Chapter 743: The Food Chain Law of the Dragon Mountain Range!
Locke's dragon eyes went wide.
The world had turned upside down.
A creditor daring to try to kill the wizard who owed him money.
Where was the justice in that?
At this moment, he kept flying backward through the sky, while the planar dragons hanging inverted above lowered their dragon eyes, utterly indifferent, as though observing something no one else could see.
"There is nothing else for it. I will have to forcibly fly upward and shake off Wizard Kelt."
Locke thought to himself, "There are wyverns in the sky above. As long as I can get into the wyvern swarm, perhaps I can lose him there."
Locke beat his wings and was just about to ascend, when suddenly a surge of black wind burst forth from within his wings. Then, from his entire body, at least half of it, black wind began blowing outward.
His flesh, dragon muscle, dragon scales, dragon bone, all of it was being eroded and dissolved by this black wind blowing from within his body.
"Ah..."
Locke let out a pained cry, releasing a dragon roar. The phantom formed from his demon dragon bloodline essence behind him was only half a dragon, the other half entirely incomplete.
As the Sun-Herding Dragon's bloodline was burned away, the demon dragon phantom gradually grew more complete, representing the gradual restoration of his bloodline power.
The severed road was beginning to reveal the path that should have been there all along.
But even so, these three demon dragon bloodlines were still incomplete, only half a dragon's worth.
At this moment, under the howling of the black wind, half of the dragon's body was instantly reduced to nothing, blown apart by the wind.
His current appearance had come to resemble the demon dragon phantom behind him.
Even Wizard Kelt was stunned, because his vetiver divine sword had been on the verge of piercing Locke's dragon heart. But in that instant, half of the dragon's body had been blown away by the black wind, and it happened to be the left half.
The dragon heart was on the left side.
With the dragon body blown away in an instant, the dragon heart was suddenly left floating in midair on Locke's left.
And that surge of black wind blew directly toward Wizard Kelt.
Faced with the black wind, a Water Cloud Barrier automatically appeared around Wizard Kelt, but the outer layer of the barrier was immediately stripped away by the black wind.
Then the black wind, like countless tiny blades that could penetrate anywhere, bored into his limbs and flesh and bones.
"Ah!"
Wizard Kelt let out a cry of pain as well.
Wizard Kelt was dumbfounded.
"What is happening?"
"How does this dragon have so many pitfalls waiting for me to stumble into?"
The black wind was terrifying. In an instant it had devastated Wizard Kelt's body considerably. Only the spell pattern resembling a Water Cloud Barrier that appeared on the surface of his skin protected his body, preventing it from disintegrating the way Locke's dragon body had in an instant.
At this moment, Wizard Kelt's face was encased in a shell formed from the mixture of a Water Cloud Barrier spell model and spell patterns, though the shell was covered in cracks, and his body lay behind those cracks.
"If it were not for my magic pressure shell, my entire body would have been blown away by that wind in that single instant. No wait, that wind has a powerful destructive effect even against souls, otherwise it could not have left my magic pressure shell covered in cracks."
Black-violet magic pressure seeped out from the cracks in the magic pressure shell on Wizard Kelt's surface, leaking into the air around him.
For one brief moment, Wizard Kelt felt a threat to his life.
Because that wind was not toying with him. After blowing cracks into the surface of his magic pressure shell, it was still pushing further into the cracks, trying to penetrate his flesh and his soul and destroy everything about him entirely.
Wizard Kelt was so frightened his entire body went rigid. "Could it be that this wretched dragon is trying to take me down with it, which is why it used this technique?"
"How can a human body compare in hardness to a dragon's body? Without the protection of my magic pressure shell, my body would be destroyed at a speed that would certainly surpass the rate at which that dragon's body was being destroyed."
At this moment, Locke himself was in a terrible state. He plummeted from the sky and barely managed to stand on the ground below.
Half his body had been destroyed in an instant.
Were it not for the fact that this body was essentially a free replacement, this would have been the most dangerous moment of his life in the wizard world.
He was only one step away from outright death.
He was clinging to survival solely through the dragon's formidable vitality, and even now he could not cling on for long.
