However, the moment this thought crossed his mind, the air the Bo had crashed into began to ripple, revealing lustrous, jade-like scales.
The scales were colossal and snow-white, carrying a heavy, solid texture, as though they had accumulated the immense weight of time through countless eons and shifting ages. A vast, primordial aura rushed over him.
Tai Shan's eyes widened.
The area where the scales materialized gradually expanded, growing wider and wider as it slowly outlined a massive section of a body, looming before him like a high wall of steel cast in liquid silver.
Tai Shan could no longer feel his own breath.
Yet, to his absolute horror, the manifestation of scales was still spreading.
Winding and colossal, they gradually filled the green fields of billowing grass before him, blocking out the forest where the birds sang so sweetly.
Towering all the way upward, they steadily filled the blue sky of drifting clouds, blotting out the blinding, brilliant sun.
Then, winding slowly back down, a massive dragon head emerged—imposing, majestic, and awe-inspiring.
The bright daylight quietly faded as a heavy, silent darkness descended.
Tai Shan looked up at this colossal, towering entity. His breath seized, and his heart seemed to stop beating entirely.
With a heavy thud, the Bo beneath him collapsed to its knees, flinging him off its back.
He rolled five times along the ground. When he looked up, he found that the Bo behind him had all collapsed to their knees with dull thuds. Their legs had gone completely soft, and they lay flat, trembling violently.
The riders had all been thrown off as well. Shaking all over, none of them dared to make a single move, with large, wet patches of urine staining their fine cotton trousers.
He tried to scramble to his feet, but his body felt as though it were cast in solid iron, pinned firmly to the ground without being able to move even a fraction of an inch.
Only then did he snap out of his stupor, realizing that his body had long since been paralyzed by sheer terror.
The moment this realization struck him, he felt as if he were standing alone beneath a transcendent, colossally terrifying gaze. The ground beneath him felt like a bottomless abyss, forcing him to lie flat upon it with absolute care; even though it was solid rock and soil, it offered not the slightest sense of security.
An indescribable, colossal tide of extreme terror surged up in hindsight, instantly wrapping around his entire body, crushing his mental defenses, and swallowing his soul.
An icy sensation, as if falling into a cavern of ice, made his entire soul shiver.
By the time he came to, he was already drenched in sweat, feeling as if he had been soaked in freezing water, chilled to the bone.
His body began to shake uncontrollably, as though it were about to collapse and crumble into a pile of bones.
His heart pounded furiously—thump-thump! Thud-thud-thud! Bang-bang-bang! It beat so violently it seemed determined to self-destruct along with his ribcage, as if trying to burst right out of this pile of flesh!
Everything was spiraling out of control; everything was in chaos.
Tai Shan could control nothing. He felt as though his body no longer belonged to him—his limbs and organs wanted to fight each other, to go mad, to break apart and scatter.
His very existence was fading away.
Yet there was nothing he could do.
What was even more terrifying was that he, too, wanted to fight, he wanted to go mad, he wanted to break apart and scatter to get it all over with.
He did not want to endure this torment anymore, nor did he want to face this terror. Anything would do, as long as it ended quickly.
That terrifying entity had been watching him. Unceasingly.
Its gaze was so searing, so scorching. It made him entirely uneasy, to the point where the ground itself felt like a bottomless abyss—soft, lacking any reality, as if he might fall straight through at any moment.
In this trembling, precarious state, he endured the agonizing prickle of its gaze on his back.
If he gave in to the urge to surrender and let himself plummet into the bottomless abyss, the terrifying sensation of falling would tear his soul from his body, forcing his soul to watch his body plunge while it floated upward, only to be eaten by that entity.
What a terrifying sensation. He could not begin to imagine what it would feel like to have his soul devoured.
He would rather endure being watched like this, suffering until he slowly vanished, than be eaten by it.
And so, he endured this unimaginable fear, shrinking and dwindling away under the weight of its searing gaze.
Just as he was about to be released from this sea of misery, the transcendent, colossally terrifying entity spoke.
“Take me to see your deity.”
That voice, carrying the majestic weight of heavenly wrath, reverberated from above like rolling thunder and pierced his very soul.
A sudden, deafening awakening!
The phrase echoed in Tai Shan's mind, and like a splash of cold water, his entire body jolted awake as if suddenly enlightened.
The bottomless abyss vanished. The terrifying gaze vanished. His scattered consciousness seemed to transcend space and time, rapidly retracting and snapping back into his body.
The scene before him changed, as if he had returned to the real world. The ground was solid, and the grass brushed against his face.
He tried to lift his head, only to realize that his body was pressed tightly against the ground like a pile of mush. It felt exceptionally heavy, and he was completely drenched in a cold sweat.
Then, he suddenly understood.
How could there be any bottomless abyss? It was clearly the solid ground.
How could he possibly fall through the ground?
The only thing falling was himself.
His flesh had gone soft, his body was losing its grip on control, and his sense of reality was slipping away.
It was that terrifying gaze that had melted his body into a pile of mush, pinning him to the earth.
It was the terror reaching deep into his soul that had conjured those illusions.
“What a terrifying existence...”
Tai Shan thought, his heart still gripped by lingering fear.
He had never experienced such a horrifying sense of oppression. Even the great Lord Bo God had never caused him such terror.
Only now did he recall the appearance of this terrifying entity. It seemed to be a colossal, towering dragon.
“Dragon God, save us!!”
Suddenly, the cries for help from his fellow tribespeople echoed in his mind.
In an instant, everything clicked.
“So this is their Dragon God. This is the true Dragon God!”
“That Red Dragon is merely a subordinate under its command.”
To think it is this terrifying!!
Tai Shan's chest tightened, and his eyes could not help but widen.
A chill still gripped his spine.
Only when some feeling finally returned to his body did he begin to gasp greedily for air.
In reality, only a minute or two had passed. It was just that the Dragon God's oppression was so intense that Tai Shan felt like a half-dead, drowning dog that had only just been dragged out of the water.
It was only when dragons began emerging from all directions to gather into an army, ordering Tai Shan and the others to lead the way, that Si He and her people finally snapped out of their shock.
Looking at the spectacular sight of dragons swarming from both heaven and earth, following Tai Shan and the others toward the forest, Si He shuddered and came to her senses.
“Quick! Quick! Grab your weapons and follow them! I'll get my great longbow, you guys hurry up!”
She didn't even care about preserving her dignity as Chieftainess. Speaking as fast as she possibly could, she spun around and bolted toward the wooden cabin, shouting as she ran.
“Quickly, bring me my longbow and arrows! Hurry!”
Yan Shou and the others were momentarily stunned, but seeing the gathering of the dragon army, they instantly understood that a battle was brewing. They quickly rushed to retrieve their weapons, which had been left embedded in the surrounding trees when they had fled and fought the Bo earlier.
Though their strength was negligible and they might not be of much help, the Chieftainess's order was incredibly decisive—even if they couldn't help, they had to go!
Only in this way could they prove their absolute resolve to follow and serve the Dragon God!
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