<155. No Bad Dragons in the World (27)>
Raymond Wong, the "Dragon of Hong Kong," suddenly felt a strange sensation. He couldn't understand why this discomfort was creeping up on him. He couldn't even imagine that a Korean Orc congressman had recently experienced a similar feeling.
He tilted his head in puzzlement before turning to have his employees clear the dining table. The unease quickly vanished.
In a state of satisfied fullness and deep happiness, Raymond forgot about his missing youngest son and the pressure from his associates, lost in the lingering afterglow.
Darkness writhes.
Though the Toad race couldn't see Minjun due to their obstructed vision, Minjun could see them.
He thought about what he had just done.
'Since becoming an inmate, I've never changed bodies until now.'
Unlike other inmates who switched bodies frequently when their assignments changed, Minjun hadn't.
Looking back, except for the dimension where he guarded the Crown Prince, he had always been assigned to dimensions inhabited by humans. He thought there was no need to change his human form because switching souls consumed Talents.
Whoosh!
Minjun saw the darkness rushing around him, thick and deep like mud.
It was like a concentrated essence of the substance that made up the shadow monster. It had broken through the space condensation that the Toad race had deployed to appear here. Asif-1 didn't have the ability to cut through dimensions. What made this phenomenon possible was not the sword itself but the wound it inflicted. Although it's a paradoxical expression, it was true. The power of the sword created the wound, but it was the wound itself that connected the rift to a different dimension, not the material world.
In other words, it was Minjun's body that accomplished this.
However, contrary to his expectations, Talents didn't flow out. Minjun knew that the darkness pouring out endlessly was also a part of him. He also understood that it was his power.
Since he held it in his hand, he might as well wield it.
"Gasp!"
The Toad race was shocked by the suddenly changed view.
Minjun could control the darkness. He could choose what it would conceal and what it would reveal.
As a result, the survivors could now see each other.
And they could also see the inmate standing in the center.
The commander felt like he was going mad. An inexplicable terror surged within him.
'...What is happening?!'
The darkness writhed and crawled in a bizarre shape, its black tongue licking the air as it squirmed. The Toad race felt a discomforting energy under their shells. It was sticky and damp, with a growing sense of foreboding.
Minjun's face showed no clear expression, which made him even more terrifying. The Toads felt a strong urge to wet their dry skin, a different kind of thirst than the one Minjun faced. It was an ancient instinct from the days when their species lived by the water.
Back then, this race would flee into the water when a predator or other unknown danger approached. This instinct was ingrained in their genes, and even now, when they felt threatened, they had the urge to dive into the water.
Minjun looked at them calmly. If they had been more sensitive, they would have noticed the disdain in his gaze. To a race that couldn't read it, Minjun appeared indifferent, as if he had transcended everything.
Finally, he spoke.
"Nuisances that are harmful and can't even be eaten. Annoying."
Whoosh!
The darkness surged.
It was by chance that the writhing darkness, which coalesced into a mass of night, approached the one on the far right. Like a typhoon or an earthquake, there was no particular intention behind it. The agent of the event assigns no special meaning to the outcome. Either that, or they don't feel it.
Minjun's actions were like that. There was no reason or meticulous plan behind him shaking the darkness and targeting the Toad on the far right. To him, all the Toads here were the same.
They were harmful, and if he saw them, he had to kill them.
So Minjun did just that.
"He, he... Aaaagh!"
The Toad reacted instinctively before the roiling darkness. Sometimes, instincts lead even highly intelligent creatures to pointless actions. He retracted his head, arms, and legs into his shell. His smooth torso rolled on the ground. This behavior, evolved to withstand wild attacks, was now useless in modern times. It was similar to how a species that evolved from mammals would puff up their fur in the face of danger.
The darkness split into five tendrils. It then dug into the holes where the head and limbs were hidden.
Soon, a horrific sound echoed.
Crack!
Snap!
Squelch!
