Chapter 363 A Dragon Nest!
As Damien hurtled towards the barren ground, he glimpsed a greenish stripe on the far western horizon. With a mere thought, bloody red, bat-like wings protruded from his back. He spread them out, attempting to lift himself, but the gravity in this place was around twenty-five times that of Tenderloin World. He struggled to flap his wings against the immense gravitational pull, experiencing an excruciating pain that forced him to retract his wings. "Argh! What kind of place is this?" he muttered under his breath as he continued to plummet.
Just as he was preparing to scan his surroundings and be cautious of any potential danger, the deafening roar of a dragon reverberated through the air. Suddenly, the Red Dragon appeared in front of him, zooming toward him.
Laughing loudly, Noah Darhk, seated atop the massive Red Dragon, commanded, "Catch him!" and slapped the dragon's back. The Red Dragon whimpered and darted, allowing Damien to land on its reddish scales. Damien approached Noah and asked, "Ancestor, the gravity of this exoplanet is terrifying. How big is this planet?"
"Look out for yourself," Noah responded, pointing towards the sky. "What do you see there?"
To his surprise, Damien saw three suns toward Noah's finger - one yellow, one red, and one brown. "I see three suns!" he replied.
Shaking his head, Noah insisted, "Look more carefully."
"Oh, so there is more," Damien whispered, activating his Devil's Ocular Eye technique to zoom in on his vision. This time, the scene that unfolded before him was overwhelming. After scanning the horizons in all directions, he took a deep breath and asked, "Am I seeing this correctly, Ancestor?"
With a kind smile, Noah replied, "What did you see?"
"There's a black sun next to the Brown sun, hidden behind the glaring light of the other three stars," Damien responded.
"Is that all?"
"No, this world is strange."
Noah gazed at Damien with fondness written all over his face. "How strange?" he said, eyeing him intently.
Damien deactivated his ocular technique with a thought, and his golden eyes turned blue. "Theoretically, it's possible," he began, "and I have seen some great astrophysicists suggest that if there were more than one star in a solar system, all the other planets and their satellites would collapse into them. However, the only way to sustain their electromagnetic impulse is for two or more planets to coalesce and gain a certain level of absolute mass in order to resist the pull and maintain a certain revolutionary path around those stars." He explained patiently, as Noah listened attentively.
"I can't believe it myself," Damien continued. "Not two, not three, but four planets with distinct masses conjoined with the planet we are on now."
"Hehe, that's right. Welcome to the Red Purgatory World, the world of Dragons, my boy," Noah chuckled.
Just then, a gigantic lizard leaped into the air, opening its jaws wide as it prepared to attack them. In response to the newcomer's growls, the Red Dragon whipped its tail like a whip, blowing a red mist curtain that fell because of gravity.
"Enough with those flies," Noah ordered, slapping the Red Dragon's back. "Go straight to the nearest Dragon nest!" With breathtaking speed, the Red Dragon darted toward the northwestern side.
After several minutes, Damien asked, "Senior, can you tell me more about this place?"
"What's there to tell?" Noah replied. "Just stay alert and you'll witness everything soon. However, there are a lot of ancient creatures lurking in this world, so always stay on guard."
Somehow, Noah's words piqued Damien's interest, and he was eager for challenges to test his current strength limits. "Good," he whispered under his breath.
Noah heard him clearly and thought to himself, "What a hot-blooded youth! The longer I stay with him, the more I am reminded of my own youth." Then he sighed inwardly.
Finally, they left the vast barren land behind and spotted multiple ranges of rugged mountains, covered in lush green trees and stripes of tall grasses and weeds.
"My master, I sense a dragon's nest nearby!" The Red Dragon spoke in the human tongue.
"What are you waiting for? Lead the way," Noah replied, a hint of displeasure in his voice.
The Red Dragon dived and landed on a flat valley-like plateau nestled between two mountain ranges. Noah and Damien disembarked with a thud.
"May I join and protect this young one?" The Red Dragon asked, eyeing Damien with good intentions.
Noah scoffed. "That's a hilarious joke. You're the only one who needs protection. Stay hibernating here." He pulled out his black katana from thin air and cut his finger, smearing a drop of blood on the blade's edge while chanting a small mantra. A powerful aura spread out and caught the gigantic Red Dragon, pulling it into the katana. All that remained was a miniature red dragon's tattoo.
Noah put away his katana and asked, "Want to learn this secret skill?"
"I'm good," Damien shrugged. In his head, he thought, "Why would I want such a lousy skill? My Shadow Slave Possession is more advanced than this elementary level skill."
Their attention turned to the rocky cave covered in snow. Noah raised his finger and melted the thick ice covering the entrance. "Be prepared. We're going to raid a dragon's nest. Stay sharp."
"Gotcha!" Damien chimed.
Noah shook his head with a wry smile and followed the youth into the cave.
The tunnel was wide, showing they were in the right place. As they continued, they soon reached a place devoid of any light. Noah took out several white-lighting stones and placed one every twenty meters. They encountered only a few colonies of bats, but no other creatures. After walking for two and a half hours, they stopped. In front of them, the tunnel diverged into twenty-five paths.
Noah scanned the twenty-five tunnels, deep in thought. "We need to split up," he finally said. "I'll take the left tunnel, and you take the right, Damien."
Damien nodded, already eager to test his abilities against the fierce dragons. "Sounds good."
"But before we go, let's make this interesting," Noah said, grinning. "A competition. The first one to slay and collect the most dragon corpses wins. And the loser owes the winner one favor."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "One favor? What kind of favor?"
"Anything. You name it," Noah replied.
Damien thought for a moment, then nodded. "Okay, let's do it."
With that, they went their separate ways, determined to emerge victorious in the competition.
(please, stay tuned!)