After all, this Gray Angel had been forged from a lowly goblin, and forced through five or six deaths and resurrections in rapid succession—without pause, without recovery, without grace.
Perhaps the soul had simply reached its breaking point due to the sheer pace.
What if the time between deaths were extended?
What if, after resurrection, one allowed the side effects—like the splitting headache and the weakness in limbs—to fully subside before dying again?
Would that grant the soul enough resilience to endure repeated cycles without collapse?
Moreover, what of soul strength itself?
With every breakthrough, with each ascension in rank, the soul grows more robust. Could a far stronger being endure far more cycles of quick death and Resurrection before reaching the point of no return?
These questions burned within me, but I knew:
This kind of experiment demands patience. Time. Repetition.
It cannot be rushed.
And the answers… will not come easily.
"Then just wait." I was in a very good mood.
After all, whether there's a limit to the number of resurrections or not, it's still one of the greatest gains for me comparable to my Atomic Furnace.
---
Time passed gradually.
With the mass production of a large number of Gray Angels, the number of demons wandering around Blackwing Lair grew smaller and smaller.
The Gray Angel, powerful and able to resurrected even after death, was definitely an extremely terrifying combat weapon.
While cleaning up the demons, I also gradually figured out the mechanism of resurrection.
Just as I thought, as long as the gray creature is resurrected after the side effects subside, there is no limit to the number of resurrections.
Although this conclusion is somewhat imprecise—because the number of deaths and resurrections so far is only around a dozen—I observed the soul of a gray-white creature that had been resurrected more than ten times and found that everything in its soul was normal. So, I came to this loose conclusion.
---
"It's time to rule the Ghost Plane."
One day, with the constant fusion of the power of dead void creatures, my biological level had broken through from the 20th order beginner to the 20th intermediate level, and I had a thought.
Before breaking through to Legend, my strength was at the pinnacle of the second level of Legend.
After breaking through to Legend, although my raw power did not increase dramatically, I did gain four major void abilities. Three of these major void abilities could increase my combat ability. In addition, I broke through a minor level at this time.
My strength had already risen significantly.
As for the Ghost Plane, due to planar restrictions, the highest-level creature it can accommodate is at the second level of Legend.
In that case, with my current strength, I could basically crush anyone there.
This was also part of my plan.
After obtaining the strength of the third level of Legend or above, I would take over the Ghost Plane and make it my home base.
After making this decision, I set off immediately.
Except for more than a hundred master-level gray descendants, I didn't bring anyone else with me.
In a burst of teleportation light, the Black Dragon Lord and more than a hundred gray-white dragon monsters disappeared from the Tal Plane.
---
The Ghost Plane.
There was a loud noise in an underground cave, and a massive gray-white dragon over eighty meters long burst out of the cave and rose into the sky among a great shower of rubble.
Behind him were more than a hundred gray descendants who had undergone the second stage of void alienation.
Waves rippled through the sky, and a giant "Any Door" appeared before the gray-white dragon. The dragon rushed into it without slowing down, and the gray-white descendants following behind also dashed in.
---
Silver Moon Desert.
The place where the five major ghost clans and the demon army of Black Smoke City were battling.
The gray-white dragon appeared in the sky without any attempt at concealment.
"Whether you kill at will or spread void, go ahead."
I issued this command to the more than one hundred gray dragon descendants behind me.
The purpose of bringing them here wasn't to let them deal with the enemy. True, the master-level gray-white descendants who had undergone second-stage void alienation were very strong—even some first-level Legend powerhouses with a few weaknesses would be overwhelmed by their various abilities and killed easily.
However, they were still far from being able to challenge the top experts at the second level of Legend.
One of their roles was to harass, but the most important role was to enhance my strength after death.
Anyway, after death, the soul of a gray descendant would return to the gray space, waiting to be resurrected at any time.
And during the period they were not resurrected, I, who had absorbed all their power, would become even stronger.
This was a trump card prepared for safety.
The appearance of the gray-white dragon and more than a hundred gray-white smaller dragon descendants instantly attracted the attention of the powerful ghosts and demons.
Then, they immediately recognized the identity of the gray-white dragon.
Although the aura had changed slightly and the external appearance had changed color, the fundamental aura of the gray-white dragon was very familiar to the powerful beings of both the ghost and demon clans.
"It's you." The legendary powerhouses of the ghost clan and the five ghost kings looked at the gray-white dragon with anger.
"It's that black dragon." The legendary demon commander of Black Smoke City, the Balor Fire Demon Yaro, had a ferocious smile on his face.
"Good," He murmured, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "I was beginning to think you'd never crawl back."
Yaro's fury still burned from before—when he had been ensnared in my mist magic, helplessly watching his so-called leader of the Four-Armed Sword Demons fall beneath my claws. That humiliation had festered. His lord had scolded him. His pride had never recovered.
