I Eat Tomatoes - [Coiling Dragon 04]

by I Eat Tomatoes

  Then suddenly.

  The Armored Razorback Wyrm opened its one remaining eye. That remaining, dark golden eye remained as cold and emotionless as ever, and it was focused on Linley.

  “Ah!” Faced with this cold gaze, Linley’s heart began to beat frantically.

  Both the Armored Razorback Wyrm and the Saint-level Violet Tattooed Bear both had noticed Linley long ago. Only, they didn’t bother with him.

  However…

  The Armored Razorback Wyrm didn’t want its body to be defiled after its death by this human. Dragons were a proud race, and Armored Razorback Wyrms were the proudest, most conceited dragons in existence. Even in death, it wouldn’t want its opponents to get off too easy, much less allow its corpse to be mutilated by a human.

  “Not good.” Without hesitating at all, Linley immediately turned tail and began to run.

  “It’s almost dead, and it still wants to kill.” Linley was feeling rather pissed.

  The Armored Razorback Wyrm stared a deadly gaze at Linley with its one remaining dark golden eye. And then, emitting the most furious roar it had ever let out in its existence, it transformed into a blur and appeared next to Linley almost instantaneously, sweeping its merciless claws towards Linley.

  Feeling the sudden rushing air from behind, Linley instinctively wanted to lie down, as he knew that a dragon claw would come swiping in. When it did, even a magical beast of the ninth rank would perish, much less him. That jadestone armor on his body would not prove to be any deterrent to the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s sharp claws.

  “Swish!”

  Emitting an ear-piercing shriek, Bebe’s tiny, weak little body collided head-on with the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s sharp claws.

  “Bebe!” As he was spiritually linked with Bebe, as soon as Bebe had moved, Linley sensed it, and instantly Linley’s heart began to tremble with fear.

  “Whap!”

  A clear striking sound. Bebe’s body was sent flying by the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s vicious claws, and it was shot backwards at an incomprehensible speed, smashing into the tunnel wall a few dozen meters away, creating a deep crevice.

  On the outside of that crevice, there was a spot of bright blood.

  “Bebe’s blood.” At this moment, Linley was filled with boundless pain, pain which was a thousand, no, ten thousand-fold the pain he had felt upon losing Alice.

  Within his mind, one image after another of him and Bebe together swam to the forefront.

  He remembered the first time they met, how Bebe had hidden behind that decrepit old stone house and stared at Linley in terror.

  He remembered Bebe’s self-satisfied look, and adorable Bebe looked upon wrinkling his nose.

  He also remembered how Bebe would lie down for a nap inside his clothes, and how cute he looked asleep.

  ….

  From when Linley was 8, until now.

  The one who had truly always been by his side was Bebe. Although he liked to boast and brag, and also liked to mock, in Linley’s heart, Bebe had occupied an extremely important position.

  “Graaaaaw….” That huge maw of the Armored Razorback Wyrm bit down at Linley.

  “Aaaaargh!” Linley let out a deep howl, his eyes now totally bloodshot. When the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s giant fangs drew near to him, Linley’s speed attained a previously unreached level, and he opened his own mouth wide and bit down at the Wyrm’s neck as well.

  “Crush.” A large part of the flesh on Linley’s shoulder was bitten off.

  But Linley’s own teeth were also firmly locked onto the wounded area on the Armored Razorback Wyrm’s neck!

  “Die, die, die with me!”

  Having entered a berserk, crazed state, Linley wildly drank the blood of this living dragon and wildly bit at the exposed flesh.

  “Aaaargh!”

  When the dragon blood splashed on Linley’s body, Linley felt as though all of the skin on his body had been painfully scalded by boiling water. But this was only a secondary thing. The dragon blood that he drank into his stomach made Linley’s entire body jerk, spasm, and tremble.

  Pain! Incredibly fierce pain!

  The pain of dragon blood splashing on his body, Linley could withstand. But the dragon blood entering his stomach, entering his body? One’s internals, after all, were much more vulnerable than one’s skin. This sort of pain was an internal, constant, non-stop stabbing pain.

  He was in agony. But Linley had forgotten about what agony was, at this point.

