Chapter 1581: Who Knew No Fear
Chapter 1581: Who Knew No Fear
Arad approached the drakaina and patted her on the shoulder, “Come on. You don’t need to worry about anything. You’re a great wyrm, so your power is clear.”
“Really?” She looked back at him, tears flowing down her face. While she was crying, Arad was thinking about what he just felt beneath the palm of his hand. Powerful muscles moved and rolled beneath her clothes when she turned.
He reached down and grabbed her by the hand to help her up. When he pulled, he could feel a sharp sting on his lower back as the drakaina felt as heavy as a whole mountain. Arad would usually use gravity magic when lifting heavy things, but he rarely does it when trying to move living beings, especially those that look fairly human in shape and size.
She was heavy, far heavier than anything Arad expected. But when she stood, Arad could finally notice the way she moved, and it was anything but normal. Most people would use both legs to stand, maybe lean on their supporter’s hand, but she only used one leg to stand.
That wasn’t all. The other leg that she didn’t use still moved as if it was helping, only it never pushed against the ground and was instead always ready to kick.
“What’s your name?” He asked, and she smiled, “Calorin, a brass drakaina from northern coasts.”
Calorin didn’t need to tell Arad or show him what she could do for him to make a decent guess. She was both heavy and physically powerful. Among all dragons, she is one of the few that rarely rely on magic or their element and instead use their powerful bodies to hunt.
But from what Arad could see, she wasn’t that large. Since dragons’ humanoid bodies keep to the humanoid limits, a seven-foot-tall woman was huge, but nowhere near someone like Claug. That extra percentage of size also reflects on the dragon’s draconic body.
She was a bit bigger than normal, but not by much.
“You came forward, so you want to fight.” Arad looked at her, and she froze for a long moment before nodding.
“Can we?”
“Of course.” Arad smiled, “How about you start first?”
She nodded, and then after a moment of silence, everything exploded into a storm of violence. Calorin took one step forward, and all of the muscles on her body snapped like springs, sending her fist flying right at Arad’s face, punching him so hard that he spun twice in place before flying past Malina and hitting a wall with a shattered skull.
“IT HURTS!!” Calorin’s scream filled the air as she held her fist, pointing at the sky with her protruding bones. Arad had bitten her fingers off, and her knuckles had shattered on his face, leaving her hand maimed.
“ARAD!” Malina turned around as fast as she could. She couldn’t believe that Arad flew like that, but her eyes had seen it.
From the dust and the crumbling debris, Arad took a step forward, walking as if nothing had happened as his face repaired itself. With each step, his feet left marks on the ground as he let himself become as heavy as his draconic body. He knows he is in for a violent beating.
He could see it, Calorin’s blood coming to life like maggots, filling and fixing her hand with grotesque efficiency. “I guess your draconic smell masked that blood well.”
Calorin was still crying and screaming, blowing on her hurting hand as Arad returned to where he stood before, glaring down at her with a body engulfed in purple magic.
Tarrasque’s bloodline. Nina wasn’t the only one who had it after all, her aunt Shi had the blood as well, so more people could’ve been descendants of the mighty primal predator. So, with how active dragons were, it wouldn’t be strange for a dragon to slow up with that blood one day.
Nina was a human, but the power she could draw from the blood was massive. Calorin, being a drakaina and a great wyrm at that, should be capable of drawing even more, so Arad wasn’t going to hold back.
“It’s my turn.” Arad lifted his massive arm, and Calorin looked at his fist with a pale face. “WAIT! It’ll hurt!”
But before she could move, his fist came crashing down at her face like a thunderclap, pulled toward her chin with all of his physical might and gravity magic.
The moment it impacted, the ground around them shattered, and everyone else got blown away.
“DOES HE WANT TO KILL HER?!” Malina screamed, trying to look through the dust. But what she saw made her take a step back.
Calorin was on her knees, crying with a missing lower jaw and a shattered right arm. Arad was nowhere to be seen.
THUD! A heavy thing crashed behind everyone, and when they turned, it was Arad’s body lying on the ground with a massive hole blown in his chest.
Like before, Calorin healed rapidly and stood, still crying with a face full of tears. Arad’s body twitched, and he stood back up, the hole in his chest closed like it was nothing major.
“Does it hurt?” Arad asked, and Calorin froze for a second. Her teeth grew back, and her eyes flashed golden.
