Chapter 70: 70 Despair.

After the golden rain bathed its scally figure, the dragon squinted its eyes in glee. Its elongated mouth spread, revealing its sharp teeth.

One thing that could lift its mood and shift its enraged emotion into joy was the glittering sight of gold, jewels, relics, or any treasure the world had to offer. This fits the dragon’s name as a treasure collector or guardian hoarder.

However, the fleeting joy in its eyes dimmed and twisted into a fury because something that it hid deep in the forsaken land was an egg.

Beneath the thick layer of gold blanket, several eggs lay hidden, the dragon children.

The dragon laid an egg with purpose.

When the time came, and its parents rose from their deep sealed state, those children would become massive armies that marched toward the Olympia, slaughtering everything on their path.

Many of the eggs had already hatched and roamed on the land, keeping their identity hidden from the eyes of Olympia, who suddenly grew quiet after the devastating war millennia ago between Ares and Zeus.

This was quite good news for the dragon.

The dragon lived in silence; it roamed the snowy land and feasted on the abundant chaotic mana to feed itself and its last remaining egg. Sitting around inside its lair, occasionally, its children returned home, offering their mothers a stolen treasure.

The dragon lives a frugal and calm life, yet as the child of the primal Monster, it was born as the embodiment of the raging sky and eternal ice.

“It’s gone!?”.The dragon snarled; it rustled over the mountain of gold, seeking the egg.

Dawn of realization stuns the dragon, like lightning struck, seeing two mortals who stole its treasure earlier. Its predatory eyes glinted ferociously, and a ragging blue aura burst forth, blasting all the gold to dust and shaking the entire mountain.

“Nooooo! Those Olympian bastards, so they finally take notice of me, huh. Sending two pitiful mortals on a quest to retrieve my children. Unforgivable! I will not forgive you, Heavens!”.

The earth trembled under a thunderous roar that split even the blackened sky that clouded the mountain. A flash of blue light soared through the sky. It halted and swept its gaze toward the land, finding the two Mortals desperately darting from the mountain range.

“I will rip you to shreds, Mortals!”.

With a clap of its majestic pair of wings, the wind billowed, and its massive body shot like lightning, trying to decimate its enemy.

***

Jin’s breath turned laboured, and he carried Silvia while incurring the frosty chill that numbed him, gilded around the sky.

As he regained his breath, his body flinched, hearing an earth-shattering roar that shook the land and stabbed his eardrums. His ears kept buzzing continuously, making his gaze falter.

He lost his balance, but the slight, warm, and worried voice from the girl awoke him from his daze.

“Jin!”.

“Huff, Silvia, I’m okay”. Jin inhaled deeply, sucking the chilling mana in the surrounding area.

’Kegh!’. His face tightened, feeling his pounding heart pushed his ribs with a thump.

Jin’s breath slowed down, his vision branched, and the sound disappeared from his ears.

Time stretched as the world around him turned grey. Jin was oblivious to this phenomenon, so he stared blankly at his front, where a faint golden light warmly blinked as if proving its existence.

The light thumping like a heartbeat resonated with his slowed beat, sending blood through his freezing veins.

Jin’s vision flickered as he saw the world slowly move. He bit his lips, red blood trailing down from his lips and touching the mana around him.

“Help me.” His word was fleeting like a mist. It reverberated with the golden light in his vision and mixed together, seeping deep into his own consciousness.

“Jin, the dragon was close”.

Silvia’s tightened expression and choking grip broke Jin’s from his daydream. He exhaled sharply and loudly uttered a spell.

“Descend Tempest”.

As Jin finished uttering those words, the wind stopped. It gathered into a single point above, creating a swirling vortex with black clouds.

A gaping hole formed as the dragon approached with its claws, and its maw opened furiously.

“You damn mortals! Wha!?”.

In a blink, a massive pillar swallowed the dragon’s body, carrying snow and lightning that rumbled above the clouds. A flash of silver veins crashed toward the storm pillar.

*Rooaarrr!

The dragon silhouette struggled to break free, getting stuck and shredded by thousands of blades inside the tempest. Flailing its hands and tail, it was unable to move.

Jin’s body hit its limit; he couldn’t muster even a bit of strength and slowly fell into the thick snow that acted as a cushion. He exhaled softly because, at the last moment, Jin managed to turn around and land on his back first.