Because the strange black wind that had inexplicably begun emerging from the pores on his skin surface was still blowing outward, assailing his dragon pearl, dragon soul, dragon bones, dragon blood, dragon flesh, dragon spirituality, and dragon magical power, intending to destroy all seven dragon treasures together.
In other words, leaving not even bones or ash behind.
Locke immediately realized something was wrong. He used meditation techniques to look inward, searching for the origin of the black wind.
He searched throughout the interior of his body but could not find the black wind's source anywhere.
The entire black wind appeared to be born from within his body itself.
But in the end, through meditative introspection, Locke discovered that the black wind was emerging from within his sea of consciousness.
Within his sea of consciousness, in addition to the spell model of the Self-Consciousness Star System, a wind tunnel had appeared.
That wind tunnel sat directly beneath his Self-Consciousness Star System spell model and was blasting a surge of black wind outward. That black wind was not only intent on blowing away all seven dragon treasures from his body, but was also directed toward his spell model star system chart.
If it succeeded, even if he managed to survive, all of his magical levels would be destroyed in one stroke.
He would have to start over from the very beginning.
From a first-class wizard apprentice all over again.
Because within that star system chart, all other things aside, the Jupiter representing his permanent defensive force field and the asteroid belt position representing his Grand Magic were what signified his First Circle and Second Circle levels respectively.
Once blown away, he would be left with only roughly the peak magical power of a first-class wizard apprentice.
And that black wind was continuously battering the star system chart within his sea of consciousness, possessing the characteristics of penetrating any gap, emerging from within, and dispersing everything in its path.
And so it truly could blow away his star system chart.
"This is an attack targeting the sea of consciousness," Locke thought.
"This is... a shackle. A bloodline shackle. The demon dragon's shackle."
Within the sea of consciousness, the half-remaining demon dragon bloodline had a Peach Bow Thorn Arrow lodged in its forehead. This was the arrow that Witch Yekaterina had lent Locke.
Back when he had accepted the Sacred Dragon's inheritance, and when the demon dragon bloodline had been breaking through to the First Circle stage, the incomplete demon dragon had exhibited a tendency toward self-destruction.
It was his teacher who had shot an arrow of transformation into his demon dragon bloodline, causing it to stop its self-destruction.
But at this moment, the arrow was loosening.
The demon dragon bloodline's eyes flickered, as though it wanted to break free and destroy itself again.
But then the divine dragon's power appeared on the jujube arrow shaft, pressing deeper into the demon dragon's forehead and suppressing its suicidal impulse once more.
Locke's expression became grave. "I should have realized this long ago."
"When the demon dragon bloodline was completing itself at the First Circle stage, it already exhibited self-destructive tendencies. At the time I thought it was a characteristic of this bloodline, that the World-Annihilating Demon Dragon lineage did not permit imperfection."
"But thinking about it now, I was wrong. The black wind blowing from within my body is a forbidden seal. This is something that absolutely forbids a wild dragon, or some kind of existence, from tracing back to the true complete demon dragon bloodline."
"This is a prohibition against anyone becoming a true demon dragon. No, that thought is incorrect. This is a prohibition against anyone re-acquiring the demon dragon bloodline through bloodline tracing and independent evolution. But whoever placed this thought through such calculated design, setting the trap of the incomplete demon dragon bloodline self-destructing when advancing through the First Circle, and also setting the trap of the demon dragon bloodline producing strange black wind when advancing through the Second Circle."
"Such thorough and airtight prevention. What is the purpose of all this?"
Locke's expression was grave as he looked at the wind tunnel that had appeared within his soul. He knew that if he could not get past this obstacle, he would truly have to start over from scratch.
Although he was currently only about twenty-three, approaching twenty-four, and still young, starting over would still cause him enormous harm.
Especially now, when his commercial competition with Solas Light Foot and other shop alliances was at its most intense.
Locke looked at the wind tunnel within his sea of consciousness and attempted to construct spell models to block the wind blowing out of it.
But nothing worked.
What could he do?
At this moment, on the Dragon Mountain Range, the two Third Circle wizards' spells were still clashing, the apocalyptic magic pressure bearing down on everyone from above.
Witch Yekaterina glanced at the Sun-Herding Dragon, a flicker of mild surprise in her eyes, and then looked toward the Rose Witch with an expressionless face.
