The intense airflow whistled in Balthazar’s ears, and as his altitude continued to rise and the distance closed, that black domain gradually occupied his entire field of vision.
The wind here seemed heavier than elsewhere, even carrying a strange, fishy smell like rust.
The temperature in the air dropped sharply, but for Balthazar, who possessed the constitution of a Ferro-Dragon, this cold instead made his scales tighten, entering a more sensitive combat state.
With a deafening sonic boom, the huge black dragon body broke through the last layer of mist shrouded on the periphery of the mountain range.
What appeared before his eyes was not a chaotic pile of rocks.
It was a suffocating, continuous black mountain ridge.
Its trajectory was strange and twisted, and the texture of the rocks was not formed by natural weathering, but presented a kind of stringy shape as if muscle fibers had instantly petrified.
Huge black stone pillars pierced the clouds, some even curved into arcs, like the exposed ribs of some giant creature.
Balthazar hovered in mid-air, his dark red slit pupils contracting violently.
As the distance got closer and closer, his Mineral Vein Perception became crazy at this moment.
In his sensory world, the black mountain in front of him was not a mountain range that appeared from stones and minerals through years of crustal movement.
It was a huge, high-level aggregate containing endless magic, a kind of ancient and sacred substance in a dormant state.
He descended slowly and landed on a seemingly flat black platform.
“Thud.”
The moment his heavy dragon claws touched the ground, there was no crisp sound of rock shattering, but a dull echo similar to hitting solid metal.
Balthazar lowered his head, stuck out his moist and flexible long tongue, and licked the cold, biting black ground.
A spicy, ancient, and tyrannical flavor exploded on his taste buds instantly.
The taste was mixed with iron, sulfur, and some kind of corrupted divinity buried deep underground for ten thousand years.
“[What is this place?]”
He lowered his head, nostrils close to the pitch-black surface, and took a deep breath.
There was no smell of rotting corpses, nor the fishy smell of dangerous monsters, only a kind of dust smell so ancient it was almost void, and a trace of extremely pure male power residue that made the dragon blood in his body slightly restless.
An inexplicable resonance.
This feeling was very strange; Balthazar instinctively felt that this was like facing an ancient giant beast that had died for countless epochs, its soul had dissipated, and only its shell had turned into the earth.
“[There is no… killing intent.]”
Balthazar raised his head, his dark red slit pupils scanning this endless stretch of black undulations.
Those so-called “no return” cases were either due to the dangerous forest and swamp terrain here, or they had lost their way in this maze-like complex mountain range and ended up trapped to death in these valleys.
“[But this, what exactly is this?]”
Balthazar understood that there was no danger here, but the confusion in his heart did not decrease.
“[Perhaps Olga would know the identity of this corpse…]”
“[What an enviable intuition, my Majesty, to be able to tell at a glance that this is a corpse.]”
A low, soft, and sarcastic laugh with electrical noise rang in his mind.
At this moment, Olga’s voice carried a kind of pleasure, as if she were showing stolen goods to an accomplice.
“[That’s right, what you are stepping on is exactly the ‘Father God’ that the Dark Elves worship day and night and regard as sacred and inviolable… or rather, the physical body he left in this world.]”
Balthazar did not interrupt her, his huge dragon head slightly lowered, his dark red slit pupils staring at the texture under his feet that looked like petrified muscle fibers, waiting for an explanation.
“[A long, long time ago… so long ago that even those old stubborn fools rotting in the Dark Elves’ hometown, Nidavellir, can’t remember, the ancient era, this planet was still a wild land with only seawater.]”
Olga’s voice became distant, as if chanting an inglorious epic.
“[Two giants descended from above the sky. That great male giant, who is the owner of this corpse, arrogantly and proudly believed that ‘discovery is possession’ and wanted to rule this land; while that female giant foolishly thought that one should be kind-hearted, believing that the land should belong to the life inhabiting it.]”
“[So the two sides with different positions started a great war, and in the end, both perished, eventually turning into this continent.]”
Balthazar raised his claw, sparks flying on this black “skin”.
Under the gaze of his dragon eyes, the hardness of the rock even exceeded ordinary refined steel.
“[Listen well, Balthazar.]” Olga’s tone suddenly became sharp, revealing a strong sense of contempt, “[Those goblins, orcs,… even your current body, all evolved from a part of this male giant’s body.]”
“[This is why you feel resonance, because this is the source of your bloodline, the hotbed of ‘evil’.]”
“[And we, the noble Dark Elves…]” She laughed at herself, “[We were born from that majestic giant’s brain matter. We inherited his wisdom, magic, and the arrogance to want to rule everything, born as powerful beings, with power surpassing humans, monsters, and even those white-skinned High Elves.]”
