Chapter 208 ·I’m Actually Just Passing By to Buy Soy Sauce

That stone lizard that looked like it had hyperthyroidism, under Lilia’s gaze of “concern for the mentally challenged,” probably felt that its dignity as a “road bully” had suffered a dimensionality reduction strike.

It very human-like rolled its eyes, flicked its short tail, rummaged twice in the pile of rubble, and like a dirt-yellow bowling ball, “rumble rumble,” rolled straight into a narrow crack beneath the rock wall, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

“See that?”

Lilia clapped the dust off her hands and glanced sideways at Bulara, who still hadn’t dropped her guard, her tone full of mocking “making a fuss over nothing.”

“This is the ‘extremely dangerous’ thing your radar picked up? For something like that, I could punch ten of them to tears.”

Lilia waved her hand dismissively. “Since the danger’s cleared, let’s get moving.”

Bulara fell silent for two seconds.

“Continue forward.”

Lilia dragged Xiao Hong, who was still sprawled on the ground. Ever since entering the canyon, this one had been like she’d had her bones removed, limp like a puddle of mud, forcing Lilia to drag her along by the back of her collar.

The deeper they went, the darker it became.

Even the air changed.

What had originally just been a cold, gloomy breeze now carried an indescribable foul stench. It wasn’t the smell of rotting corpses, but more like the body odor of some massive beast that hadn’t bathed for hundreds of years, fermented inside a cave.

It was overwhelming.

Lilia had to pull out a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and cover her nose and mouth. Her sense of smell was too sharp now—this was practically a biochemical weapon attack.

“Bulara, turn on a light.” Lilia ordered, her voice muffled.

The puppet ahead said nothing. Her two purple eyes suddenly increased in brightness, projecting two pale beams of light like high-powered searchlights, illuminating the path ahead for over ten meters in crystal clarity.

“That’s more like it. Being a mobile flashlight suits you just fine.”

Lilia nodded in satisfaction.

The three continued forward in silence.

This kind of environment was mentally exhausting. Black stone surrounded them on all sides, and the only sounds were footsteps and the occasional dripping from deep within the rock walls. After a while, it easily gave rise to the illusion that they were actually walking in place.

Lilia started getting bored.

“How much longer is this path goi—”

Bang!

Before she could finish the word “going,” Lilia’s nose slammed into something, sending a sharp sting through it, tears nearly bursting out.

The one leading the way, Bulara, had stopped again without warning.

This time it was even more outrageous than before—there wasn’t even a preparatory movement, like a high-speed train suddenly welded to the tracks in an emergency stop.

“Hiss—”

Lilia covered her nose, eyes watering from the reflex, her temper instantly flaring.

“Bulara!”

She kicked the puppet’s hard calf, producing a crisp metallic clank.

“Did you get your brakes from some bargain app where you slash the price? You emergency brake even on flat ground? Do you know my nose is original equipment? Can you afford to compensate if it gets broken?”

Lilia was truly speechless.

Along the way, this thing either pretended to be dead or slammed on the brakes—it was basically a walking road rage generator.

“…There’s interference.”

This time, Bulara didn’t turn around. Her voice actually carried an extremely rare hint of fluctuation.

The two beams of light from her eyes, which had been steady before, now flickered wildly, bright then dim, casting the jagged rocks around them in chaotic flashes like they were dancing some ghostly shuffle.

“Interference?” Lilia rubbed her reddened nose and rolled her eyes irritably. “There’s nothing here but rocks and air. What interference? Did that lizard come back for revenge?”

While complaining, she stepped around Bulara, who stood there like a wooden post, intending to move ahead and check things herself.

“Seriously, if I believe your nonsense again, I’ll—”

Before she could finish—

A profoundly eerie sensation, like a bucket of ice water poured down her spine, ran straight from the back of her neck to her tailbone.

That gaze wasn’t coming from behind.

Nor from ahead.

It was coming from… above.

The feeling was like walking down the street and suddenly realizing that the clouds in the sky had turned into a human face, staring at you expressionlessly.

Lilia’s hand, still rubbing her nose, froze midair.

Even the faint dripping sound from before disappeared.

Only the wildly flickering beams from Bulara’s eyes swept across the pitch-black rock walls.

In one of those sweeps, when the light passed overhead—

Lilia subconsciously raised her head.

And she saw it.

Less than ten meters above them, in what should have been empty darkness, there was now an eye.

Its pupil was vertical, a murky dark gold color, like melted golden amber. Around that massive pupil were tangled, root-like crimson blood vessels.

It hung there silently in midair.

No blinking.

No emotional fluctuation.

The so-called “searchlight” beam that Lilia had mocked earlier shone on its lower eyelid, illuminating only a single eyelash.

Lilia’s brain completely froze at that moment.

“Gulp.”

In the dead silence, the sound of her swallowing echoed like thunder.

The massive vertical pupil seemed to hear it.

The originally motionless pupil slowly rotated.

Its focus landed on Lilia.

A wave of scorching air, carrying a strong sulfuric and decayed stench, blasted onto Lilia’s face as a colossal abyss-like mouth slowly split open beneath that eye.

At that moment, Lilia finally saw the creature’s full form.

Its body—those massive limbs covered in thick black scales—had been disguised as the canyon walls.

This was a Dragon.

“Um…”

Lilia looked at that enormous maw slowly opening, each tooth taller than her entire body. The corners of her mouth stiffly pulled into a smile uglier than crying.

She raised her trembling right hand and even gave a polite little wave.

“If I say we’re just passing by to buy soy sauce… would you believe it?”

Her answer—

Was a low dragon’s roar that shook the entire canyon, sending debris falling everywhere.

And a massive tongue.