes, the monster stands beside a large fish stranded on a riverbank, still struggling, holding a bone blade and scraping off the fish's scales piece by piece.

In another scene, a magnificent eagle falls from the sky, and the monster's blade flashes, precisely severing the eagle's talons, which can tear through metal.

Another scene shows a golden ox, full of vitality, bound by magic and unable to move, with murky tears streaming from its eyes.

The monster approached and mercilessly severed the ox's massive, fan-like ears with its dagger...

In each frame, the detached demonic organs—fish scales, eagle claws, and ox ears—are eventually inlaid or sewn onto the monster's ever-changing body.

Its form is increasingly deviating from the category of "human" and is becoming more and more like a distorted, terrifying existence that combines the characteristics of many powerful monsters.

The sixth mural, and also the last one on the right wall.

All traces of bloodshed, patchwork, and mutation have disappeared.

The scene becomes pure and majestic, with a complete dragon covered in thick, bluish-gray scales and with perfectly flowing lines, stretching across the center of the picture.

Its head and horns are prominent, its belly has five claws, its mane behind its neck is like flames, its body is surrounded by clouds and rippling water, exuding an ancient, noble, and domineering awe-inspiring dragon might!

It is almost identical to the ancient dragon in the mural on the left, except that if you look closely into the depths of its eyes, there seems to be a trace of the cunning and violence that belonged to the original gloomy cultivator.

"So that's how it is!"

"That Primordial True Dragon... that Primordial True Dragon that treated the demon race as prey and was ultimately driven into the deep sea by the Demon Ancestor leading all the demons... the Primordial True Dragon suspected to be the [True Dragon Ancestor], was originally... actually a person?!"

"A human cultivator, in the most evil and blasphemous way, hunted down demons, seized their most essential parts, and forcibly pieced them together onto his own body, ultimately... becoming a dragon?!"

This discovery was so shocking that it completely overturned Jing Yu's understanding of the dragon race, the demon race, and even history.

Is it to reveal the root of the dragon-demon feud? Is it to warn future generations? Or... does it hint at a deeper struggle over the Great Dao, a distinction between good and evil?

Jing Yu felt dizzy; the amount of information was too much, impacting his understanding.

"Does the Creation Immortal Venerable know... the Demon Ancestor know... and even the Dragon Clan itself know this secret?"

Jing Yu muttered to himself. He was now absolutely certain that the murals here were painted by the [Ancestral Demon Palace]. Although he could not believe it entirely, the description of the origin of the dragon race in the murals was probably not unfounded.

He dared not look any longer, quickly walked through the long corridor, and pushed open the bronze door at the end with all his might.

Rumbling--

With a commotion, the bronze door was opened a crack, and Jing Yu, carrying the still unconscious Guo Tingshu, slipped inside, only to find that the room behind the door was nothing special, just an ordinary stone chamber.

Inside the stone chamber, only a woman in animal skin lay on the only stone bed, seemingly dozing.

Above the woman in animal skin floats a hairpin that appears to be between illusion and reality; it seems to be the one that Shenmeng Daozun dropped in the previous photograph.

The woman in animal skin seemed to sense someone's arrival. Her eyes, which had been slightly closed, suddenly opened. She sat up from the stone bed and looked Jing Yu and Guo Tingshu on her shoulder up and down with great interest, clicking her tongue in amazement.

"So you're another trump card from the Daoist sect? And who is this kid on my shoulder? He actually deciphered my [Ten Thousand Beasts Diagram]? Hmm... there's a hint of Yin and Yang energy here. Could it be that Yin-Yang man's move?"

Jing Yu's expression hardened, and he quickly put Guo Tingshu down, cupping his hands in greeting and saying, "Junior Xuan Jing greets Your Excellency!"

"So you know who I am... Shenmeng has been in touch with you?"

The woman in animal skin said indifferently, "You don't need to be reserved. What remains here is merely a dispensable avatar of my true self. Shenmeng dares not let you face my true self directly, hehe... What is she afraid of? Is she afraid that I will be tempted to modify you? This woman is too petty. Among the Daoist masters in the sect, she has the smallest mindset."

Jing Yu dared not speak, but simply maintained the posture of bowing... Of course, she could not follow the words of the woman in animal skin and make up stories about Shenmeng Daozun, nor could she refute them.

Fortunately, the woman in the animal skin didn't seem to care about Jing Yu's opinion. She simply stretched and said lazily:

"Let me introduce myself. I am the Creation Immortal Venerable, who currently holds the power of creation in the Immortal Realm."

"Of course, you can also call me by my first name—"

"Wa".