“Huh?”
Meng Lei turned and looked over to see a large, dark mass of clouds that shrouded an area of several hundred kilometers coming toward them in the sky a far distance away.
However, just how sharp was Meng Lei’s sight? That was no dark cloud—they were clearly numerous... big birds!
Well, they could tentatively be called big birds for now because they had Colossal Dragon wings, a vulture’s body, and a lion’s head. They had razor-sharp claws and teeth and looked like a combination of a Colossal Dragon, a vulture, and a lion.
Each of them was more than 10 meters tall, their wings spanned over 20 meters, and there were more than 100,000 of them.
Their momentum was even more fearsome than the ant tide just now!
“That’s...”
Meng Lei was stunned.
“That’s the Flying Dragon Troops!” Ol’ Amos twisted his beard and said with a smile, “The Flying Dragon Troops are Fire Dragon Kingdom’s top elite troops. They have 100,000 Double-Legged Flying Dragons and are usually garrisoned at Flying Dragon Valley. They are only mobilized during wartimes.”
“100,000... Double-Legged Flying Dragons?”
Chapter 95: The Flying Dragon Troops, Fighting For Magic Cores
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Double-Legged Flying Dragons possess two types of bloodlines, the Colossal Dragon’s and a griffin’s. When they mature into adults, they are comparable to Seventh-Grade Magical Beasts.
“As they are smaller and more compact than Colossal Dragons, their speed is lightning-quick. Adding to these claws and teeth as sharp as razors, they are an outstanding existence even among Seventh-Grade Magical Beasts.
“However, these aren’t the only reasons why Double-Legged Flying Dragons can firmly suppress other Drakes to become Fire Dragon Kingdom’s top elite troops. They have three more advantages over the others—high reproductive rate, short growth cycles, and high intelligence!”
Ol’ Amos explained with a smile, “A female Double-Legged Flying Dragon can produce 10 infants, and an infant needs only 30 years to mature into an adult. An adult Double-Legged Flying Dragon’s level of intelligence is comparable to a human’s!”
“No wonder.”
Realization dawned upon Meng Lei.
There were many types of Drakes—Raptors, Ground Dragons, Dragon-Hawks, Triceratops, Dragon-Rhinos, Dragon-Wolves, Dragon-Turtles, Wind Flying Dragons, Crimson-Armored Earthworms1, and so on... All of them were Drakes, but only the Double-Legged Flying Dragons possessed all three of those characteristics.
Some Drakes were strong and powerful but awfully stupid, while some Drakes were highly intelligent but grew too slowly. A few Drakes had both characteristics but didn’t reproduce.
Therefore, even if these Drakes had dragon blood in them, they’d hardly be placed in important positions by the Dragon race. In fact, the Dragon race saw some Drakes as a disgrace and drove them out of the kingdom, e.g., the Sillies.
Sillies were a very kooky species of Drakes. They clearly had Golden Colossal Dragon blood in them, yet they were astonishingly weak and weren’t even a match for ordinary wild beasts in battle. Additionally, they looked very adorable and were mischievous and silly in nature. They were totally people’s number one choice when choosing pets.
However, the Dragon race saw these fellows as a disgrace and had tried many times to exterminate them. It was just a shame for them that the Sillies reproduced at a rate faster than even pigs, and they couldn’t wipe them out completely. In the end, they could only banish them. One could pretty much consider them weirdos among Drakes.
As he gazed at the Flying Dragon Troops on the horizon, Meng Lei sighed emotionally. “Double-Legged Flying Dragons are the most successful Drakes for sure!”
“You’re wrong in saying that!” Ol’ Amos shook his head and said with a smile, “The most successful Drakes are us Dragon People instead!”
“Uh... That’s true!” Meng Lei burst into laughter. “Would you believe that? How could I have forgotten about the Dragon People?”
“That’s normal.”
Roar!
Roar!
Roar!
As the Flying Dragon Troops got nearer and nearer, waves of dragon might converged to form a single majestic wave that spread throughout the sky and earth as it came crushing toward them.