  The last, desperate, full-strength attack of this peak ninth rank Armored Razorback Wyrm…one could imagine how terrifying it was. The fierce sharpness of the Armored Razorback Wyrm was legendary. Even a magical beast of the ninth rank would be rent by it. And Bebe?

  Linley could still see that bloodstain on the tunnel wall.

  Once Bebe’s tiny body had its protective fur and skin torn apart, how could he survive? Most importantly of all, Linley could already sense that Bebe’s life force had already grown so weak as to be all but undetectable.

  “Arrgh!” His heart filled with grief, Linley savagely bit at the dragon’s flesh, drank the dragon’s blood. He allowed the blood to boil as much as it wanted of his organs, allowed his entire body to be in such agony that it shuddered. Linley simply didn’t care.

  “Linley, stop, stop!” Doehring Cowart was howling at him. “Use the Blueheart Grass, quick, use the Blueheart Grass! If you keep doing this, your body will fall apart!”

  But it was useless. Linley continued to devour the dragon’s blood. Suddenly, some sort of icy cold crystalline entity entered Linley’s throat, then passed into his stomach. Instantly, the pain intensified still further, and Linley’s entire body began to convulse uncontrollably.

  Pain?

  Linley wanted himself to feel pain. This sort of physical pain was able to, just barely, lessen the terrible pain he felt in his heart.

  “Linley!” Doehring Cowart was at his wit’s end.

  “Bo…Boss!” A very weak voice rang out in Linley’s mind.

  Linley’s entire body trembled. He suddenly came to a stop, no longer chewing at the dragon’s flesh, nor drinking any more blood.

  “Bebe?”

  The entire tunnel was silent, now. Stunned, Linley stared at Bebe, who was inside the deep crevice created by his impact. He could feel that Bebe’s life force was beginning to strengthen. Seeing Bebe’s body slowly crawl out of that deep crevice, Linley felt an unspeakable joy. But immediately afterwards, another terrifying wave of pain engulfed Linley’s very soul.

  “Quick, eat the Blueheart Grass!” Doehring Cowart roared with rage.

  Only now did Linley react. He ferociously tore the backpack open, grabbed a large handful of Blueheart Grass, and directly swallowed it. This handful had at least ten patches of Blueheart Grass. When he ate it, Linley only felt a cool sensation enter his body, and that earlier, intense burning pain began to lessen.

  But Linley could feel that in one part of his stomach, there was still an incredibly intense pain. After the burning sensation in the other parts of his body had lessened, the intense pain in that location became all the more pronounced.

  Without hesitating at all, Linley grabbed another handful of Blueheart Grass and quickly ate it as well.

  Immediately afterwards, Linley assumed the meditative position and allowed the Secret Dragonblood Manual’s inscriptions on how to rouse the Dragonblood of the Dragonblood Warriors come to mind. He began to agitate his blood in accordance with the instructions in the book, and as he carried out these secret techniques, the blood of the Dragonblood Warriors which lay deep in Linley’s veins began to show itself.

  “Success.”

  The chance of success through using a dragon of the ninth rank was a bit lower than a dragon of a Saint-level dragon. But the Armored Razorback Wyrm was both a peak ninth rank dragon, and also an extremely powerful dragon. Its small physical size also was an indicator that the quality of the blood it had should have been extremely high.

&
nbsp; “Woosh.” “Whoosh.” The Dragonblood in Linly’s veins was beginning to transform as well, as wave after wave of it was being transformed into Dragonblood Battle-qi.

  But whenever he reached that part of his stomach which hurt the most, for some reason the pain remained the same, no matter how much Blueheart Grass he ate. What Linley hadn’t realized is that what he had actually swallowed was, alongside everything else, the draconic crystal of the Armored Razorback Wyrm.

  Realistically speaking, that crystal was ten thousand times more terrifying than dragon’s blood. Even after having eaten so much Blueheart Grass, all it served to do was to blunt the bad effects. The pain it was causing was incredible.

  However, the blood of the Dragonblood Warriors was no ordinary bloodline either!

