Although Linley wasn’t moving at maximum speed, after having assumed the Dragonform, he was able to easily travel two or three hundred kilometers each hour as a warrior of the ninth rank.
The trees on each side of the road quickly disappeared into the distance, and dust flew about everywhere.
“Is that…?” A fleeing mounted knight suddenly saw a human-shaped aberration suddenly charge in his direction from behind. He couldn’t help but be frightened, but Linley only passed him by, moving like the wind towards the town of Wushan. This was the speed of a warrior of the ninth rank! Within twenty minutes, Linley had drawn close enough that he could see his hometown.
The town of Wushan.
This was a very quiet little town. In the past, the lives of the commoners here had been very peaceful.
But now…
Corpses. Mutilated corpses everywhere. Those corpses clearly bore the signs of having been ravaged by magical beasts.
“This… this…” Linley walked onto the main road of the town of Wushan. He stared at the corpses littering the main road and the side alleys. There were old people, young people, women, children… seeing all this, Linley couldn’t help but feel grief in his heart.
Linley recognized the majority of the dead people.
Linley suddenly saw a young man not far away, clutching a baby in his arms. That young man’s body was covered with blood, and that baby had been bitten to death as well.
“Or… Orson.” Linley wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come out.
Orson was only one year older than him. When Linley had first started his physical training at the empty training grounds outside the town of Wushan, both of them had been placed within the six- to eight-year-old group. Orson was the little boy who had stood right next to Linley when they had lined up. The two of them were on fairly good terms. Linley knew that two years ago, Orson had gotten married after reaching the age of maturity. That dead infant was most likely Orson’s child.
“Rip. Rip.” Not too far away, several Windwolves were chewing on the corpses of the dead.
“Ah!” Linley cast a furious glare at them, then flew towards them like a bolt of lightning. He didn’t use his Bloodviolet Godsword. Using his two hands, he either smashed their heads in or ripped them into several pieces barehanded.
In the blink of an eye, the few dozen magical beasts that had remained in the town of Wushan were all killed.
Seeing the magical beast corpses around him, as well as the human corpses, Linley cancelled his Dragonform transformation, a pained laugh escaping him. And then, he fell to his knees, powerless.
Everyone was dead.
“Haha…” Linley began to laugh in a low voice, but his eyes had begun to fill with tears.
“When the magical beasts ambushed the city and I escaped from the Radiant Temple, I was so immeasurably smug and self-satisfied with myself. But…” Linley’s tears began to flow. Only now did Linley truly understand the meaning behind the words that ‘King’ of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts had spoken.
“How could I be a pathetic human? Humans are nothing more than food to us magical beasts!”
“Food. Food.”
Linley’s heart was filled with grief.
The town of Wushan. His hometown. These familiar fellow villagers!
All dead.
When he had left his hometown, Linley had felt fairly calm, because he had always known that his hometown would still be there. But now… his hometown was gone. Everyone was dead.
“What a calamity,” Doehring Cowart’s ancient voice rang out. “Not just for your hometown. Most likely nearly half of the entire Holy Union has now become the domain of magical beasts. Those people… will become nothing more than food.”
Linley quietly stared at his surroundings. He could totally envision how the countless people within the domain of the Holy Union had now been trapped within a catastrophic nightmare. This so-called day of joy, the 10000th anniversary of the Yulan Festival, to the people of the Holy Union and the Dark Alliance, had become a day of catastrophe.
75
The Titanic Black Python
When a catastrophe occurred, the only thing a person could do was accept it.
After leaving the town of Wushan, Linley and Bebe headed north. Everything Linley saw only made him all the more taciturn. The entire Kingdom of Fenlai had turned into a playground for magical beasts, and human corpses were nothing more than food for them.
On the long road north, magical beasts occasionally dotted the landscape. Not a single living human being could be seen.