“No.” She replied with a flat voice, tears still flowing down her cheek, “It’s just sad. Each time I get hit, I’m reminded that I’ve long since lost my sense of pain. No matter how much I act it, how I want it to be true, I can’t feel it.” She stood and extended her hands forward.
“I’ve heard a dragon powerful enough to defeat an elder white was coming, and I’ve come here for that.”
Her nails grew into ivory claws, and the Queen in the back stood. “This is bad, get out!” She flicked her wrist. In the blink of an eye, Arad and Calorin found themselves alone in a massive and empty wasteland.
“Why does everyone know how to send me to other worlds?” Arad frowned. It seems that the Queen’s soldiers didn’t need to worry about Arad causing trouble. The Queen had already prepared a magic array to send him away in the blink of an eye.
The Metallic Queen frowned. While Arad and Calorin disappeared, a black dot remained where Arad was standing, and soon an Incarnation emerged from it.
“You sent me away. What is that world’s problem?” Arad asked, and the Queen shrugged. “A dead world, we use them as spare fighting grounds and prisons. You can trash it if you want.”
Arad smiled, “I was thinking if I can eat it.” Everyone who was listening backed away from him. He must be joking, right?
“Go ahead, but I’d expect to see a grandchild in a week.” She looked at his shadow. “Linda should get pregnant and give birth in a day or two.”
“You don’t need to ask me.” Arad’s incarnation disappeared, and the fight against Calorin started.
Far away in that dead world, Arad looked at Calorin as she lifted a whole mountain, grunting as her back almost shattered. She can’t consciously use magic, but her body is unconsciously emitting earth magic, not allowing her feet to sink into the ground or her hands to dig into the mountain’s base.
As Arad observed the flow of magic around her, she threw the whole mountain at him in a fit of rage. Furious that he wasn’t fighting back as hard as she wanted, he looked too calm.
As the mountain approached, Arad swung his fist upward and caught it with his gravity magic, quickly throwing it aside to keep observing Calorin.
Her body was like that of Nina, but draconic. She didn’t have a heart, since all of her veins moved blood by flexing.
She didn’t have a brain because the collective of her nerves acted as one.
She had lungs, but could breathe through both her stomach and skin, could breathe in water, and even survive for eons without air.
She didn’t have a rectum, because everything she eats gets digested and used; nothing is wasted.
She had two eyes, but could see far more than anyone would expect. All of her senses were far more powerful than any dragon could hope to have.
Lastly, her muscles and bones were terrifying, holding enough power to make anything in the world seem weak. Even Gamond can’t just throw a mountain like it’s a chair.
But what was strange was a symptom that Arad didn’t see in Nina. Or to be more precise, he saw a different symptom.
Nina was in constant hunger, trying to consume everything and anything to satiate herself.
Calorin here didn’t feel pain; she longed for it. And since she couldn’t feel pain, she couldn’t understand the pleasures of life and was stuck in a constant state of numbness.
She can’t feel tired, so she can’t sleep. She can’t feel pain; her whole body feels numb and dense. She can’t feel fear, so relief was foreign to her.
What made it worse is that she probably wasn’t born like this. At one time in her life, she must’ve been young, felt pain, felt happiness, and felt the fulfilment of life, flying over the sunny beaches of the mortal world, sinking pirate ships, and hoarding enough gold to swim in.
After her blood awakened and she lost her sense of pain, her sense of self rapidly deteriorated. If humans lost their sense of self like that, if they stopped feeling pain, grief, guilt, and agony, they would do anything, and their consciousness wouldn’t even budge.
But Calorin was a dragon, not a human or an elf. Her draconic mind refused to give up to the Tarrasque blood’s cursed will. Pain and all negative feelings were a defence mechanism used by living beings to protect themselves from danger and harm.
A tarrasque doesn’t need those feelings because almost nothing can harm it. It shut all of those unnecessary feelings down, only for Calorin’s draconic mind to fight back and push against that blood.
As a result, Calorin wasn’t locked into a state of calmness, peace, and serenity thanks to her power. She was instead locked into feeling a massive hole in her being, always knowing that she lacked something important that she once had.
CRACK! A hand smacked her on the face, slamming her to the ground with enough force to shatter everything around. She could see Arad standing there, glaring at her with two purple eyes. The strange feeling she got from the moment she saw him.
Danger, longing, kinship. The Tarrasque, the undefeated immortal being that is immune to everything, what would she fear? A male Tarrasque.
She, who knew no fear, finally saw it, glaring down at her in the eyes.