Chapter 94: A Noble Dragon

Ao Longtian’s eyes narrowed as Damian raised one hand, alarm bells ringing in its heart!

If the young man was allowed to make his next move...

It would die!

Damian, however, did not immediately cast.

For the first time since this ridiculous battle began, the excitement gradually disappeared from his expression.

He glanced down at Ao Longtian with a heavy gaze, devoid of the earlier levity, jokes and almost childish enthusiasm he had displayed while testing his new abilities.

"You know, you were a great opponent. You actually broke my thirteen-battle-long invincibility and forced me to use more than one spell to win a fight. That is a kudos to you more than anything else." Damian said slowly.

Ao Longtian did not understand half of what the bizarre Human meant by thirteen battles, but it understood the respect within his voice.

Then...

A tiny spark of fire appeared in the center of Damian’s palm and Ao Longtian’s pupils contracted.

The spark grew from something barely larger than a candle flame into a fist-sized sphere, then a ball larger than Damian’s head.

It did not stop!

The flame swelled with every millisecond as though some invisible pump were forcing impossible quantities of fire into it.

The Spirit Boat began creaking.

Mu Qingyao’s expression changed first.

"Lord Damian...?"

The temperature around them was climbing rapidly!

The air distorted around Damian’s hand as the growing sphere became larger than a carriage, then larger than a house.

Shen Xueyi’s eyes widened.

"We need to defend!"

She and Mu Qingyao acted simultaneously, wood-element Refined Qi surging from Mu Qingyao while Shen Xueyi released everything she could spare in a huge curtain of water.

The two powers met, water fed wood and wood anchored water.

Their defenses merged into a thick hemispherical barrier around the others aboard the Spirit Boat.

And still...

The temperature climbed!

Lin Meiyu’s face whitened as sweat immediately covered her forehead.

Bo Wen backed as far away from Damian as the vessel allowed.

Jian Rui stared upward, speechless.

Even Ning Ruomei forgot she was a prisoner.

The sphere continued swelling until it became twice the size of the entire Spirit Boat!

A miniature sun hung above Damian, flames rolling across its surface in thick waves while the surrounding air screamed from the heat.

Down below, the river had already begun steaming.

Ao Longtian stared.

For the first time in five thousand years...

The ruler of this river experienced something approaching pure terror.

Damian looked down at it.

"But all good things must come to an end. If you can survive this, I will leave you alone and never disturb you again. Heck, I’ll even leave you some benefits to help you advance further." He continued calmly.

Ao Longtian’s whiskers trembled.

Damian’s expression hardened.

"If you die, then peacefully become the materials for my new set."

His voice was slightly cold now.

Then Damian pushed his hand forward.

"Arde!"

Grandmaster Signature Spell...

<Fireball>!

FWHOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The gigantic sphere moved downward, no longer resembling a spell anymore, but an apocalyptic event!

The colossal Fireball descended toward the river, its sheer presence turning the mist beneath it into steam before the flames even arrived.

Ao Longtian roared. "THIS KING WILL NOT DIE HERE!"

Demonic Qi detonated from its body.

BOOOOOOM!!

The entire river answered as four gigantic water serpents erupted upward!

Each one was several times larger than those Damian had avoided earlier, their bodies compressed until the water inside resembled blue crystal.

They screamed toward the descending Fireball.

The first struck.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Steam exploded across the sky!

For one hopeful instant, Ao Longtian believed it had worked.

Then the water serpent... disappeared!

The Fireball continued descending without visibly shrinking, and Ao Longtian’s eyes widened.

The second serpent struck.

Gone!

The third.

Gone!

The fourth lasted less than a second longer.

Ao Longtian roared and clawed upward.

The river twisted violently as two enormous dragons constructed entirely from water rose from opposite sides of its body.

Unlike the simple water serpents, these possessed detailed scales, claws, horns and enormous jaws.

They spiraled together and crashed directly into the incoming spell!

BOOOOOOOOM!!

Fire and water consumed the sky, and the resulting steam blast ripped trees from the riverbank!

The Spirit Boat shook violently, Mu Qingyao and Shen Xueyi screaming simultaneously as their combined barrier nearly collapsed from heat alone!

