The interior of the dark mountain was complex yet devoid of any life. Louie walked in silence at the front while Sisna and Lysfer followed close behind.
‘Supposing that the Queen of Calamity did not immediately die that year and hid in the Shadow Realm, then it was likely that she has recuperated from her injuries. Under normal circumstances, her injuries should have already healed in a thousand years, yet there was no movement from her at all on the main continent… Moreover, why was she calling herself the Shadow Dragon King? Could it be that the reason she attacked and slaughtered through the whole continent was that she truly went crazy?’
‘No the probability of that should be very low. If she had really gone crazy, it would be impossible for her to be able to hide among humans and learn magic. According to the fetching’s words, it should have been something related to faith. Could it be that the red dragon is half-step into the demigod rank?’
Louie sighed. With the talent and strength shown by the red dragon, she would definitely become the strongest in the main continent if she truly became a demigod. But she still hadn’t taken that final step yet.
From this, it could be seen how hard becoming a demigod was. The difficulty in becoming a God is even higher than that, mainly because faith was inherently difficult to collect.
If becoming a demigod only relied on self-effort, then the road to becoming a true God needed far more than that. It also required advancements in the field of politics, history, and civilization. Only then could one succeed.
Because faith was derived from mortals, it was necessary to understand them, their desires, and their dreams. Gods were products of such dreams.
‘No matter what, the bottom of the mystery would be uncovered in a moment.’
Louie suppressed his thoughts and continued walking ahead of the tunnels of the dark mountain. He did not know which tunnel could actually lead to the center of the mountain, but he could sense something deep inside the mountain that seemed to attract him.
‘This might be a dragon’s perception.’
Louie made this conclusion.
There were no monsters inside the dark mountain. It was as if the owner of the palace forbade any creature to go inside, allowing Louie to relax.
Although the kobolds and goblins weren’t strong and a single dragon breath could annihilate them, it would be quite costly and wasteful to annihilate those mutated creatures if they united into an army. Louie did not want to do that.
“This terror…”
Louie suddenly turned around and smiled.
He noticed Sisna’s tense body. Even the courageous Lysfer walked with heavy footsteps.
The elven lady bit her lips and nodded. Even if she was a legendary rank powerhouse, she was still worried about facing the dragon that once ravaged the continent a thousand years ago.
Needless to say, Lysfer was even worse off. Bravery did not bring a qualitative change to her power. Ultimately, she was just a ninth rank warrior. She still felt faint fear facing the dragon that killed several legendary rank powerhouses.
“Fear is the greatest and most valuable emotion of all creatures. That is our most precious treasure!”
Louis said so and stopped in his tracks, for he reached the end of a precipice. A stone was kicked down and fell at the edge of the cliff.
The cliff went deep underground and seemed to lead to a bottomless abyss. Only darkness could be seen while standing at its edge.
But the three people present were not ordinary. They gazed at the pit under their feet and saw everything below them.
“So this is what the name Shadow Dragon King meant…”
Louie narrowed his eyes calmly.
In the deepest part of the huge pit was an extremely complex and huge magic formation. If it was in the past, Louie would not have been able to recognize the meaning behind it, but after lighting up the divine authority of magic, he was able to read these runes easily.
“This magic formation is made to transform souls. The soul of a creature could be converted into an energy-based body using different attribute energy – for example, becoming an undead, a shadow, a fire elemental, or even a water elemental.”
Thinking that Sisna and Lysfer might not have understood the role of the formation, he explained out loud.
At the center of the magic formation was a bunch of clumped-up shadows that boiled like water. It was impossible to distinguish its exact form, but through the distorted shadows, the figure of a dragon was barely visible.
“This is truly a disgrace to dragons or even blasphemy!”
Louie said with a serious expression.
The reason he said this was because the soul had already changed forms. Whether it was to become strong or not, this was simply an insult to dragons.
Dragons were a race that regarded glory above everything. Their bodies were the most perfect creation in their eyes. If a dragon abandoned their body and altered its own soul into a different form, that would simply be a disgrace!
And if somebody forcefully killed a dragon and altered their soul, that blasphemer would be hunted by the entire race.
“That clump of shadow might just be that Queen of Calamity, Noella Nys Gein. From the looks of the spell’s arrangement, this was definitely her own choice.”
It seemed that she did suffer an untreatable serious injury a thousand years ago, so she forced her soul to leave her body and transformed it into a shadow dragon. The reason she chose this form was definitely because this was the Shadow Realm. This place is filled with shadow energy, so her only choice was to become a shadow dragon.”
Louie slowly opened his mouth after taking a look at the surroundings, “Strange, where is the body that she discarded? A thousand years shouldn’t be enough to decompose a dragon’s bones, but her body is missing.”
Louie was puzzled.
Sisna and Lysfer went silent as they could not answer Louie’s doubts. The two just stared vigilantly at the clump of shadow, fearing that it would change at any moment.
And coincidentally, the shadow did change.
The shadow began to flutter and vibrate. The slight illusory shadow began to stretch and lengthen. It didn’t take long for it to change into a giant dragon. It reached a length of more than 40 meters. According to the standards of dragons, this was a sign of transforming into an ancient dragon. A normal elder dragon was only at most 40 meters long!
The shadow of the dragon formed from darkness gradually became substantial. Under Sisna and Lysfer’s gaze, a pair of inverted dragon eyes suddenly opened from the shadow-formed head!