But suddenly, a human form appeared at the end of the road. The human form was moving forward quickly, and was being pursued by several howling magical beasts. But with a few flashes of violet light, those magical beasts were diced apart, and the human form continued northwards. On this person’s shoulders, there was an adorable little black Shadowmouse.
“Boss, shouldn’t we find a place to rest? I’m getting a bit hungry,” standing on Linley’s shoulders, Bebe mentally spoke to Linley.
Linley cast a helpless look at Bebe.
This entire trip, he was the one who had been actively moving, while Bebe was either just standing on his shoulders, enjoying the wind, or sleeping inside Linley’s clothes. How exactly was he tired?
“Fine. There’s a mountain up ahead. We can kill a few magical beasts and cook them for food.” Linley still pampered and spoiled Bebe as always. To Linley, aside from his three bros and his younger brother Wharton, who was in the O’Brien Empire along with Uncle Hillman and Housekeeper Hiri, he had no close kin. But meeting with Wharton or his three bros was and would be an extremely rare thing.
Only Bebe would always be by his side.
In Linley’s heart, he viewed Bebe as a younger brother to be pampered and spoiled.
“This Bloodviolet Godsword is still quite handy when dealing with magical beasts of the seventh or eighth ranks. But it is quite hard for it to penetrate the defense of a magical beast of the ninth rank and deliver a sufficiently deadly wound.” Linley glanced at the sword at his waist and sighed.
The Bloodviolet Godsword was very sharp, very fast, and could bend in any which way he desired it to. It was thus extremely useful when dealing with large numbers of weaker enemies. But when used to deal with a single powerful magical beast, this Bloodviolet Godsword of Linley’s was actually not even as good as Linley’s own claws and draconic tail.
At the base of the stubby mountain, Linley and Bebe were roasting a pair of wolf legs. They had not yet left the boundaries of the Kingdom of Fenlai, and so the area was swarming with magical beasts. But given Linley and Bebe’s current power, as long as they didn’t encounter any Saint-level magical beasts, they would be safe.
“It’s cooked.” Bebe immediately grabbed a haunch of wolf leg and began to chomp through it.
With a wave of his hand, Linley extinguished the fire, then grabbed a roasted wolf leg and began eating as well. This roasted wolf leg, when cooked alongside some wild herbs and grasses, was actually quite tasty. In the mountain wilderness areas, one could often find some ingredients that could be used for cooking. This was a survival skill one learned in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, and Linley naturally knew it.
That wolf leg was much larger than Bebe, but Bebe finished eating it before Linley had. By the time Linley was halfway through, Bebe had finished his portion.
“Slither slither.”
Suddenly, a very minute sound could be heard from far away. Linley froze in mid-bite, while Bebe’s little ears perked up as well. In unison, the man and the magical beast turned to stare behind them.
It was a python.
An enormous python, easily the size of a house. Those two bizarre, reptilian eyes looked like giant red lanterns. Only ten or so meters of its enormous body could be seen outside of a grove, but just judging from the fact that its body was three meters thick, Linley could easily imagine how terrifyingly large this creature really was.
The visible ten or so meters was just a small part of it.
Seeing the dense black skin, tattooed with yellow lines, the expression on Linley’s face changed.
“It’s a Titanic Black Python.” Linley was instantly sure of this magical beast’s breed.
Titanic Black Pythons were considered one of the more powerful types of pythons. Generally speaking, adult Titanic Black Pythons were magical beasts of the ninth rank, roughly on par with the Nine Headed Serpents. Amongst python-type beasts, the Titanic Black Python was famed as a war machine.
If you were to place a Titanic Black Python in the middle of an army, it could definitely kill a hundred thousand soldiers.
It was a darkness magical beast with incredible defensive powers. Its fangs were poisonous. These were the special traits of the Titanic Black Python.
“Hisssss. Hisssss.” The forked tongue of the Titanic Black Python flicked in and out, and its cold eyes stared at Linley and Bebe. Clearly, this Titanic Black Python had already decided that Linley and Bebe were to be its next meals.
“Bebe. Be careful.”