“[But so what? My fellow sisters are all addicted to the comfortable life of the luxurious capital of their hometown and are afraid to approach this great relic.]” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“[The immortal body and the prosperity and pleasure that can last forever brought by powerful strength make them, apart from cruelly teasing low-level monsters, engage in intrigues with other sisters, playing conspiracy games that will not cause each other’s death, without any ambition.]”
Olga’s voice at this moment carried a bit of disappointment.
Balthazar could feel that she had previously loathed the rotten, stagnant ideological environment of the Dark Elves, and now she even held a grudge against this group of sisters who were heartless to her.
Balthazar raised his head and looked deeper into the north.
Extending from the north side of the mountain range, what met the eye was an ice field, and the weather was an endless snowstorm.
The harsh natural environment made anyone who wanted to attack the hometown of the Dark Elves retreat.
But presumably, for the Dark Elves who possess immortal bodies, rely on years of magical practice, and use powerful magic, this is a precious hometown that can isolate all troubles, and it is also a cradle they never want to step out of.
Olga’s tone changed, becoming sharp and mean.
“[The best among my stupid sisters… ha, they live in the palace of the Dark Elves’ hometown ‘Nidavellir’, bowing down to those two huge ball-shaped caves all day, and even worshiping a spring of clear water there as a sacred object.]”
“[Even now, I want to laugh when I think about it, because that was just the residue of the Father God’s excretory organs, they cherish it so much, but they are afraid of the place where this great corpse you see before you has the most remains, even thinking it is a blasphemy to touch it, regarding this place as a forbidden area.]”
“[Dragon, can you understand what kind of cowardice and superstition this is?]”
As Olga narrated, Balthazar could feel the disdain and fanaticism in the woman’s emotions.
“[For these thousands of years, I have often wandered alone in this black mountain range. Since it is the legacy left by my father, as a daughter, isn’t it natural to inherit and use it?]”
“[I sharpen my magic on these hard ‘ribs’, and I have meditated for a hundred years in the crevices of these ‘muscles’ full of divinity.]”
“[Only by taking this power for one’s own is the greatest respect for the arrogant Father God who plundered everything, rather than like those idiots who only know how to shrink in the comfortable capital of Nidavellir and engage in intrigues, kowtowing to a pile of dead meat!]”
Under Balthazar’s heavy dragon claws, the rock-hard black rock layer was sending out bursts of ancient and dull pulses.
Balthazar stood quietly on the back of this thing called the “Father God’s Remains”, his dark red slit pupils narrowed slightly, penetrating the biting snowstorm that never dissipated in the north, as if he could see the Dark Elf capital that was golden on the outside but rotten on the inside, as Olga described.
And in Balthazar’s mind, Olga’s voice, carrying self-mockery and bone-deep hatred, was still echoing.
“[Once… I naively thought that as long as I could become the chosen candidate, as long as I could bathe in that so-called ‘Holy Spring’ and conceive the most powerful offspring… I could gain enough voice.]”
The voice at the other end of the link became low, with a tremor; that was the embers after the dream was shattered.
“[I originally wanted to use that sacred prestige to gently change that rotten society, to wake up those sisters who were addicted to pleasure… even a little bit would be fine.]”
“[But… ha!]”
Olga let out a shrill, cold laugh, full of self-loathing for her past stupidity.
“[When I was thrown here by them like garbage, when my call for help in despair was met only with their cold indifference… that naive Olga was already dead.]”
“[Since ‘kindness’ cannot save that country, then let me use ‘fear’ and ‘destruction’ to reshape it.]”
“[Eat, Balthazar.]”
The Queen’s voice finally turned into a cold and firm command, the fanaticism of a sacrificer.
“This is the feast I have prepared for you. Devour this shell of a god, consume this power that they regard as taboo!”
“Then… we must first crush that vermin called ‘Black Dogs,’ and then trample those seven fortresses the southern humans are so proud of underfoot!”
“Finally… when you are crowned the Steel Dragon Emperor, I will take this invincible power and slaughter my way back to the north. I will drag out all those bitches molding in their comfort zone and let them see with their own eyes how the ‘taboo’ they fear turns their ‘holy land,’ which they are so proud of, into ashes!”
Listening to this blood-soaked grand blueprint, the corners of Balthazar’s mouth stretched wider and wider on his ferocious dragon face until he revealed a mouthful of fangs as sharp as daggers.
“Very well…” He muttered to himself, his voice raspy like two pieces of rough cast iron grinding violently against each other.
“Revenge… is… the best… spice.”
Balthazar lowered his head abruptly, his dragon snout covered in hard scales opening without hesitation, and bit down hard on the protruding black rock beneath his feet that resembled fossilized muscle fibers.
“Crunch—!!!” A tooth-aching, crisp sound resounded across the mountaintop.