The screams stopped almost immediately. What followed was the sound of bones breaking, snapping, and muscles and organs tearing. The broad, round torso shook violently before flipping over. Compared to the shell, the relatively soft belly skin bubbled and boiled. Like bubbles rising to the surface, the skin swelled and subsided repeatedly.
Drip!
Moments later, crushed flesh, organs, and blood began to flow from the five holes. Minjun felt repulsed by the scent and the darkness, as if unwilling to contain it, released the contents through the gaps.
In an instant, one of them died. The Toads felt like they were facing a predator. It wasn't an accurate judgment, though. The enemy didn't even want to put them in his mouth.
"Attack! Attack!"
Zap!
Zzzap!
Their magic tools shot beams of light. But the lasers were cut short midway. The darkness enveloped the beams, preventing them from reaching Minjun, and they vanished into nothingness. The same happened with their magic.
The Toads were trembling. They couldn't understand why the inmate had suddenly changed, but the reason didn't matter anymore. There was no way they could win this fight.
Then, the darkness moved once more. This time, it targeted the one who had been standing next to the Toad who had just died.
"Ugh, ugh, uaaaahhh!"
He fled desperately. His flight spell had been nullified, and he had nothing to rely on but his two legs. He put all his strength into running, heading north, as far away as possible. He aimed to escape to the edge of the space condensation barrier and attempt an emergency escape.
Minjun calmly watched his back. He didn't use his hands, waiting as if giving him a slight head start.
"Gasp! Gasp! ...Gasp?!"
How long had he been running?
The fleeing Toad found himself staring at a scene that made his mind go blank.
"...What?!"
Despite having run far, he saw something in front of him. The further he went, the clearer it became: it was the landscape he had left behind when he fled. The comrades he had left behind were now in front of him. They hadn't run away and were looking at him with ghostly expressions.
Minjun, who had been facing the fleeing Toad's back, turned his head. He raised his hand as if welcoming the one approaching from behind.
The Toad imagined the structure of a cylinder in his mind. The path he had started running on was a loop, forcing him to return to the starting point after completing a full circle.
Spatial distortion.
"Im... Impossible..."
The darkness seethed. The fleeing Toad instinctively retracted his head into his shell. It was a futile gesture, but he couldn't be blamed. It was an instinctual reaction.
This time, the darkness moved even faster. Before his left arm could fully retract and before his right arm and both legs could be hidden within the shell, the darkness, as sharp as a blade, slipped into the gap between his neck and shell. Then, it pried it open like a lever.
Crack!
Snap!
The shell split open while he was still alive. His spine, attached to the arch inside the shell, was fully exposed.
His intestines writhed beneath the now-exposed back of the Toad, who had lost his natural armor.
Crunch! The darkness crumpled and crushed the torn shell like a fist.
Smack!
It then slammed down on the exposed back of the Toad. He let out a shriek that words could not fully capture before dying.
After the noise, which seemed to tear at their souls, finally ceased, Minjun spoke.
His tone was one of annoyance.
"Just..."
He realized there was no longer a need to kill each one individually or to experiment with his powers.
Bzzt!
Asif-1 resonated in response to his command.
"Kill each other."
The Toads were once familiar with water, but they now breathed on land. Even after darkness covered them from all sides, they continued to breathe. And the darkness had begun to slowly infiltrate their respiratory systems.
The Toads lunged at each other.
They attacked with ear-splitting screams. Curling their blunt fingers, they struck each other's heads with hooves-like, hardened palms. Amidst the hammering blows, they used beak-like sharp lips to stab at the eyes, biting down hard and tearing off chunks of flesh. When one tried to hide their head inside their shell, the others shoved their beaks in to peck at them. They focused on dividing each other into as many pieces as possible, relishing the flesh. Blood and entrails flowed out. The darkness, as if disgusted, hovered around, avoiding the gruesome slaughterhouse instead of enveloping it.
After a while, only one Toad remained standing.
"A... Ah..."
The reason one was left standing was due to the intervention of Minjun's other persona, which had made a persuasive argument. Unaware that he had been granted a few more minutes of life, the commander made an ungrateful choice.
