V2 Chapter 144
If Cian let the monster successfully evolved, this infuriated serpent would definitely not show any mercy to him.
Understanding this, Cian’s eyes narrowed ominously. He cannot let the damned snake succeed, no matter what—!
Without any hesitation, Cian lifted his hands above his head like he was trying to grab something invisible in the air. The air around him seemed to have been disturbed as a small arc of wind started to revolve around him.
The dirt, ash, and dust started to swirl in the sky—no, it’s not them but rather, the flow of the wind started to swirl around him. A whirlpool-like tornado slowly gained momentum. Faster, faster, and stronger.
"...?!" The look on the Red Crown Dragon Serpent’s face changed as soon as it noticed the disturbance in the surroundings as well as the figure of the boy that was being surrounded by arcs of wind, but it was too late.
A large atmospheric swirl that looked like a hole had opened in the earth had taken a spherical form above Cian’s head.
Rocks and debris in the area were swept up with it and that giant swirl of destruction with a radius of a few dozen meters gave its joyous birth cry.
It spun quickly and as it turned it collected more and more wind. Before long the wind had gotten bigger that it had almost turned into a tornado. The ground below, and around Cian couldn’t handle the strong winds and got dug up, causing a pit to form on the ground.
"Do you know what will happen if gas was heated to an extremely high temperature...?" Cian grinned with a barbaric smile.
In the next instant, the wind flowing through the entire forest focused on one point. It was a point 100 meters above Cian’s head. When the raging wind gathered there, a bright white light appeared as if from welding.
It was plasma.
Compressing the air created heat. Internal combustion engines used that fact. By compressing the surrounding air with a ridiculous compression ratio, it had turned into a mass of heat exceeding 10,000 degrees Celsius. This forcibly caused the atoms in the nearby air to split into cations and electrons which turned them to plasma.
"...by heating a gas to an extremely high temperature, it causes such vigorous collisions between its atoms and molecules that electrons are ripped free, yielding the requisite electrons and ions. You should have not skipped your science lessons, idiot. It works wonders in life...in some mysterious ways,"
That point of light swallowed up the surrounding air and instantaneously grew to have a radius of 20 meters.
The surrounding darkness was annihilated by the pure white light.
The heat of 10,000 degrees even caused a burning pain on the molting skin of the Red Crown Dragon Serpent.
"YOU'VE MADE THE WRONG MOVE, YOU STUPID SNAKE!!" Cian scowled in contempt. “…however, since I am a gentleman, I’ll help you ascend just like what you wanted. But this time, the destination is Hell! Just like what I wanted...” Cian laughed maniacally and yelled “DIEEE!!”.
And in a blink of an eye, that sphere of destruction created from the world’s atmosphere sliced through the air. It became a spear of wind flying at over 120 m/s.
At that speed, wind could easily uproot up a large tree and destroy an area of dozen meters in an instant. That spear of wind very easily blew away the Red Crown Dragon Serpent like he had been struck by the hand of an invisible giant. A loud and deafening cry of pain and despair echoed in the entire forest. In fact, it seems like even the forest itself trembled in fear. No, rather, it really shook!
"... ..." Cian felt the wind passing by, but not even a strand of his air was hit as the wind seemed to have some intelligence and was avoiding to him intentionally. Cian just stands there with a smug grin—even if the snake was related to a cockroach, it would still die by this attack.
However—
Crack!!
As Cian was confident of his ability, at this moment, an unexpected accident occurred into a place he had never expected. His eyes widened the moment he had heard the cracking noise that looked like a whisper even among the turbulent wind.
All because of one thing—
The ground below him was disappearing.
No, rather than disappearing, due to their battle, or perhaps mainly because of his attack, the ground cracked, like a spider web, fissures appeared running towards every direction. It was not stopping and in fact, it was expanding even bigger, and more and more of the ground was disappearing into the depths.
"Shit! I've let my temper get the best of me again! OH CRAP! THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE SAYING THIS!!!"