The biting force capable of snapping refined steel erupted at this moment, and a large chunk of the “God’s Body,” whose hardness far exceeded ordinary ore, was forcibly torn off by him.
There was no dust from shattered rock; instead, wisps of viscous, black-gold radiance like mercury seeped from the fracture.
“Gulp.” Balthazar raised his neck and swallowed the hard piece of “God’s Flesh,” which contained tyrannical energy, into his belly.
In an instant, an indescribable sensation of scorching heat exploded in his stomach.
That was not food; it was pure high-level energy, fragments of authority left over from the primordial era.
His [Metal Digestion] was running wildly at this moment, the dragon blood in his body boiling and roaring as if ignited, and every scale emitted an excited metallic ringing under the scouring of this power.
“Delicious…” Balthazar exhaled a puff of hot air carrying sparks, his dark red pupils trembling violently from extreme pleasure. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
This taste far exceeded the treasures of the City of Darkness and the scraps of mithril ore he had eaten before.
The huge gap was like the difference between fast food or convenience food and the highest-end, most exquisite juicy steak and salad.
And this gap brought about accelerated physical development and a comprehensive improvement in attributes.
Body Size: 5 meters in length, 2 meters in shoulder height.
HP: 250 / 250 (+30 Endurance bonus).
Stamina: 110 / 110 (+30 limit).
Mana: 135 / 150 (+30 limit, replenished by eating).
Strength: 18 (+3).
Agility: 8 (+3).
Endurance: 21 (+3).
Intelligence: 8 (+3).
Perception: 10 (+3).
As he devoured, a surge of energy exploding from his stomach flowed like a violent torrent, scouring through his spine to his limbs and bones, causing dull sounds of bone growth at the roots of his claws, and his originally three-meter-long torso visibly bulged and widened.
The dark iron-colored scales covering his entire body became thicker and wider, with each edge flashing with saw-toothed cold light.
Especially the spines on his back, which evolved from original bony protrusions into black crystal material as sharp as spears, extending all the way to the end of that tail which had become thicker and more powerful.
Balthazar’s dark iron-colored scales rubbed violently against the black rock layer, emitting a harsh ringing sound like high-frequency electric current sliding across a steel plate.
He abruptly folded his wings, suppressing the overflowing mana in his throat.
His originally dark red vertical pupils turned into a near-pure black depth due to the excessively full power, and even tiny electric sparks overflowed from the edges of his pupils.
This pleasure of being reshaped at the cellular level made the Young Dragon’s muscles twist and twitch constantly.
He paced back and forth on the black platform, enduring the burning in his stomach, and every heavy step left deep claw marks on the surface of the “God’s Flesh,” which was harder than refined steel.
Meanwhile, in the migration team that had arrived at the foot of the Black Mountain, Olga was gripping the armrests of her palanquin tightly, her knuckles turning pale from excessive force.
Through that tight mental link, she could clearly feel the explosive increase in power within Balthazar, like a tsunami.
That was a great power she had never felt before, belonging to the ancient giants, sufficient to change the world.
At this moment, these powers were continuously being transmitted into Olga’s mind through Balthazar’s thoughts.
“Hoo… ha…” The Queen panted heavily, sweat sliding down her honey-colored neck into her tattered neckline.
A twisted ecstasy flashed in her amber eyes; this feeling made her tremble more than any aphrodisiac magic.
“That’s right… that’s it, my Majesty. Eat him, devour him, take revenge for me!”
She pulled open the palanquin curtain, ignoring the biting cold wind outside and the terrified gazes of the Kobolds, and looked up at the black shadow on the mountaintop that was constantly growing larger and exuding terrifying pressure.
Her voice drifted in the wind, carrying a kind of near-pathological tenderness and sacrificial loyalty:
“Even if I am burned to ashes, as long as I can see them crying and screaming in that fire… everything will be worth it!”
Balthazar looked down below.
Due to the instant increase in [Perception], he could even clearly see the tiny beads of sweat on the tip of Olga’s nose, as well as her red lips slightly parted due to excessive excitement.
He flapped his wings violently.
This time, the strong wind pressure blew away all the black mist around the platform.
“Kral… take… your kin… and get up here.”
He turned his head and issued a thunderous decree to the group of Kobolds slumped at the foot of the mountain.
“This place… is no longer… a dead land. This place… is… the starting point… of my empire.”
The leader Kral, wearing that ridiculous skull, was so intimidated by this dragon might mixed with divinity that he rolled his eyes back.
It wasn’t until several male Kobolds behind him used their hands and feet to pinch his philtrum that he woke up from the fear that had almost made him faint.
“Cheep! Cheep-cheep! As you command… supreme… master! Moving! Moving! The whole tribe is moving to the Holy Mountain!”