Soul of Negary

Chris was sticking to the wall like a gecko. Since Stripping Rhythm worked on the principle that things with unharmonious rhythms were repelled, a perfectly harmonious rhythm could naturally create suction.

“As expected, I have something that’s affecting the so-called Bizarre Scales and causing it to be just a little bit hesitant as it attacks” Chris climbed up the wall and onto the roof of the building.

“The Bizarre Scales’ rhythm is full of madness and chaos, a creature with this kind of rhythm should be no more than an irrational beast, so how is that Crowmen controlling it?” Chris swiftly rolled to one side.

A thin tiny black string flashed into existence for a brief second and disappeared, Chris continued to use his breathing to sense his surroundings. He was basically walking on a tightrope right now so one wrong step for him could mean death.

With a dark golden flash, the Bizarre Scales jumped out from some corner and destroyed the roof of the building where Chris was standing. The Bizarre Scales’ body was now in the air, its movements slowed enough by the impact for Chris to see its face.

The creature was mostly humanoid with dark golden scales of mixed colours all over its body, a thin membrane underneath its armpits and a long barbed tail behind it. The only way to describe the look on its face was madness; sharp, jagged and uneven teeth protruded from its mouth while drool dripped down.

As soon as the Bizarre Scales landed, its body disappeared in a dark golden flash.

“That was dragon scales” sensing the incredibly imbalanced rhythm, impatience and madness he felt from the creature, Chris couldn’t help but recall one of his adventures.

While it wasn’t exactly the same as the wyvern he defeated with Deep Rhythm, the imbalanced rhythm and dark golden scales of the creature could be faintly recognized as dragon scales.

“Dragon! Damn it, so that’s the reason why Negary wanted to keep Nala here” Chris was immediately able to explain a lot of things.

From a very long time ago, Negary had already discovered that Nala was the Daughter of Dragons, and he’s been keeping Isabella and her daughter in Reya for all these years in order to study the secret of the Dragon’s blood. By now, Negary’s experiments must’ve yielded results and the Bizarre Scales are part of that.

Chris wasn’t wrong, the Bizarre Scales were indeed a product of Negary’s experiments to create the Soul’s blood. The Cauchy mix-blooded people before Comoros accepted the injection of the Dragon’s blood, but their souls couldn’t endure the [Dragon’s Pressure] inside the blood. Not only did these people lose their minds and become senseless animals, but their bodies also mutated due to the influence of the Dragon’s blood.

These monsters were both ferocious and mindless, if Negary hadn’t found a way to restrain them, they would’ve already been discarded as failed specimens.

“Which means, the item that was able to affect these Bizarre Scales was…” Chris glanced down at a piece of ivory hanging on his clothes, the fang of the ferocious wyvern.

If the Bizarre Scales hadn’t been affected by the wyvern fang and hesitated slightly each time it attacked, Chris would’ve already been killed by this beast with strength and speed that vastly overwhelmed his own.

“I don’t know how many of these Bizarre Scales there are, but Negary’s accumulated power is definitely terrifying. This ominous Evil Spirit must be destroyed” Chris’ mind turned and swiftly took the wyvern fang into his hand.

Regardless, I have to make it through the current danger first. With the wyvern fang, I will at least have a bit of protection against the Bizarre Scales, so the most dangerous factor right now is the Crowmen who is controlling the Bizarre Scales

Chris remembered the thin black string that appeared for a split second before it vanished.

“Kill him, Bizarre Scales!” Yadley’s voice came again, Chris was feeling a sense of danger unlike ever before.

The dark golden Bizarre Scales turned into a streak of light as it charged towards him, Chris waved the wyvern fang in his hand to make the Bizarre Scales flinch briefly and hurriedly avoided it. But a split second later, he completely froze in place as he noticed countless black strings that had completely sealed off his escape routes, waiting for Chris to throw himself into the net.

Boom!

Surrounded by smoke and dust, the Bizarre Scales directly smashed into the road where Chris had been standing and made a huge crater.

The black strings stretched across the ground and into the sky all over this area, constantly expanding outwards. If you tried to look where these strings originated from, you’d find that they were all connected to Yadley’s fingers.

Over a third of his body had been replaced by [Black Crow] germs, and all ten of his fingers were made entirely out of this substance. The germs here had been trained by him to form the shape of strings, easily piercing or cutting through the flesh of living beings as he ordered them to, at the same time sensitive enough to detect movement in the air around them.

If these strings were to pierce through the skin, they would quickly spread all over the body and act like strings of a puppet for Yadley to control. Furthermore, Yadley still had [Black Crow] germs implanted at several other positions of his body, that was the reason why he was the strongest of the Crowmen.

“No heartbeat, did the Bizarre Scales kill him?” Yadley used the strings at his fingertips to search the surroundings again. Since this was Lord Negary’s direct order, he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

“Wait, the Bizarre Scales’ state isn’t quite right…” Yadley sensed the Bizarre Scales’ step as it walked through one of his black strings and noticed that its movement was heavier than it was supposed to be.

After the dust settled, Yadley quickly noticed a person laying flat on top of the Bizarre Scales, covered in fine powder. Who else could it be but Chris?

At the very last second, before the Bizarre Scales got to him, Chris used his rhythm to make the old wyvern fang explode into fine dust, took advantage of the wind to scatter it all over his body and used [Respiratory Art] to make the powdered fang stick to him.

As he was soaked in the aura of a ‘Dragon’, the Bizarre Scales gave up on attacking him and instead made an opening big enough for Chris to climb onto it.

Waiting for the creature to take a few more steps, Chris leapt onto another location and breathed out heavily, the Bizarre Scales’ body then shivered and collapsed completely, coughing up some golden blood as well as bits and pieces of ruptured organs.

As soon as Chris landed on the Bizarre Scales, he had been using Deep Rhythm to attack it. Even a creature of the Bizarre Scales’ level couldn’t handle its own power attacking itself and got its organs ruptured.

“Chris, I didn’t expect you to be able to kill a Bizarre Scales” Yadley’s expression was somber: “But this is the end. To make sure that you don’t disturb Lord Negary’s hibernation, I will have you lay your life down right here”

As soon as he said that, Yadley’s expression changed and noticed that some sort of power had led him into saying that.

Chris’ expression widened, noticing the information Yadley had just conveyed.

So Negary really was wounded and is currently staying somewhere to recover?

“No matter” Yadley suddenly laughed, four flashes of dark-golden light appeared next to him and revealed themselves to be more Bizarre Scales. Each of them had a Crowmen riding on top, including Tesa who had now re-equipped herself with a new rapier, all staring down coldly at Chris.

Seeing the Crowmen and Bizarre Scales surrounding him, Chris couldn’t help but smile bitterly. He was powerless against such an overwhelming difference in power, after all, he was still only human.

At this point, a clear voice was suddenly heard: “It seems we arrived just in time!”