Other than the one hundred or so descendants of arcane beast kings, there were only a handful of beasts who were at a titled duke level. Since they couldn’t cultivate and thus lacked the ability to improve their strength in the same manner as cultivators, their development was up to luck.

The black dragon king possessed the strength of a titled duke—a first step king. It was plainly stronger than most of the arcane beasts that’d passed through the gate. Even though the beasts had absorbed the power of creation for seven days, that only put them infinitely close to the titled duke level.

“That black dragon’s starved for who knows how long. It would never go easy on any living beings...