He decided to end his own life.
He floated a magical orb above his temple. Gasping for breath, he thought he would rather die than end up like his kin. He'd prefer that, even if it meant...
He squeezed his eyes shut. His instincts urged his head to retreat into his shell, but he held back with superhuman willpower.
Whirr!
The laser fired from the orb, aiming directly at the commander's head.
He felt genuine relief. He could finally be free from this hell, from that monster...
"...."
Free...
"...."
His beak-like lips opened.
"...Ah."
He couldn't understand why he was still alive.
Because he hadn't seen it.
Just before the laser from the orb touched his left cheek, the beam suddenly cut off, reappeared a hand's breadth above his right cheek, and then disappeared into the darkness.
In his despair, Minjun glanced at him. He had left one alive because there was something he needed to hear.
Minjun's two personas negotiated.
"Yeah, we need information."
But...
"Do we really have to hear it from a living one?"
They agreed.
Swish!
The head flew off.
The commander's end was relatively peaceful. He died in relief, believing he could finally escape.
That is, until he realized his soul was tethered by some unknown force and not summoned to the afterlife.
The commander realized he had become a wraith.
Many of the souls of the Toads who had died horribly or witnessed horrific sights wandered the darkness, driven mad. And Minjun collected every last one of them with necromancy, muttering as he did.
"Ah, I'm so thirsty."
The eradication was over. He checked on the others left in the darkness. Lakefield and Dongcheol were safely hidden within the barrier. Kentius lay flat on the ground, ears pinned back, and scales raised. Even though he couldn't see or hear anything, he instinctively sensed danger. And Yumtus... Minjun confirmed that the priest had fainted in the basement, blood streaming from the third eye on his forehead like a waterfall. He wasn't in bad condition. He had simply lost consciousness in a state of bliss.
Once he confirmed everyone was safe, his thirst grew even more unbearable.
As he gathered the wraiths in the air, Minjun pondered. His two eyes still glimmered with a strange light.
He repeated to himself.
He needed something to quench his thirst.
That young dragon curled up nearby wouldn't even make a decent mouthwash. He didn't want to touch something like that.
"I don't want much. Just a dragon around 2,000 years old nearby would be perfect."
He felt a deep, mind-shattering thirst.
He was so thirsty.
Jenkins found himself in the deepest contemplation of his 2,000 years of life as a dragon.
He had just received an urgent report from Hong Kong.
"Inais' lair is burning?!"
Blair nodded.
"Yes, that's correct. No one can approach it."
What on earth was happening? He couldn't fathom it.
The other dragons would likely do nothing. He couldn't think of any dragon who would step up to help. The heirs related to the child in the egg she was carrying would probably be glad.
A Dragon Lord who would gather the kin and take action was vacant.
This situation highlighted the importance of the job everyone hated. Even if it wasn't held by someone as unique as the last Lord, the position was meant to function as the conscience the dragon race created and the collective ethical consciousness born with the inauguration.
Jenkins realized again how great a loss the sudden death of the Lord without a successor was for their race.
And he was troubled. He wasn't close to Inais and had little connection with her. But he couldn't stand by while the lover of the Lord and the child she carried were in danger. Jenkins was that kind of dragon.
However.
"Minjun isn't responding?"
"No. It's also impossible to approach that location."
An unknown darkness had engulfed Minjun's mansion. And according to reports, his friend was inside.
"Is he trapped?"
Unable to directly perceive the nature of the darkness, Jenkins couldn't guess its origin. Moreover, it wasn't in a form he recognized, and darkness-related magic also existed in schools other than black magic.
Jenkins was torn.
The beloved survivors of the Lord and fellow dragon, Inais, and her child.
Minjun, who had shared hundreds of years of friendship, though not a dragon.
Teleportation would make the journey instantaneous, but who knew how much time would be needed after that?
Whom should he help first?
What would be the right choice for a dragon aiming to become the next Dragon Lord?
"...."
After a moment of thought.
Jenkins made his choice.
<155. No Bad Dragons in This World (27)> End