As they flew, Cain pointed out the various landmarks that they were flying over, including the statue in the center of the city, where a large line was formed again to test the potential of disciples and hopeful young cultivators.
A cultivator's potential wasn't static, many things in life could lower or raise it, but it would give them a baseline or let them know if they had made a mistake and led themselves to a dead end, according to the spell on the statue.
The Demigod cultivator guiding the dragon was getting more and more annoyed with Cain's narration as the flight went on, especially as he pointed out the various hidden Sects by name and greeted every Dragon that they flew by.
The Dragons all greeted him back, and the happy greeting of the dragon on guard duty at his own Sect was the final straw that made the man snap.
"Can you not just behave for one bloody minute? You haven't shut up since we started flying." He shouted.
"You shouldn't have called him a prisoner. You have no frame of reference sufficient to understand just exactly how petty he can be." The man's own dragon warned him.
"He IS a prisoner. I am a Demigod, and I have captured him and his Disciples." The Cultivator argued.
"No, his lazy ass caught a flight past our security to come to visit the other Dragons with your assistance." The Dragon corrected him.
"Damnable Dragon. What do you know? You lot, follow me to the Council Chambers, where they will hear your description of what happened." The Cultivator finished, leading the way with a group of guards moving to surround them.
A barrier blocked the entrance, stopping Cain and Luna in their tracks right at the door to the council building.
"Looks like I physically can't enter. Guess the meeting will have to wait. Can I go talk to the dragons now?" Cain asked.
"Transform back into your natural form and enter." A voice from inside demanded.
"If I do that, I won't fit through the door," Cain told him.
"Do you have to do this now?" Jen asked.
"Sorry, but yes. They have a barrier up, and I can't pass it without breaking it, and they might think that is rude." Cain replied.
"Just teleport already and be done with it." Jen sighed.
"See, that's why I like smart people." Cain laughed and had Oath Breaker teleport him and Luna inside the building, which caused them to revert to their true forms instantly, leaving an enormous world dragon with a tiny Lamia around his wrist standing in the middle of the room.
". . ."
[That's the response I was looking for. Now, can we break this spell, or should I just roar at you for a while?] Cain asked the room telepathically.
"I want it. Dragon, submit to me as my mount, and I will treat you very well." The man at the right end of the line of cultivators demanded.
"Are you stupid, or just dumb? Ask your question about your suicidal Sect Master, and I will answer. You are not nearly cute enough to get to ride on me." Cain replied, letting his voice ring through the Sect compound.
"Do you think you can resist?" The Elder asked.
"Do you think you can survive me getting annoyed?" Cain replied.
The Demigod smirked at him, so Cain decided to make a bit of a show of things, summoning a full seventy-two Golden Proto Dragons and using [Versatility] to bump them to the Immortal Realm.
Then he summoned two dozen copies of Kone with Su and had them call all their summons outside the building.
Hundreds of Immortal Rank Turtle Kin and Forest Dragons filled the grounds of the Sect, while the Proto Dragons, each nearly ten kilometers long at Immortal Rank, blocked out the sun.
Every Summon prepared for battle, and the Sect descended into Chaos.
"What the hell is going on? Did we attack Dragon Peak?" Someone outside shouted, and another Demigod ran into the room.
"Yes. Your former Sect Master tried to steal an egg from the Divine Black Matriarch." Cain explained.
"So, that was the news? The dragons are holding him for ransom?" One of the Elders asked.
"Ransom? No, the Black Matriarch flayed his soul out of existence for stealing from her." Cain informed them.
"And the rest of the Elders?" The man who wanted Cain as a mount asked with a shaky voice.
"Killed by the Sect Master after they turned on him to steal the dragon eggs he had hoarded."
Now everyone was looking at the Elder who had brought Cain here.
"Did you know all this?" The man at the end, the bravest one in Cain's estimation, asked.
"I did. I came here to have him take responsibility for killing the Sect Master." The Elder announced, still confident of his decision and refusing to turn around and see what the commotion behind him was.
