“Wait!”
“Are you kidding me?!”
“Is this an illusion? Is it? Have I been caught in an illusion?!”
Li Xiuman hurriedly brushed aside all the surface treasure, exposing everything buried beneath the pile.
Only then did he discover the truth.
Beneath the treasure, it was all volcanic rock.
The so-called treasure hoard was nothing but a single layer on the surface.
At most, it was barely worth a thousand gold coins. The gems were all just pieces of glass.
The golden armor and magnificent swords were all merely gold-plated.
How could that shameless red dragon be so vain?!
To actually use fake treasure to deceive people!
Did anyone else even visit this dragon's cave normally? Was there any need for it to fool itself like this?!
Dammit, it was absolutely mental.
Completely out of its mind!
To put himself through such massive risks just for a paltry amount of loot!
What an absolute bastard, a complete bastard!
Dammit, he had committed this dragon's name to memory.
Once he got out, he would definitely pay to thoroughly spread the news that all the treasures in the dragon lair of the red dragon, Orfen Rory Gould, were completely fake.
The treasure was only a single layer on the surface, and underneath was nothing but rock.
He would post notices about it everywhere to make sure everyone knew.
He would let the story of this shamelessly vain red dragon spread across the entire magical world.
He would make sure it suffered a total social death in the magical world!
Li Xiuman was a man of his word.
This was simply going too far. To use fake treasure to deceive him—and the worst part was that he had actually been fucking fooled by it.
What if other dragons started copying this trend in the future?
If he became successful and powerful down the line, and went to loot a dragon's nest whenever he was short on cash, only to end up finding a pile of treasure that, once turned over, was actually just a load of rocks...
Who the hell could tolerate that?
This toxic trend had to be thoroughly eradicated.
An underage dragon picking up such bad habits meant it was turning bad right from its very roots.
It absolutely could not be tolerated.
Therefore, he had to make those dragons understand the consequences of deception.
Orfen Rory Gould would serve as a negative example for all other dragons to learn from.
Li Xiuman felt rather proud of his own foresight.
The fact that the treasure underneath was fake also saved Li Xiuman a significant amount of time.
Swiftly sweeping the superficial layer of treasure into his storage space, Li Xiuman recalled his golems and rushed toward the entrance.
He hurried through the rugged dragon cave all the way back to the opening.
Before him, the scorching lava still bubbled. The dragon had not returned yet.
The Goddess of Luck was indeed on his side.
Li Xiuman spread his Bone Wings and soared up toward the crater.
Just as he emerged from the crater, a massive fireball hurtled directly toward him.
In the distance, Orfen flapped its wings, continuously spitting fireballs.
“So fast!”
Li Xiuman felt incredibly wronged.
Suffering through all this just for that pitiful amount of treasure.
This red dragon was simply a beast—no, worse than a beast! He would definitely expose its scam!
“Water Wall!”
A magic circle expanded as Li Xiuman quickly conjured a Water Wall.
With a loud sizzle, a massive amount of steam burst out, filling the surrounding air and obscuring the line of sight.
Taking advantage of the cover, Li Xiuman flapped his Bone Wings and fled toward the distance.
But Li Xiuman had clearly underestimated the eyesight of a legendary creature.
Orfen swiftly locked onto Li Xiuman through the steam and spat several fireballs in quick succession, hurling them toward him.
It roared as it spat.
Although it couldn't speak human language, the sight of it irresistibly reminded Li Xiuman of a burly thug swearing while spitting phlegm.
It was such a vivid image.
No, no, now was clearly not a good time to let his superb imagination run wild.
“Torrential Spiral Spike!”
Li Xiuman swiftly raised his hand, expanding a magic circle large enough to cover his body in front of him.
Three rock spikes were quickly enveloped in water, spinning at extreme speeds under the propulsion of a surrounding whirlwind.
This composite magic, which once required Li Xiuman to charge up and could only be fired one at a time, was now a technique he had thoroughly mastered.
“Go!”
With a sharp whistle through the air, the three stone spikes shattered the magic circle, dragging aqua-blue trails behind them as they shot toward the approaching fireballs.
The three fireballs were instantly pierced through, exploding into a burst of fireworks amidst a cloud of steam.
As expected of him; he really was incredibly amazing.
To easily handle even the attacks of a Tier 4 dragon...
Where else in the world could one find a skeleton as exceptional as him?
Just as this thought crossed Li Xiuman's mind, more fireballs came hurtling from behind.
One, two, three... there were too many to count!
More than a dozen fireballs shot over one after another, and the red dragon Orfen was still spitting them out relentlessly.
It was as if fireballs of this caliber were indeed nothing more than spitting to it.
Didn't its throat get dry?
Li Xiuman immediately abandoned any thought of fighting back. The gap in power was just too wide; this thing could literally spit him to death.
“Tier 2 Magic, Wind Maneuver!”
While in flight, Li Xiuman expanded an azure magic circle.
Streaming wind gathered around him, forming a wind barrier on his body that made his clothes flutter loudly.
In an instant, his agility surged significantly.
Relying on the streaming wind to adjust his flight angle and direction, he darted and dodged between the fireballs, narrowly avoiding several of them.
“Roar! Roar! Roar!”
The roars from behind sounded exasperated.
It seemed to be getting angrier and angrier.
The fireballs ceased along with the roars.
However, Li Xiuman felt an incredibly bad premonition. He quickly looked back in the direction of the red dragon Orfen.
Orfen had its head held high, inhaling the surrounding air like a raging vortex.
In front of its snout and maw, a visible red tornado formed.
An endless supply of fire-elemental mana was sucked into Orfen's mouth through the tornado.
Orfen's chest puffed up larger and larger, and magma-like patterns appeared across its scales.
“Roar!!!”
With a thundering roar, a column of fire from the dragon's breath swept toward Li Xiuman.
The oncoming intense heat felt as if it would incinerate him completely.
“Whirlwind!”
Wind magic expanded beneath his feet almost instantaneously as he gave a sudden, powerful flap of his Bone Wings.
Li Xiuman's body narrowly dodged upward, barely evading the column of breath fire.
But a dragon's breath was clearly not that simple.
Orfen began to swing its head, and the fire column swept toward Li Xiuman like an actual pillar of flame.
There absolutely was no way to dodge it!
Even as Li Xiuman tried his hardest to evade, Orfen only needed to gently turn its head for the breath to easily catch up to him.
“Dammit!”
Li Xiuman violently pulled his Rib Sword from his chest, pointing it toward the breath.
“Death Shield!”
A decaying aura washed over him.
A semi-spherical grey barrier expanded in front of Li Xiuman, centered on his Rib Sword's guard.
The scalding dragon breath poured mercilessly onto the barrier.
The barrier began to tremble violently, yet it firmly blocked the dragon's breath.
But Li Xiuman could also feel his mana draining rapidly.
The decaying power of death traveled down the hilt and began to corrode his body.
Before long, a prompt popped up in front of him: [Constitution -1].
Li Xiuman now understood the nature of this skill.
It would deduct his Constitution points depending on the amount of damage blocked.
However, these lost points could be recovered later by purging the energy of death.
Rate on N.U.
