novelraw Chapter 245
Chapter 245
Chapter 245: Found a Human Chef, Guys
If teasing a muddleheaded young dragon wasn’t enough,
then teasing a muddleheaded young dragon in front of the adult dragon would be the ultimate move.
Xia Li’s gaze fell on the adult dragon’s face, which was covered in fine scales.
The dragon scales there were changing due to the rise in body temperature, the silver moon-like color fading to pale white. Those lantern-sized eyes looked down angrily, landing on Xia Li.
“What are you looking at!”
The evil dragon snapped angrily.
From Xia Li’s angle, those huge golden-red pupils looked terrifying.
When stared at by such eyes, one would feel a sense of oppression stemming from instinct. There might even be a moment when one would feel suffocated by the visual impact of the colossal creature.
However, Xia Li could see the girl’s reservedness and shyness in those enormous dragon eyes. “What did you just say?”
Xia Li tilted his head, as if he hadn’t heard Lucia’s answer clearly and wanted to hear her say it again.
“…”
The adult dragon Lucia snorted softly.
Obviously, saying such romantic words once was enough for her.
She had even tried hard to recall what she had said to Xia Li when she was a young dragon…
Yet, humans were like this, never satisfied!
Greedy! Evil!
And they always liked to play weird games!
Lucia turned her head away, she wouldn’t fall for Xia Li’s trick so easily.
However, while the adult dragon Lucia was meticulous, the young dragon who had little experience in the world was easy to deceive.
The young dragon was very straightforward; in her view, Xia Li’s words were directed at her.
So, without thinking too much, she wagged her tail, skewered the charred mushrooms together, and muttered to herself.
“Didn’t you ask me what if I fall in love with a human in the future?”
“Then let nature take its course…”
“Anyway, I believe in my own choices, and it’s hard to say what will happen in the future.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking humans. Pureblood…cough, I don’t care about the noble blood flowing in my body. For me, as long as it’s a choice I made myself, even if the other party is just an ordinary commoner, I’d be happy to live in a nest with him.”
The young dragon Lucia mumbled to herself.
She had been a chatterbox since she was little, just like Xia Li when he was chanting scriptures.
In terms of this habit, the two really did have some husband and wife resemblance.
As she spoke, the young dragon suddenly stopped, turning her head to look at Xia Li.
She felt a heavy weight on her shoulders, as if something heavy was pressing down on her.
The young dragon didn’t see anything on her shoulders, and there was no sign of any gravity magic being activated around her.
She could only assume that this pressure was from the poison she had ingested yesterday.
It was time to eat some poisonous mushrooms to fight poison with poison…
I’m gonna eat, eat, eat!
The young dragon lowered her head and started eating furiously, making Xia Li stare in bewilderment.
Wait a minute.
She’s actually fighting poison with poison.
No wonder Lucia had asked him to drink more when he was drunk before.
It turned out that she wasn’t trying to prank him or be sarcastic back then, but she really had believed that since she was little.
This kind of folk remedy might actually work for dragons.
“You were quite insightful when you were little…you never rejected the idea of falling in love with a human.”
Xia Li continued the young dragon’s words, speaking shamelessly to the adult dragon.
“Don’t tell me you’ve had your eye on me since you were little?”
“Ptui!”
The adult dragon Lucia finally moved her claws away from the young dragon’s shoulders.
When the two Lucias were in the same space and close enough to each other, the Lucia from the wrong timeline would become completely transparent.
She couldn’t interfere with the surrounding space, her flapping dragon wings couldn’t stir up any wind, and the dragon’s roar couldn’t make a sound.
Even if she reached out her claws and grabbed the young dragon’s shoulders, her claws couldn’t touch the young dragon’s body. She could only let the young dragon sense something through telepathy.
Unfortunately, the young dragon at this stage was too naive. She only felt that she had been poisoned, which was why her shoulders felt heavy. She didn’t think about this illusion in a deeper way at all.
“Don’t corrupt the child.”
The adult dragon sighed, coiling her body and looking at Xia Li warily.
It wasn’t a good feeling to have her embarrassing past exposed in front of Xia Li.
Although she knew from the beginning that humans liked all kinds of weird play, this was going too far!
For a moment, she didn’t even know if she should be angry with Xia Li.
“Alright.”
Xia Li pulled his sword out of the ground and sheathed it behind his back.
He hoped that Lucia would be able to reprimand him with this phrase in front of their little dragon two years later.
Turning around, Xia Li glanced at the busy young dragon.
The difference between a young dragon and an adult dragon wasn’t just in size; their postures were also very different.
If the words “proud and beautiful” were used to describe an adult silver dragon, then the words “round and plump” would be perfect to describe a young dragon.
A round head, budding dragon horns, short and thick limbs, and thin dragon wings that hadn’t fully matured.
This stage of the young dragon Lucia was the plumpest, having eaten from the buffet （referring to the lambs on the farm） for several years.
She was round all over, even her cheeks had full, fleshy curves.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it was like the baby fat of a human child.
