Book 4, The Dragonblood Warrior – Chapter 17, The Gloomy Depths
His head raised, Linley watched the hundred-plus dragons circle above him. The flames surrounding the Fire Dragons raised the temperature around them, while those jasper-scaled Emerald Dragons seemed to emanate a soul-chilling aura.
An amalgamation of the opposites, frost and flame!
Beneath Linley, those two enormous Velocidragons were watching him with amusement. Right now Linley, who was 70-80 meters above the ground, had nowhere to flee. At the same time, those hovering, circling dragons also watched Linley with amusement.
The intelligence of a magical beast of the eighth rank was definitely not inferior to that of humans. Linley knew all too well that to these countless flying dragons, he was like nothing more than an ant. His opponents weren’t at all concerned with whether he lived or died, only....if he could provide them with a bit of amusement.
A game!
Just like how humans might like to play with ants. When they were bored, they would crush him to death.
“Bebe, I don’t want to be an ant.” Linley glanced at Bebe. “Get ready to run.”
“Swish!”
Linley’s body shot downwards, allowing his natural body weight to combine with the Supersonic spell to rocket him forward towards the ground, and then, just before hitting the ground, he brought his body to a sudden halt. This sort of sudden change from high speed to a halt disrupted the flow of blood in his body, causing him so much pain that he spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Good thing I’m not just a magus, I’m also a warrior of the fourth rank and my body can take it.”
“Right now, behind him there were two enormous Velocidragons, while above him there were over a hundred giant flying dragons. He didn’t have the time to care about anything else. Linley immediately began charging towards the empty wasteland in front.
“Roar...” The two Velocidragons began to roar.
“Roar!” “Roar!” “Roar!”
Over a hundred dragons swooped down from the skies. The Fire Dragons and Emerald Dragons were roaring, and the two giant Velocidragons began chasing after Linley, the earth shaking with each step. The hundred plus dragons were also swooping towards Linley, causing the sky to darken as they blotted out the sun.
A single dragon was already enormous, to say nothing of a hundred. They totally covered the sky with their mass. And then, the dozens of dragons all opened their giant maws and began blasting giant balls of flame at Linley.
“Boom!” “Boom!” “Boom!” “Boom!”
One giant fireball after another, each the size of Linley or larger, began smashing down from the heavens. The ‘fireballs’ generated by the Fire Dragons were not like ordinary balls of flame; they contained within them a mixture of magic as well as the innate dragonflame which all Fire Dragons held within them. Their temperature was so high that even the tough scales of Velocidragons of the seventh rank would most likely crack from the heat.
“Boom!”
A particularly large fireball just barely brushed past Linley. The fleeing Linley instantly could smell the smell of burning hair.
“Boss, your hair got burnt.” Bebe’s voice rang out in Linley’s mind.
Linley himself knew very well that his hair hadn’t actually been touched by that ball of fire. It was just that the temperatures the fireball generated was way too high.
Just by passing by him, the temperature was raised high enough that his hair was burnt. Like an agile little monkey, Linley began to run about in unpredictable patterns, constantly dodging those fireballs.
Those Fire Dragons also didn’t just charge forward to kill him. They were just playing around, using fireballs to toy with Linley.
“The difference in power is too great. Even though I’m a dual-element magus of the seventh rank, when facing a magical beast of the eighth rank, I would definitely be destroyed.” Linley could sense how terrifyingly hot those fireballs were, and yet those Fire Dragons could casually blast them out from their mouths, one after the other.
Fortunately, the Fire Dragons weren’t actually trying to kill him as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, Linley felt a cold aura. His body, which had just begun adjusting to the heat, suddenly clenched with the cold.
“Swish!” A translucent, faintly green spear passed by Linley, and then shattered, releasing a terrible, cold aura that forced Linley to instantly and quickly dodge away.
In the skies above, those dozens of Emerald Dragons had also opened their maws and begun vomiting frozen arrows at Linley. To the enormous Emerald Dragons, these projectiles were perhaps just arrows, but to the comparatively small Linley, these three meter long projectiles were not arrows; they were terrifying frozen spears.