“The Flying Dragon Troops!”
“It’s the Flying Dragon Troops!”
“They’re finally here!”
“But the problem is...”
Had it been any other time, the sight of the Flying Dragon Troops’ arrival would definitely have sent all the soldiers into loud, deafening cheers and the whole place into a furor. However, everyone’s countenances looked somewhat... strange today.
“The ant tide has already receded by now, though.”
“Shows how much they really care...”
In spite of that, no one dared to really comment much. The Flying Dragon Troops were elites; be it their overall strength or their status, they were much more powerful than frontier troops.
Who would dare to criticize them?
With a wave of his arm, Marquis Gould gave an order. “Sound the drums and blow the horns to welcome the Flying Dragon Troops!”
Bong, bong, bong!
Hoooonk!
At once, drumbeats that sounded like dull thunderclaps and the long, loud, and clear blasts from the bugle-horn rang out from the top of the Great Dragon Blood Wall. The sounds reverberated throughout the sky and continued endlessly.
Roar!!
Upon hearing the bugle-horn blasts, 100,000 Double-Legged Flying Dragon let out roars and howls one after another. The sounds merged into roiling thunderclaps that bore down heavily on the Great Dragon Blood Wall.
They were putting them in their place!
This was something that the Flying Dragon Troops often did, not only to display their might but also to upstage the host.
And true enough, when the regular soldiers heard the fearsome roars, their hearing failed, stars appeared in their vision, their faces turned ghastly pale, and looks of fear surfaced in their eyes.
“Those bastards!”
Marquis Gould was infuriated. Yet he could do nothing to stop them and could only watch helplessly as his soldiers dropped their weapons and clapped their hands over their ears as they let out agonized moans.
“That’s enough!”
An awe-inspiring voice rang out. The Flying Dragon Troops stopped their roars and stepped aside to open up a path. A Super-Double-Legged Flying Dragon, whose wings spanned over 50 meters and was twice the size of an ordinary Double-Legged Flying Dragon, flew out!
It had a fully ink-black body, plumes as sharp as steel needles, and a neck that looked much like a snake’s. It exuded vast, surging dragon might!
It was the highest commander of the Flying Dragon Troops and the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King... Duke Nicolas Granger!
“Duke Nicolas!”
Marquis Gould stepped forward and bowed, giving him an ancient and standard nobility salute.
“Marquis Gould.”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King transformed into a fierce and sinister-looking skinny, bony elderly man dressed in splendid long robes with a flap of its wings. He waved casually in a sort-of response.
Then, his eyes flitted across the Great Dragon Blood Wall and looked at the chaotic mess outside the city, awfully surprised. “Marquis Gould, your men have driven back the ant tide?”
Marquis Gould was dumbfounded for a moment there, not quite knowing how he should respond.
Had the ant tide receded?
Yes, it had!
But it had absolutely nothing to do with them, the frontier troops!
“Marquis Gould, were there unmentionable troubles?”
At the sight of how Marquis Gould seemed to find it hard to answer him, the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King frowned lightly, and a look of perplexity appeared on his coun
tenance.
“The ant tide has indeed receded, but we—”
Marquis Gould was just about to explain when a Double-Legged Flying Dragon suddenly landed on the ground, picked up a fist-sized ball, and started to eat it...
“A magic core! It’s a sixth-grade magic core! What delicious food!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon exclaimed as its eyes lit up brightly. Upon the sight of this, the other Double-Legged Flying Dragons also flew toward the ground.
The great fire outside the city had already been extinguished. Even the wall of fire in the canyon had also burned out due to exhaustion of fire elements.
With that, all the red crystals—the magic cores left behind by the Bloodthirsty Iron-Crystal Ants—strewn throughout the place had been revealed. As the essence of a Bloodthirsty Iron-Crystal Ant’s magic power, it was very hard for magic cores to be burned into ashes, and they were also the only things that the ants could leave behind.
“Magic cores!”
“So many magic cores!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragons were overjoyed. Like old hens that’d just discovered rice grains, they made a mad scramble for them and started to peck at them!