Then the steam split apart... and the Fireball emerged!

It... It was still coming down!

Ao Longtian’s expression became dazed.

"No... this..."

It swiped both claws, causing two enormous water claws to materialize above the river and smash against the Fireball from either side.

BOOM!

They also vanished uselessly.

Ao Longtian’s Demonic Qi fluctuated wildly, causing its wounds to reopen as blood began seeping between the scales Damian’s spells had cracked earlier.

It had already expended enormous amounts of power throughout their battle.

The whirlpool, the water serpents, the blades, and especially, the bloodline breath.

Repeatedly dragging hundreds of thousands of kilograms of river water into the sky and compressing it into weapons had taken an unspeakable toll.

Yet now it recklessly drew even deeper on its foundation as Demonic Qi flooded through meridians never meant to endure such throughput.

Several scales burst apart as blood sprayed out in volumes, but Ao Longtian ignored everything.

Its jaws opened as dark-blue water gathered and compressed, then compressed again!

The bloodline breath formed for the second time, but unlike before, Ao Longtian did not stop when the attack stabilized.

More!

Its body trembled.

MORE!

Blood leaked from its nostrils.

MORE!!!

The sphere between its teeth became so dense that the surrounding river surface collapsed inward.

"ROOOOOOOAAAAARRR!!!"

Ao Longtian fired everything it had!

KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!

The full-power bloodline breath collided head-on with <Fireball>, and the world turned blue and orange.

The beam pushed upward!

For the first time, Damian’s Fireball actually slowed!

Ao Longtian’s eyes widened with desperate hope.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Its Demonic Qi and Bloodline power were burned wantonly, and even the faint draconic inheritance slumbering within its flesh seemed to awaken beneath the threat of death.

The beam thickened as the river trembled thunderously!

Then...

The Fireball moved downward!

At first, it was one inch, then another... and another!

Ao Longtian froze. "No..."

The bloodline breath began collapsing as flames consumed the front of the beam slowly and relentlessly.

The enormous Fireball continued bearing downward as though Ao Longtian’s greatest attack was little more than an inconvenient headwind.

Its breath vanished and silence entered Ao Longtian’s mind, because... the Fireball was still coming.

Ao Longtian stopped attacking and simply stared upward.

And somehow...

The terror disappeared.

............

Five thousand years.

Had it truly been that long?

Ao Longtian remembered when he was merely an egg.

He had not been some magnificent Dragon Egg guarded by Immortal Beasts beneath a heavenly phenomenon.

Just... an egg, one among dozens buried inside damp earth near a riverbank.

It had hatched as a common snake, small, weak, and hungry.

Its first great battle had been against a frog nearly large enough to swallow it.

Ao Longtian smiled inwardly at the memory.

It had won at the time, but barely.

Years passed after as it hunted insects, then rodents, then even larger prey.

It survived birds that tried carrying it away, Humans who wanted its skin, floods that destroyed its nest and winters that nearly froze its blood.

Eventually, it accidentally consumed a spiritual herb growing beside a mountain stream, and that insignificant meal changed everything.

It discovered Qi, cultivation, and most importantly... possibility!

Ao Longtian crawled on his belly, then slithered, then fought.

Decades became centuries as it shed skin after skin while its body transformed.

From a Common snake to a Spirit Serpent, then to a Demonic Serpent.

Then, after surviving a bloodline awakening that nearly killed it, it finally became...

A Jiao!

It remembered the first time claws emerged from its body, it had stared at them for three entire days.

Magnificent!

Absolutely magnificent!

Ao Longtian fought countless rivals afterward, some stronger, some smarter, and even some blessed with better bloodlines.

It survived all of them, it claimed this river, expanded its territory, and found mates.

Too many mates, perhaps.

Cough, no way!

There was no such thing!

A hundred was perfectly reasonable!

It had eaten competitors, chased cultivators from its waters, stolen treasures from unfortunate merchants and once spent eleven years sleeping because a particularly delicious spiritual turtle had been extremely difficult to digest.

In five thousand years, a common snake had crawled from an ordinary egg and reached Late Foundation Establishment.