Linley’s gaze was locked on the Titanic Black Python, not daring to relax in the slightest. At the same time, dense black scales began to erupt from Linley’s skin, and a row of spikes rose up out of his back. His forehead, elbows, and knees all sprouted sharp, fierce spikes as well.
“Whap. Whap.” Linley’s draconic tail slapped the ground a few times. By Linley’s side, all of the hair on Bebe’s body was standing up straight.
Seeing this, the Titanic Black Python suddenly rose up high in the air. Clearly, it was now on guard and vigilant.
“Whoosh!”
Like a gust of wind, the entire body of the Titanic Black Python shot forward. In less than a second, its enormous, hundred-meter-long body was striking against Linley and Bebe, who both also almost simultaneously launched attacks against the Titanic Black Python.
“Swish!” Bloodviolet flashed.
“Clang!” Linley heard a sound similar to a hammer striking against an anvil. His Bloodviolet Godsword had only been able to leave behind a white mark on the Titanic Black Python’s skin, and hadn’t managed to wound it at all.
“It really is very durable.”
The enormous body of the Titanic Black Python began to wrap around Linley. Linley knew that if he allowed it to constrict him, not only would he be unable to breathe, the terrifyingly powerful constrictive force would probably be able to crush him to death.
“Haaaa!”
Linley’s sharp claws suddenly pierced towards the Titanic Black Python’s body. With a ‘rip’ sound, his claws penetrated the Titanic Black Python’s outer layer of scales. However, Linley could feel that his claws could go no further. Beneath the scales, Linley could sense an astonishingly durable force.
“Whoosh!” The Python was about to constrict Linley!
Linley only laughed coldly. He suddenly ripped his claws free and leaped outside of the Titanic Black Python’s coils, while at the same time smashing his elbows down at the Titanic Black Python. Linley’s elbows had those sharp spikes on them, which were the unique traits of Armored Razorback Wyrm’s and possessed astonishing power.
“Riiip!” The spike pierced through the black scales and slowly penetrated downwards.
“What exactly is underneath the scales of this Titanic Black Python? Its defense is so formidable.” Linley’s sharp spike was only able to penetrate halfway through before being stopped.
“Aaaargh!”
The Titanic Black Python let out an angry, pain-filled roar, and in a flash, its massive head struck towards Linley, its bloody maw opened wide. Suddenly, a black liquid shot out from its mouth and was spat towards Linley.
“Venom.” Linley immediately leapt off against the body of the Titanic Black Python, hurriedly dodging backwards.
But the amount of black venom was too great, and the area it covered too large. Some of it still managed to land on Linley’s legs.
“Sizzle, sizzle.” A strange sound could be heard coming from Linley’s legs.
Linley could feel that the black venom which landed on his legs had been totally blocked by that layer of defensive scales. The defensive powers of an Armored Razorback Wyrm were quite formidable, and the venom didn’t pose much of a danger to the scales.
“Boss, let’s run. That Titanic Black Python is freakishly tough. Its scales and flesh are too thick,” Bebe urged.
“Run.”
Without hesitating in the slightest, Linley and Bebe went running northwards. Slithering forward rapidly, the Titanic Black Python gave chase for a while, but in the end, Linley and Bebe managed to leave it in the dust.
After escaping the Titanic Black Python’s pursuit, Linley and Bebe finally left the boundaries of the former Kingdom of Fenlai. However, despite having left its boundaries, they still saw the same desolate sights. It seemed as though the ‘King’ of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts had told the truth.
They intended to take over half of the territory which had belonged to the Holy Union.
“Swish!”
Bloodviolet flashed, easily cutting a Dragonhawk in two.
“Bebe, tell me, why is it so hard for us to deal with magical beasts of the ninth rank?” By now, Linley had already encountered several magical beasts of the ninth rank, such as the Black Dragon and Violet Tattooed Bear in Fenlai City. When faced with these creatures, Linley was forced to dodge. There was no way for him to take them head on.