They were usually garrisoned at the Double-Legged Flying Dragon Valley and could only eat bloody rams and dogs. How would they possibly have this many Sixth-Grade magic cores to eat?
Not only were they supreme delicacies, but they were also great sources of nourishment that could improve their strength. Thus, every one of them had gone into a frenzy.
“What a lot of magic cores!”
Upon the sight of this, the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King’s eyes brightened. “My children are starving after hurrying all the way here. Marquis Gould, surely you don’t mind letting them have a good meal first?”
“Of course not!”
Marquis Gould shook his head lightly. However, he was dissing them inwardly.
In the entirety of Fire Dragon Kingdom, is there even anyone that’s greedier than you Double-Legged Flying Dragons?
Out of all the beast tides, when have you people not slaughtered, robbed, and eaten everything like aggrieved souls that had died of hunger in their past lives, leaving not even a single strand of hair for others? So why even bother asking such a redundant question at this point?
“I just knew that Marquis Gould wouldn’t say no!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King burst into laughter as he stroked his beard. Then, he announced loudly, “My children, these are Marquis Gould’s welcoming gifts for you. Enjoy them to your hearts’ content!”
Roar!
All the Double-Legged Flying Dragons roared as one!
“You damned dogs, how dare you steal my things!?”
Chapter 96: The Triple-Everything Troops, Beating Up The Dragon King
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
During Meng Lei’s mad bombardment of spells just now, the number of Bloodthirsty Iron-Crystal Ants that had perished in his hands had exceeded several tens of thousands, leaving behind approximately the same number of magic cores, too.
A single sixth-grade magic core was worth up to 10,000 gold coins. He could definitely sell them for tens of millions of gold coins with all of them put together!
Tens of millions of gold coins!
How could he let them off?
Meng Lei had just so been thinking about how he should collect those magic cores when he saw what had just happened—100,000 Double-Legged Flying Dragons scrambling for the magic cores on the ground like hungry ghosts, clearly treating them as theirs.
“You damned dogs, how dare you steal my magic cores!?”
Meng Lei flew into a rage, his eyes turning savage.
“Don’t be reckless, brat!” Ol’ Amos hastily stopped him. “Don’t be fooled by how ugly these guys are; all of them are nobles. Killing them will bring you a lot of trouble!”
“Nobles?” Meng Lei was stupefied. “Those idiots?”
“Yes! Nobles!” Ol’ Amos nodded heavily. “Not only are they nobles, but they also hold titles. They even have their own private territories.”
“What the hell? Are the heavens blind?!” A corner of Meng Lei’s lips spasmed as he let out an exclamation. He’d honestly been rendered somewhat speechless.
However, that was indeed the truth. Every single member of the Flying Dragon Troops was nobility. And because all of them were nobles, the Flying Dragon Troops were a special military unit, as well as the one and only unit completely made up of nobles in Fire Dragon Kingdom. They were a presence far beyond what other military units could compare with.
This led directly to the Flying Dragon Troops always behaving in a haughty and overbearing manner when making contact with other military units, and they always hogged all the war spoils as if it were right and justified.
They slaughtered everything, ate everything, and snatched everything!
The greediness of their nature, the awfulness of their table manners, the ugliness of their attitudes—they could be said to be notorious for all of these!
Yet, on the contrary, the Flying Dragon Troops weren’t ashamed but proud of it instead. They promoted this tradition, developing the 'slaughter everything, eat everything, snatch everything” into the 'seize everything, eat everything, take everything” tradition!
Their behavior infuriated the other military units, and they hated them with a vengeance, yet they couldn’t do anything about it.
It was the same this time, too.
After seeing the magic cores strewn all over the wide expanse of land, the Flying Dragon Troops had rushed straight toward them. Which part of them had stood on ceremony even the slightest?
They flew into the air and landed back down and then flew into the air again and landed back down again. They did this continuously, greedily snatching all the magic cores on the ground.
