Chapter 173
Chapter 173: How to Kill a Dragon (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Nailisi could empathize with Saleen’s anxiety. For a creature like a dragon, forceful impact meaningless. As long as the dragon did not die, it would be able to recover from any type of injury. Once the tiago regained just a little bit of its strength, the four of them would not be able to escape anymore.
Nailisi was left with no choice but to deplete the special energy she had been accumulating for a long time. She cut through the sturdy intestines in the dragon’s stomach and chose the most straightforward route.
Nailisi could feel the beating from the dragon’s powerful heart. It made others feel that it was a fearsome creature which constantly emitted dominant vibes.
The lungs of the dragon were very different from that of other creatures. Six pieces of leaf-shaped lungs contained a dense network of veins, and countless minute crystal particles grew on the surface of its lungs. These crystal particles were harder and more resistant to wear than diamond. Furthermore, there was gummy sticky liquid between the crystal particles.
That was the toughest part in the entirety of the dragon’s body. It was impossible to penetrate it, so Nailisi went around the six lungs and at last found the dragon’s heart.
Nailisi exerted a great deal of strength and jabbed at the dragon’s heart. Her hook-like fingernails advanced for about half a centimeter before they became stuck. The heart shrunk hastily. Ka ba! A section of Nailisi’s claws broke off neatly in a row.
Nailisi was in so much pain that she howled, and the bodily fluid within the thoracic cavity of the dragon flooded her mouth.
Even a demon whose heart had been pierced by Nailisi would not have reacted like this. Nailisi did not dare use her tail anymore. She simply hooked her tail onto the gully of the heart and wriggled her body upwards.
In the demonic plane, tiny demons were still able to hunt larger magic beasts. Crawling into the enemy’s intensites was a common tactic. Instinctively, Nailisi found a blood vessel in the dragon and bit down on it.
This blood vessel was proximal to the heart and was thicker than Nailisi’s waist. Nailisi’s teeth created an opening in the blood vessel, and fresh blood spurted out in that instant, completely drenching her in blood.
Since Nailisi was covered in the bodily fluids of the dragon, her entire body was slippery and had no traction, and she could not even stop to take a sip of the dragon’s blood. Nailisi simply used her limbs to maintain the opening in the blood vessel and extended her head into it.
This blood vessel was actually one of the dragon’s veins. Once Nailisi entered the blood vessel, she felt the dragon’s heart exert a massive suctioning force which sucked her body into the blood vessel.
The dragon twitched violently. There was nothing more horrifying than having a foreign body inside of its heart. However, the dragon did not have any strength left and could not even cast magic. That human hugging onto its tail had cast some evil skill, absorbing all of its power away.
Nailisi was feeling even worse. The force exerted by the shrinking of the heart was too immense, causing Nailisi’s bones to be broken and her skeleton to give off a grating sound. The essence from the dragon’s heart had seeped into Nailisi’s body through her skin. Originally, this had been something that Nailisi dreamt of, but now, it seemed like it was going to be fatal to her.
The essence from the dragon’s heart was like an ocean and Nailisi’s body was a mere lake. No matter how large the lake was, it would never be able to contain the ocean. Nailisi was trapped by the shrinking heart. That had been a reflex by the dragon’s brain. Nailisi tried her best to break out of the ventricle and escape, but she could not move at all.
As seconds ticked by, Nailisi felt that she was going to be assimilated into the dragon’s heart. The strength in her body had also fused with it completely. Furthermore, the skills which she had been unable to activate after her transition to adulthood were now unrestrained. However, Nailisi could not control her actions as she gradually became part of the dragon’s heart.
Nailisi had never expected this to happen. Even though the dragon’s strong body was now rendered immobile, Nailisi was completely trapped solely by its heart’s reflexes. Even if the dragon ultimately died, she would also be trapped here until she died in its heart. Nailisi could feel her life diminishing. Another way to put it was that she was becoming part of this colossal heart.
“Sika, help me get over there.” Lex noticed that the dragon was motionless and felt that something was wrong. Lex’s bones were broken, and such injuries could not be healed immediately using magic. Currently, she had trouble walking as well.
This dragon seemed to be able to remain alive no matter what they did. Lex knew that if the dragon did not die, then she would be the one to die. Thus, she tolerated the immense pain and had Sika help her over to the dragon.
Lex felt regretful. The two spells which were stored in the magic staff had already been used by her. Otherwise, those spells would definitely have been able to damage the dragon. The defenses of the dragon were now at a pitifully low level, and yet, that restorative magic which possessed offensive power equivalent to that of a level-8 spell had been used by Lex back at Dragon’s Tooth Town during the battle. The restorative magic had been prepared for Lex by her teacher.
Lex still possessed a large quantity of level-7 scrolls, but even if she drained herself of mental power, the dragon would only be severely injured and not killed.
The only thing that would work now was the god’s ring.
The god’s ring contained many abilities. Each time, Lex could only activate one ability, and after using it, it would require one year of recovery before it could be used again. Lex could not afford to consider it thoroughly now. There would still be an opportunity for the god’s ring to regain its abilities if it was used. However, if the dragon did not die, then she would stand no chance at all.
Sika helped Lex beside the dragon. Lex knelt down on the ground and raised her hands while the god’s ring was placed on the dragon’s body. Then, Lex began to make a sound. Golden air gathered and formed one line, and this line pierced into the dragon’s abdominal cavity ruthlessly before exploding. The multiple injuries that Nailisi had caused could no longer withstand that large external pressure. Within the dragon’s body, a bundle of golden air spun furiously and expanded. It was just like those alchemical reamers which were used for mining. Whichever areas the golden air passed through, those portions of the intestines were destroyed.