It stood merely one great breakthrough away from Golden Core, and one step closer to becoming a True Spirit at Nascent Soul.

Ao Longtian looked upward.

Apparently...

This was as far as it would go it seemed.

Then its spiritual perception touched the cave beneath the river, sensing one hundred familiar presences and hundreds of smaller ones.

Its wives and its descendants.

Ao Longtian’s enormous golden eyes changed as it no longer looked at the Fireball, but looked toward Damian.

Then...

It moved toward the cave!

Damian’s expression changed.

"What is it doing?"

Ao Longtian plunged beneath the water, its remaining Demonic Qi erupting through the riverbed.

BOOOOOOM!!

The underwater cave shattered open as a gigantic mass of water rose behind Ao Longtian carrying dozens upon dozens of enormous serpent females, with bundles of eggs protected carefully between them!

"What the hell?!" Bo Wen exclaimed.

Ao Longtian twisted its entire body, and for the final time, the ruler of the river commanded its domain.

Water surged!

WHOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

Its hundred serpent wives and their eggs shot upward, not toward the Fireball, but around it!

Ao Longtian used the last of its strength to bend their trajectory past the enormous sphere of flame before launching them toward the Spirit Boat.

Mu Qingyao’s eyes widened.

"Incoming!"

"Don’t attack!" Damian shouted immediately.

The mass of water reached them.

Rather than smash into the Spirit Boat, Ao Longtian’s control softened at the final moment.

SPLASH!

Dozens of serpent females and enormous clusters of eggs landed across and around the Spirit Boat as gently as such an absurd delivery possibly could.

The vessel sank several meters from the sudden additional weight.

Everyone aboard stared in stupefaction.

Then Ao Longtian’s voice entered Damian’s mind, and it was no longer roaring, arrogant, nor angry.

It was just the deep voice from an old creature that understood exactly what came next.

"Take care of them for me, Human."

Damian stared downward.

Ao Longtian stared upward.

The Fireball was almost upon it.

Damian’s face became solemn, and with an equally deep voice, he answered.

"I swear to do so."

Ao Longtian closed its eyes.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The world... ended!

There was no better description as light consumed everything below.

The Fireball struck Ao Longtian and unleashed its full destructive power upon the river.

For one instant, a second sun appeared upon Shengyuan.

Then the shockwave arrived.

KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The Spirit Boat was launched through the sky!

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"

Everyone screamed as trees vanished beneath them and clouds parted above them.

The vessel crossed one kilometer almost instantly, then another as its already damaged formations screamed beneath forces they were never intended to endure!

CRACK!

"NO NO NO NO!"

Damian slammed both hands into the Spirit Boat.

The formation was coming apart!

His Mana could not stabilize a Shengyuan artifact and Mental Energy was useless.

So he grabbed the one compatible resource he possessed.

Qi!

His tiny Qi Condensation reserve surged from his body.

The pathetic amount he had accumulated compared to everyone else aboard was almost insulting.

Damian shoved all of it into the vessel anyway.

"COME ON!"

Refined Qi flooded through the Spirit Boat’s formation pathways.

His reservoir emptied and Damian overdrew as pain immediately stabbed through his meridians.

"Fuck!"

Still, he pushed!

The flickering formations stabilized just enough to prevent the entire Spirit Boat from turning into extremely expensive confetti.

Eventually, several miles from the explosion...

The vessel slowed.

Everyone aboard remained silent.

Serpents were tangled everywhere, one had somehow wrapped itself around Jian Rui while another was lying across Ning Ruomei’s legs.

Bo Wen had three eggs in his lap and looked terrified to move.

Damian, meanwhile, hunched over the controls and felt the spiritual equivalent of an empty wallet where his Qi should have been.

He grimaced. "I seriously need to cultivate more."

Mu Qingyao looked at him in disbelief as Damian straightened painfully.

"No, seriously. Qi Condensation is bullshit. I need Foundation Establishment minimum by tomorrow."

Nobody answered as Damian turned the Spirit Boat around.

They needed to see what remained.

............

The return journey took considerably longer because the Spirit Boat had apparently developed emotional trauma.