The Rose Witch smiled with a look that was somewhere between amusement and indifference.
"How pitiful, that dragon. You see, unable to see clearly what it truly is, whether human or dragon. If a person does not even know who they are, they will certainly never do the right thing."
"Esther, you belong to your teacher."
Esther's lips were ashen. At this moment, the Peach Mountain was bearing down on her, trying to seal her, while the rose storm was working to block the Peach Mountain and stop her from being sealed.
But she herself was caught at the epicenter of the colliding magic pressures of two Third Circle Throne Wizards, which caused the cracks in her magic pressure shell to multiply and her Grand Magic to fall into disarray.
The Rose Witch gave Witch Yekaterina a provocative look.
"Katya, if this continues, Esther is going to die. If she dies, will you have no regrets?"
Witch Yekaterina showed no intention of stopping whatsoever.
"There are only two outcomes today. First, she stays. Second, she dies."
"Anna, you know how I do things. I will not allow her to leave alive. You may take her if you wish. I permit it. In the form of a corpse."
The Rose Witch studied Witch Yekaterina, saw that she was not bluffing, and instead broke into a smile, feeling completely reassured.
The Rose Witch looked toward Esther with a contemplative gaze.
"Esther, it seems your many years of friendship with the Red Dragon Throne cannot save your life after all. The Red Dragon Throne is cold-natured by temperament. Everyone is nothing more than a piece on her board."
"Your teacher wants to save you. But it is a pity. She will not give me the opportunity."
Esther's face was pale. She summoned a peach tree, and under her spell, that peach tree rapidly transformed from a newly planted sapling into an ancient tree.
The peach tree grew larger and larger, ring after ring of growth added to it.
The Rose Witch's gaze shifted with a flash of sudden intense interest. For her, Esther's greatest value lay precisely in this one ability.
Dendrology.
That was right. What Esther had gone to Golden Crown Mountain to study was dendrology. Her primary work in Group Three had been researching how to rapidly increase the growth rings of tree-type magical plants.
The most important element within dendrology was precisely the use of increasing growth rings to advance the age of a magical plant.
Because among Second Circle and First Circle tree-type magical plants, a large number required a specific number of years to mature, a number that could be a hundred years, two hundred years, and some Second Circle tree-type magical plants even required five hundred years of growth and maturation before they could be used.
And the primary tree-type magical plant material selected for the Rose Witch's love ring project was peach tree-type magical plants of a specific age.
But this also raised a problem.
The Rose Academy was actually less proficient in dendrology compared to Golden Crown Mountain.
And so she had set Esther in motion as a contingency, using this early activation to acquire for herself the dendrology master that Witch Yekaterina had cultivated over a hundred years, specifically the sun ring wizard Esther.
Esther possessed dendrology at the cutting-edge level of the Cloud Marsh Wetlands.
In truth, from the very beginning, the Rose Witch had seen that Esther was someone extremely well-suited to go to Golden Crown Mountain to study, someone with the potential to become the finest genius Golden Crown Mountain had to offer.
Whereas within the Rose Council, she would always be stuck somewhere in the middle.
The Rose Witch considered her own greatest ability to be not her magical research, but her ability to read people.
She possessed the gift of recognizing talent.
The Rose Witch smiled to herself. Only, since Esther had grown and developed entirely within Golden Crown Mountain, if she was not made to defect and completely sever ties with her former institution, she could not fully trust Esther.
Of course, the early activation this time had also been somewhat forced on her.
The main reason was Wizard Jack, that fence-sitter from the Root Crown Court, who, seeing Golden Crown Mountain's growing power and losing all principle in pursuit of profit, had betrayed her, leaving her caught off guard.
Witch Yekaterina looked at Esther with a cold expression, killing intent in her eyes.
On the other side, Witch Lana and Witch Nina were being buffeted and thrown off balance by the intense magic pressure clash between the two Thrones.
Witch Nina said, "Does the Red Dragon Throne truly intend to kill Esther? Although I am not fond of traitors either, but..."
"Yes. Regardless of how many layers of protection the Rose Throne has wrapped around her, betrayal is still betrayal. If she is killed now, it would amount to nothing more than paying some compensation to settle the matter."
"The White Wizard Association could not say anything about it."