The region was expanding and it was approaching where Cian was standing. Cian clicked his tongue in misfortune, but before he could escape, a rumbling noise occurred, and the maw of the collapse caught up. It all happened in a blink of an eye, that even Cian was caught off-guard.
He felt the ground disappear below him. It was less a vertical waterfall and more of a steep waterslide. In an instant, Cian along with the bloodied red Crown Dragon Serpent mercilessly dropped into the abyss that light could not reach.
Cian had no idea how far he’ll fall as he felt his body get dragged by gravity, but it was certainly more than a few meters. He couldn't even use his mind to calculate force and speed to slow down his fall due to the fact that debris and boulders continued hitting him from above. Fortunately, [Absolute Defense] was a dear friend of his!
… …
Cian had passed out, so he did not know how much time had passed.
“Gh…” He groaned and brought a hand to his forehead. He did not know how far he had fallen. He was lying on some kind of floor, but he still did not feel stable. It felt like being on a small rocking boat. He had a strong urge to vomit.
He had no intention of suffocating on his own vomit, so he ignored his aching head and forced himself to sit up. However, when Cian cleared his mind from the confusion and light-headedness, suddenly his eyes caught a large serpent’s head with red eyes staring at him—due to shock, Cian’s body literally jumped into the air, and hurriedly formed into a fighting brawl stance.
“You—!!” however, Cian’s eyes widened.
Then, he breathes a sigh of relief.
The Red Crown Dragon Serpent was indeed staring at him with wide upon jaw; fangs bear in sight—however, the Serpent was clearly dead. Most of its body was covered with large rubbles and its eyes were already glassy. It was not moving anymore.
".....phew, Hahahaha, that scared the hell out of me! Even in death, it's really good at scaring people--a talent, I wish to have!" Cian took a deep breath before suddenly bursting in laughter. He was actually scared by a dead snake. He then walked towards it, looking at it closely, the thing that delivered the final blow to it, was actually not Cian’s last attack but instead the rubble.
There was some spike that pierced through its body. Because of it trying to molt, its defenses had been weakened after shedding its skin, hence the sharp debris managed to penetrate through its tough hide. Ironic… its desperate action had become its ticket to hell.
Cian smells a burned smell and saw its skin emitting smoke. Perhaps due to his attack, its skin was burned black. He then chipped a small chunk and started eating it—delicious! Cian’s eyes sparkled in delight. And most of all, whether it was the snake’s innate effect of healing and recovery from eating its flesh, or Cian’s skill {Diabolical Grizzly’s Hunger}, or perhaps both, but the moment Cian consumed the snake’s flesh, his injuries and wounds actually recovered faster than usual. It was a very great tonic, much more than Cian’s expectation.
"Hm, with each bite, a bit of my strength returns... Still, Ironic...somehow. It was once a great predator, but now, it was none other than my meal. What a simple thing, the food chain."
Even Cian's fatigue slowly disappeared and his magic power recovered significantly. And because the snake was in the middle of molting to become an A rank Magical Beast, its flesh and blood contained not so small magical energy.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
{You have successfully plundered 【Snake Eyes】]
The corner of Cian’s lips lifted. Truly, the serpent’s power was above his own. He actually managed to plunder ability after consuming a small chunk of its flesh and drinking its blood.
[Snake Eyes] can give the user the ability to inflict a menacing gaze capable of restricting the movement of one's enemies.
{You have successfully plundered 【Earth Burrow】]
{You have successfully plundered 【Venomous Fangs】]
Cian started eating chunk after chunk of flesh and even drinking the blood of the Red Crown Dragon Serpent. Aside from the [Snake Eyes], Cian was able to obtain two more abilities which make his mood even better.
In just a few minutes of rest and eating, Cian’s injuries had completely recovered and he was already back to his peak power. Then, he started thinking of what he would do next as leaned his back against a broken pillar. He then looked around once more and found he was in some kind of giant hall or something, that had completely lost its roof due to the cave in.
Judging from the height, it seems like he fell less than fifty meters from the ground surface… anyway, what is this place?
Why is there such a place in this Winter Mountain?
