# Chapter 1280: Undying Bird?
After the iceberg melted, the charred black bird corpse was completely exposed. Who could have imagined that a small bird, dead for who knows how many years, would have flames emerging from inside its corpse?
"Sizzle, sizzle."
The flames burned more and more vigorously, and the temperature they released caused even the bone-chilling ice cave to warm up.
On the stone bridge, Zhang Ruochen, Qi Sheng, and the others who had been fighting all stopped, staring at the cage suspended in midair with expressions of astonishment.
"What's going on? What just happened?"
"Why do I feel a faint wave of power emanating from inside the bird corpse?"
"Impossible! It's been dead for so many tens of thousands of years—could it not be completely dead?"
"Any being imprisoned here is absolutely a heinous demon; none of them are simple characters. If any one of them escapes, the entire Kunlun Realm will be turned upside down."
Yinghuo not only possessed powerful spiritual power but could also, to a certain extent, foresee dangers that might occur in the future.
At this moment, her expression was somewhat solemn as she warned, "We need to leave this place immediately, or else we will die without a burial ground."
Qi Sheng and Demon Heaven Crown Prince knew that Yinghuo's intuition was very accurate, so they did not dare to stay in the ice cave any longer. They glanced at Zhang Ruochen, who was standing on top of a stone pillar by the bridge, and ultimately did not continue to attack.
The two of them, along with Yinghuo, rushed off the stone bridge and began climbing the ice wall.
Zhang Ruochen also sensed no dangerous aura, so he did not intercept them. Instead, he joined up with Qing Mo, grabbed her wrist, and quickly fled toward the outside of the ice cave.
Below, the flames surging from inside the bird corpse enveloped the entire cage. Around the cage, the space was slightly distorted.
"Caw!"
Immediately after, a sharp cry came from within the flames.
All the Saint-level beings in the ice cave, including Zhang Ruochen, felt a piercing pain in their heads, as if they had been violently stabbed by a needle. Their vision went black.
Blood flowed from their ears.
All the Saint-level beings briefly lost consciousness and began to fall downward.
Qing Mo, as a plant-type being, was not greatly affected. She was only slightly dazed for a moment before quickly recovering.
She grabbed Zhang Ruochen's wrist with one hand, while the five fingers of her other hand transformed into five vines, striking the ice wall and creating five holes, allowing the two of them to hang in midair.
Yinghuo, Qi Sheng, Demon Heaven Crown Prince, White Li Crown Prince, Devouring Demon Dragon, and Mang the Fourteenth were not so lucky. They all fell from midair, crashing onto the stone bridge with thudding sounds.
Zhang Ruochen took a deep breath, rubbed his temples, turned around, and glanced at the cage suspended below. "Such terrifying sound waves—has it really awakened?"
The entire cage had turned into a huge fireball, and the heat it released was slowly melting the ice walls of the cave.
The palm-sized bird corpse made a "crackling" sound as it broke open its black outer shell, growing a dazzling array of feathers. The scene before them was like an ugly duckling turning into a swan, leaving everyone in awe.
The fiery red feathers were each crystal clear, as if forged from some kind of jade material.
The saints on the stone bridge woke up and saw this scene, finding it utterly unbelievable.
Had it really come back to life?
A look of shock flashed in Yinghuo's eyes. "Is that... is that the legendary Undying Bird?"
As the Divine Maiden of the Undying Divine Temple, Yinghuo was extremely knowledgeable. She had once seen records about the Undying Bird in an ancient tome, complete with text and illustrations.
The fiery bird in the cage looked very similar to the Undying Bird.
"Bang, bang."
The fiery red strange bird violently rammed the cage, trying to escape from it.
The iron chains wrapped around the cage broke off their outer layer of rust, revealing purple-blue lightning patterns, releasing dozens of bolts of lightning that struck the fiery red strange bird.
Immediately after, the stone bridge shook violently.
Ancient dragon patterns emerged on the bridge's surface, like a heavenly scripture.
"The Divine Dragon Clan indeed left behind some measures to suppress the ferocious beings imprisoned here, to prevent any anomalies from allowing them to escape." Zhang Ruochen thought to himself.
Zhang Ruochen considered the fiery red strange bird coming back to life to be an anomaly.
Under normal circumstances, having been frozen for such a long time, even a Great Saint-level being should have long since died. How could it possibly come back to life?
Zhang Ruochen was now far from the stone bridge and could use the Great Space Teleportation to escape at any moment, so he stayed to observe, wanting to know what secrets were hidden here.
While staring downward, Zhang Ruochen asked, "Where is Xiao Hei?"
Qing Mo's two eyebrows were tightly knitted together as she thought carefully. "Xiao Hei fell into the ice cave with us. During the fall, the Princess and I crashed into an iceberg and were frozen in an instant, losing consciousness. Logically, Xiao Hei should have been frozen too."
After a pause, Qing Mo's eyes shifted. "Could Xiao Hei's physical body be inside that bird?"
"How is that possible? It's a cat."
Zhang Ruochen felt that Qing Mo's thinking was too active and gently shook his head.
Qing Mo still firmly believed that Xiao Hei was a bird. With a very serious expression, she argued with Zhang Ruochen, "But Xiao Hei almost never meows. Don't you think it might not be a cat?"