"It would only mean writing more reports and dealing with some tedious paperwork."
Witch Lana said, "Besides, Esther is now covered in wounds, making this the easiest moment to kill her. Otherwise, at her full strength, even for a Third Circle Throne to kill a sun ring wizard, it would not be this simple."
Witch Lana glanced in Locke's direction.
"Why does that dragon give me a feeling of familiarity? What is wrong with me? How can I, walking along out here, feel as though I have prior acquaintance with a dragon?"
"It is just some strange dragon from the Dragon Mountain Range."
Witch Lana pointed in Locke's direction and said, "That dragon is so strange. Its bloodline is complicated enough, but from within its body a whirlwind is actually surging out."
"That is the wind of the Vortex Abyss Great World."
"The Vortex Abyss Great World is in the most distant reaches of the infinite void. How could that world's whirlwind appear here?"
"The whirlwind is like a droplet of water. It blows into every part of a person. A wizard once fell into a whirlwind and was only trapped for one hour, yet in the end both body and soul vanished completely."
"The whirlwind penetrates everything and enters every gap. Once caught up in it, both body and soul will be corroded by that special wind. No matter how powerful a spell model, no matter how ancient a bloodline power, under that wind's influence, everything is reduced to nothing."
Witch Lana let out a sigh.
"And that dragon is blowing the whirlwind from within its own body. Clearly it is finished. Were it not for the whirlwind being too dangerous and the Third Circle wizards' battle being so fierce, I would have gone to investigate."
However, since this was not her area of study, her interest was naturally limited.
Witch Lana said with regret, "What a shame. My garden is missing a pet. I was quite fond of that dragon just now, and somehow felt a connection to it. I wanted to bring it back and keep it in my garden. But that chance seems to be gone now."
Witch Nina said, "Lana, if you like it, you can simply buy one that looks similar in the market."
On the other side, Wizard Cis also looked toward the whirlwind, his brow immediately furrowing. "This is a problem. A whirlwind of all things. And Kelt has even been caught in it."
In the next moment, an even more alarming development occurred for Wizard Cis and the others, because the Sun-Herding Dragon suddenly used its dragon claws to grab Wizard Kelt's hand, preventing him from leaving.
Wizard Cis and the others were immediately startled.
But because of the whirlwind's special nature, no one dared rashly approach it at this moment.
At this moment, Wizard Kelt, with the wind battering his face and the surface of his magic pressure shell cracking bit by bit, called out, "You foolish dragon, let go of me now."
"Quickly!"
The skin on his face was deforming layer by layer.
And how could Locke possibly let go? Because he had noticed something. The black wind blowing out of the wind tunnel was finite in quantity.
And that black wind had a special characteristic, which was that it penetrated everything. So as long as he grabbed Wizard Kelt, the black wind would naturally divert a portion of itself toward Wizard Kelt as well.
This gave him a thread of hope.
Without Wizard Kelt to absorb a share of the black wind, his Sun-Herding Dragon body would already have been completely blown apart.
And at this moment, the majority of the black wind within his body was actually transferring toward Wizard Kelt.
Wonderful.
Because for some reason, Wizard Kelt was far more resistant than he was, and so the black wind, in its effort to break him down, was continuously transferring from him toward Kelt.
Locke surmised that this wind possessed the characteristic of destroying everything within a single connected system. And so it would destroy everything linked together within that system.
By grabbing Wizard Kelt right now, he had forcibly connected them into a single system.
Of course, whoever had designed this must have intended to use this wind's characteristics to ensure that he would die in the process of advancing the demon dragon bloodline from the First Circle to the Second Circle. But they had not anticipated that, precisely because this wind possessed the force and compulsion to destroy an entire system, it had ended up saving him instead.
Wizard Kelt's expression changed drastically as well.
"What kind of wind is this? You foolish dragon. This is bad. The wind is continuously transferring toward me!"
Locke released a dragon roar, and in that moment he surprisingly found his strength partially restored, which allowed him to regain the ability to fly.
Locke let out what seemed like a distress signal toward the Death Dragon.
The Death Dragon, which had been preparing to retreat, turned its head toward him under Locke's astonished gaze, as though hesitating over something.
After observing Locke's wretched state for a moment, it then performed an action that left even Locke feeling a pang of shame.