"World Dragon, perhaps we can come to an equitable agreement." One of the Elders offered.
"He's not a World Dragon. He's too small." The man who brought Cain in insisted, making his dragon laugh.
"Just ask any of your mounts. They can all tell." Cain suggested.
"Do you have some sort of grudge against us?" The last Elder to arrive asked, looking back outside in fear.
"Not really. I just thought that I should make a point. A thousand Immortal Dragons is an impressive show, isn't it?"
That got the man who brought Cain in to look outside.
"When did they get here? How did they get past the wards? What is going on?" He asked, just realizing that their Sect was in trouble.
"You tell us. You opened the wards to escort him and his Disciples inside the wards." One of the Elders practically growled at him.
"Lock him down." The man on the far right demanded, pulling out a black stone tablet and placing a hand on it to activate a ward.
The Disciples all froze in place, so Cain summoned a War Princess into [Merger] and opened the same sort of [Battlefield] that Luna used for snack production to safely tuck them away, then tossed Luna inside with them and closed the exit, so nobody got hurt during the fight.
With Record Keeper Merged with him, the ward simply rolled off his body, rejected by the Magical Immunity. Cain tilted his head to get a better look at the tablet, then decided to try the [World Breath] of his new Dragon form.
It came out as a simple gust of air, harmless-seeming at first. It didn't even harm the clothing on the Cultivators, but a split second later, the building itself began to crumble, returning to the Earth as all the wards shattered.
The invisible cloud lingered, returning the area to a natural state, even unraveling the clothing of the servants who didn't have powerful enough protections active. Strangely, the building itself remained intact and standing, but the top windows disappeared.
"Oh, I get it. You carved it out of a cave. Very creative." Cain commended them when he realized what had happened.
"What the hell was that? Did he attack us with a spell I couldn't detect?" Someone asked.
"World Dragon Breath returns everything to a natural state. With it lingering in the air, even your blades would crumble to ore in seconds." The man on the far right answered with a hint of pride in his voice, still convinced that he could take Cain as a mount.
"And you want to piss him off more? What about those Dragons outside? We can't fight that many." A more pragmatic Elder declared.
"They haven't attacked. They're not real." The Elder replied with certainty.
[Maybe kill them a little bit. Just the ones nearby with weapons or something. These idiots aren't listening.] Cain informed the group in Draconic so that the Dragons outside would hear and understand.
"Hey, no, wait. There is no need to be rash." The newest arrival shouted.
[Wait one minute, then do it if I am still annoyed.] Cain amended.
"So you speak Draconic. Minor oversight on my part." Cain told him.
"Please, tell us what happened in the Dragon Peak, and we can make amends for insulting the Dragons." The man pleaded on behalf of his Sect.
"I already said it. They broke in, stole some eggs, including one from the Divine Black Matriarch, and then got into a fight with each other, leaving only the one with the Eggs alive. I helped the Matriarch find him, and she flayed his soul until it stopped existing." Cain clarified.
"That is, well, horrible. Did she need to do that?" The man asked.
"He stole one of her daughters. She was pretty mad, and who was going to argue with her?" Cain asked.
"More importantly, how did you find him? Our Sect's ward is completely undetectable to Dragons." The strongest of the Demigods present asked.
"I have human and Lycan Disciples. Finding him wasn't really a big problem, and it only took a minute to break the ward once we knew where it was." Cain explained.
The man nodded in understanding, then sighed, falling into a state of deep thought that almost seemed like standing meditation.
"Chief Elder, if he becomes my mount, the word of the vulnerability will never get out." The man on the right insisted.
"Yes, he is too much of a threat." The man who brought Cain in agreed.
"You idiots really are trying to get our Disciples killed, aren't you? Those aren't fake Dragons outside, and they're going to attack in under a minute." The newest arrival reminded them, moving to stand in front of Cain, facing his fellow Sect Elders.
The Elders silently argued with each other, using some sort of mental communication that Cain couldn't hear.
"You are outvoted. The threat is too great." The Chief Elder announced.
