Chapter 729: Martial Contest for Marriage (4)

A powerful aura that could be felt from far away.

Sua, who came from the Dragon King of the lower realm, felt a thrill at the fierce aura radiating from the brute-force cultivator as he approached.

Dragons are a race that instinctively worships strength.

Because the instinct toward power is deeply engraved in their blood.

But at the same time, contempt for the weak is basic to them, and the aura flowing from that man was enough to make even Sua’s heart, dulled after living hundreds of years, pound.

It was clearly different from the aura flowing from a spirit-creature’s inner core. Refined and compressed energy was raging inside the man’s dantian.

That energy was gathered in only one place in a refined state, so it felt almost like some living pulse.

How beautiful and pure an aura was this?

It was almost similar to the dragon pearl dragons of the lower realm make in order to ascend.

The dragons of the lower realm live for hundreds of years dreaming of ascension, gathering the aura of the lower realm to create a dragon pearl.

The moment they ascend, that dragon pearl scatters and disappears into empty space, but the aura gathered in that process is more precious than any treasure.

From the man’s dantian, she could feel that dearly missed aura.

“So you are So-ryong of the First Heaven. Come in quickly. I welcome you. I am Sua.”

Outwardly she wore a calm smile, but her inside was dyed with complicated emotions.

Unfamiliar emotions and sensations brushed across the middle of her chest, throwing Sua’s state into disorder.

Even so, she was not someone who would reveal those emotions.

It was the moment she greeted him calmly.

The man looked at her in surprise.

“A dragon!?”

At those words, Sua let out a small laugh.

Apparently, this was his first time seeing a dragon after ascending.

She was someone who viewed races other than dragons as trivial, but she thought the man was cute.

His eyes were mixed with embarrassment, awe, and curiosity.

“It seems this is your first time seeing a dragon.”

“Ah, pardon me. Yes, I had heard many stories, but this is my first time actually seeing one.”

“Is that so? Then what do you think?”

At the expectant question, the man hesitated.

He seemed unable to swallow the words and then bring them back out.

But his eyes were not like that.

Holding an intense gaze, he slowly swept it over Sua’s entire body.

His eyes paused for a moment on the horns on her head, then passed over her face, the nape of her neck, and the slight upper swell showing there, then moved past her collarbone to her fingertips.

And then again from her chest, over her lower abdomen, all the way to her toes.

When his gaze reached her tail, Sua’s toes trembled with a sharp jolt.

The gaze directed at her tail was too intense.

At the same time, a tingling sensation she felt in her lower abdomen.

Feeling her lower abdomen throb for the first time in her life, Sua curved her brows slightly, as though awkward.

When she smiled with her eyes like that, he spoke in a timid voice.

“The truth is...”

“The truth is?”

“My heart is pounding.”

At those words, Sua laughed softly.

Could it be that, like Sua, his heart was pounding too?

Sua too spoke with a pleasant smile.

“So it is the same for you? Perhaps because I have seen a strong cultivator for the first time in a long while, my heart is pounding as well. Come, let us go in. I will prepare tea for you.”

“Thank you.”

The man smiled at Sua’s words.

Sua led him to her residence.

And she treated him to tea brewed from precious seaweed.

The fragrance rising from the tea was clear and refreshing, as though the scent of the deep sea had been diluted.

“Here, tea brewed from deep-sea grass. It clears the mind.”

“Thank you.”

As she served him tea, Sua smiled with her eyes.

Usually, that kind of behavior was similar to what lowly women used when throwing flirtatious glances at men.

But for Sua, it had no such meaning at all.

The reason she acted this way was that it was a courtesy she only used for men who possessed that degree of worth.

She spoke in a gentle voice.

“You need not concern yourself with your master’s matter. I do not concern myself with the grudges of underlings who were weak and got things taken from them.”

“I-is that so. That is a relief.”

He was said to be the disciple of Tang Hwa-seong, the one who had once stirred up the First Heaven through the Eighth Heaven, was he not?

No, his direct successor who inherited his martial arts?

There were also one or two underlings in the Jet-Black Sea whose wives or lovers had been taken by Tang Hwa-seong, but if they were weak, it was only natural for them to be taken.

Sua had no intention of looking after the circumstances of such underlings too.

They had lost their mates because they themselves were inadequate, so there was no reason for her to care about that.

What mattered was the man before her eyes.

That was why she had brought it up, wondering if perhaps the man before her might feel uncomfortable.

Because to Sua’s eyes, that man had more value than those underlings.

With a smile on her face, Sua asked the man what business had brought him here.

“So, for what matter are you staying here? I will give you my very best room.”

“Ah, thank you. But I do not think I will need a room. I am planning to return immediately after taking care of my business.”

“My, you came all this way, so why are you trying to go back so quickly? You may rest well for a few days, so stay longer. And may I know what business it is?”

Sua had been planning to give him a room since he said he would be staying here.

But at the man’s words that he was planning to return, she felt a slight disappointment.

When Sua asked with an expression saying that absolutely would not do, the man scratched his head and answered.

“As it happens, I heard there is a Fierce Poison Water Louse living here, so I came to meet that Water Louse...”

-Crack.

The instant those words ended, lightning qi burst from Sua’s horns at the man’s words.

What flashed through her mind was a momentary fury.

That wench.

That arrogant, insolent little wench.

A wench daring to occupy one corner of the Black Water Sea ruled by this Jet-Black Sea, undermining her dignity.

“T-that bitch?”

A wench who had suddenly appeared one day and settled in one corner of the Dark Sea.

At the news, Sua had sent cultivators, saying that since she had entered her sphere of influence, she should come under her.

