Chapter 122: Its Name Is Yinglong

At the same time, Chen Wu, who was still searching ceaselessly in the darkness, suddenly paused.

A pair of eyes faintly glowing in the darkness surveyed the pitch-black surroundings, and he felt an inexplicable unease, as if some man-devouring monster lurked within the shadows.

It was an extremely strange emotion, one that should not appear on someone like him, an elite martial warrior.

As an elite who had followed the general in slaying countless rebels and bringing down several terrifying Strange Beasts, darkness had long been more familiar to him than anything.

But now he was inexplicably uneasy. Unfortunately, he was currently on a covert reconnaissance, still a quarter-hour away from gathering with the others to exchange information, so he could not communicate with them now.

He shook his head. Perhaps it was because he was about to obtain traces of that dragon, about to soar to the heavens along with his whole household, and was simply too nervous.

He gently exhaled a breath of stale air. After readjusting his breathing, he once again relied on that faint light to grope his way into the darkness.

But not long after, he froze, his whole body stiff as a mummy. Slowly lowering his head, by the faint moonlight from the night sky, he clearly saw that his hand was resting on a rough, scalding, hard object.

Having dealt with all manner of fierce beasts countless times, he immediately understood what his hand was resting on—an eagle's claw!

But just what kind of eagle had claws this large?

He did not know.

Countless thoughts flashing through his mind, Chen Wu only now felt a stream of hot breath on his neck, he knew not since when.

He slowly raised his head, and in an instant he saw it—saw a pair of eyes with pupils burning with raging flames. That was—!

He had just been about to cry out.

But the next moment, he was too late; in an instant he had fallen into eternal slumber forever.

It was Baichuan who had instantly frozen him into a block of ice.

After finishing this, and sensing no other humans within range, Baichuan finally raised his head and began moving cautiously, doing his best to avoid causing any tremor on the ground, heading in the direction from which those humans had come.

……

On the other side, two hours after those three had left, Zhou Li, who had been resting with his eyes closed, finally sensed something was wrong. He reopened his eyes and looked toward that darkness from before.

Something was off. In the past, whether or not they had found any trace information, at least one of them would return within two hours at the latest to report intelligence. But now it was already past two hours, and not a single one had returned.

He felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding, but with the enfeoffment as a king of a territory imminent, he simply chalked it up to them possibly having encountered other fierce beasts that needed to be dealt with.

In that case, he would just send a few more men over to take a look.

Thinking this, he stood up again and once more gave the order, calling out several soldiers eager to earn great merit.

Watching his brothers so fired up, he found it amusing, and at the same time felt a surge of pride—these would all be his trusted subordinates after he was enfeoffed as king!

After instructing these men to return and report intelligence at least once within an hour, he once again sat cross-legged and waited patiently.

Now the weapons the soldiers had prepared to deal with Strange Beasts were mostly ready; they were just waiting for good news about that dragon. His treasured sword was thirsting for action, waiting to be the first to drink Dragon Blood.

Although His Majesty had always ordered that upon encountering a dragon, it must be captured alive.

But during the capture process, a dragon was, after all, a Strange Beast, and would surely resist.

So injuries were bound to occur during the capture, to the point where one might accidentally bathe in Dragon Blood or something—perfectly normal, right?

His Majesty surely wouldn't fuss over such a trifle.

Thinking this, Zhou Li could not help but admire his own cleverness.

Time flowed on once more. An hour later, it was now the latter half of the night.

Yet he still had not seen any soldier return to report intelligence. At this moment, he finally sensed something was wrong.

He stood up again and began ordering the soldiers to prepare to close ranks and form up.

But it was too late. At this moment, Baichuan, without making a sound, had finally brought these humans within three kilometers of his perception range.

In an instant, he figured out their number—one hundred.

That was the total including those he had killed earlier. He had now silently killed five, meaning ninety-five remained.

With such numbers, why should he care?

Thus, in the blink of an eye, he spread his wings, carrying rolling waves of heat as he leapt into the air, flying toward the crowd.

"What? A true dragon?!"

And this scene happened to be witnessed by Zhou Li, who was preparing to gather the soldiers. His expression instantly changed drastically and he cried out in shock.

Because it was too big! Truly too big!

Its entire body was a full 25 【units】 in length, with a wingspan of nearly fifty meters—what a monstrously huge creature?!

Compared to Baichuan's previous world, it was like a monster the size of an eight-story building, spreading wings the height of about seventeen stories, carrying waves of heat as it charged at you.

Who would not be shocked? Who would not be afraid?

He did not know about others, but he himself was utterly terrified.

Having captured Strange Beasts for so many years, he had never seen such a colossal and terrifying creature. Even the largest land beast—the elephant—was not fit to be mentioned in the same breath.