With balls of flame and spears of ice raining down upon him from the skies, Linley had to use all of his wits to constantly dodge and dart about in all directions.
It was exhausting!
Linley was feeling mentally exhausted. His mental energy was being worn down to the point of exhaustion. For a short period of time, this level of energy expenditure was fine, but in the long run, he would definitely suffer from mental exhaustion. Linley also had to expend enormous amounts of physical energy in sprinting around so frantically.
“Boom!” A ball of fire clipped Linley on his left shoulder.
A shattering sound could be heard as the Earthguard jadestone armor covering Linley began to splinter and crack. Earth elemental essence began to swirl about the armor, attempting to repair the damage.
“The attack power is terrifying. If struck head on, I expect my jadestone armor will only be able to take one blow.” Faced with certain death, Linley’s latent potential seemed to explode, and he once more upped his speed as he ran about and dodged wildly.
Even Linley himself was amazed at his dodging abilities.
This really was Linley at his absolute peak performance. But unfortunately, even at his peak, there was no chance of success when faced with over a hundred dragons.
“Roar!” “Roar!”
The hundred-plus Fire Dragons and Emerald Dragons in the sky watched Linley with amusement. Seeing him constantly dodge, they felt more and more interested in him. Even the two Velocidragons chasing after Linley would occasionally wave their tails to threaten him.
At this point in time....
Linley was like an ant, an ant being toyed with by an entire group of giants.
If he made just the slightest mistake, Linley would die. These titanic dragons didn’t care in the slightest about whether Linley lived or died; they only cared about one thing. “How long will this little human creature be able to hold on?”
Five minutes!
Linley had managed to survive for five entire minutes as they toyed with him!
Five minutes, ie 300 seconds!
It sounded like a short period of time, but Linley felt as though it had passed extremely slowly. Every single second was a second in which his life was on the line.
“This group of bastards. If I didn’t dodge fast enough, I would have been killed by them, and then they would leave without caring in the slightest, continuing with their leisurely lives.” Linley knew very well that he was nothing more than a slight diversion for these giant dragons.
In actuality, Bebe possessed even higher speed than those giant dragons. If he were alone, he definitely would be able to escape. Bebe was currently perched on top of Linley’s shoulders, his eyes staring at the fireballs and ice spears falling from the skies, telling Linley where the danger would be.
“Boss, careful! Three fireballs!” Bebe urgently warned.
Linley’s facial expression changed.
“Boom!”
A fireball directly struck Linley on his back, and then exploded. The jadestone armor covering Linley suddenly shone with an earthen light, and then with a crack, shattered into its component elemental essence.
“Hiss!” Linley’s hair was, in the blink of an eye, all burnt, and his face was painfully scorched by the heat.
Without the protection of the jadestone armor, if Linley took another blow, regardless of whether it was a fireball or an icy spear, he would definitely die.
“I won’t be able to hold out much longer.” Linley could feel all his muscles quivering, and even his head was splitting. Linley knew that he had already reached his limit. If he continued under these circumstances, he would definitely collapse.”
“Linley, up ahead, 120 meters, there’s a 20-meter high hill. Beneath it is a very deep tunnel. The hill doesn’t actually totally block the tunnel; there’s enough space to fit two people in. Hurry and flee there, it could save your life.” Doehring Cowart’s voice rang out.
While he was being pursued by the dragons, Doehring Cowart hadn’t said a single word, but as soon as he did, Linley found new life and new hope.
Somehow, unbelievably, Linley managed to increase his speed even further. The hope of survival brought incredible things out of people.
Those hundred-plus Fire Dragons and Emerald Dragons circling above all stared at Linley with rather odd looks.
“Hrm?”
When they realized where Linley was going, those hundred-plus dragons, previously amused, all roared with fury. Without any coordination, they simultaneously began to angrily blast out balls of fire and icy spears at the same time, covering an entire area of 20-30 meters.
