“WAIT!” A young but determined voice bellowed through the battlefield.
Of all those present, only Ace and Amira raised a brow, seemingly recognising the speaker. Still, what Ace was more surprised about was that despite having his [Observation] spread out, he hadn’t sensed the youth’s presence till the moment he shouted.
Ace wasn’t the only one taken aback by the presence of the newcomer; all the dragons were, but as soon as their cold, draconian eyes fell on the youth in question, that shock quickly turned into shock, followed by instinctual awe and respect.
Despite having a humanoid build, those glistening azure scales, giant azure wings, and glistening white horns were all too familiar, especially when looking into those calm, draconic eyes – he was clearly a Dragonblood warrior!
Still, each of the saint-level dragons had been alive for several centuries at the very least. Yasha, in particular, had been alive back when the Baruch clan was at the peak of their power – how could they put the average Dragonblood warrior in their eyes?
No, what truly caused their emotions to stir in such an uncontrollable manner was the aura the young Baruch expert was exuding. It was the aura one would only expect to see when in the face of a dragon with the purest of bloodlines – a pure-blooded Divine Dragon!
“You…” Yasha stammered desperately, fighting to ignore the innate suppression his blood was under. “Who…
Who are you?”
“My name is Linley, Linley Baruch!” The proud dragon warrior announced calmly. “Current head of the Baruch Clan.”
“I was wondering where you ran off to!” Ace said suddenly, pleasantly surprised when his eyes fell not on Linley but on the young silver-haired beauty standing among the group of ten accompanying Linley.
“It’s good to see you too, Ace,” Alissa replied, smiling warmly as she began to walk on the air as though it were solid ground.
“I see you haven’t been wasting time either this last year,” Ace smiled, immediately understanding that the young assassin had also comprehended impose.
“How could I when our class leader is such a freak of nature?” Alissa shrugged as she calmly stopped with a teasing smile, not from Ace but before Killian. “Did you miss me?”
“Yes,” Killian replied matter-of-factly, without so much as a moment’s hesitation.
The dark-skinned youth’s straightforward response caught Alissa off guard as a furious blush began to creep up her neck, but before she could respond, the frustrated voice of another member of her group beat her to it.
“Did no one ever teach you brats how to respect your elders,” Cesar snorted as he slowly began to float into the air, clearly not too pleased by Killian’s interaction with Alissa.
Linley couldn’t help but sigh helplessly as he watched Ace and his group all but completely disregard his presence.
“I can’t believe that’s the same prideful child from Wushan Town,” A middle-aged man with dark brown hair, who looked very similar to Linley in his human form, muttered from beside Linley. “You were right not to offend him any further, son.”
It wasn’t just them; each of Linley’s group was studying Ace intently. Over the last year, there was likely no one who hadn’t heard of the fearless Son of Heaven – Gol D. Ace, but this was the first time most of them had seen him in the flesh.
As for the dragons, they had been all but forgotten by this point, not that any of them were complaining.
Initially, they were just in a state of shock and instinctual reverence from Linley’s suppression, but the moment they noticed the rest of the group, namely the dark-robed middle-aged man, their hearts couldn’t help but race.
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Though they didn’t know all the saints of the human race, nor were they interested, they did know of each of the human prime saints.
If Wukong’s power had made them slightly cautious and apprehensive, Cesar’s mere presence had them all deeply scared. Though their leader was said to be the strongest of the prime saints, the others were all at a level that the rest of the Dragon Pitt couldn’t afford to offend easily.
Well, that was the case for most of the dragons. The only exception to that was Siltor – the Golden Dragon.
“ENOUGH!” Siltor roared, his rage allowing him to ignore the suppression his body was under. “Where did you get your blood from, boy?!”
Though he asked, Siltor was already over 90% sure he knew the answer.
It had to be understood that the formation of the Dragon Pitt was a direct response to the actions of the Baruch Clan from thousands of years ago.
If the purity of a Baruch Clan descendant’s bloodline didn’t meet the requirements for a natural awakening, the only way they could awaken it was with genuine dragon blood.