His hand goes limp, and he struggles to keep his breath intact because of his freezing lungs. In his vision, which is filled with black clouds, gloomy and eerie feelings shroud his heart, pushing him down toward the pit of despair. ’Is this the end?’

Then she appeared, and a girl with swollen red eyes looked toward Jin with tears that dropped into his cheek.

“Jin, wake up, please”.

Silvia’s hoarse voice pierced his heart. Jin clenched his teeth and forced his hardened body to move. He could hear a cracking sound from his freezing flesh breaking like brittle ice.

Jin could no longer feel pain or touch; it had long gone since he threw that spell a moment ago.

However, Jin didn’t falter. He struggles to stand up by his sheer will that has already breached the realm of mortals.

As he stood, the storm pillar blasted open, scattering away the snow beneath. Beneath the thick snow, they stared into the brown soil, which teemed with life.

“Hmph, puny Mortals”. The dragon flapped its wings, hurling a violent wind toward the area as it landed on the ground. “Do you think that spell could obliterate me? Dream on!”.

Jin and Silvia got pushed back by the intense aura the dragon unleashed from its roar alone. They tightened each other’s support, managing to stand under its oppressive pressure by sheer will.

Jin turned to his side, feeling the girl’s shivering body. Her eyes loft its light, and her lips curled downward, despair written all over her expression.

He exhaled, feeling the same despair gnawing at his heart, yet why was his mind clear?

In the face of absolute beings undeterred under the sky, a being that stayed in this harsh place and survived for centuries or even a millennium alone, without a doubt, the dragon could obliterate them with only a flick.

A white mist escapes his lips as Jin lifts his gaze upward toward the gloomy sky. He can clearly hear his heart beating loudly, and it bursts his ears.

Jin was enveloped by a strange atmosphere, distant yet present as the void inside his heart trembling furiously. ’I missed this feeling, but where? Where did I experience it?’.

His face was knitted by the throbbing pain that split his skull. Jin exhaled sharply and gripped his Katana tight.

“Silvia, leave this place”. Jin’s calm voice broke the silence that hung between them.

Silvia, who mentioned it, twisted her head to the side, her azure eyes widened in horror. Jin’s vacant look gave her a shudder. She gulped, afraid to pry open her stiff lips.

She didn’t recognize this side of him; the one she knew was a boy who was confident but not overly proud of it. He was impulsive but able to solve any problem that perched on his shoulder.

Last but not least, he was a caring and kind guy who always showed her a new, different path that made her dull world brighter with the day she spent with him.

However, the boy before her was none of that. Those murky emerald eyes filled with intense madness that frightened even the dragon, yet Silvia caught another emotion in his eyes: desolation.

“J-Jin, let me…”. Silvia’s lips quivered upon calling his name. She summoned the blue sword from the bracelet Jin lent to her.

“Leave!”. One word was enough to silence the girl.

Her azure eyes trembled, and tears clouded her vision as they streamed down her cheek once more. Silvia reached out to grasp his hand.

“Hmph, do you think I will let one of you run away from my sight?”. The dragon snarled, its eyes fixed on both of them and a blue aura shot from its body, parting the clouds above.

’N-No way, this is…!?’. Silvia flinched upon feeling a cold touch on her belly; she gazed down and saw Jin preparing his stance.

“Go, Silvia, I will follow you from the back”. Jin’s voice was soft, but Silvia’s ears interpreted another meaning.

“No, Jin, please, let’s run together”.

“Gale palm”.

Silvia’s vision stretched as she felt free from any weight that tied her down to the earth, “Eh?”.

Her body flung backwards from Jin’s place, and she watched those lonely backs, which kept getting smaller. “No, Nooooo!”.

The girl’s cry echoed within the field where Jin faced the dragon with lips parted in relieved smiles. ’Well, with the bracelet in her hand, she could survive for several months and hope the Duke finds her at that time’.

When Jin lent the storage item, he transferred half of his worth toward the bracelet in case they got separated.

But, to think they would get separated in this kind of situation.

“Huff, forget it. I must focus on the enemy before me”.

“You Mortals, truly fond of irking me to the end”.

The dragon aura rose, and an oppressive atmosphere crushed Jin, who was weakened. But he didn’t falter and prepared his Iai stance, infusing his mana and the mana around him into the blade.

“Die Mortal”.

“Haaap!”. With a quick draw. Jin sends a beautiful arc of crescent moon toward the dragon’s head, letting it clash with its breath.

[Black Heaven Style Swordsmanship – Crescent moon]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep