Under You’s warning, everyone finally sensed the anomaly—that Red Dragon, which appeared to be resting, didn't have a single trace of life aura surrounding it...
The hall was terrifyingly quiet, with only the hum of geothermal energy flowing through the earth echoing around them.
Starlight noticed that the ground beneath the Red Dragon was an unnatural dark red, clearly dried blood from not long ago. Even more bizarrely, a faint flicker of pitch-black light could be seen within the gaps of the dragon’s closed eyelids.
Imira uneasily scratched her claws against the scorching ground, leaving several deep furrows.
She suddenly raised her dragon head, her voice echoing through the empty hall. “Lord Seraykage! Can you hear me?”
But the only response was the echo of her own voice, bouncing off the dome and eventually dissipating into the scalding air.
The Red Dragon remained curled up, motionless, like a meticulously crafted statue. This eerie silence made everyone present hold their breath, until even their heartbeats became clearly audible.
Suddenly—
Seraykage’s back twitched, and a small patch of scales suddenly bulged upward, as if something were trying to burrow out from beneath his skin.
“Crack... crack...”
Amidst a series of crisp snapping sounds, a pitch-black claw tore through the hard dragon scales and appeared before everyone’s eyes.
In the next second, the claw exerted sudden force, tearing the wound into a much larger rift. Under everyone’s gaze, a creature unlike anything they had ever heard of finally completely split open the Red Dragon’s spine and crawled out from the flesh.
The monster slowly stood upright on the dragon’s back, its body over three meters tall, radiating a suffocating pressure.
Though its appearance was humanoid, patches of dragon scales covered its joints and chest, and its deep purple skin was riddled with vein-like, eerie patterns.
Not only that, but its head displayed a bizarre state of fusion, with a pair of curved horns—resembling both the Dragon Race and demons—towering high from its forehead. Two clusters of raging grey flames replaced where its eyes should have been.
“Ah... so this is the power of the Dragon Race...”
The monster opened its mouth full of fangs, letting out a low, raspy voice filled with a nearly pathological intoxication.
With its sigh, a pair of deformed wings slowly unfurled behind its back. The left wing still retained the wing membrane structure characteristic of the Dragon Race, but the right wing was completely demonized, covered in barbs and protruding bone joints.
At the same time, a long, scale-covered tail rose from behind it, dancing in the air like a venomous snake.
“What... what kind of monster is that!?” Looking at the figure in the distance, Wu Hua swallowed hard and immediately raised the daggers in her hands, assuming a combat stance.
“Be careful, this guy isn't right! Don't underestimate him,” You warned in a low voice.
Silver light swirled in You’s eyes. He could clearly see two diametrically opposed energies entwined around the monster—surging life energy and decaying death energy were eerily interwoven, forming a twisted state he had never seen in all his thousand years of experience.
But in the next second, the figure suddenly looked up and vanished from everyone’s sight.
“Wha—!? Gack!” Before Wu Hua could finish her sentence, she felt a heart-wrenching pain in her abdomen.
She didn't even have time to see the opponent’s movements before her entire body was sent airborne. A large spray of blood erupted from her mouth, drawing a striking red line in the air.
Boom!
Accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering bones, Wu Hua’s body slammed heavily into a nearby rock wall, crushing a large section of stone into powder.
Who could have imagined that Wu Hua, who was known for her speed, would be severely injured in the very first exchange?
Only then did Starlight and the others react; the monster had already reached their side.
But before he could make a move, the head of the monster that had sent Wu Hua flying turned at a grotesque angle to look in his and Lian’s direction.
Swish—!
A piercing whistle tore through the air as the long, barbed tail swept across like a steel whip, aiming directly for Starlight and Lian, who were closest to it.
“Starlight! Lian!”
This time, Xia Duo judged the monster’s next move through its muscle contractions, but it was too late to draw her bow.
In that lightning-fast moment, she could only throw the dagger at her waist like a dart.
In fact, this dagger was a trophy Xia Duo had obtained during her battle with the elder of the House of Red in the Crimson City-State.
At the time, the dagger had been stuck in her shoulder, and then she was immediately teleported back to the Dragon Valley by Yserazor, so the weapon had been teleported back with her.
Although this dagger wasn't a Saint weapon, as the weapon of a Saint Rank expert, it was definitely a rare and exceptional blade.
Clang!!!
The dagger collided with the bone tail, sending out a shower of sparks. The hurried throw ultimately lacked sufficient power; the blade, which could cut through iron like butter, only left a white mark on the monster’s tail scales before being violently deflected, embedding itself deep into the distant rock wall.
Yet the monster’s assault didn't slow down in the slightest, its long tail continuing to sweep toward Starlight and Lian with the force of a thunderbolt...
Just as the barbed tail was about to strike Starlight, a giant silver hand made of pure energy suddenly appeared out of thin air, firmly seizing the deep purple tail like a steel pincer.
“I really didn't expect that after not seeing you for a while, you would end up looking like this, Yuta.” You controlled the giant hand to exert sudden force, swinging the monster up and slamming it violently into the rock wall dozens of meters away.
Boom!
The monster’s body smashed a huge crater into the rock wall, and gravel fell like rain. But You’s words set off a massive wave of shock in everyone’s ears.
“Yuta!?”
Starlight and Xia Duo cried out in unison, their faces filled with disbelief.
Xia Duo especially found it impossible to connect the dignified and powerful instructor in her memory with the twisted and terrifying monster before her.
“Heh... hehehehe!” A hair-raising laugh escaped the monster’s mouth. It pushed itself up with its deformed arms, the greyish-white flames in its eye sockets staring fixedly in You’s direction. “I wondered who had such capability... If it isn't Lord You, the ‘Silver Moon’ of the Dark Tribe?”
Only now did Starlight and the others hear Yuta’s unique cadence within the monster’s raspy voice.
Yuta tilted his head slightly, his pair of long horns scraping against the rock wall with a harsh sound as he slowly pulled himself out of the crater and landed silently on the ground.
“What? Are you surprised...” He grinned with his dragon-like maw, revealing two rows of slender, sharp teeth. “To see your old friend’s new form?”
You knit his brows slightly. He had indeed known Yuta for over a thousand years.
As top-tier powerhouses of the Night Elves and Tree Elves respectively, the two had been rivals who respected each other over the long years while maintaining a subtle competitive relationship. To call them old friends was no exaggeration.
However, You was also somewhat uncertain about Yuta’s current state.
In his memory, this Grand Elder of the elves was most proficient in dual-element magic of nature and darkness, and his combat style was supposed to be closer to that of an assassin. Where did this death energy suddenly appearing on him come from?
“Can someone really perfectly fuse two extreme opposites like the power of life and death?” During the gap in You and Yuta’s conversation, Starlight sent a question to Noah through their mental link.
Noah pondered for a moment before answering, “Did you forget your master is a dual-element user of light and dark? It’s just that Carlos’s situation was more special. As for this guy named Yuta... it’s hard to say, but I can feel a sense of discordance within him.”
“I bet you’re all curious how I became this perfect form...”
Yuta took a deep breath, stretching his aberrant body and saying with great intoxication, “Ah! This feeling of mastering the power of life and death... it truly makes one unable to stop!”
While Yuta was loudly lamenting, a fiery red streak of light instantly cut across the hall, aiming straight for his head.
Rate on N.U.
