Chapter 52: Dragon Slaying!
Translator: AstralGhost Editor: Kurisu
Five men of varying ages stood before the crowd. A tyrannical aura swirled around each of the five men, causing anyone who looked at them to have a feeling of being face to face with a terrifying, crouching beast.
"Everyone! Please quiet down!"
A middle-aged man stood out from the five and lightly commanded. His voice was not loud. But, as though there was some strange magic imbued in it, it resounded clearly in every single person’s ears.
With a single glance, it was obvious that the middle-aged man held a high position as the entire hall fell silent immediately after his voice rang out.
"There is only one reason I’ve gathered everyone together today: to reach the greatest height of glory for us humans!" The middle-aged man looked at the crowd he had gathered, a fanatic look flashing in his pupils as he continued.
Perhaps the commoners of this world might not understand what the greatest height of glory meant. Or, they might have multiple differing opinions about what such a thing could mean.
But to the hundreds of warriors and mages gathered here, there was only one thing that could be deemed worthy of being termed the greatest height of glory: slaying a dragon!
That was the ultimate goal of all warriors and mages!
Just like a soldier that did not aspire to attain the rank of a general was not a good soldier, a warrior or a mage who did not aspire to slay a dragon was not a good warrior or mage!
As long as a group of people, or even an individual, succeeded in slaying a dragon, their fame would immediately spread throughout the entire world and their names be recorded in the annals of history!
The blood of the crowd was immediately roused with excitement, their breaths quickening as they listened to the middle-aged man.
Every single person seated here were individuals with great power and influence who would be treated with great respect and regarded as a distinguished guest no matter which kingdom they went to. Mundane things like money and sex were things that could be easily obtained by them with just a word!
At their current level of power, the only thing these people were truly concerned about was breaking through to a higher realm and enjoying a longer lifespan!
It was common knowledge that dragons were ancient beasts born from the energy of the heavens and the earth. As such, every single part of their body could be considered a great treasure! Simply obtaining a part of a dragon’s body was enough to allow a powerful practitioner to improve continuously!
Every time a dragon slaying mission was completed, the experts who were involved in killing the dragon would, for a period of time, improve in strength by leaps and bounds, growing like bamboo shoots after a spring rain!
Of course, high rewards also signified the high level of risks involved. From ancient times, countless experts had fallen from the skies in failed dragon slaying missions. Instead of killing a dragon and reaping huge rewards, countless individuals were wiped out by the dragon instead! Even the powers they belonged to would fall from a peak-level power to an insignificant clan due to the loss of these experts.
Throughout the history of this land, only twelve people were recorded to have slayed a dragon on their own! As for those who formed a group or successfully slayed a dragon by leading their clans or sect, there were only 382!
However, history does not record the number of failed attempts to slay a dragon! One could only imagine the sea of white bones stacked up next to the 394 successful instances of successful dragon slaying missions!
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the number of failed attempts was tens of thousands of times greater than the successful ones! It was even entirely possible for the number to exceed hundreds of thousands or even millions of times greater than the 394 successful attempts!
Anyone who could cultivate to such a level was definitely not an idiot. In contrast, every single expert was as sly as a fox! Such an outcome was inevitable, for tall weeds already covered the tombstones of those stupid or naive cultivators by now!
"Senior, with just the few of us here, I fear that instead of slaying a dragon, it would be more probable for all of us to get slayed by the dragon!"
A savage-looking hulk of a man with thick, bulging muscles stood out from the crowd. His appearance truly caused one to wonder if his brains had also been turned into a lump of muscles as well…
However, his words caused the crowd that was previously boiling in excitement to regain some sense of clarity. As the elites of this world, these people had a great level of understanding with regards to a dragon’s power!
A heated commotion rose up among the crowd as they looked anxiously towards the five men in the front.
"You’re right. If it were a normal dragon slaying mission, even if we had five times the number of the people here, we would only be serving a slightly more tasty meal up to the dragon. But, what if I were to tell you that… the dragon is injured?"
Nicolay Bach folded his arms across his chest and replied with a slight smile on his face, as if he had already expected this situation.
"If it’s really an injured dragon, it might be possible to kill it with just us!"
"Even if it’s an injured dragon, it’s likely that more than half of us would go to the grave along with the dragon!"
"With so many people, it shouldn’t be hard to avoid death as long as we’re careful…"
Another hubbub rose up as the crowd discussed in low voices with their companions. Every single person here was confident that they would be among the ones who would survive the dragon hunt!
