William Harper's body was rotting away bit by bit, his soul slowly corroded. The intense, tearing pain made William Harper tremble uncontrollably. The agony stimulated his mind, making it incomparably clear in an instant. He remembered that strange man's bizarre smile, and the words: Welcome to the Dragon Realm. William Harper finally understood—it was him. The hunt for the Ancestral Dragon was a trap he had set in advance. Yet William Harper couldn't understand; he had no grudge against that strange man, so why target him?

A soul-wrenching scream drifted slowly across the wasteland. Where William Harper had once stood, only a pile of black soul fragments remained, soon scattered by the wind and snow.

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Chapter Two: The World of Creation

King's Ridge.

Rather than calling King's Ridge a ridge, it would be more accurate to call it a world. After the ancestors of the The Harper Family settled at King's Ridge, they accidentally discovered a spatial rift in the back mountain and developed it into a world, suspended above the mortal realm, called the World of Creation.

Starting sixty thousand years ago, every generation of the The Harper Family produced outstanding talents, some of them truly extraordinary. They expanded the World of Creation, eventually forming a world as vast as the mortal one, filled with abundant spiritual energy—a place all cultivators longed for.

On the Northern Wasteland Plain of the World of Creation, a figure darted across the barren land, rising and falling, searching for something.

William Harper had been in this world for over two months now. Based on some lingering memories in his mind, he understood his current situation.

The original owner of this body was also named William Harper, a member of the The Harper Family clan.

The The Harper Family was a great family standing above the mortal world, with over sixteen thousand disciples, divided into inner and outer sects. Only those with exceptional talent and dragon-blood lineage could enter the inner sect. According to ancient theory, dragons were divine beings of heaven and earth, lustful by nature, who mingled with mortals, leaving their bloodline in the human world. After countless generations, the dragon's spiritual blood became diluted, but every year a few with dragon-blood lineage would awaken, and these were all taken into the inner sect. As for the outer sect, it was divided into eight branches: Bai, Yi, Yuan, Bai, Feng, Gu, Qian, and Cong, responsible for the daily affairs of the The Harper Family. William Harper was just an ordinary ninth-generation disciple of the Bai branch among the outer eight. His daily job was to clean up "trash."

The World of Creation was filled everywhere with dense spiritual energy. At every moment, a large number of monsters would appear, absorbing the world's spiritual energy to cultivate. William Harper's job was to clear out those monsters that hadn't yet succeeded in cultivation, keeping the world's spiritual energy pure. Every day, more than three thousand disciples of the The Harper Family participated in this work. Most of these disciples were from the outer eight branches, either those who failed in their studies or were frustrated within the sect. William Harper was one of them.

William Harper reached the Innate Realm at sixteen, but made no further progress. In the eyes of ordinary people, this was already an impressive achievement. But in the The Harper Family, there was a saying: "If you enter this sect at five, you may stay; all others are mere mortals." This meant that only those who reached the Innate Realm by age five were considered to have glimpsed the threshold and were worth cultivating; the rest were just mortals, not worth the effort. The requirements were nothing if not strict.

The World of Creation was originally just a place for the The Harper Family inner sect to cultivate, but because too many monsters were born here every day and the inner sect was busy cultivating, no one cleared them out, so the task fell to the outer sect. Powerful monsters often appeared in the World of Creation, making the job of clearing them very dangerous, and most outer sect members were unwilling to come. The previous William Harper had been severely wounded by a monster, and then the current William Harper took over his body.

After arriving in this world, he found everything here eerily similar to the Dragon Realm—even the cultivation techniques from the Dragon Realm could be used here. In his previous life, William Harper cultivated a technique called the War God Art. After crossing over, his soul ring came with him, and nothing inside was missing. William Harper could cultivate two techniques: the War God Art and the Ancestral Dragon Art. Undoubtedly, the Ancestral Dragon Art was more powerful, but cultivating it required abolishing his internal energy and starting over. In the World of Creation, he dared not act rashly, so for now, he could only practice the War God Art.

When William Harper took over this body, it was already severely damaged. Hiding in a cave, he practiced the basic techniques of the War God Art and slowly regained his strength. He was gradually getting used to this body. Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it.

He still had to stay in the World of Creation for another twenty days and clear out a thousand monsters before he could return to report.

He moved his body a bit. Compared to the William Harper of the Dragon Realm, this body felt far too weak.

Passing by a stream, he caught a faint trace of demonic energy and frowned. This was the seventeenth monster he had tracked today. The previous sixteen had all been killed by William Harper without exception, but this seventeenth one had eluded him for over three hours, and he still hadn't found its trail.

William Harper grew wary. He had only just entered the Innate Realm and hadn't yet reached the Profound level, so he was still at risk in the World of Creation.

William Harper carefully concealed his presence, slipped through a patch of low shrubs, and the strange, demonic scent grew stronger, carrying a chilling aura.

A stench of corpses wafted over. William Harper followed the smell, moving slowly through the bushes. In the dim forest, more than a dozen dried corpses lay silently.