It was somewhat a gigantic stone room. Touching the stone walls and pillars, it should be quite a very long, long time since this place existed. Well, he was not an archeologist or somewhat possessing the knowledge to assess ruins, but it should really be ancient old. After all, as he looks around, his eyes can’t help but narrow ominously.
The ruins were not what attracted Cian, but what was inside this stone room. There were actually human remains piled up like a hill, one on the top of another. Those thick bones were preserved intact with some pieces of clothing on their body and they also held weapons on their hands. It seems all of them had died in a great conflict.
Cian wrinkled his nose and immediately isolated himself from the bad-smelling air as a pungent smell assailed his nostrils. Death, Decay. After that he discovered that the place where he and the Red Crown Dragon Serpent fell was merely a corner of the stone room, behind, there furthermore was wide space which similarly had piled up bones.
Roughly there were several thousand people, and some of the bones were already cracked. Moreover, because of the phosphorus contained inside the marrow, they emitted green colored tragic rays of light in the dark. It looked very terrible.
What kind of battle had occurred in this place?
What had happened to this place for something to occur like this?
In the first place...what are this ruins?
Cian’s eyes scanned this room filled with dry bones, and suddenly, his expression stagnated, then hastily moving forward, he tore out a piece of tattered clothing from the dry bones. This was already faded and weathered cloth, all of them have already broken off, but one of the patterns in the cloth could be argued.
“Hm, this symbol, this symbol is similar to the Demon Clan?” Cian got closer and look, then frowned after his realization.
Although there was some difference, still more or less it was certainly the same with the Demon Symbol engraved in the flags of the Demon Race. Although some part were different, but as years passed by the Demon Clan's Symbol had also been changed along the time--improved, changed, and altered. However, the abse form is still there. As this is the glory of the Demon Clan's history. This can never be changed. In fact, Cian had seen these symbols engraved on the clothes before, engraved in the History Records he had seen in the past in the historical records within the Demon Library. Hence, he was certain that this is indeed the Symbol of the Demon Race.
How could so many people of the Demon Race die here thousands of years ago? Cian didn’t think much, he just pried open other dry bones. And dry bones with clothing still intact appeared before his eyes, and the embroidery of its clothing was a symbol he had not seen before. It was a pair of wings dyed in white and had a golden harp in the middle.
This made his eyelids twitch. The pair of wings in the insignia was like the wings of an angel. But from what Cian had read before, he had never heard about any legends about Angels in this world. Though he can’t really be said to be all-knowing, still he had read quite a lot of books. There might be Harpies, which they called [Varkas] in this world, but Angel-like people? No. As far as he had known of the history of the world, or the races that had been seen in the continent since the Lost Century, he had not even seen or heard about Legends or Myths of anything similar.
But perhaps, within the Lost Century, before the War of the Gods, those creatures existed? And after the war, had become extinct? Since this world had Gods and Demons, then an existecne of an Angel would not be strange at all.
Cian had gotten interested and started checking the corpses one by one. Apart from the Demon Symbol and the strange Wing Symbol, there were three other types of symbols that he had found. But two of them are just too tattered and the image cannot be completely defined. The last symbol was actually a trident with an ocean-like wave image behind it.
Weird, truly weird… aside from the Demon Symbol, he had never seen these symbols before.
It seems like I need to really visit the Imperial Library, especially the highest level where the Important Archives and Records were stored. Although it’s not allowed for any people aside from the Emperor, Mother should allow me to read the records without a problem. It seems like there is a secret within the Winter Mountain that involves the Demon Race…!
Although Cian didn’t know what truly occurred here, he was certain that several factions fought with each other here and unexpectedly so many people died. And what was truly shocking was, from these dry bones that were holding the weapons, he could sense that all of them were experts. There was no one who was lower than the Advance realm, whether they were Mages or Warriors.
This shows how prosperous these factions were at that time. Although they might not be related to the current events that were upheld in the current era, Cian was still willing to bet that there would surely be good things in this place. And that he might discover unexpected things if he could truly understand what had occurred at that time—
Well, Cian didn’t count on that though. Whatever happens here was already too long since then. Even if there were some records that were left, it might not be all that complete or trustworthy. Cian knows that whoever wrote history relies on their perspective. They can dye colors to things whichever they want. And Cian was not that naïve to completely trust them. Poorly written histories will only make him even more perplexed and would not be able to help him at all.