Even when dealing with the fairly slow Violet Tattooed Bear and Titanic Black Python, Linley wasn’t able to truly harm them.
Bebe was speechless as well.
Bebe and Linley both had the same problem. Bebe’s problem was that he was physically small, and probably wouldn’t even be able to chew past the opponent’s thick skin with his teeth. How would he harm the enemy?
“Linley,” Doehring Cowart’s voice rang out.
Linley suddenly came to his senses.
Right. Why not ask Grandpa Doehring? Grandpa Doehring had vast experience, and certainly should’ve seen many Saint-level combatants. He must have some sort of understanding in this regard.
“Linley, are you frustrated by the question of dealing with magical beasts of the ninth rank?” Doehring Cowart laughed.
Linley nodded. “Yes, Grandpa Doehring. Do you know what I should do?”
Doehring Cowart continued, “Linley, actually, your Bloodviolet Godsword is quite powerful. But the problem is, pre-Dragonform, you are only a warrior of the seventh rank. Post-Dragonform, you are still only an early-stage ninth rank warrior. As an early-stage ninth rank warrior, you think you can kill a magical beast of the ninth rank?”
Linley was startled.
Right. The problem was that he wasn’t strong enough.
“When you enter the eighth rank, you will be a peak-stage warrior of the ninth rank in Dragonform. By then, you will be able to harm magical beasts of the ninth rank using your claws or using Bloodviolet.” Doehring Cowart chuckled. “However, it’s still possible for you at your current level of power to deal with magical beasts of the ninth rank as well.”
“How?” Linley exulted. Grandpa Doehring really did know a way!
Doehring Cowart said, “Linley, did you notice that both Kaiser and Clayde used greatswords?”
Linley thought back to his battles. Right, Kaiser and Clayde did indeed both use greatswords.
“Do you know why they use greatswords?” Doehring Cowart asked.
Linley was beginning to grow curious. Right. As warriors of the ninth rank, Clayde and Kaiser naturally knew that using lighter weapons would be faster. Why did they choose to use greatswords instead? Linley couldn’t help but to think back to those battles he had with Kaiser.
“Linley, when I was young, I remember that whenever my father was cutting down trees he would always use heavy axes rather than small hatchets. Why is that?” Doehring Cowart guided patiently.
Linley started to have a
n inkling of understanding.
“Light weapons are sharp. When dealing with large groups of enemies, they are very effective. But when fighting in solo combat against a powerful foe, they are inferior to heavy weapons. Through the usage of a heavy weapon, a person can utilize more of his power and increase the force of his blows. And… to a warrior of the ninth rank, even a weapon weighing a few hundred pounds won’t slow him down too much."
Linley was now beginning to truly comprehend.
Only through using heavy weapons could one truly unleash all of the power they were capable of.
For example, would a strongman deliver more powerful blows using a massive mace, or a light sword? A Dragonblood Warrior was capable of lifting boulders weighing tens of thousands of pounds. Their potential strength was extremely astonishing.
“No wonder why when I faced the Titanic Black Python, I felt as though using the Bloodviolet Godsword wasn’t as effective as using my own fists and claws,” Linley said. “Perhaps I too should find a heavy weapon to use.”
While chatting, Linley continued to make his way northwards into the desolate wilderness.
“Boss, there’s a squad of knights up ahead,” Bebe suddenly said to him mentally.
Linley looked carefully. Indeed, up ahead, there was a squad of knights taking a break up ahead. Linley had already encountered quite a few such squads. Generally speaking, squads capable of surviving in these magical-beast-infested lands were composed of elite soldiers belonging to major clans.
“No need to pay them any mind.” Linley ignored these people, continuing forward.
But when he drew near, Linley suddenly noticed a familiar face.
“Shaq? Second Prince Shaq?” Linley was startled.
As the Prime Court Magus for the Kingdom of Fenlai, Linley knew both Crown Prince Carre and Second Prince Shaq.
Dragonblood: Book 2 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 59