Chapter 195: Blood Dragon
And in the same instant, the spheres of light detonated.
Brilliant starlight erupted across the battlefield, as if a piece of the night sky had descended upon the earth. Each explosion was a sunburst, searing and absolute, swallowing monsters in waves of radiant annihilation. Screams were drowned out in the brilliance, shadows burned away in the flood of silver-white destruction.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield no longer looked like a place of blood and dirt. It looked like a testing site for some bomb.
When the light faded, only a quarter of the enemies remained. Yu Xuan scanned the field and moved to finish them. He felt the trial was simple now — too simple.
He frowned inwardly.
’Why is it easier than I thought?’
His question was barely formed before the hooded figure shifted. With a slow, deliberate motion he raised a hand.
Far off, at the five nodes that Yu Xuan had noticed forming a pentagram, columns of bloody light burst upward.
The sight made both Yu Xuan and Lingluo’s expressions harden, only Tririri looked utterly unconcerned, still perched atop Lingluo’s head.
The blood across the battlefield rose, not in droplets but in threads, gathering and then falling to the ground where they traced irregular, uncanny patterns, long, looping lines like the Nazca geoglyphs, only darker.
The lines connected the five nodes in a terrible geometry; the earth itself seemed to be inscribing a sigil.
"Is this your move?" Yu Xuan asked, taking a step back. The transformation in the land felt like a gear engaging.
Lingluo, pale but steady, rose to stand beside him, Tririri bobbing contentedly as always. Around them the remaining monsters shuffled toward the hooded figure, wary and clustered.
"Soon it will begin," the man said.
He removed his hood. Where a shadowed cloak had been was now a handsome young face — red hair, slitted red eyes, yet nothing about him felt youthful. The features were carved and cruel, the smile too purposeful.
A thought flickered through Yu Xuan’s mind: The restrictions are loosening. He read it in the way the air thinned, in the slight tremor of power at the castle’s edge.
The hooded man’s smile widened, cruel and satisfied.
"I suppose I don’t need you anymore," he said, and then struck the air with a fist.
From his blow a dragon’s head, made of blood materialized and lunged toward them. The force of the apparition pushed Yu Xuan and Lingluo back; Lingluo removed a shield from her space ring and Yu Xuan also supported it.
The impact forced them to brace and step away; even shielded, their faces tightened.
"That was strong," Lingluo said, frowning as she felt the pressure bite into her bones.
Yu Xuan peered at the figure and said with a cold edge to his voice.
"So the Real Dragon has finally decided to move, huh."
The red-haired man’s expression shifted, eyes glittering with recognition and delight.
"Oh? you recognize me," he purred.
"How intriguing. But recognition won’t save you. You’ll still die painfully."
He moved again and this time the motion was less of a step.
The man’s human frame seemed to split, ripple, and peel away like a husk. Red mist crawled up his limbs and burst outward; his form inflamed and expanded until it was no longer man.
Power radiated from him in waves. The air chilled and warped as his shell fully discarded itself.
Where the man had stood, something colossal now unfurled: a red dragon, a Long of legend, massive beyond comprehension, nearly a hundred meters long, four great legs planting like pillars, and four huge wings stained and veined with the same dark blood that pulsed through the sigils on the ground. Its scales shone like blood; its eyes burned with fury.
The landscape shrank beneath that presence. Every creature on the plain fell silent, the very world seeming to bow under the dragon’s weight.
"Oops," Lingluo said, a trace of self-awareness slipping into her voice. "Maybe I shouldn’t have poked it."
***
Yu Xuan looked up at the colossal figure before him. His frown deepened.
’So it’s him. The one whose gaze I felt all along but what about that earlier one...’
He had marked the hooded figure ever since their fight with the hunters. He had quite some awesome abilities.
He hadn’t acted not because he couldn’t, but because in a trial like this, the "final boss" was often a necessary piece of the board.
To eliminate it too early would risk unraveling the very mechanism of the challenge. He felt this is real.
His [Immortal’s Gaze] and [Soul Vision] both screamed the same verdict: real. The weight of the soul before him was too vast to fake.
If he hadn’t sensed as much, he might have to retire young. Now, staring at the beast’s immense form, he couldn’t help but wonder: This is supposed to be a test? Then what exactly is the Heaven Immortal Sect playing at, throwing disciples into combat against this?
He knew they would not die here, as the trial ensured this. But what of the dragon, the monsters, the blood-soaked formations? None of this was illusion. They were real.
He glanced at his sister. "Sister, can you fight?"
Lingluo’s lips curled into a dangerous smile, her pale face igniting with excitement.
"Do you take me for a fool? You know how thrilled I am to fight a dragon!"
There was no hesitation in her tone. She had fought dragons a thousand times in her dreams since childhood. How could she waste the chance now that one stood before her in flesh and blood?
The dragon rose into the air, wings unfurling. Each beat sent hurricane winds across the battlefield, flattening corpses and sending dust spiraling to the heavens.
And then—
ROOOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!
The sound tore across the land, an earth-shaking bellow that reverberated through marrow and spirit alike. This was not the cry of a trial guardian, it was the declaration of something once shackled, now free. The ground itself trembled in recognition of the creature’s release.