Its formations flickered every few seconds while Damian carefully guided the battered vessel back toward Ao Longtian’s territory.

When they finally arrived... 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Nobody spoke.

The river was gone.

At least, the section that had once existed beneath their battlefield was.

A gigantic crater dominated the landscape.

Its edges were blackened and partially vitrified while entire sections of the surrounding forest had been flattened away from the impact point.

Farther upstream and downstream, the river still existed.

Water was already beginning to pour toward the new crater from both directions, creating massive waterfalls over shattered banks as nature attempted to fill the wound Damian had punched into the landscape.

But the water that had originally occupied this section?

Gone, all of it.

All instantly superheated into vapor by <Fireball>, then hurled into the atmosphere by the resulting shockwave.

The fish?

Crabs?

River plants?

Anything else unfortunate enough to live nearby?

Also gone.

Damian stared.

"...Holy shit."

This was what 2,500% Fire Damage actually looked like when he stopped reading it from a System panel and used it upon geography.

The peanut gallery had reached the same realization.

Lin Meiyu looked sick, Bo Wen simply stared, Jian Rui swallowed visibly, and Shen Lian’s expression was unreadable.

Shen Xueyi and Mu Qingyao both looked from the crater toward Damian’s back.

Ning Ruomei did the same.

Nobody had a single thought about Damian’s open Qi Condensation cultivation base.

At the center of the crater lay Ao Longtian... or what remained of it.

The Jiao’s enormous body was broken, charred and terribly damaged.

Several sections had been burned down to flesh beneath destroyed scales, while others were so thoroughly blackened that it seemed impossible the corpse had once belonged to a living creature.

Yet enough remained, at least enough for Damian’s purpose.

Damian slowly lowered the Spirit Boat, while the hundred serpent wives remained strangely quiet.

Several stared toward the corpse while some curled around their eggs.

None attacked Damian.

They still had instructions from their Noble Husband, to live on and carry on his legacy.

Likewise, Damian Baines took his promise to his defeated foe rather seriously.

When the vessel reached the crater, Damian extended his hand toward Ao Longtian’s enormous corpse.

The System responded and the huge body disappeared into his System Space.

Another potentially extraordinary collection of materials acquired including scales, blood, bones, flesh, and organs.

These were Draconic bloodline materials from a Semi-Divine Beast that had almost reached Golden Core combat power.

Normally Damian would have been grinning like an idiot, but today, he wasn’t.

Instead, before leaving, he took a broken section from Ao Longtian’s tail and carried it toward the center of the crater.

He drove the enormous piece upright into the scorched ground.

THOOM!

Then Damian expanded his <Divine Sense>.

Invisible perception wrapped around the memorial as Damian carefully guided force across its surface, carving one character after another.

When he finished, everyone could read it.

This was once the territory of the noble Dragon, Ao Longtian!

Mu Qingyao’s eyes softened while Shen Xueyi said nothing.

Even Ning Ruomei looked at Damian differently.

Damian stared at the memorial for several seconds.

Technically, Ao Longtian had been a Jiao, not a true Dragon... not yet.

But after five thousand years of crawling upward from an ordinary snake...

Damian figured the bastard had earned the promotion.

He returned to the Spirit Boat and the vessel slowly rose.

As the crater shrank beneath them, Damian’s thoughts quietly returned to everything this battle had taught him.

His upgraded Valorian magic was terrifying, far more terrifying than he had properly understood from reading numbers.

Yet raw power did not erase weaknesses.

He still could not fly and having to protect allies radically changed which abilities he could safely use.

His Mental Energy remained finite, his Spell Slots mattered, and his defenses could be broken.

His Divine magic could save lives and completely change a fight, but every prepared prayer was still a limited resource.

And perhaps most importantly...

There remained enemies who could force him to use all those things in a single battle.

Damian looked toward the horizon.

Good!

That meant there were still benchmarks worth surpassing!

Behind them, river water continued flooding into the massive crater.

At its center stood one broken piece of tail and a simple inscription honoring the creature that had ruled these waters for thousands of years.

The Spirit Boat rose higher and departed.

Leaving this area behind forever...