And now, without warning, the Balor Fire Demon commander tore through space with a thunderous flap of his molten wings, igniting the sky above the Silver Moon Desert. The air shimmered around his body, molten veins glowing beneath obsidian flesh, and in his claws he summoned twin blades—gleaming with the searing aura of a legendary artifact.
A pair of red metal claws, emanating the powerful aura of a legendary artifact.
He came for me like a meteor of rage, fury condensed into form.
Hovering high above, my gray-white scales shimmered like dusk forged into flesh. I met his charge with a silent, cold glare. Then I opened my maw—not to roar, but to release a storm.
A surge of gray breath roared forth, a vortex of void coiling with unspeakable force.
The Balor sneered at first. With arrogance befitting his station, he raised his legendary weapon to part the breath with brute strength.
However, when the gray breath came close and he sensed the terrifying energy within it, his expression changed drastically.
Too late.
The moment the breath touched him, the laughter died in his throat. His grin twisted into horror. The breath wasn't fire, nor frost, nor acid—it was annihilation. His body unraveled midair, layer by layer, disintegrated by the breath's apocalyptic void. No scream. No glory. Only silence.
He was decomposed and swallowed by the breath in despair.
A heartbeat later, only dust and falling sparks remained.
I felt it then—the rush. The torrent of stolen vitality surged into me, mingling with the dark feast inside. The Balor's essence, his rage, his flame—all consumed. Absorbed. Repurposed.
Another talent deepened: the alienation grew more refined, more terrifying.
The energy was added to the feast and devoured to increasing the special alienation talent level.
The twin claws—his legendary weapons—hovered for a moment, the legendary claws now in my possession and grinned.
The power of Balor's demonic flame ability was quite good.
After refining the legendary weapon, it was "worn" on the fourth dragon finger.
A fitting ring.
His power now served me.
His fury now fed me.
His legacy now adorned my claw.
At this moment, the ghost clan and the legendary demons of Black Smoke City reacted, their expressions filled with horror and fear.
How long has it been since they last saw each other? And the strength of this black dragon has become so terrifying.
I didn't give them time to react and directly used Void Shift. In an instant, I appeared next to the leader of the three-headed dog of the Abyss. My terrifying dragon claws were filled with the power of the void, and I directly beat him to death.
After neatly accepting the legendary armor that appeared on my body—
The gray-white dragon flashed several times, frantically harvesting the lives of other legendary demons.
In a short period of time, eight legendary demons died, including three second-level legendary demons and five first-level legendary demons!
The wanton slaughter by the gray-white dragon horrified the previously ignorant legendary demons, and each of them used their own methods to flee from this place in terror.
Most of the legendary demons fled to the north.
There was also the base camp established by the demons of Black Smoke City when they first arrived.
'The Gate of the Abyss should be there,' I thought as the idea came to mind, and the gray-white dragon body sank into space and disappeared.
Shifting through the void—
In just an instant, the situation on the battlefield changed dramatically.
The five ghost kings in the south looked at each other, terrified.
"This..." The Green Ghost King's throat was a little dry, and he didn't know how to speak.
"What should we do next?" The Frost Ghost King licked his white lips, unable to sit still.
The demons in Black Smoke City still have a way out. They can escape toward the Gate of the Abyss and leave this place.
But the ghosts have no way out, and they don't have the ability to teleport out of this plane.
No matter how much they try to escape or hide, they can only remain in this plane.
The five ghost kings and other legendary strong men of the ghost clan had obviously anticipated the fate awaiting themselves and their clan.
No wonder they were so pessimistic. Facing the gray-white dragon that killed the three demon commanders as if it were squeezing ants to death, they couldn't imagine even a slight chance of victory.
The Four Ghost Kings—Green Ghost King, Frost Ghost King, White Ghost King, and Red Ghost King—turned their collective gazes toward the one figure they trusted to chart a course through impending doom: the Purple Ghost King.
Among the Ghost race, the Purple Ghost clan stood apart—renowned not for brute strength or destructive power, but for minds sharper than blades and faster than lightning. Their bodies were fragile, almost ethereal in form, but their intellects? Terrifying. The Purple Ghosts wielded psionic might that rivaled Mind Flayers, capable of breaching thought barriers, collapsing mental defenses, and orchestrating complex, multilayered psychic simulations faster than any mortal mind could blink.
And at the pinnacle of this cerebral empire sat their sovereign—the Purple Ghost King—a being whose brain function operated like a living supercomputer. Simulations of warfare, negotiations, and outcomes ran through his mind in parallel. He could split his consciousness into dozens of streams, strategize across timelines, and map probabilities like a walking supercomputer.
Now, under the scrutiny of his fellow kings, his luminous eyes narrowed faintly. Countless potential futures flickered across his mind's eye in the span of a heartbeat. Then he spoke, his voice crisp and calculated:
"Two plans," he announced.
