I Save The World In A Doomsday Text Game

Chapter 197-1: Shell – Knowledge-Seeking Primordial Hermit (1)

[The commotion outside the cavern was growing ever louder. One dragon’s wail after another echoed in your ears…]

[You carefully studied the throne before you, and suddenly noticed something seemed to be concealed behind it.]

[You quickly stepped forward and soon reached the back of the colossal throne…]

[Behind the throne lay a mound of countless rotting dragon corpses. The nauseating stench was pouring from these remains.]

[Some of the dragon corpses had already decayed to pale-white bones, while others still retained patches of flesh not yet fully decomposed.]

[What made your skin crawl was that all of these dragon corpses were malformed to varying degrees, some with extra or missing limbs, some grotesquely warped.]

[But every single corpse shared one common feature: they were covered in countless staring eyes!]

[Some of the corpses still lay with their eyes wide open, and in those pairs of blood-red dragon eyes, you saw only endless madness…]

[You compared several of the decaying corpses, and the image forming in your mind was not that of a Black Calamity Dragon, but of the Ancient Hermit – Dark Dragon.]

[It was just that these bodies were too small, not even as large as the juvenile dragons you had seen in the memory of the Dark Dragon Knight.][The dragon corpses were piled into a small mountain, from which black, putrid fluid constantly seeped.]

[The rancid ichor soaked into the ground, making the ore studding the cave walls gleam even more slick and polished.]

[You understood: the residual bloodline power of these corpses nourished the Dragon Nest. The entire Hidden Canyon was benefiting from it.]

[The heap of dragon corpses stood against the rock wall, but as you peered through the gaps between the bodies, you realized there was no rock wall behind them as you’d assumed, there was another hidden space.]

[It seemed this was not the end of the cave after all, the mountain of corpses had blocked your view of what lay beyond…]

[Will you climb the mound of corpses and crawl into the hidden space?]

Lin Xun narrowed his eyes, a premonition stirring in his heart.

Behind the throne lay the piled remains of countless juvenile Dark Dragons. These corpses were not only nourishing the Dragon Nest, they were concealing the deepest secret of the cave.

[Ignoring the overwhelming stench, you scrambled up the mountain of corpses on hands and knees…]

[You inevitably touched the ichor oozing from the bodies. The black dragonflame coiling around you flared violently, every contact with the filth producing a hissing sizzle.]

[With each wisp of vapor rising, the Black Calamity Dragon Breath rapidly dimmed and weakened.]

[Alarmed, you climbed on carefully, doing your best to avoid the foul liquid…]

[You crawled through the gap behind the dragon corpses. Beyond lay another passageway.]

[The enormous tunnel was strewn with many more dragon carcasses, all juvenile Dark Dragons.]

[As you continued down the passage, the suffocating pressure of draconic might gradually diminished.]

[But the reeking stench grew ever stronger. You were soon retching uncontrollably, if not for having already endured the ordeal of the corpse-mountain, you might not have been able to bear it at all.]

[Suppressing your nausea, you finally reached the tunnel’s end…]

[Here, the black rot had pooled into a river that rose past your ankles. The Black Calamity Dragon Breath around you grew dimmer and dimmer.]

[A colossal mountain of flesh filled your entire view. Everywhere you looked, there was nothing but that rotting, putrid mass…]

[The mountain of festering meat loomed atop countless malformed dragon corpses. As it quivered and shifted, it drew in the broken bodies beneath it, then extruded a fresh, still-living but already deformed hatchling.]

[The newborn dragon was slick with black slime. It feebly thrashed its stunted, twisted limbs, lifting its head high and opening its jaws wide as if to unleash a scream…]

[But soon, it drooped its head, its many eyes flickering out. It became just another corpse among the countless others.]

[You stared at the writhing mountain of flesh, a chill racing from your soles to the crown of your skull.]

[You have discovered the Hermit Progenitor – Ancient Black Dragon!]

[Your sudden arrival seemed to draw the meat mountain’s attention. It stopped absorbing malformed corpses and birthing its doomed offspring.]

[The mass of flesh stilled, and an ancient, gentle voice resounded within the cave…]

[“Child, come here.”]

[“Your frail body can no longer roam the battlefield. Return your bloodline power to me, and I will grant you new life…”]

[Will you obey and approach the Hermit Progenitor – Ancient Black Dragon?]

Lin Xun couldn’t believe it. That festering mountain of flesh was the progenitor of all black dragons, the ancestor of legend.

The memory of Broken Horn Sharu surfaced… [So as not to waste that precious bloodline strength, the Ancestor would devour the bodies, reclaiming a portion of the power and continuing to contribute to the war. The most terrifying part was not this. It was the endless cycle of birthing offspring and consuming them again and again, which birthed a monstrous ‘Disorder.’]

The Hermit Progenitor had been driven insane by that ‘Disorder.’

According to that memory, Omniscient True Knowledge had also fallen into madness because of Disorder.

Yet the Hermit Progenitor’s madness came from devouring its young, so where had the Disorder that infected Omniscient True Knowledge been born?

The more Lin Xun thought about it, the more it chilled him to the marrow. He could not bring himself to make a decision.

[While you hesitated, a silent summons from your bloodline took hold. You began walking toward the mountain of flesh, no longer in control of your body…]

Damn it!

Lin Xun snapped back to his senses in an instant, frantically trying to hit ‘No’ to halt his advance.

But his Shell would not obey, step by step, it kept moving toward the Progenitor.

In a split second, he made up his mind and switched Shells.

[You have possessed the Shell of the Corrupted Earth Giant!]

[The bloodline’s summoning power vanished abruptly. You stopped in your tracks…]

[Along with the summoning’s end, the Black Calamity Dragon Breath surrounding you vanished as well. Your feet were left fully exposed, immersed in the rotting black water…]

[A searing pain erupted instantly. Black fumes rose around you. Even with the Antitoxin Core of the Divine Light Moth, you watched as your feet were corroded away at a speed visible to the naked eye.]

[You understood that even if you tried to climb back over the distant mountain of dragon corpses to escape the Hermit Progenitor, you would still die here from the poison’s corrosion!]

[Will you switch back to the Shell of the Pureblood Half-Dragon Who Gazes Upward?]

Lin Xun ignored the option. Instead, he quickly summoned the Valkyrie and gave the command to mount.