Chapter 383 — The Bloodline of the Evil Dragon

That page and those around it described the various kinds of dragon veins, and one passage dealt with tampering with a dragon vein's course to alter fate and fortune. But what it spoke of was altering the fate and fortune of an entire dynasty, an entire continent!

"He means to draw the Desolate Ruins into the Kingdom of Jingping!" Shen Mu blurted.

Judging by the records in the Dragonkeeper's Classic, the consequences of Lord Dragonkeeper's deed would be no small matter: by merely changing the Yong River's course, he could use the river's flow to draw the great evil of the Desolate Ruins into Jingping!

Were he to succeed, the Kingdom of Jingping would little by little become a place like the Desolate Ruins, where darkness invades when night falls!

"A most formidable fellow."

The blind elder's eyes were hollow, without pupils, yet he seemed already to have seen where Lord Dragonkeeper stood. Gripping his bamboo staff, he tapped it lightly on the river's surface. "A thousand-li dike collapses from an ant's hole. With only a slight change to the dragon vein's course, he can use the ominous dragon vein to draw in the dark power of the Desolate Ruins and utterly ruin the fortune of the Kingdom of Jingping. This man's study of dragons is profound; his attainments are terrifying."

His bamboo staff swept lightly over the river's surface, and at once the boat beneath their feet shot away like an arrow loosed from the string, racing straight for the middle reaches of the Yong River. So swift was it that the boat creaked and groaned, unable to bear the strain, ready to break apart at any moment.

Splash—

At last the boat came apart, countless splinters of wood flying in all directions. Shen Mu, Ling Yuxiu, and the others were about to rouse their own powers and run across the water, when suddenly the river beneath their feet churned and raging dragons roared; one huge water dragon after another soared up from the surface, caught them fast, and bore them racing and tumbling over the water, howling as they hurried onward!

The blind elder gripped his bamboo staff and stood atop a dragon's head. Shen Mu, Si Yunxiang, and the rest looked anxiously to either side, and saw beside them ten thousand dragons galloping and roaring, flying forward in desperate haste!

"This Yong River is the blind old man's territory!"

The Yong River raced beneath their feet; the blind elder's sleeves flapped, and killing intent poured from him. "Shifting the Yong River—did you ask me, the Dragon King?"

The water dragons raced on, rolling westward, traveling unnumbered li, until the blind elder suddenly raised his bamboo staff and struck it down hard. For several hundred li the river's surface shuddered violently; the Yong River, like a long dragon wounded at the waist, took a heavy blow to its middle and could not keep from sinking toward the ground!

And below, upon the bed of the Yong River, Lord Dragonkeeper moved with the gait of a dragon, winding along, both hands raised high, violent power surging out to hold up the river, stretch by stretch.

At the same time, from the riverbed a huge stone beast, several dozen zhang tall, soared into the air, seized in his power and flung into the foothills nearby.

The Dragon-Driving Art of the Dragonkeeper's Classic.

He was driving upstream from the lower reaches, and the whole way he had seen many stone beasts sunk in the bed of the Yong River—river-quelling beasts, forged by the officials of the Kingdom of Jingping and stamped with all manner of runes and seals, used to suppress the dragon vein and keep it from quaking and bringing on floods.

The Kingdom of Jingping had no few extraordinary men and gifted scholars able to discern dragon veins and order skilled craftsmen to forge river-quelling beasts to press the dragon vein down.

In ordinary days, with these river-quelling beasts holding the dragon vein in place, the Yong River's dragon vein stayed docile; but now, drawing them out one by one, he could rouse the dragon vein's power to the uttermost.

Besides the river-quelling beasts, the Yong River held all manner of strange things swept down from upstream by the current, exceedingly uncanny; Lord Dragonkeeper avoided these uncanny things as best he could, lest he bring needless trouble upon himself.

And the closer one came to the Desolate Ruins, the more such uncanny things there were; in the Yong River within the Desolate Ruins there were even stone statues pressing the river down, and there he could by no means lift it.

Nor was his aim to take the Yong River away; there was no need to raise the whole river—only to change the dragon vein's course, to turn it into an ominous dragon vein.

Just then, the Yong River in midair suddenly pressed down.

Lord Dragonkeeper's heart lurched. He thrust both hands upward—and suddenly the water above him gathered into an enormous pillar and came smashing down!