The Dragon is Here (1)
Zhao She: “…”
He blinked slowly, looking in horror toward the young man beside him who had unconsciously uttered that horrible comment.
He saw Shi An’s eyes narrow as he raised a harmless smile. “I was only joking.”
The corner of Zhao She’s mouth twitched: “…”
No, it didn’t sound like a joke at all.
Shi An said, “Speaking of which, you can leave now with Wei Bocheng.”
Zhao She was startled. “Then you–”
Shi An interrupted, “Hey, didn’t you hear what these people said just now?”
Zhao She was stunned and fell silent.
“These people are preparing to use every student in this competition at this canyon as living sacrifices.” The young man’s voice was light, but his words were ruthless. “There’s still time to evacuate everyone since they haven’t finished the spell yet.”
Zhao She and Wei Bocheng clenched their teeth hard.
Although they hated to admit it, what Shi An said was right.
They had to decide in the face of the imminent crisis before them.
Finally, they drew a deep breath as if they had made up their minds.
“We will bring reinforcements back. You have to hold on!” he said solemnly.
“… Wait for us!” Wei Bocheng said with tears in his eyes.
Shi An smiled and waved at them. “Don’t worry. I will be okay by myself here.”
The mercenaries gathered around, their wolf-like eyes staring at the young man left alone in the enemy line and their faces showing sardonic smiles.
“How touching.”
The leader of the mercenaries applauded, wearing a hypocritical smile on his face. “You stay behind alone to hold us up to let the other students escape their fates of becoming living sacrifices. Such a noble character and unquestionable integrity. I can’t help but be moved by it.”
The mercenaries burst into laughter.
The smile on the leader’s lips widened. “But… little friend, you’re too naïve. To let your comrades leave first and notify the others? To bring reinforcements? Hahaha! Do you know why I didn’t stop your two friends from escaping? Because there’s no use. It’s only a deathbed struggle.”
“Do you think we only have these few people in this cave? No. We have twenty times more outside.”
“The mountain has been sealed. No reinforcement will come to save you.”
“You not only can’t save those students outside but also you, yourself, are in grave danger.”
“… Those students? Protecting them?”
The young man spoke abruptly, interrupting the other man’s words.
His clear voice rose slightly as if he was genuinely puzzled.
“For what?”
Shi An cocked his head and tugged at his pink scarf with his furry bunny gloves.
“I don’t care about them.”
His cheeks and the tip of his nose were red from the cold and his dark eyes were clear and bright with a kind of innocent ignorance of the world. “The weak will be killed. Isn’t it only natural and righteous for the weak to be killed?”
The leader: “…!”
He was slightly startled, not expecting the other party to say something like that.
Shi An scrunched up his nose. “Besides, it’s troublesome. I can’t let go of myself fully if they’re by my side.”
He grumbled in a pouty tone as he slowly and methodically removed his gloves, revealing his slender white fingers.
A strange sense of danger rose in the mercenary leader’s heart.
He narrowed his eyes hard and subconsciously tensed his spine as he slowly asked, “… Who are you?”
A student? With such an aura… it couldn’t be.
The young man raised his eyes and smiled faintly.
His long, dense black eyelashes blinked slowly and a blazing gold-red fire rose in his eyes as if a blazing fire had burned out the long night. His round pupils became thin and narrow as deceptively strange as if they were that of a cold-blooded animal.
“Didn’t you guys want to summon the dragon?”
“The dragon is here.”
***
Mu Heng gazed at the few people in front of him calmly as he put his gloves back on and stepped forward.
“It seems you didn’t know I had talked about this with your brother before.”
Chen Yankang resisted the urge to step back and stammered a little in response, “I-I knew, but…”
“Then it seems that I don’t need to make myself repeat it.”
Mu Heng lowered his silvery white eyelashes wordlessly.
“That dragon, whether alive or dead, is mine.”
“But–”
Before Chen Yankang could finish his words, he felt a chill on his left arm and was frozen for a couple of seconds as he subconsciously turned his head to look over.
The sight was crimson.
It took several seconds for the intense pain to finally hit him.
Chen Yankang held his empty left arm as he fell to the ground, letting loose screams of agony from his throat. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
The man casually kicked the left arm that had fallen to the ground away from him and flung the tip of his sword, splashing the remnants of blood in a scarlet arc across the ground.
“It’s a bad habit to covet other people’s prey.”
Mu Heng looked down at him condescendingly, the tip of his sword moving slowly forward.
The sharp blade glinted with a bit of cold, shiny light, reflecting in the bottom of the other man’s constricted, trembling pupils.
“Skinning? Bleeding?”
Mu Heng asked absently and rhetorically, the sword’s tip sliding down a little. The sharp front edge was just a few short millimeters from the skin, moving down the other man’s face to the front of his throat.
“I’ve said it before. This time, the matter won’t end so easily.”
Chen Yankang could no longer speak. He stood on two legs, his face pale with cold sweat.
The knot in his throat twitched as a thin glint of blood showed on his skin.
“Tell your men to stop immediately,” Mu Heng said coldly, “Otherwise, you’ll lose more than one arm.”
At that moment, something in Chen Yankang’s lapel began to vibrate.
“Ha, haha… Hahaha!” Chen Yankang’s face was contorted with fear but a slow, low laugh came out; his laughter grew louder and more rampant, almost sounding sinister.
“… Too late. It’s done.”
“Did you hear that signal? This means that the detector we placed in the cave senses the magic power of a dragon…”
His expression was ugly, his eyes trembling with a touch of madness. “The spell is completed. Hahahahaha. The living sacrifices are completed. The dragon is already summoned…”
“Even your little friend, hahahahaha, is already dead. Dead!”
Mu Heng’s pupils suddenly constricted.
Taking advantage of this moment of distraction from the other party, Chen Yankang jerked up violently, turned around, and ran outward.