The Death Dragon, in response to Locke's dragon roar, turned and flew toward him.
Locke was completely stunned.
Was there camaraderie among dragon-kind?
That actually worked?
Meanwhile, Wizard Kelt, his expression dark, stuffed all of the whirlwind into his Grand Magic, the Serene Prairie.
Wizard Kelt discovered something at this moment that gave him a mixed sense of relief. His Serene Prairie was at its core a Grand Magic that caused a vast magical plant grassland to grow in a barren, nearly waterless, and low-magic environment, and then gradually improved the surrounding moisture and magical tide conditions.
This Grand Magic was built on the foundation of vetiver grass's characteristic of being able to harness wind energy to produce some magical resources.
Before entering Golden Crown Mountain, the cycle of this Grand Magic's wind energy conversion into resources had been somewhat incomplete.
Because wind was not something that could always be guaranteed to be present. If there was no wind, how would the energy cycle sustain itself?
If it was placed in an environment with constant wind, and if the wind's intensity varied greatly, the disruption to the entire energy system would be unacceptably high.
The greatest problem Kelt had solved during his twenty years at Golden Crown Mountain was how to deal with wind that fluctuated in strength and came and went unpredictably.
The Serene Prairie, because it planted more than ten varieties of magical grass, possessed a special combination that allowed it to convert all kinds of wind.
At the same time, when there was no wind, the Serene Prairie could make marginal use of the plants' natural function of photosynthesis.
There was even internally a First Circle magical plant combination that used photosynthesis to generate heat differentials, which created gentle air currents and maintained the most basic level of wind the Serene Prairie required.
At this moment, as the whirlwind was driven into the Serene Prairie, rather than collapsing immediately, large patches of grassland withered and died, and then, remarkably, the prairie gradually absorbed the wind and converted it into energy, transforming it into various precious magical resources for the Serene Prairie.
And because the whirlwind's grade was exceptionally high, it actually brought him certain benefits.
Wizard Kelt felt a mix of joy and unease.
"The grade of this wind is actually this high, allowing my Serene Prairie to produce the highest-grade virtual root virtual soil this Grand Magic can currently yield, Condensed Spirit Breath Soil."
"No matter now. All the downsides have already been endured. That wretched foolish dragon, actually trying to take me down with it. It underestimated wizards far too much. I have turned all of that black wind into breath soil."
"That means I have made a considerable profit here. And condensed Spirit Breath soil is the highest-grade soil I can currently produce, which can in turn strengthen my Grand Magic."
Locke observed this and felt not worry but delight.
"So that is it. A Grand Magic can be adapted to do all of this, both fighting enemies and making money? Worthy of a wizard trained at Golden Crown Mountain. There is always a way."
"Good. This gives me a way to survive this tribulation."
Locke looked up, only to see the Death Dragon turn and open its maw toward him. Its meaning was quite clear. It intended to eat him.
Alarm bells rang out immediately in Locke's mind.
He suddenly thought of something. For the Death Dragon, its primary food source consisted of various dragon-kind, though that did not include great dragons as a main source.
But that was only that great dragons were not among the primary food sources.
If it encountered an exceptionally weakened great dragon...
For the Death Dragon, that would be a rare and delectable meal bestowed upon it by the heavens. It had not turned around because it had been lured into saving him. It had turned around because it wanted to eat him.
The strong preying on the weak, survival in the wilderness, this was the food chain law of the Dragon Mountain Range.
Locke's dragon pupils contracted sharply. He immediately deployed the Second Circle bloodline school universal spell model, Burn to Cinders, burning all the energy in his body and reaching the peak of his power in an instant. Then he hurled himself directly into the Death Dragon's tail.
The Death Dragon was startled by Locke's sudden burst of ferocity.
Was it not nearly dead?
What was this?
In the next moment, Locke used every last ounce of his strength to bite down hard on the Death Dragon's tail, leaving a bite mark, and then with every remaining bit of power he had, like a dragon drill press, drove his dragon head into the Death Dragon's continent-sized body, bit open a wound, and bored his way inside.
The Death Dragon was instantly furious. That wretched, injured, nearly-dead foolish dragon had bored into its tail like a parasite.
Aaaarrgh!