In an instant, Zhou Li was reminded of a passage: Deep in the mountains there dwells a dragon, its name Yinglong. So vast is Yinglong, no one knows how many zhang it spans. When it flies in wrath, its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky!

This was the perfect portrayal of what he felt at this moment. He felt as if a mountain were crashing toward him—merely the violent wind pressure and rolling waves of heat brought by its takeoff.

He already felt his face contorting and could barely breathe. One must remember, he was Eight Limits!

If even Eight Limits found it this hard to resist, there was no need to mention the others.

A sweep of his peripheral vision revealed that, while he had been stunned, the surrounding soldiers had long since been blown apart. Not only that, some soldiers had been directly smashed and critically injured by large trees that could not withstand the force.

For a time, all manner of cries of pain rang out.

Truly, before the dragon even arrived, the earth had already sunk deep, displaying its might!

The next moment, the Yinglong-like creature landed with a thunderous crash.

In an instant, the ground shook violently, as if an Earth Dragon were turning over. The ground first bulged upward, then, starting from where it descended, cracks deep and bottomless split across the surface.

How terrifying! How exaggerated!

This scene left him stunned and awestruck, yet he could not help but feel a surge of yearning, and could not help but laugh wildly:

"Dragon! Dragon! Is this the power of a dragon?!"

"How magnificent!!!"

"Let me witness the true power of a dragon for once!"

With that thought, he raised the sword in his hand, ready to slash forward—but discovered he could no longer move, and had no idea when it had happened!

He couldn't help crying out: "What? My body?"

The feeling was just like an ordinary person seeing a beast pounce on them—frozen in shock in an instant.

He could only watch helplessly as the flood dragon reached out a sharp claw, then agony swept over him—he had been seized.

The whole thing happened so fast he barely had time to react; under the searing flames he couldn't help letting out a muffled groan, as if his breath was about to give out.

Only then did he suddenly realize that when the claw reached out, the true dragon's pressure had already made the air scalding and viscous, and he had long been powerless to resist this binding.

In truth, if Baichuan knew what he was thinking, he would surely tell him it wasn't any pressure at all—merely the wind pressure from his body weight making the air viscous.

Sadly, he knew nothing of physics; the sudden enlightenment made him laugh and cry at once. "So I can't even break free of the pressure a true dragon carries, Eight Limits? Heh."

In an instant, the searing heat pouring in from every direction through the claws turned him into a half-human, half-charred living corpse, and even the fine-iron armor he wore glowed red and warped.

Yes—even reduced to this, he still hadn't fully died. This is the horror of Eight Limits.

But he couldn't live much longer either; he had already begun the countdown to death.

Even so, he still gazed at the Yinglong with fervent eyes, and couldn't help sighing inwardly:

Dragon, how loved you are by the heavens, granted such terrifying power—why not let us use it? How unjust are the heavens!

Such a terrifying existence—even without intelligence, how many tens of thousands of people would Great Zhou need to match it?

Yet just as he finished sighing at the brink of death, a strange sound wave rippled through his body.

Then a powerful burst of information violently invaded his mind, slowly gathering into a sentence he knew well: "Why do you seek me?"

The moment those words came out, Zhou Li—who was about to close his eyes and breathe his last—suddenly widened his eyes, his gaze filled with shock and disbelief, even though his left eye had already been completely charred.

Because a life without intelligence and a life with intelligence do not bring destruction on the same level.

The former is a beast; the latter can be called a god!

At this moment, his face was terrified to the extreme; his nearly fully carbonized lips moved: "You actually have intelli—"

But before he could finish, his body could hold on no longer, and completely turned into a glowing-red, scorching lump of charcoal.

The change came so quickly that the entire process of Zhou Li turning to charcoal took less than five seconds.

Baichuan watched helplessly as the human he had just grabbed turned into a lump of charcoal, and couldn't help exclaiming in surprise: "Dead? That's all it took?"

That shouldn't be the case—back then, that Zhang Dadan was still alive for so long after his head was blown off by a single strike, yet this guy who looked so impressive, and he's just gone like that?

Was it because the temperature he radiated was too high?

But Baichuan was only releasing less than thirty percent of his body's heat right now—he was currently storing fifty percent of his heat, using twenty percent to maintain himself, and letting thirty percent dissipate at any time as a heat wave to help him take flight.

Watching the human he had just grabbed to question about Great Zhou die like this, while the group on the ground had long been crushed to death by the wind pressure he carried, bleeding from every orifice.

At this, Baichuan could only sigh: "Looks like next time I'll have to hold back a bit more."

Then his throat bulged, and a stream of viscous ice essence was spat out, transforming into a fierce chill that extinguished the raging flames around him.

Setting fire in the deep mountains for no reason is not a good thing.

Although he still hadn't figured out what had happened, since he had been deliberately sought out by humans—and with ill intent at that—it meant he had already been targeted by humans.

In that case…

(End of this chapter)