Back when the Baruch Clan were at their peak, they had several powerful saint-level elders, any of whom could casually go and hunt a dragon for their blood, and with the dragons back then predominantly acting independently, it was simplicity in and of itself.
It was only when Ignus, the current dragon king and powerful peak-stage dragon at the time, gathered his fellow dragons and convinced them all to follow him to the forest of darkness that they managed to force the Baruch clan to think twice before attempting to hunt their own.
Between that and the fact that the powerful ancestors of their Baruch Clan began to ascend into the higher realms, the Baruch Clan’s fall became an unstoppable eventuality.
“I absorbed the blood of your child,” Linley calmly replied as he fearlessly met the threatening gaze of the golden dragon, clearly having heard the earlier conversation between Ace and the dragons.
“MY SON!” Siltor released a heart-wrenching roar filled with both unquenchable wrath and heartbreaking pain. “MY SOONNNN!”
His son had been kidnapped, then killed, before his body parts had been divided and spread between these filthy humans as though he were some sort of treasure.
Siltor’s eyes reddened as a single tear of blood fell from the corner of his eyes. His current emotions were too much to bear. In that moment, he didn’t care that his actions could very well cause the death of not only himself but also his wife and the other dragons present – all he wanted was to tear every living human on the continent limb from limb.
“All of you, DIIEEE!” Siltor roared, preparing to attack.
“CALM DOWN!” A regal and imposing voice roared as a giant crimson tail suddenly seemingly appeared from nowhere, slapping Siltor into the ground and pressing the crazed golden dragon into the crater it created.
Most of the humans that made up the Gol City Army were already numb by that point – never in their lives had the majority run into a single saint, let alone this many at once. Still, when they saw the colossal crimson dragon that seemed to tower over each of the giant dragons present, several of the weaker-willed soldiers collapsed directly.
Those from the pavilion, on the other hand, other than a moment of surprise, having not sensed the sudden appearance of another dragon, were completely calm. In fact, most of them had already put their weapons away.
Each of them knew that other than Arianna, as long as you were below the deity realm, no one was a match for the current king of killers – that also went for Ignus, the King of the Dragons.
“You humans have gone too far this time!” Ignus growled as the temperature in the surrounding area began to rise to near-unbearable levels.
“Too far?” Wukong snorted fearlessly. “It’s you lizards that keep attacking us!”
“I would watch what you say, boy!” Ignus growled as his ferocious reptilian eyes fell on Wukong! “Don’t believe that I won’t kill you if you cross my bottom line, master or no master!”
“Boy? Your mom’s a boy!” Wukong snapped back, the grip around his staff tightening as though he was prepared to fight it out with Ignus right there and then. “This king’s your granddaddy!”
Ignus didn’t bother to dignify Wukong with a response since he was so intent on courting death that he would grant him his wish.
Ignus’ mountain-sized claw tore through the air with unbridled fury, causing faint and almost unnoticeable ripples in space as it moved, aiming to tear the ape-like young man to pieces.
“Come!” Wukong snorted as he stepped forward, seemingly preparing to meet Ignus’ strike head-on. “This king has long since had enough of you overgrown liz…”
Before he could finish his torrent of insults, the eyes of Wukong and Ignus constricted as both were forced to a sudden halt, as though space and time had constricted around them.
“Go… Godrealm!” Ignus muttered as his eyes – the only part of his body still able to move – fell on the dark-robed assassin lazily floating at the rear of the group.
It wasn’t that Ignus hadn’t noticed Cesar’s presence; it was just that he didn’t care about him in the slightest. His title of the strongest prime saint wasn’t just for show.
Cesar was scariest when he was attacking from the shadows, but since he dared to stand in front of him, as strong as he was, if they really fought, Cesar would struggle to last more than a couple of exchanges – or at least that would’ve been the case for the Cesar from several years ago.
“I think that’s enough fun for one day,” Cesar said teasingly as he met the frightened gaze of the dragon king with a playful grin. “Don’t you?”