"Plan One: We surrender to the dragon."
He raised a hand before objections could form.
"I've scoured the minds of demons these past few days—dragons, by nature, are sovereign beings. They relish conquest, but they do not annihilate what they find useful. They build dominions, collect races, and forge them into extensions of their power. If we kneel, we may become subjects... but we gain the chance to survive. And beyond that—access to the outside world, to other planes. This path offers continuity and potential."
The room stirred. The idea was bold. Risky. But plausible.
"Plan Two: If the dragon refuses our submission—or if pride dictates resistance—we gather the sacred relics of all five clans and retreat to the territory of the Green Ghosts. There, we combine the shielding power of the sacred tree with the might of our relics. Our legendary warriors, united, might erect a defense formidable enough to repel the dragon—if only temporarily."
The ghostly air chilled with the weight of that second option.
But the Purple Ghost King's expression darkened. His mind, ten steps ahead, cut straight through the fantasy.
"But let me remind you," he said coldly, "if we choose the second path, we are caging ourselves. A thousand square kilometers may be a fortress—for now. But what then? The dragon will evolve. He will grow stronger, more cunning. And while our power may stagnate—trapped by the ceiling of this plane—his potential has no such limits."
A heavy silence followed.
Even the proudest among them could not deny what they had witnessed. The dragon had moved through demons forces like a force of nature—devouring souls, tearing through legend-ranked elites, and absorbing their essence.
And the practical obstacles were just as damning.
The Green Ghost territory could barely sustain its own kin—small, nimble beings suited to dense woodland. The massive forms of the White and Red Ghost clans would struggle for food and space. The Frost Ghosts required frost-saturated regions to survive—without it, only their legendary elites could endure for long.
"It would be a temporary fortress… not a future," the Purple Ghost King said softly. "The dragon, however, offers a future—if we're wise enough to seize it."
The other four kings—commanders of elemental, physical, and supernatural strength—were not strategists. But even they could see that survival hinged on those two paths. There was no third option.
"Prepare the second plan as contingency," the Purple Ghost King concluded, his voice layered with psychic undertones that encouraged clarity and calm. "But be ready to enact the first."
And in that moment, even those without brilliant minds understood: the war had already begun—and the first battle would be one of choices, not blades.
Although the ghost kings were in a heavy mood, they immediately took action.
Fortunately, due to the war with the demons of Black Smoke City, most of the five powerful ghost clans were already gathered on the battlefield, making it extremely convenient to retreat at this time.
As for the hundreds of millions of ordinary ghosts, they were still fighting against the demon army.
Apparently, they had become cannon fodder and were abandoned.
With the evacuation of the elites of the five major ghost clans and the ongoing fighting in the Silver Moon Desert, the demon army of Black Smoke City began to gain the absolute upper hand. A large number of low-level ghost clans were slaughtered wantonly by high-level demons and greater demons, their souls harvested and flesh devoured.
This scene was witnessed by the gray-white descendants. Under the command of the strongest among them—gray-white descendants who were comparable to legendary-level powerhouses—they suddenly roared and all charged toward the demon army, especially targeting those powerful greater demons.
But their goal was not to kill these greater demons, but to capture them as much as possible.
After all, these are the 'companions' who will fight alongside them in the future.
---
I closely followed the legendary demons.
When I was in Tal, the Dark Frost Giant Lord attracted a massive army of demons. At first, I didn't know what was going on. After all, there was no record of this in my dragon heritage.
But such things can't stump me. My inheritance may lack this knowledge, but what about other true dragons?
There was no hope from the twenty or so little dragon cubs in Black Wing Lair. After all, they were too weak, and the dragon heritage they possessed could only provide shallow insights. In the end, I contacted a follower from Crimson Nest. The Crimson Mother had disappeared, but the Crimson Nest's Dragon hiding with her passed the information to me.
It turns out that the reason the demon lords of the Abyss can invade the material plane so recklessly is due to the power of the Gate of the Abyss.
The opening of the Gate of the Abyss requires the use of the Heart of the Abyss.
The Heart of the Abyss is extremely precious. A weak Abyss Lord usually only has one, and that one must be used to build their own Abyss City in the Abyssal Plane. Only Abyss Lords who are strong enough can possess a second—or more—Hearts of the Abyss.
These Abyss Lords with extra Hearts are the main force invading the material plane of the Astral Realm.
"I want this Heart of the Abyss," a trace of determination flashed in my cold, gray dragon eyes.
Whether it's for unlimited troop teleportation or for establishing an Abyss City, this is something I long for.
The former can spread the power of the void more rapidly, and the latter can provide me with a powerful trump card.
Being inside an Abyss City grants a tremendous strength bonus to an Abyss Lord.
While thinking, I, who was chasing the legendary demons, finally saw the Abyss Gate placed in the ghost plane by Black Smoke City.
*****
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