Xia Li took a few more glances at her, wanting to imprint this scene in his mind.
After thinking for a moment, he took out his phone from his pocket.
Risking the last 5% battery life on his phone, he quickly snapped two photos of the young dragon.
“What a tonic!”
By the time the adult dragon reacted, it was already too late.
The phone couldn’t capture her body, only the young dragon rolling on the ground.
The embarrassing past of Lucia’s youth was forever captured in this moment.
The young dragon rolled around in the bushes, covered in fallen leaves.
As if sensing something, she opened her eyes drowsily, the vertical scales on either side of her head, similar to ears, stood up, and she stared at Xia Li with wide eyes.
“Such powerful Holy Light magic!”
Xia Li: “…”
Lucia was indeed Lucia, her personality hadn’t changed from childhood to adulthood.
Even her lines were exactly the same.
“It’s a pity I’m not a black dragon, I’m not afraid of Holy Light magic…” the young dragon muttered.
Xia Li held back a smile: “Stay here and don’t move, I’ll go catch some food for you.”
“Where are you going?”
The young dragon pressed her head to the ground. She had just eaten a dizziness mushroom, a deadly poison to humans, but its effect on dragons lasted only a few minutes.
The young dragon saw Xia Li swaying in her vision, and she swayed along with him, rolling on the ground again.
“…To catch food for you, roasted lamb.” Xia Li said concisely.
He had to resist several times before he stopped himself from reaching out to pet the young dragon in front of him.
This chubby young dragon rolling around in front of him really looked delicious.
But in order not to interfere too much with the “past,” Xia Li had to avoid making changes as much as possible.
Especially during his first encounter with Lucia.
Lucia had once told Xia Li about this adventure in the forest.
From Lucia’s perspective, Xia Li was just an ordinary good person.
Therefore, Xia Li couldn’t have too much contact with her at this time.
“Then go…can you see?”
The young dragon Lucia lay sprawled on the ground, exposing her silver dragon’s white belly.
The silver dragon’s belly was very similar to a fish’s belly; that part wasn’t covered in scales, it was soft and springy to the touch.
This was the softest part of the dragon’s body. The fact that she could roll around in front of Xia Li, exposing her belly, showed that she trusted him subconsciously.
“I can’t see, but I have magic that can lock onto black sheep, so it’s no problem.” Xia Li made up a lie with a straight face.
The young dragon was easily fooled and nodded: “Then I want to eat two!”
“I’ll catch three for you.”
Xia Li smiled gently.
But when he turned around with his sword bag slung over his shoulder, the gentleness in his eyes vanished.
It was replaced by a pure coldness.
◈◈◈
Osiris Forest.
◈◈◈
The Imperial Guard team responsible for capturing the silver young dragon had been missing for two days.
That young dragon was personally ordered to be captured by His Majesty.
Not only did His Majesty value that dragon, but the entire Holy Capital did as well.
Although it was almost impossible to tame a pureblood giant dragon with intelligence, they could still extract value from its body.
Dragon claws for medicine, dragon blood for alchemy, their horns and scales could even be embedded in weapons and equipment, enhancing their performance significantly.
It could be said that a single juvenile dragon could provide enough materials to support an entire army.
The appearance of a pureblood young dragon was a godsend for any human nation.
Unfortunately, capturing pureblood dragons was too difficult. If it wasn’t for experienced and absolutely loyal elite knights, no team would be able to accomplish this.
On the third day after the Imperial Guard lost contact,
the Lyon Empire sent another team of knights.
This team, riding tamed mixed-scale dragons, descended from the sky with great fanfare.
The mixed-scale dragons wore soft leather saddles, their eyes covered with black cloth and their ears plugged with stoppers.
Their senses were blocked, leaving only the saddles on their necks to guide them forward.
After landing at a suitable location, the dragon knights quickly sprang into action.
They communicated silently with their eyes. The mage squatted down on the spot, unfurling a magic scroll. Rounds of golden magic spun, the light quickly enveloping the dark depths of the forest.
“No wonder I got lost in the forest for so long when I was little.”
Behind Xia Li, the silver dragon stretched out her massive head, nudging Xia Li with her nose, and staring at the group of people.
“It turns out that besides staying behind to eat the lamb leg you roasted, the more important reason was that I was hit with another illusion spell…these people haven’t given up on capturing me.”
Lucia’s tone was disdainful, her eyes filled with arrogance and hostility as she faced these dragon knights.
She liked Earthlings because Earthlings liked her. They were kind to her.
Lucia hated the people of Azure Continent because the people here had never been kind to dragons.
No one knew how this hatred, rooted in their very bones, came to be.
Perhaps it was the endless exploitation and slaughter of dragons by humans, or perhaps these two races were simply born to be enemies.
Lucia hated the humans here, just as the humans here hated her.
Taking a deep breath, the adult silver dragon’s chest cavity was completely filled with air.
When this air was infused with magic power, it instantly expanded into a thousand-degree dragon flame that could incinerate everything.
“Shh…”
Xia Li raised his large hand and gently stroked the silver dragon’s hot nose.
