"I’ve turned into a dragon?"

Shi Ming stared at the eight other heads in his crimson field of view, momentarily stunned.

The current scene was clearly not above the Endless Ocean, nor was it the era Shi Ming was familiar with from his past life. This was an ancient land with a low temperature. In the distance, he could even see white sheets of ice. It seemed like Earth from a long, long time ago. There were no signs of human life, but he did see plenty of primeval creatures like mammoths.

’Am I dreaming?’

’How can a dream be so real?’

’Wake up!’

ROAR!~

He felt boundless power and a desire for destruction welling up inside him! One of his heads roared, and a giant meteor materialized high in the sky. It then fell from the heavens, crashing violently on the horizon and brutally consuming half the sky!

Following that was the delayed boom!

BOOM!

Destruction is a gift bestowed by the strong.

’Is this a minor skill, Meteor?’

???

His eighteen cold dragon eyes blinked in unison. Then, the familiar text of the Eye of the World appeared before him, bringing him an inexplicable sense of comfort.

[Truly unimaginable.]

[You have been pulled into the dream of the Great Black Heaven Dragon. Due to your Spiritual Power, you have temporarily usurped the host’s role and seized control of the dream. The subconscious of the slumbering Great Black Heaven Dragon has not noticed this minor incident.]

[Perhaps you can get a taste of being a Holy Hall-level Sea Beast?]

[This is a rare opportunity you shouldn’t miss. The Eye of the World calculates that based on the Great Black Heaven Dragon’s current sleep quality, it will enter a dreamless deep sleep in 26 hours. At that point, the dream will dissipate, and your Spiritual Power will be directly expelled. You will find it difficult to experience such a wondrous state again.]

[Of course, you can also exit the dream directly and refuse this trial.]

[But are you really not going to give it a try?]

The text before him slowly faded away.

Shi Ming’s eighteen dragon eyes lit up.

To the other fleeing creatures, the nine-headed dragon’s eyes were brewing with cruel destruction... The creatures of this ancient land fled madly, kicking up clouds of dust across the uninhabited world. The strong and the weak alike, as if they had seen a descended Divine Spirit, dared not linger for even a moment.

’Just a dream where I’ve upstaged the host?’

’In that case, I won’t hold back.’

’Such a realistic world!’

’It’s been so long since I’ve touched land.’

Like a tokusatsu actor putting on a monster suit, Shi Ming was incredibly excited.

Perhaps he, too, had the same battle-hungry genes as the Great Black Heaven Dragon in his bones. At this moment, under his clumsy and awkward control, the nine-headed dragon’s body set the uninhabited land ablaze. The creatures in the dream, as if they had met the Grim Reaper, met their end in various disasters.

The sky turned crimson, the earth began to shake, and thick smoke started to rise. Disaster had fully descended!

Destruction!

ROAR!

All nine heads roared in unison, its kilometer-long body circling over the land like a Divine Spirit. Shi Ming comically controlled the massive dragon’s body, swaying its nine terrifying heads. He went from being unable to adapt to gradually becoming familiar with it, finally able to somewhat control this body he’d gotten for free and instinctively unleash skills as he pleased.

Finally, through trial and error, he unleashed the Great Black Heaven Dragon’s ultimate skill.

It was like someone playing King of Fighters who accidentally triggered a super move.

Nine-Headed Sanctuary!

BOOM!

...

...

...

「The real world.」

In the scorching magma chamber, one man and one dragon were both asleep, having a wondrous intersection in the dream world.

The power within Shi Ming’s body subconsciously fought against the heat and pressure of the area. Meanwhile, the blood collection device was steadily dripping, collecting the crimson blood that fell from the decaying claw tip. The festering wound was gradually starting to heal, but a good amount of blood had already been collected.

The magma pulsed like a heartbeat, the most distinct sound in the depths of this stratum.

Other than that, it was completely silent.

Meanwhile, outside Fujing Mountain, a tsunami suddenly struck.

The sky-high waves were like the wrath of a god, one cresting after another. The Renhuang and the Black Society, two general-class drifter ships, struggled to withstand the surging power of nature. The ships, hundreds of meters long, were now like two helpless duckweeds swaying adrift in the sea.

"Engage Emergency Wave-Stabilization Mode!"

"Engage Maximum Water-Evasion Mode!"

"Engage Emergency Evasive Maneuvers Mode!"

"Everyone, brace yourselves!"

The Vortex People were very familiar with tsunamis and earthquakes and had ample response strategies.

But in the face of such a huge and sudden disturbance, they were still thrown into a panic. The elderly, 70-year-old Renhuang even took a tumble, falling directly inside the cabin that had tilted nearly 40 degrees. He slid downwards and was caught by a quick-eyed Samurai attendant, leaving him in a sorry state.

Some crew members with low Endurance also lost their footing in the violent collisions and threw up yesterday’s meal.

They had rarely encountered a tsunami like this.

"Virus" from Lighthouse struggled to keep her body stable amidst the impact, barely maintaining her balance. The Great Western Sea Region also had hurricanes and tsunamis, but she had never once encountered a tsunami capable of tilting a general-class drifter ship by more than 40 degrees.

’Is the Great Black Heaven Dragon dreaming again?’

Combining the intelligence she had gathered with Lighthouse’s past analyses, she believed this tsunami was a reaction in reality, a feedback from the Great Black Heaven Dragon’s dream power.

Such events had happened many times throughout history, but never had one been this intense.

’It’s like it met a powerful enemy in its dream and got a little carried away.’

"Virus" grabbed onto a fixture as retractable fascia suddenly grew from her body, firmly tethering her inside the empty cabin.

...

...

...

「Da Yu, Xirang Laboratory.」

A young researcher stared at the slice of the Sea-Rising Cherry Root in the instrument, detecting a mutation with his naked eye. The originally pure white slice now had faint, crimson lines appearing on it, as if a drop of blood had been dripped onto it.

The crimson lines spread out, forming nine branches.

This mutation was highly unusual.

He captured the process and hastened his analysis, but he couldn’t find any leads. The instruments couldn’t resolve any results either, as if this highly-ranked wondrous object was just an ordinary deep-sea plant root, nothing special at all.

After 23 failed calculations, he slumped into his lab chair, disheartened.

The strange state of the slice began to recede.

’Perhaps this is a rare opportunity?’ 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He used his B-level administrator privileges to shut down the instrument directly, removed the fingernail-sized slice, and then, as if having made up his mind, placed the slice in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed it.

Then, before anything abnormal happened to him, he pulled the alarm.

’My teacher is too cautious, but I dare to hit a dead end. I can risk it all!’

BEEP.

BEEP.

He collapsed to the floor and quickly lost consciousness.