  The lineage of the Dragonblood Warriors hailed from the very first Dragonblood Warrior, Baruch. In the past, when Baruch had mastered his abilities, he was even able to kill a peak Nine Headed Serpent King of the Saint-level. That sort of power he had, to walk about the Yulan continent totally unmatched, was incredibly great.

  Even the mighty dragon race didn’t want to do direct battle with Baruch and his clansmen, despite the fact that Baruch had captured several Saint-level live dragons and fed their blood to his clansmen.

  This was the terrifying true power of the Dragonblood warriors!

  As far as the secret manual handed down in the Baruch clan, where it said that no one could drink dragon blood and live, this was just a case where the truth was hidden because of the dragon race. Baruch had actually used this method to produce a great many Dragonblood Warriors.

  The unique blood of the Dragonblood Warriors and their descendants, when compared even to the noble blood of dragons, was far nobler.

  Even when just a little bit of it was hiding in the veins, it was capable of allowing a human potentially reach the level of being a Saint-level combatant. From this, one could imagine how powerful the blood of the Dragonblood Warriors was!

  And right now, the blood of the Dragonblood Warriors was beginning to stir. When the Dragonblood Warrior blood met with the draconic crystal of the Armored Razorback Wyrm, a strange transformation occurred! A draconic crystal was the purest distillation of a dragon’s energy, making this crystal the pure, distilled essence of an Armored Razorback Wyrm at the peak of the ninth rank…while the density of Dragonblood in Linley’s veins was too low….

  “Pant, pant.”

  Vicious pain erupted from every fiber of Linley’s body, and Linley painfully reared his head up and howled. On top of Linley’s skin, bizarre black scales began to emerge, and those sharp little black scales split Linley’s clothes apart.

  Linley’s thighs and arms also saw these scales slowly emerge. This sort of absolutely inhumane pain caused all of the veins in Linley’s body to protrude out, and his facial expression was contorted to a terrifying degree.

  Suddenly, another wave of even greater pain crashed down upon Linley, as a sharp, keen spike erupted forth from Linley’s forehead…

  * * *

  Book 4, Chapter 21

  * * *

  Book 4, The Dragonblood Warrior – Chapter 21, The Dragonblood Warrior

  Linley’s entire body was in such pain that it was convulsing. Linley’s very spine was straining as if trying to pop out, and then one small spike after another did begin to slowly grow out of his spine, piercing through his skin and flesh and rising to form a line on his back.

  This extreme pain caused Linley to begin letting out guttural howls. His entire body was covered in sweat, but even as the sweat came out, so too did one black scale after another, each and every scale very much similar to the scales of the Armored Razorback Wyrm. The only difference was that they were smaller in size.

  Grinding his teeth, his throat trembling with every guttural, pain-filled roar, Linley did his best to forcibly will himself to begin utilizing the secret methods contained within the Secret Dragonblood Manual.

  The draconic crystal was being constantly eroded away by the Dragonblood in Linley’s veins, and it was slowly growing smaller. At the same time, the Dragonblood in Linley’s veins was constantly devouring the astonishing darkness-type elemental force contained within the draconic crystal. The pace of his body’s evolution actually began to pick up even further…

  “Graaawr!” A blood-covered, black-scaled draconic tail slowly began to protrude from Linley’s tailbone. This draconic tail was of the size and hardness of a steel whip.

  “What, what is going on?” Feeling his entire body transforming, especially those spikes popping out from his spine, and those black scales, Linley was totally flabbergasted.

  Per the records of the Secret Dragonblood Manual, a Dragonblood Warrior had three forms.

  Under the third form, ‘Dragonform’, the Dragonblood Warrior’s entire body would be covered with azure scales, and a horn would sprout from his forehead as well. This was the most powerful form available to a Dragonblood Warrior…but currently, Linley’s physical transformation was totally different from that which was described in the Secret Dragonblood Manual.

  The scales which were covering Linley’s body were all black, not azure. The spikes protruding from Linley’s spine should not be there. Linley couldn’t help but suddenly think of the Armored Razorback Wyrm.

  The second form, ‘Demidragon’, was not quite as strong as the ‘Dragonform’ transformation, as it only allowed part of his body to transform.