“Ah!”
At Linley’s current speed, in about 2-3 seconds, he managed to reach the hill. It was just about at this time that the fireballs and icy spears arrived as well.
“There’s the crack!” Linley instantly saw the two-meter wide cave entrance. Without any hesitation, Linley dove inside.
But before he managed to make it inside, a large ball of fire came blasting down at him. The fireballs travelled at much higher speeds than the icy spears. By the time the fireball came within 20-30 centimeters of Linley, Linley’s clothes began to burn.
“Screech!”
Bebe suddenly enlarged himself, and then used his own body to accept that vicious blow from the fireball. Only then did Linley luckily manage to make it inside the tunnel. But Bebe, in turn, was buried by an avalanche of those fireballs and icy spears.
“Oof!”
Linley fell all the way down, perhaps seventy or eighty meters, before smashing into the tough ground. This place was very gloomy and dark, with the only light coming from that small hole up above. But Linley had excellent vision, and that dim light was enough for him to see his surroundings. And right now...
Linley’s hair had been burnt, and there were two or three spots on his face which had also been burnt black.
His face had been ruined, and he had been scarred!
But right now, Linley couldn’t bother to care about these things. The only thing he was worried about was Bebe.
“Swish!” A black blur fell down, smashing directly in front of Linley. “Yeowch! That was comfortable! First cold, then hot. That felt so incredibly nice.” Bebe’s voice rang out in Linley’s mind.
Linley joyfully embraced Bebe. “Bebe, are you okay?”
Bebe’s face was extremely dirty, but he still wrinkled his nose delightedly. “Of course! I, Bebe, am much stronger than I was a year ago. Even if I were to fight head on with a magical beast of the eighth rank, I wouldn’t be afraid, much less a little fireball or ice spear?”
Linley laughed. Now that he knew Bebe was fine, Linley was no longer worried.
“Then why didn’t you go out and tussle a bit with those giant dragons?” Linley teased.
Bebe said unhappily, “How could I, Bebe, be afraid of them? But their scales are simply too thick, and my size is too small. My mouth is also small. I can’t bite through those scales. It’s too hard for me to kill them, but they can forget about killing me as well.”
Linley began to chuckle.
“Boss, your face...your face is ruined!” Bebe’s mental shout suddenly reminded Linley.
Stretching out his facial muscles, Linley felt a fiery pain. He had no choice but to sneer at himself, “Bebe, although I’ve trained up my physical strength, no matter how much I train, I can’t possibly strengthen my facial muscles. My defensive abilities weren’t strong enough.”
“Oof, Bebe, let me rest for a bit, I’m so tired.”
Linley let go of Bebe, then lay down on the ground.
Just then, Linley had stretched himself to the absolute limit, both in terms of physical energy as well as his mental energy. It wasn’t so bad when facing danger, but now that he was safe, Linley felt endless waves of exhaustion crashing upon him. Linley wanted to rest.
Within the valley. Those hundreds of giant, coiling dragons and those two Velocidragons of the eighth rank were all staring at the hill.
“Growl...” Suddenly, a particularly large Fire Dragon let out a roar.
All of the giant dragons and Velocidragons retreated. Only that large Fire Dragon remained, staring at that hill with a mixture of terror and alarm in his eyes.
One of the main entrances to that underground area was previously extremely large, large enough for even a dragon to go inside. But then, the Fire Dragons and the Emerald Dragons had received an order to move a small hill to block off that tunnel.
To those enormous dragons, that two-meter wide crevice was nothing. Based on their size, there was no way they could get in.
But to Linley, it was very easy to slip inside.
“Having entered the forbidden area, this human will die without question.” That particularly large Fire Dragon rose directly into the air and flew away.
This was the forbidden area of the Foggy Valley. Forget about humans; even Fire Dragons and Emerald Dragons dared not trespass there.
Nothing which went in would come out alive. This was the iron rule of the Foggy Valley.