"It just doesn't like to meow."
Zhang Ruochen did not sense Xiao Hei's aura on the fiery strange bird.
On both sides of the stone bridge were densely packed cages, imprisoning many ferocious gods and evil spirits from ancient times. Zhang Ruochen had suspected from the beginning that Xiao Hei's physical body might be in one of those cages.
Zhang Ruochen had observed all the remains inside the cages, but none of them looked like Xiao Hei. In fact, there wasn't even a single cat.
Of course, some cages were suspended within the multicolored mist, making them impossible to see clearly. It was possible that Xiao Hei's physical body was hidden within that multicolored cloud.
Qing Mo seemed to think Zhang Ruochen's reasoning was sound and nodded. Then she asked, "Hasn't the Divine Dragon Clan already gone extinct? Who sealed Xiao Hei's physical body here? And why would they seal it here?"
It was a simple question, but it stumped Zhang Ruochen.
According to Xiao Hei, back then, Xumi Saint Monk had suppressed it, sealing its physical body in the Yin-Yang Sea and refining its saint soul into the artifact spirit of the Cosmic Divine Wood Map.
But why did Xumi Saint Monk seal Xiao Hei's physical body in the Yin-Yang Sea?
Zhang Ruochen had never thought about this question before.
"Could it be... that Xumi Saint Monk wasn't human at all, but a divine dragon?" Zhang Ruochen came up with a bold conjecture.
It wasn't strange for a dragon to join the Buddhist sect. Eight hundred years ago, wasn't the Golden Dragon, the mount of the Buddha Emperor, a saintly being of the Buddhist sect?
"Rumble."
The fiery strange bird in the cage was unleashing increasingly powerful force, and the lightning surging from the stone bridge could no longer suppress it.
The stone bridge shook even more violently, and at the same time, the multicolored mist shrouding the bridge gradually dispersed, revealing the entire bridge.
What Zhang Ruochen and the others had seen earlier was only a small section of the stone bridge.
A stone bridge several hundred miles long hung in midair, its surface covered in brilliant dragon patterns.
At the center of the stone bridge stood a multicolored iceberg, a thousand zhang tall, occupying a third of the bridge.
At the base of the multicolored iceberg stood a young man with long golden hair, a pair of dragon horns, delicate features, and a tall, lean figure.
He stood on the bridge with his hands behind his back, gazing into the void, exuding a majestic aura.
If he hadn't been frozen inside the iceberg, everyone would have thought he was still alive.
"Who... who is he? Why is he frozen on the bridge? Judging by his standing posture, he doesn't look like a prisoner, nor does he seem to have been frozen during battle. It's very strange."
"Could he have sealed himself?"
...
Zhang Ruochen's gaze was also fixed on the young man inside the iceberg. Even frozen, the aura he emitted was full of majesty, like a divine emperor gazing at the cosmos.
If he were still alive, he would certainly be a terrifyingly powerful existence.
Qing Mo said, "Could he be a divine dragon?"
"If he is a divine dragon, then he must be the last dragon of the Divine Dragon Clan."
"Why?" Qing Mo asked.
"Intuition."
Zhang Ruochen's expression was solemn, and he added, "I feel that something quite terrifying is about to happen. We need to leave this place immediately."
Zhang Ruochen took Qing Mo and used the Great Space Teleportation to rush out of the ice cave, reaching the surface of the glacier continent.
From the ice cave, multicolored rays of light surged out, forming a multicolored pillar of light a hundred miles in diameter that shot straight into the sky, turning the vast expanse of the Yin-Yang Sea's sky completely multicolored.
Qing Mo was somewhat anxious. "What about Xiao Hei? It might still be in the ice cave."
"Whether it can escape from the ice cave depends on its own ability. With our current cultivation, going back into the ice cave would be no different from seeking death." Zhang Ruochen said sternly.
Just now, Zhang Ruochen had clearly sensed that Xiao Hei's connection with the Cosmic Divine Wood Map had disappeared.
There were only two possibilities:
First, Xiao Hei's saint soul had met with misfortune and completely dissipated.
Second, Xiao Hei had found its sealed physical body and, using its own power, severed its connection with the Cosmic Divine Wood Map.
Devouring Demon Dragon, Mang the Fourteenth, White Li Crown Prince, Demon Heaven Crown Prince, Qi Sheng, and Yinghuo all rushed out of the ice cave, fleeing to the ground of the glacier continent, all feeling as if they had narrowly escaped death.
Devouring Demon Dragon's gaze fixed on Zhang Ruochen, and killing intent surged from his body once again.
The other Saint-level beings also began to circulate their saint qi, spreading out and approaching Zhang Ruochen from different directions.
The Ancestral Dragon Mountain, the Nine Li Palace, and the Undying Blood Clan had all suffered heavy losses, nearly wiped out, and Zhang Ruochen was the culprit.
If they didn't kill Zhang Ruochen, how would they explain themselves when they returned?
"Still want to fight?"
Zhang Ruochen was fearless. He released Huang Yanchen and Ao Xinyan from the Water Star Gourd and summoned Shi Shenghua, standing opposite them.
"All old acquaintances—our Imperial Court will also join in the fun." Wan Huayu's laughter rang out.
A moment later, the saints of the Imperial Court emerged from the wind and snow, forming a third faction.