This enraged silver dragon seemed to be truly pacified by his single action.
Lucia suppressed her emotions, her fierce golden-red eyes instantly softened, even looking somewhat aggrieved at the man in front of her.
“That dragon should be about two hundred meters ahead.”
“I see it.”
At the base of the towering ancient trees,
a team of dragon knights, dressed in red and white, were carefully pushing aside the bushes and advancing.
They lowered their voices as they spoke, the muffled sounds emanating from their metal helmets.
“I haven’t seen any trace of the previous Imperial Guard team…”
The speaker’s tone was hesitant, tinged with fear as he asked the leading knight.
“Captain, please give the order.”
The Knight-Captain raised his hand: “No need to rendezvous with the Imperial Guard, they’ve probably already fallen prey…prepare to encircle the young dragon.”
“Capture it alive, and each of you will be rewarded with two thousand gold coins and a fiefdom. Capture it dead, and there will still be a reward, but no fiefdom…you decide how you want to handle it.”
“Yes.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the knight responsible for scouting on the left flank suddenly stopped.
His startled gaze peered out from the slit in his helmet, looking at the shadow in front of him.
“Captain, there’s someone ahead.”
“Someone?”
“Judging by the appearance, it should be a human.”
The speaker’s tone wasn’t very certain. After all, the possibility of seeing a passerby in the Osiris Forest…wasn’t much higher than the possibility of seeing a rich person giving alms to a beggar on the streets of the Holy Capital.
It was almost equivalent to “impossible.”
However, he confirmed it again and again.
He did indeed see a tall, thin man standing in the shadow of the trees.
The man was wearing a black cloak, his head covered by a soft hood. A pair of sharp black eyes, like shadows, lifted slightly from under the brim of his hat, silently watching them.
“This is the territory of the Lyon Empire, even if you found that dragon, you have no right to deal with it.”
The Knight-Captain took a step forward.
Unlike the Imperial Guard who were raised in a greenhouse, they, the dragon knight team, traveled all over the empire and were far more experienced than the Imperial Guard in the capital.
The Knight-Captain could tell at a glance that the man in front of him wasn’t simple.
Whether it was the aura he exuded, his lean arms hidden beneath the loose cloak, or the long sword he carried behind his back…
All these details, in the Knight-Captain’s eyes, held a dangerous aura.
He even suspected that this man, who looked to be in his early twenties, might have more combat experience than himself…
Under the invisible pressure of those dark eyes, even the battle-hardened Knight-Captain became unsure of himself.
“Please leave.”
Although the Knight-Captain was negotiating in a polite tone, his hand had already rested on the hilt of the long sword hanging at his waist.
The other knights also found their captain’s behavior strange.
The other party was just an ordinary person…
He didn’t even have the emblem of the empire, a kingdom, or some noble organization.
Even in the Holy Capital, their knight team had the authority to deal with commoners. Not to mention, this was the deepest part of the uninhabited Osiris Forest.
It was perfectly normal to die in the wilderness here, there was absolutely no need for the captain to negotiate with an ordinary person.
Moreover, the illusion magic they had temporarily set up, targeting the dragon, could only last for two days. Time was of the essence, every word wasted was a loss.
“You…”
In a position invisible to the other knights, cold sweat was dripping from the forehead of the Knight-Captain in the red cloak, beneath his helmet.
“Clang—”
Especially when the man standing in the shadows reached behind him and drew a long sword emitting a faint blue light, beads of sweat rolled down the Knight-Captain’s forehead.
Magic power…
His magic power stance was completely suppressed!
Even the Knight-Captain’s long sword, which had reached the first tier in terms of power, second only to the weapons wielded by emperors, was wavering in the presence of that strange blue blade.
The magical power level of the sword in the other party’s hand far surpassed his own!
“Retreat.”
“What?!”
The knights wondered if they had heard wrong.
Could these words come from their ever-victorious Knight-Captain?!
“If you lose your life, all the money and power will be meaningless…think of your wives and children at home, retreat now, immediately!”
“The young dragon…what about the young dragon?!”
The knights were still a little slow to react.
But their absolute trust in their captain, and the trembling in his voice, made them waver.
“Are we just going to watch the duck we’ve already caught fly away…?” someone said unwillingly.
The Knight-Captain didn’t answer the question, but instead sheathed his sword, raised both hands, and slowly retreated.
“Don’t forget how the previous Imperial Guard team disappeared.” He added in a low voice.
The knights instantly understood, exchanging glances before following their captain’s actions and retreating.
“Roar…”
Not far away, the mixed-scale dragons tethered by the dragon knights seemed to sense something, pacing restlessly in place.
Xia Li stood in the shadows, silently watching them.
Only after the dragon knights had gone far away,
did he sheathe the Demon Repelling Sword, which was already in its third release state.
“Eek! Ugh!”
Two hundred meters away, the young dragon rolled on the ground and then got up.
She stretched her neck, looking around, and sniffed the air with her big nose.
What was that noise just now?
It scared her so much that the scales on her back stood up like a blooming flower.