In this aspect, they had perfectly inherited the Colossal Dragons’ avarice and the vultures’ gluttony and even went far beyond.
“You damned dogs! You have a death wish, don’t you!?”
Meng Lei was infuriated. He bellowed furiously, his roars exploding in the sky like roiling thunderclaps and reverberating throughout.
In the next instant, a dazzling thunder ball descended from above and crashed brutally onto the ground. As a deafening boom rang out, the thunder ball suddenly exploded and enveloped the area within a radius of several kilometers.
Crackle, crackle!
The raging electric currents flowed about freely as they pleased. Innumerable Double-Legged Flying Dragons fell victim to the electric currents and began to convulse violently as if they’d taken drugs, and their plumes also stood on end. Then, they collapsed onto the ground in large batches.
“What?!”
Everyone was stunned by this sudden turn of events. Disbelief filled everyone as they watched the Double-Legged Flying Dragons wrapped in electric currents mass-convulsing and mass-flailing.
“Who? Who did this?!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King flew into a rage. His hawk-like eyes swept about everywhere, a chilly light flashing intensely in his eyes as he searched for the culprit that had attacked his subordinates.
Then, he noticed a magic carpet flying over, as well as someone standing proudly on it.
“How dare you actually attack my sons!? Die!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King bristled with anger and rushed into the air with a loud boom. He transformed into a flying dragon and charged toward Meng Lei. He wanted to torture Meng Lei to death with cruel and heartless means so that everyone would know how people that had the audacity to attack the Flying Dragon Troops would end up.
“Duke Nicolas—”
Marquis Gould wanted to call out to him and stop him, but it was too late. By the time a shadow flashed past, leaving behind afterimages, the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King had already appeared in front of Meng Lei.
“Die, you lowly piece of trash!” The Double-Legged Fl
ying Dragon King roared furiously.
His razor-sharp claws that flashed with a chilly glint swiped fiercely toward Meng Lei. His actions were quick, vicious, and accurate, and went straight for Meng Lei’s head.
“Damn!”
Marquis Gould was terribly panicking. The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King was comparable to a Ninth-Grade Magical Beast. He moved lightning-quick, and his claws were incredibly sharp. Could Meng Lei hold himself against his sudden attack?
Yes, it was true that Meng Lei was a Great Ninth-Grade Magician, but everyone knew how fragile and frail a Magician’s physical body was. Should he suffer a full swipe of the claws, wouldn’t he be ripped straight into shreds?
If he dies here...
Marquis Gould shivered all over, not quite daring to continue that train of thought. Only people with Colossal Dragon blood in them could use Dragon-Language Magic. In other words, Meng Lei was a Great Ninth-Grade Dragon-Language Magician.
The significance behind this identity of his was too strong. Should Meng Lei perish here, who could bear the responsibility?
Boom!
Just as Marquis Gould was in an utter panic, the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King’s sharp claws had already struck against Meng Lei’s head. However, the scene he’d imagined didn’t happen.
Meng Lei’s head hadn’t exploded from the blow. On the contrary, a layer of dazzling diamond-like crystalline substance materialized on the surface of his body and formed a protective shield around him, protecting him from external harm.
That was the Ninth-Grade Spell, Earth Guardian’s Saintly Armor.
Bam!
The claws scraped across Meng Lei’s forehead. That familiar sensation that he would get from ripping his prey alive in the past didn’t appear. Instead, it felt as if he had just clawed against an obsidian rock, the resulting impact causing his paw to hurt.
“How can that be?!”
The Double-Legged Flying Dragon King retreated, his eyes full of shock. His ambush just now had reached in just a split second; where had that fellow found the time to cast a protective spell?
Was it an instant release?
“Well done! Well done, indeed!”
With a wave, Meng Lei withdrew the Earth Guardian’s Saintly Armor. He glared furiously at the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King, his wrath almost driving him mad. When the Double-Legged Flying Dragon King had ambushed him just now, he had firmly and resolutely cast Earth Guardian’s Saintly Armor.
Picking Up Attributes From Today c1-406 Page 51