But what came back was humiliation.

She sent subordinates again, but not one of them could handle that wench.

It was troublesome to personally enter the Dark Sea, so she had left it alone until now.

And now this man said he had come to meet that wench, so the thought angered her.

“Yes? Yes...”

The man flinched at Sua’s words and actions.

Sua quickly corrected her attitude and said,

“Ah, forgive me. I showed you a side of me I should not have shown before my guest. That wench is a woman who throws the Jet-Black Sea into disorder...”

“Ah, I-is that so.”

“Yes, but why have you come to meet that wench? Don’t tell me!?”

As she was asking why the man had come looking for such a wench, a thought suddenly occurred to her.

She remembered that the wench was holding a martial contest for marriage.

The wench had been staying in the Dark Sea, sometimes coming up and informing nearby cultivators that she was holding a martial contest for marriage.

Sua had blocked word from spreading elsewhere out of spite, but still.

A sharp question burst out.

“No, what could you possibly be lacking, that you would try to obtain a wench like that!?”

“Yes? No, that is...”

At the man who fumbled helplessly at Sua’s question, Sua could not endure it and shouted.

“Then how about me instead? I truly like you very much. Did you not say earlier that your heart was pounding too? I myself will become yours!

Forget a Fierce Poison Water Louse wench like that!”

The first male she had ever met who had worth.

It might even be nice if, for the first time, she laid eggs.

Thinking that, Sua stepped closer to the man and tightly grasped his hand.

Then the man seemed to think over something carefully and asked cautiously.

“Um, Lady Sua?”

“Yes, speak.”

“There is one thing I am curious about...”

The man said he wanted to ask something.

No matter how peerlessly beautiful Sua was, this kind of sudden proposal could be something difficult to take in.

So thinking he must have something he was curious about, Sua answered.

“What are you curious about? Ask anything. I will answer everything.”

Just as she waited with a pounding heart for his answer.

The question she heard was an unexpected one.

“Um... do you perhaps have venom too, Lady Sua?”

“Venom?”

Could it be that he was asking that because he thought of her as something like a snake?

Was he perhaps worried about being poisoned?

Sua answered with a hardened face.

“What are you talking about, venom? Dragons like us do not possess such low-grade abilities. So do not worry.”

Then the man slowly withdrew the hand Sua was holding.

Along with the emptiness in her loosened grip, she heard an absurd answer.

“I-is that so. It is a generous offer, but I already have five wives...”

“What!?”

At the very moment Sua cried out in shock.

A certain dangerous and strange smell from somewhere in Sua’s memory drifted into her nose.

‘This is?’

***

I walked outside and wiped my forehead.

If things had gone wrong, I might have ended up with one more wife.

Since I had met a dragon that might be a venom-creature, I answered the other side’s question by saying that my heart was pounding.

But my words were conveyed the wrong way, and apparently the other side understood it as my heart pounding because I had met a beautiful member of the opposite sex.

But I had not realized that at all, and it was only when, at the end of that misunderstanding, she suddenly told me to take her with me that I realized I had spoken wrong.

“Then how about me instead? I truly like you very much. Did you not say earlier that your heart was pounding too? I myself will become yours!

Forget a Fierce Poison Water Louse wench like that!”

A dragon telling me to take her instead of the Fierce Poison Water Louse.

At that moment, I suddenly understood all over again why my wives thought I absolutely would not be like that with humans, but would waver when it came to venom-creatures.

Of course I understood what her proposal meant, but it sounded different to me.

‘Please take me with you, So-ryong-nim. Please add me to your collection. I want to be raised by you too, So-ryong-nim.’

That was what it sounded like.

The fact that I might be able to obtain a dragon, a fantasy spirit-creature, was making my brain distort the other party’s words however it pleased.

A dragon, after all, was a spirit-creature among spirit-creatures, one that had scales like a snake to begin with and could even fly through the sky.

So it seemed my instincts could not endure it no matter what.

I calmed my pounding heart and, unable to hold back, lightly asked the single most important fact, and heard an answer that made my blood turn cold.

“What are you talking about, venom? Dragons like us do not possess such low-grade abilities. So do not worry.”

The moment I came to my senses.

There were other things I could endure, but I absolutely could not endure hearing something like that, words belittling all my venom-creatures as a group.

On top of that, she did not even have venom?

‘This dragon’s pretty lame. No venom either.’

“I-is that so. It is a generous offer, but I already have five wives...”

Thinking it had been very dangerous, I quickly escaped the Jet-Black Sea’s main base.

‘That was seriously dangerous. A dragon suddenly came out and seduced me, so I thought it had venom... So-ryong, get a grip, you idiot.’

I blamed myself inwardly and asked a fish spirit-creature near the Black Water Sea for the location of the Fierce Poison Water Louse.

“I will guide you, Elder.”

“Thank you.”

At my level now, I could hold my breath for an hour or two.

So I dove in the direction it showed me and reached the deep sea, and there, inside an undersea cave where tremendous pressure could be felt, one sparkling woman caught my eye.

She wore blue clothes, and her long purple hair floated out behind her.

She spotted me and opened her eyes wide.

[Hm? A-a human cultivator?]

Since I had no way to communicate with her underwater, I explained the purpose for which I had come using my fingers.

I mean the motion where you make a round hole with the left hand and move the right index finger back and forth through that hole.

‘This is universal in every nation, isn’t it?’

Sure enough, at my gesture, she smiled shyly and said,

[S-so you came to answer the martial contest for marriage? Fine. You’ve got s-spirit, so I’ll face you up above.]

She started shooting rapidly upward.

As expected, this worked anywhere.