"Slay the dragon! Slay the dragon! Slay the dragon!"
It was unclear who started chanting, but the entire hall was quickly filled with a heated chorus that spoke of every individual’s determination!
"Enough!"
Nicolay Bach looked at the crowd with a nod of approval. With such a level of motivation, what kind of task was still unaccomplishable?!
"The injured dragon was last spotted in the Forest of Darkness near the border of Seismic Kingdom. We will rush there with our greatest speed so as to prevent the dragon from having sufficient time to recover its energy!"
Nicolay Bach immediately shared the details of the mission with the crowd.
Following that, the five men with Nicolay Bach in the lead turned around and, with hundreds of experts trailing behind them, hurried in the direction of the Forest of Darkness!
Along the way, many scouts who had hidden themselves among the group of experts took the chance to run back to their various organizations to relay this shocking piece of news.
However, none of them were able to escape being slaughtered by Nicolay Bach and the other four men before they could get far. There was actually only the difference of a single realm between the five men and the rest. But, that single realm was actually an insurmountable distance, like that between the heaven and the earth!
Without any further trouble, the group soon arrived at the Forest of Darkness and, with a bit of effort, located the injured dragon!
This inky black dragon did not look like the kind typically illustrated in China. Instead, it looked more similar to a Western dragon. It had a huge, bulky body, a pair of humongous wings that lay folded on its back and a long, muscular tail which made up for roughly half its body length. Only the dragon’s head looked like that of a typical, horned Chinese dragon.
A huge, ugly gash could be seen on its abdomen. From the looks of it, whatever it was that had left the injury had nearly pierced through the dragon’s body!
There was no need for any further talk. Take its life while it’s weak!
Without any sort of coordination at all, all kinds of magical skills and abilities flew at the injured black dragon, forming a messy nebula that blotted out the skies and covered the earth!
The injured black dragon was livid!
"Despicable humans! My Wu Clan will trample your race into extinction one day!"
As a being formed from the energy of the heaven and the earth, it was not a difficult nor surprising thing for it to understand and speak the human tongue.
"Ding!"
All kinds of magical abilities landed on the black dragon’s massive body, causing sharp metallic sounds to ring aloud in the Forest of Darkness!
No matter the number of skills or techniques used against it, all of them bounced harmlessly off the black dragon. Not a single spell had been able to make it past the dragon’s scales!
"ROAR!"
Although they were unable to breach its defence, feeling so many abilities strike its body was still a painful matter! In addition, a few attacks had even landed on its wound!
A huge plume of raging black fire spewed out of the enraged black dragon’s mouth, enveloping everything one thousand meters in front of it in a raging inferno!
Those who were even slightly slow in their reaction were all burnt into ashes before they even had the chance to run!
The two sides quickly devolved into a heated battle. Hundreds of skills flashed chaotically in the sky and burning men dropped to the ground like flies. Just as the battle reached its peak, an unremarkable, unassuming hook attached to a thin line descended from the sky!
The hook, which seemed to be so ordinary and light, easily passed through the screen of spells and fire and seemingly without any effort, pierced through the black scales which the black dragon so prided itself on!
A powerful shackling force emanated from the hook as it began to work on rendering the tyrannic black dragon immobile!
"ROAR!"
The shackling force gripped onto the black dragon for only a split second, and was immediately broken through as the black dragon fired up it’s blood and Qi to the maximum!
The casualties on Nicolay Bach’s side were staggering. Only a scant few fighting fit experts remained of the over two hundred that came. Even the five elites were injured to varying degrees!
"A chance!"
It was not clear which mysterious expert had lent a hand, causing the black dragon to pause for a moment, but such an opening was something that the five elites would not miss!
Three substantial beams of 10-zhang-long sword and knife rays flashed across the sky, hacking unhesitatingly towards the black dragon’s open wound!
The two mages behind also took the chance to unleash a forbidden spell each! A small fire dragon and a similar ice dragon burst out of each one’s staff as they flew toward the heavily injured black dragon!
"ROAR!!!"
The black dragon shook its body with all its might in an attempt to rip the hook out of its body. However, the thing that was broken was not the mystical hook and line, but an entire patch of its scales!
The reason it came off was because it was near the terrible open wound and so was not secure! Even so, based on this alone, it was obvious how freakishly strong the silk-thin fishing line was!