Chapter 757: Nine Heavens Mad Dragon (3)

That was their first impression.

A young-looking man whose dantian radiated beautiful light.

But judging someone by appearance was a foolish thing.

Here in the cultivation world, appearance was nothing more than a shell.

Whether human, beast, or spirit-creature, what represented them was not appearance, but their realm.

Not the shell that clouded the eyes.

So there could be a centuries-old monster hidden inside that body, or a man residing inside a woman’s body.

And there were also mad lunatics who lost their minds after failing to endure the long years of cultivation. The moment the four Dragon Kings saw the man, they all thought the same thing.

Madman.

When the body underwent rebirth and became more suited to accepting the qi of nature, gradually came to resemble that natural qi, and finally reached a state no different from nature itself, that was immortalization.

But immortalization had one major problem.

The lower dantian and middle dantian changed rather quickly and transformed along with it, but the brain one was born with did not greatly change until ascending to the Upper Heaven.

Because of that, there were madmen driven insane either by flaws in the brain itself or by failing to endure the long passage of time, and that man seemed to be one of them.

After all, the master of the Jet-Black Sea, Sua, was being dragged in his hand like a beast.

Snap.

“Kyaak!”

When the leash was yanked, the master of the Jet-Black Sea, Sua, was violently pulled forward.

That proud and lofty blue dragon was dragged inside like an animal and revealed herself before the four Dragon Kings.

Normally, she would have been wearing a luxurious Law Treasure, but what she wore now was cloth clothing that gave off no function or energy whatsoever.

No, judging from how it extremely emphasized the curves of her body and her seductive charm, it seemed to have only one function.

The function of pleasing a male.

From the clothes she wore, they could sense no magical function or energy other than the purpose of stimulating a male’s lust.

Everyone tensed.

Then the man’s greeting rang out.

“A pleasure to meet you all. I am So-ryong, the owner of this White Night City.”

At the man’s calm greeting, smiling with crescent eyes, the four Dragon Kings became tense.

When speaking with madmen, anything could be twisted into an offense, so words did not easily come out.

When it came to those who had gone insane during the long years of cultivation and lost their reason, the best policy was avoidance.

Of course, there was no way to avoid things now that they had met face-to-face like this.

Since he had greeted them, someone had to respond, but no one could bring themselves to speak first.

At that moment, words slipped unconsciously from the mouth of the eldest, the Yellow-Sea Dragon King.

“Wh-What is the meaning of this......”

At those words, the man yanked the leash and pulled the master of the Jet-Black Sea into his embrace.

Then he wrapped an arm around her waist and looked toward the other Dragon Kings.

As if showing her off.

“Hngh......”

Once more, a delicate sound escaped from the lips of Sua, the master of the Jet-Black Sea.

To think that strong blue dragon looked so helpless.

Whenever the leash around her neck was tugged, she swayed as though she were a kite flying in the sky.

Everyone froze in place, unable to understand how they were supposed to deal with this situation, when the man spoke to Sua in his arms.

“Sua, because of you, are these honored guests not suffering trouble? Why are you not hurrying to apologize?”

When the man lightly pushed the master of the Jet-Black Sea forward, Sua took two steps ahead and said while trembling with humiliation,

“I-I have no face before the four of you. Blinded by useless greed, I lied to the four of you and to those above.

This person has nothing to do with the fluff that was handed down, but I became greedy for the light he emits......”

After apologizing, the master of the Jet-Black Sea subtly turned her head back.

The man jerked his chin.

At that gesture, the master of the Jet-Black Sea clenched her fists and trembled violently before collapsing to the floor on the spot.

An apology rang out.

“I-I am sorry.”

Shock.

It was shock.

The four Dragon Kings could not say a word, their eyes wide.

They too were dragons, so they knew how high a dragon’s pride was, yet the dragon said to be the highest in the Lower Heaven had knelt and bowed her head at a mere jerk of a man’s chin.

So they could only gape in stunned silence.

Step. Step.

The man walked toward an empty seat on one side of the frozen Dragon Kings.

After sitting down, he slapped his thigh.

At once, the master of the Jet-Black Sea hurriedly rose and perched herself on his thigh.

“E-Excuse me.”

It was while they blankly watched her cheeks redden as she sat on his thigh.

The Yellow-Sea Dragon King suddenly came to his senses and initiated a conversation through their dragon horns.

It was something called Horn Speech. Dragons could converse with desired targets through the waves emitted from their horns.

He had activated it.

[Th-Then there is no need for us to step in, is there?]

From what they had heard, the man who introduced himself as a minor dragon was a cultivator from the Central Plains, and the light emitted from his dantian was extremely beautiful. It seemed the master of the Jet-Black Sea had gone mad over it and spoken nonsense to those above.

Without knowing how frightening high cultivators were.

Well, dragons did have a tendency to covet beautiful things, so it was not incomprehensible.

Still, to think she had lied to those above. Even if she ascended to the Central Heaven or Upper Heaven later, she would never again be treated as a dragon.

[Well, that ended anticlimactically.]

[In-Indeed it did.]

The Red-Sea Dragon King and Black-Sea Dragon King nodded at that opinion.

Then a sharp rebuke rang out.

[Hah, you fools. You believe that!?]

It was the White-Sea Dragon King.

The Black-Sea and Red-Sea Dragon Kings grumbled in response.

[But she herself confessed it was a lie and even apologized.]

[Exactly. Did she not personally say she lied?]

Their position was that if the person herself said otherwise, what was the problem?

But the White-Sea Dragon King thought differently.

In a frustrated voice, he explained,

[To think I was assigned a mission with idiots like you! Think carefully. Would any of you bend your waists before someone? Even with a blade at your neck, you would never bow. That is what a dragon is!]

[...Th-That is true.]

Now that they thought about it, it was strange.

A normal dragon would have simply said something like, “Well, that is how it turned out. I shall apologize to those above myself, so leave.”

A proud and lofty dragon prostrating herself and apologizing?

It was absolutely not a normal situation.

[Certainly. Then this is deception meant to put us at ease.]

[Exactly! There must be something enormous related to that fluff—]

Suspicion had just begun to rise in the dragons’ minds.

Then the man rubbed his hands together and spoke.

“Now then, Sua has sufficiently apologized to you all, so shall I hear your apology?”

The Dragon Kings, who had been absorbed in Horn Speech and missed part of the conversation, blinked, unable to follow what had just been said.

Then the foolish voice of the Red-Sea Dragon King escaped.

“...Pardon?”

Everyone looked at him as though asking why he could not simply keep his mouth shut if he did not understand.

The man spoke again.

Very clearly.

“Sua has finished apologizing to you all. I said that now I shall receive your apology. Ah, and from the people above you as well.

To send true blood with sinister schemes hidden inside it, and then, when Sua vanished, to send four of you to spy on me.

Naturally, should I not receive an apology?”

At those words, everyone’s minds froze completely.

Forget deception and all that. Right now, it seemed that madman was about to start something.

Everyone reached for talismans and Law Treasures, trying to raise their qi.

At that moment—

The man sitting with the master of the Jet-Black Sea on his thigh slowly caressed her thigh.

Instantly, some strange energy spread outward from him, and the energy stored inside the Law Treasures and talismans died away.

“Th-This is!?”

The instant someone cried out in shock—

Crunch!

Boom!

Smash!

Along with those sounds, a massive impact struck the four of them.

“Kugh!”

“Ghuuugh!”

“Gahk!”

After the enormous impact, the four barely regained their senses.

The Red-Sea Dragon King had half his body buried in the floor.

The Black-Sea Dragon King had been thrown into a corner, his body crumpled.

The Yellow-Sea Dragon King had collapsed with one of his horns broken.

And fangs had fallen from the mouth of the White-Sea Dragon King as he sat collapsed on the ground.

Something that perfectly blocked Law Arts and Law Treasures combined with the monstrous strength of a brute-force cultivator from the Central Plains.

The four dragons thought today might become the day of their memorial rites.

Every lifeline they possessed had vanished, while the other side overwhelmed them with nothing but his body.

At that moment—

The glittering energy inside the man’s body seemed to shine even brighter.

Feeling as though another attack was about to follow, all four shouted,

“P-Please calm yourself, elder!”

“Elder, please calm yourself!”

At that moment, the four finally understood why Sua had been so obedient.

And why she had bowed her head, something no dragon should ever be capable of doing.

The four hurriedly prostrated themselves and apologized.

A dragon’s nobility would not save its life.

The high dragons of the Upper Heaven might watch over their juniors, but there was no way they would help right now. And asking a madman whether he feared the dragons of the Upper Heaven would never work.

They also vaguely remembered hearing that madmen sometimes let people go obediently if their desires were satisfied.

“Elder, we are terribly sorry. Y-Yes indeed.”

“O-Of course we should apologize.”

“Th-The one who sinned was that woman, but instead of observing the situation, the four of us came here together like this. Of course you could become angry. Of course. Of course.”

“Th-That is correct. It is understandable that you misunderstood. However, we did not come here in a group to threaten or attack you, elder.

We heard that you were extremely renowned, elder, so we were afraid. Th-That is right. We gathered like this because we were afraid.”

The man nodded at the four dragons’ apologies.

Then, wearing a satisfied expression, he returned to his seat and slapped the master of the Jet-Black Sea on the rear.

“So then, shall I receive an apology gift?”

“A-An apology gift?”

At the words “apology gift,” the Red-Sea Dragon King repeated the words in confusion.

Immediately, the fist of the man called So-ryong clenched tightly.

It seemed he was about to strike again, so the White-Sea Dragon King sent a Horn Speech telling him to shut his mouth already and shouted,

[Will you please shut up!?]

“Of coursh! Of coursh! We musht give one!”

As he rubbed his hands together frantically while speaking, his pronunciation slurred because one of his teeth had been knocked out.

***

I thought things would go smoothly.

But when I demanded an apology during the conversation, these bastards secretly tried to reach for talismans and Law Treasures.

They said dragons had strong pride, so maybe that was why.

Still, fortunately, I managed to suppress them using Master’s true-body Law Treasure embedded in Sua’s thigh, and after that, the conversation became easy.

Maybe it was because of that fact that if you died during cultivation, you vanished forever.

Once I showed overwhelming violence, everyone’s voices became obedient.

It seemed they did not want to die.

The bastard who had looked the most arrogant earlier was now rubbing his hands together respectfully like a servant at an inn.

With an expression asking what I wished to order, he asked,

“D-Do you perhaps desire something?”

At his question, I conveyed my demands.

“Hm. You see, this venerable one has a hobby of collecting spirit-creatures like Master. I’ve gathered most other things already, but when it comes to dragons, I only have one so far.

So I’d like to collect dragons of other colors too.”

As I stroked the head of Sua, whom I had seated back on my thigh, and added one more remark, their expressions twisted into something extremely strange.

“D-Dragons?”

“That’s right. One of each color. Blue, red, white, black, yellow, green, silver, and jade. You said there are eight dragon colors in total, didn’t you?

I already have a blue dragon, so I’d like to have the remaining dragons too.”

While the bastards merely rolled their eyes around without answering, I added one more thing.

“You see, this venerable one could simply take things by force, but I don’t particularly enjoy that.

What I enjoy most is having them surrender and offer themselves willingly. Euhuhuhu.”

At my words, Sua’s entire body trembled violently.

Even though it was all an act.

Though somehow, the acting was working a little too well.

'Am I naturally talented at acting?'