“Wu…”
Nailisi could sense that the dragon’s heart had tensed up all of a sudden. With a crack, the arm which Nailisi had been using to support her body broke, but it was quickly repaired by the essence of the dragon’s heart. The pain from the reparation was worse than the fracturing of the bone, causing Nailisi to moan in pain. After shrinking vigorously, the dragon’s heart then relaxed for a moment.
Nailisi took this opportunity to curve her tail upwards and pierce the muscle of the heart. Finally, an opening was slashed into the dragon’s heart. Nailisi turned her head to the side and bit into the heart.
This time around, the dragon roared in excruciating pain. Lex and Sika could not withstand the dragon’s roar. Their bodies went limp and they collapsed onto the ground.
With just several bites, Nailisi had created a large hole in the dragon’s heart. The heart was no longer able to shrink after this tremendous trauma, but Nailisi kept biting at it ferociously, fearing that the dragon might undergo further changes. Nailisi had not noticed that her broken claws had regenerated, solidified into a human form this time around. This meant that Nailisi no longer needed to transform into her demonic form in order to unleash her strongest attacks.
That final transformation magic had overcome the barriers created by the blood vessel, allowing Nailisi to possess a power that only supreme demons had.
If a human had entered the dragon’s heart, they would have disintegrated long ago. Only the sturdy bodies of demons were able to survive in such an environment, and this had caused Nailisi to gain an unexpected payoff.
To most people, dragon’s blood was already the best supplement they could ever consume in their lives. However, Nailisi had completely absorbed the essence of the dragon’s heart. This strength was imperative to Nailisi even though she was not a mage.
Only a supreme demon possessed the ability to cast magic. No matter how exquisite a tiny demon’s bloodline was, it could only perform unimportant tricks.
The dragon’s gaze began to dim as it lost the fury and sadness in its gaze. Lex freed herself from the shock and whispered weakly, “Sika, can you move?”
Ka cha! The bone necklace around Sika’s neck broke and a ray of purple light entered her bones. At the same time, she recovered from the mental damage of the dragon’s roar, and countless ancient messages gushed into Sika’s brain. This was the power Sika had been longing for.
“Ah!” Sika jumped up in a daze. She felt that her muscles were still sore, but she could already move about without any problems.
Lex held a green bottle in her hand and said to Sika, “Take a sip to regain your strength. Don’t let anyone else near.” As Lex spoke, she brought out another fully constructed puppet from the god’s ring. A large amount of her mental power had been drained, so Lex was hardly able to command another puppet.
Fresh blood sprayed out of the dragon’s nose. It seemed like it was going to die, but Lex knew that the trouble was far from over. The injuries on the dragon had been caused by humans, and to cause those types of injuries, at least a golden grand swordmaster and a grade-9 mage were needed. However, that was still not enough. Forbidden equipment was still required in order to cause a tiago to lose its magical abilities.
Forbidden equipment and the god’s ring had both been passed down from ancient times, and only the imperial family of the Cloudflow Empire possessed them. If those people who had injured the dragon were indeed the royals of Cloudflow, then they would definitely continue their pursuit. Even if the golden grand swordmaster and grade-9 mage respected the old agreement to not set foot into Qin soil, a simple grade-7 mage would be enough to kill Lex and her team right now.
Hence, Lex needed to try and regain her strength as soon as possible in order to dissect the dragon. Then, she would store it into her spatial equipment and remove all traces of the dragon.
Lex was not certain that the people from Cloudflow would abide by that agreement as that agreement was already nearly one thousand years old. Since the envoys of god from the Holy See had dared to trespass onto Qin land, it was very possible that the people from Cloudflow would take the risk to obtain this dragon.
The tiago was a grade-9 dragon. Its value was unmatched by a mere grade-6 green dragon.
Nailisi’s appetite was enormous. Usually, she would still have been hungry even after devouring a cow. However, this time around, the dragon’s heart had almost overwhelmed her. Nailisi had only eaten one percent of the heart and was unable to ingest anymore. The power from the essence of the dragon’s heart made Nailisi feel that her body had expanded, and if she continued eating, her newly reinforced body might not be able to take it either.
Nailisi used her teeth to tear the heart into smaller pieces before storing them into her bracelet. The golden air in the abdominal cavity of the dragon had faded, leaving behind a bloody mess and forming a huge pile of sticky fluid.
Nailisi did not exit the dragon’s body immediately. She climbed towards its head through its digestive tract, wanting to obtain the dragonshard for Saleen. The magic nucleus of a grade-9 magic beast was priceless, and it would never be exchanged for gold coins. The magic nucleus of a grade-9 dragon was no longer called a magic nucleus. It was simply referred to as a dragonshard.
Nailisi was not going to let the dragonshard be part of the spoils. She was going to take it first, so Lex would not mention it.
If Lex and her master had given birth to a powerful descendant, Nailisi might still have considered giving Lex part of the gains. Nailisi’s thinking was very naïve. Any benefits belonged to Saleen. Through empathizing with her master’s emotions, Nailisi knew that Saleen would not be under someone’s rule his entire life. One day, her master would surpass Lex and be known as the real expert.
Each time she felt emotions like these in Saleen, Nailisi was overjoyed. If Saleen was not powerful enough, the power of the demon under his soul bond would also be constrained.