Chapter 49: Demon Dragon

Chapter 49: Black Dragon

Shen Lian's scalp tingled, but he quickly forced himself to calm down and surreptitiously palmed a handful of pills.

As the black dragon charged at him, Shen Lian hurled them straight at it.

The Demon Dragon swallowed them in one gulp, then crunched them up like M&M's.

Shen Lian: "..."

He shouldn't have crushed that scroll—why didn't he just let Yan Huaixuan take the hit for him?

While Shen Lian was thinking, the Demon Dragon had already grown impatient, opening its jaws to take another bite.

Shen Lian immediately channeled his spiritual energy and fell back.

He'd planned to handle this Demon Dragon the same way he'd handled the croc beast last time—both were huge and looked slow.

But Shen Lian had been way too optimistic.

This Demon Dragon wasn't just fast—it could breathe fire, too.

When that searing, apocalyptic blue-black flame came straight at his face, for a second, he thought his soul would get fried.

Then Chen Xue suddenly flared with spiritual power and threw herself in front of him. "Master!"

After blocking the blast, Chen Xue went completely dull and dropped.

Shen Lian caught her mid-air and bolted.

Outside, Yan Huaixuan, who'd been standing there like a statue, suddenly frowned.

The Dao Companion Contract in his head was flashing red—Shen Lian's life was in serious danger.

Yan Huaixuan immediately drew his sword and headed straight for Shen Lian.

Shen Lian had been running for god knows how long, his hair singed and crispy at the ends.

Then he remembered something and pulled the roasted demon beast meat from his storage ring.

He'd read plenty of cultivation novels—stories where the MC tames a vicious beast by feeding it.

Shen Lian gritted his teeth, took a gamble, spun around, and chucked the meat into the Demon Dragon's mouth.

The Demon Dragon had its mouth open to torch him, but after chomping down on the meat, it paused, crunched twice, and swallowed.

Then its green, slit-pupiled eyes lit right up.

Shen Lian's eyes lit up. Did that actually work?

The next second, the Demon Dragon blasted fire at him again with zero expression.

Shen Lian gritted his teeth, muttered a curse, and kept running.

But his cultivation was way too low—he couldn't last much longer, and this beast was at least at the Spirit Transformation stage.

Plus, Shen Lian could tell the thing could easily catch him—it just didn't. It was playing with him on purpose.

Shen Lian's eyes went bloodshot.

Eventually, the thing seemed to get bored. Its tail whipped around and snagged Shen Lian's leg.

Shen Lian got yanked straight to the ground.

It let out a cold snort, its huge eyes locked on Shen Lian, dripping with malice and cruelty.

It didn't eat him—it just deliberately dragged him along.

It alternated between flying and running along the ground.

All Shen Lian could feel was the searing burn of his back and skull scraping across the ground—he might've lost a layer of skin.

Shen Lian gritted through the pain and shoved two Qi-restoring pills and two healing pills into his mouth.

He had no idea how long he got dragged before the Demon Dragon finally stopped.

It turned to look at him. Shen Lian immediately shut his eyes, playing dead.

Honestly, he was just about out cold anyway. He figured he might die, but for some reason, something in his chest kept pulsing energy through his body.

The energy was cool and clear—and somehow familiar.

Seeing Shen Lian half-dead, the Demon Dragon finally took off, no longer bothering to drag him.

Shen Lian slowly opened his eyes and realized he'd been brought to a lair.

Then he felt the tail around his leg let go.

But he kept his eyes shut, because he could feel the dragon leaning in again.

Shen Lian held his breath.

But he didn't expect the dragon to just bite his arm out of nowhere.

A sharp, searing pain shot up his arm. He clenched his jaw, still refusing to open his eyes.

His gut told him this dragon was probably going to feed him something.

Otherwise, it would've eaten him by now.

This time, Shen Lian's gamble paid off.

Once it confirmed he was just about dead, the dragon bit into his abdomen.

Shen Lian cracked one eye open and found himself dangling over a pitch-black pit. The Demon Dragon let go, and he dropped.

Shen Lian twisted mid-air, using the last of his strength to shield his head. The moment he hit the ground, it felt like every bone in his body shattered.

He looked up—just a faint glimmer of light above. Below him was damp dirt, and all around was darkness so thick he couldn't see a thing.

Suddenly, Shen Lian heard breathing to his left.

He cut his eyes to the side and saw a small Demon Dragon.

No explanation needed—the eyes were identical in color and shape.

It was the big one's kid.

The moment it saw him, the little Demon Dragon charged at him, all excited.

Shen Lian kept playing dead.

The huge demon dragon overhead still hadn't left.

Only when it saw the little demon dragon chomping on Shen Lian's calf and getting no reaction did it flap its wings once and pull its head back.

The little demon dragon dug in even more eagerly, ripping off a chunk of meat and gulping it down after a couple of quick chews.

It never even noticed that the human lying there had quietly opened his eyes.

Shen Lian watched the demon dragon chewing on his calf with a cold, almost indifferent look.

He slowly clenched his hand around Chen Xue.

Once the little demon dragon had eaten the whole calf and started moving up his leg, Shen Lian took advantage of its distraction and jammed Chen Xue up into the soft underside of its belly.

He'd found this weak spot while fighting the big demon dragon.

The dragon's belly was soft, with no scales at all.

Sure enough, the whole blade of Chen Xue went straight through, and the little demon dragon let out a shriek right away.

His eyes hardened, and he slammed his head into the little dragon's mouth, pinning it against the wall.

Blood streamed down Shen Lian's face.

His eyes burned with a mix of excitement and icy coldness.

He shoved hard and split the little dragon's belly wide open, guts spilling everywhere, even all over Shen Lian himself.

The little dragon hit the ground, still trying to open its mouth. Shen Lian, face blank, grabbed a rock and smashed it into the dragon's head.

He kept smashing it, over and over, for what felt like forever.

Only when the flesh was a bloody mess did Shen Lian finally sit down.

Shen Lian took a deep breath and let out a cold laugh at the dragon's corpse.

But doing all that had completely drained him.

Just as Shen Lian was about to collapse, for some reason, staring at the dragon's still-beating heart, a fierce hunger surged inside him.

He wanted... to eat it so badly.

The longer he looked, the stronger the urge grew. Shen Lian dragged himself over, dug out the heart, and found a clear blue orb inside.

He'd heard demonic beasts had inner cores—was this one?

Once he pulled the core out, the heart stopped beating.

A piercing, grief-stricken roar suddenly rang out from above.

Shen Lian looked up—it was the massive demon dragon.

The demon dragon's eyes were bloodshot and bulging with rage, its roar nearly shaking the sky, as it locked onto the inner core in Shen Lian's hand.

But Shen Lian felt a deep sense of payback.

Right in front of the demon dragon, he curled his lips into a faint smile, then absorbed the inner core on the spot.

After absorbing it, Shen Lian opened his hand, and a puff of powder scattered into the air.

He didn't care what would happen to a cultivator who absorbed a demonic beast's inner core.

He only wanted to take revenge on the dragon before him.

Every suffering it had inflicted on him would be repaid a thousandfold.

Seeing its child's demon core absorbed, the demon dragon charged straight down without a second thought.