The scene that greeted Yin Long after the spatial distortion around him calmed down was a quiet city, square buildings with sharp edges rising up all around him. Rising towards the sky a good distance ahead of him was a building that seemed to be fashioned after a sword, a somewhat triangular tip poking up above the other buildings. He couldn't see the actual base of the building, but the slight resonating sensation in his chest, the familiar scent in the air, all of it told him that this obscured building was the Swordsoul's Edge sect.
It was practically oozing with the law of swords, it gathered so thickly that he almost felt like he could see it distorting the air around it. But compared to the first Swordsoul sect he visited, the sensation in his soul was clearly greater this time. That small purple section of his soul produced the greatest resonance, probably due to the first key segment that had merged into it previously.
"Grrrr...."
A low grumble came from Yin Long's side as he observed the seemingly empty city around him, Jin Wang's lips had been pulled back to bare his fangs as he growled. He moved his body slightly, moving over to Yin Long's left side so that he could cover the opening created by his bandaged arm. It would be a bit awkward to stretch his arm around to stroke Jin Wang's mane so Yin Long could only resort to resting the wounded arm on top of his head.
"Don't bother with them, if things go well then we won't need to interact with them. If they go bad... well, then they can be a bit useful."
The city looked empty, that much was true, but it only looked that way. Yin Long's spread out senses had already discovered the people, the citizens, hiding within their homes. And it wasn't just citizens, he also spotted two people who seemed more like competitors, they were certainly a good bit stronger than the normal citizens here. But the range of his senses was nothing compared to Jin Wang's nose so he couldn't be confident that it was really just those two competitors present.
"But first, let's find an inn."
Yin Long acted as if Jin Wang's eyes weren't narrowed, like a beast on the prowl for prey, carefreely stepping out of the spatial array. He had quite literally just finished a gruelling battle with Tao Tiankong, he was practically running on fumes as he stood there. Had it not been for the fact that he couldn't stay in the arena without having to become a new challenger then he would have stayed there to rest a bit first.
Jin Wang stuck close to Yin Long's side as he walked, the alpha was wounded so it fell on the rest of the pride to make sure that nothing went wrong. Finding an inn wasn't hard, the spatial array practically served as the centre of the city since it allowed for easy travelling so more than a few inns were scattered about.
But these inns were the same as the other buildings Yin Long had seen so far, seemingly abandoned, the inhabitants hiding within an underground chamber. He placed a bit of gold on the counter by the entrance and picked a room that seemed like it had been empty for a bit of time, slumping down on the bed and sprawling out.
"I'll get some rest."
He didn't even bother asking Jin Wang to keep guard, he knew that he would do so anyway. No, he simply closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, allowing that deep and comfortable darkness to swallow his consciousness.
"Ah, here again, huh?"
Yin Long couldn't help but mutter softly to himself. The darkness of sleep had just swallowed his consciousness when a flash of light suddenly engulfed it. As the light faded, he found himself standing atop the charred wasteland he had seen a few times in previous visions. But this time there were no armies here, no crack in the sky, no grand dragon to overawe existence.
There was just him and the cracked earth. In the previous visions, the earth had cracked open into three yellow eyes, but now there was only a single eye. This lone eye was also different from the three eyes that usually appeared here, it didn't contain their jealousy, only an ancient weariness mixed with a tinge of excitement.
"You're not the usual one. You're the one who appeared on my soul, right?"
He didn't have any actual evidence to back this up, but this yellow eye had the same expression as the one that appeared on his soul so it was the most reasonable guess he could come up with. As for what it may want with him, to the point of dragging him into this vision again, he had no idea.
"The pieces... You cannot collect more. They wish to awaken you... but you are fractured and split. To awaken in this state... I don't know what may happen."
Contrary to how it acted when it rested on his soul, the eye spoke a fair bit this time. Its voice had gained an additional shade of clarity and power, as if the mere presence of this charred land invigorated it. As for what it was talking about, he had no idea. The pieces he was collecting he could form a guess towards, but the split part and the awaken part he could only draw a blank on.
"The lightning...The Tree...The two eyes...You must reclaim them first...become whole...Become The Dra..."
The words of the lone eye were abruptly cut off by an ear-piercing clanging sound. The land all around them burst open, gleaming purple chains rising from the dark crevices. They coiled around the eye, they covered the land, they blotted out the sky, the dark chains sealed up everything but Yin Long. The now quiet eye was pulled into the crevices by the chains, the clanking as they ground against each other producing something akin to a voice.
"Whole or fractured...Alone or loved...A Monarch rises all the same, that is what makes a monarch."
The eye vanished into the darkness, all that remained was Yin Long, all alone atop a ruined land locked away by countless chains as the light of the waking world slowly enveloped everything.