  As for the first form, that was the normal human form. In most situations, a Dragonblood Warrior would be in this form. This was also the weakest form available to a Dragonblood Warrior.

  Per the Secret Dragonblood Manual, the first time a Dragonblood Warrior successfully trained the usage of Dragonblood battle-qi, his body would uncontrollably enter the third form, the Dragonform. This first transformation would be incredibly painful, but afterwards, the transformations would no longer hurt at all.

  Within Linley’s body….

  A surge of deep blue liquid seemed to have merged with a black liquid and spread itself throughout his body. Every single muscle, every single vein was constantly absorbing energy from these liquids, causing Linley’s physical attributes to all start improving at a terrifying pace. But this rapid strengthening of the body was causing Linley excruciating pain as well.

  “Damnable dragons.” Linley was beginning to curse at them mentally. “It must have been you guys. Otherwise, our clan definitely would have written in much greater detail about the aftereffects of drinking live dragon’s blood and the things to be careful about.”

  The more Linley thought about it, the angrier he became.

  His own clan’s Secret Dragonblood Manual clearly was filled with contradictions. If it was true that no one had ever successfully used live dragon’s blood to rouse the Dragonblood in their veins, then why would the book be so confident that this method would be successful? This was a clear contradiction.

  And how could Linley know what the situation in the clan was, 4000-5000 years ago!

  “It must have been that due to the pressure of the entire race of dragons that our ancestors were forced to skimp on the details of this method of using live dragon’s blood to rouse the Dragonblood in our veins.” Right now, Linley had no idea what he should do.

  His ‘Dragonform’ was clearly different from the authentic ‘Dragonform’ which had been mentioned in the Secret Dragonblood Manual.

  “I am far too mentally resilient. I really hope I’ll faint soon.” Linley actually was begging for himself to faint, as once he fainted, his pain would be over.

  “Aaaargh…”

  Linley’s entire body trembled once again. All ten fingers and all ten toes suddenly were wracked with a bone-deep pain, as the fingernails and toenails suddenly began to grow sharp, like miniature dragon claws. The pain of sharp claws forcibly growing out of his fingers and toes really, finally, caused Linley to begin to lose all consciousness.

  As his head grew foggy, Linley’s eyes b
egan to close, and then all consciousness fled.

  “Thud.”

  Linley’s body collapsed to the ground.

  “He’s passed out.” Doehring Cowart stood next to Linley, watching him. He couldn’t help but let out a small sigh. “How bizarre. I can’t imagine how Linley’s ancestor, Baruch, could have developed such a strange ability of transforming into a Dragonform.”

  Frowning, Doehring Cowart mumbled to himself, “Honestly speaking, it’s bizarre. It seems that aside from the Dragonblood Warriors, there’s also three other bloodlines of Supreme Warriors. But when I was alive, there was no such thing as a Supreme Warrior. But shortly after I died, these four bloodlines arrived on the scene.”

  Despite his thousand-plus years of experience and wisdom, Doehring Cowart was unable to puzzle out how and why this occurred.

  “If he was able to slay a Nine-Headed Serpent Emperor, then in all likelihood, Linley’s ancestor, Baruch, was no weaker than I am, and perhaps stronger.” Doehring Cowart knew full well how powerful a Nine-Headed Serpent Emperor was. Nine-Headed Serpents were an extremely formidable race of magical beasts, and for a Nine-Headed Serpent to receive the title of ‘Serpent Emperor’ meant that, without question, it was a peak Saint-level magical beast.

  Even he himself would not have the confidence to say that he could slay a Nine-Headed Serpent Emperor.

  “And that little Shadowmouse is no ordinary creature either.” Doehring Cowart turned his head to stare at the little Shadowmouse Bebe, who was still lying and resting in that crevice his body had created earlier. “An Armored Razorback Wyrm is amongst the most powerful dragon-type beasts of the ninth rank, and this Sartius fellow was at the peak of the ninth rank. His dying blow should be able to shatter the bones and rend the flesh of magical beasts of the ninth rank, but somehow, this little Shadowmouse managed to survive it.”