As Cian was deep in thoughts, that was when the underground structure rumbled ominously. He raised his head, only to see earth and debris started falling from above. What the hell, again?!
With his Absolute Defense, Cian was not afraid of being buried. However, he dislikes the thrill of the rubbles and boulders raining above his head. Furthermore, it makes even the area messier and hard to walk through.
Storing the Red Crown Dragon Serpent on his Storage Ring, he then started walking deeper in the ruins. Although he can try flying out from the hall, Cian was curious about this ruins and wanted to explore it to satisfy his ‘Youthful Curiosity’.
While passing through the messy debris, Cian searched all around the ruined hall, but because there were too many bones, the noise of bones breaking on every step was quite annoying. “Even still, as expected of the graveyard of all-powerful people, there are quite many good things inside these bones.”
Although most weapons were already eroded by rust and time and were already on the verge of breaking completely, there were actually items and weapons that are still in good condition. Swords, Axes, Poles, Spears, Armors, and many more. Without any hesitation, Cian stored all of them. Since they are still in good condition even after being buried in this place for a very long time, it means they are made with incredible materials. Wasting them would be a crime.
He even picked up those tattered and on the verge of breaking down items, as Cian was certain he can melt them down into ingots. The materials that made these weapons are certainly better in quality than most that can be seen in the current time. After all, these weapons are used by all of these experts. In terms of background and history, they are much better. Antiques and vestige of the Lost Century. They're worth more than what they let out in the surface.
And besides, they could be a good addition to the power of the [Garden of Eden].
While picking good things, suddenly Cian had a sudden thought—what if I eat these bones? Would I still absorb the owners skills? It was actually a bold thought. After all, these bones are not bones of beasts or monsters, but bones of humans. Some might not, such as demons, but some would surely be humans.
As someone who was once a human, eating a human bone is quite hard to stomach. Just thinking about it makes him filled him with nausea. However, all of these people are experts, and who knows what kind of power they would have. And the temptation of new abilities makes Cian becoming inclined in such a disgusting act.
It wouldn’t hurt… in any case, they are all bones. After a few minutes of consideration and careful thought, Cian shrugged and picked up a bone with a still good-looking condition. In any case, he was not a human anymore. And besides, with his [Plunder] ability, everything that entered his stomach would actually be the same, all will be turned into energy and power. Though, whether this energy still possesses the core of the skills these experts once had when they were alive, he didn’t know. But he was prepared to find out.
Crack! Munch! Cian’s brows furrowed the moment he bit into the bones.
The bones were hard, but the moment his teeth sunk into it, the hard bone actually turned soft and chewable. It’s as if he was eating a piece of a cracker—but ignoring the rancid smell, the taste actually tasted like…sour cream.
It tasted like sour cream past its expiration date. Cian’s lips can’t help but find it hilarious. Although it smelled foul, it indeed tasted like sour cream, Cian mused after taking a second bite. And the smell actually disappeared the moment the bone entered his mouth—just like eating smelly tofu, It might stink but when you’ve gotten used to the taste, it tasted likable.
But what matters most for Cian was the energy that bursts through his body. There was still magic energy left within the bones, and its purity was much more than normal compared to when you consume magic fruits and meals. It’s probably because the magic energy had been integrated within the bones after a very long time, and they were refined by time.
What’s more, eating these bones, seemed to have strengthened his bones quite a bit… calcium? Cian chuckled by that thought. It’s actually quite fitting… in any case; his strength and power seemed to have increased by a small bit. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
The only regrettable thing was that Cian didn’t obtain any skills or abilities. However, since he can purify his magic power and physical body by eating these bones, Cian carried on eating as he collected them as well into his storage rings. They are good snacks, it reminded him of Sour Candies he used to like when he was a child.
Picking Bones and Items, whatever he found,suddenly—
[You have successfully plundered [Stealth]!]