Beneath the Red Dragon

Chapter 13: Chapter 12: Another Fruitful Day

Karon lazily lay on the riverbank, squinting, his long tail wrapped around the bones with a few threads of blood and flesh from his prey, dangling into the water.

The tip of his tail occasionally twitched, luring a tiger-striped ferocious fish that was probing and pacing in deep water.

But the tiger-striped ferocious fish cunningly eyed the enticing bait, refusing to bite, and even drove the originally dense schools of fish around far away.

At this time, the red dragon had grown over the past two years to a length of five meters, becoming an undeniable red giant beast.

Surpassing many juvenile dragons in size, only the strongest red dragons and metal dragons among giant dragons could compare with Karon in size.

However, recently, the growth of the red dragon began to slow and stall; evidently, even his mediocre evil dragon blood flowing under the gift of superlimit state growth was insufficient to support him growing stronger.

He could think of several ways to solve this dilemma; the first is the impending sleep, to get through the crucial sleep period from juvenile dragon to young dragon, he would break the current limit and embrace a new growth period.

The second way is to learn magic; perhaps becoming a dragon mage could use the power of magic to break this dilemma.

But Karon had already consulted Akzhi, and Akzhi had no knowledge in this area, clearly, his predecessor was also like the majority of giant dragons, proud and lazy.

Blue dragon Carlette was also the same, but Carlette said she could teach Karon the giant dragon transformation skill.

When a giant dragon grows into a young dragon, they naturally learn the giant dragon variation technique, which allows controlling the overall enlargement and reduction of the body.

However, the transformation skill is changing into the form of other races, not engraved in every dragon inheritance.

Karon decided that if he couldn’t learn the transformation skill from his inheritance after this sleep, he would learn from Carlette.

Perhaps he could use the transformation skill to find an opportunity to travel the human world and learn the knowledge he desired from human mages.

The third way is the method obtained from his own inheritance, breaking the limit of his mediocre evil dragon blood, tracing back to the strong ancestral evil dragon bloodline, and the growth limit of a stronger bloodline would also be higher.

In the inheritance, there are many figures of dragons breaking out their mediocre bloodlines, their bodies generally larger than other peers, and they have their unique power and appearance features.

Among them, Karon is most impressed with a hundred-meter-long red dragon, whose mountain-like gigantic body brings unmatched oppression and fear to enemies, under those wings that block the sky, the world seems to cry and scream, praying for the red dragon to restrain its power and destructive flame.

Unfortunately, he only knows such a method exists; there is no specific method in the inheritance to trace back the bloodline, thinking that the ancestral bloodline that left the dragon inheritance should be innate.

And although it’s closer to ancient bloodlines than his evil dragon blood, it’s probably only limitedly strong.

After all, he did not find the figure of his ancestral red dragon among those dragons with powerful names, like a little Kalami; an inflating Karon maliciously speculated.

The last method is the fundamental reliance that currently puts Karon far beyond other peers, existent within his mind, in the depth of consciousness, in dreams when he is in a trance where he could see that vortex.

Earlier, the vortex the size of a human child’s fist combined with his evil dragon blood formed the gift of superlimit growth now after only the last finger-sized bit of fundamental power.

In these years, every time Karon goes to sleep, he carefully explores with consciousness, showing only the fundamental vortex finally revealing its true face.

This is composed of countless tiny golden runes, difficult for consciousness to observe, forming a wonderfully structured shape like an ellipse, hidden within the vortex, floating up and down.

It is exactly this cluster of runes that bestowed Karon abilities far exceeding same-age giant dragons, and Karon has a premonition that the gift of superlimit state growth he got is only the trivial ability of the mysterious rune.

When Karon first completed the hunt for the ferocious wild boar king, he felt the soul of the wild boar king caused fluctuations in this power in his mind.

Unfortunately, he did not have the knowledge or ability to absorb souls, the vortex passively absorbed a slight sort of power from the soul at a close distance without exerting any subjective initiative.

And he vaguely sensed some danger when perceiving the power of the wild boar king’s soul, perhaps warning him not to devour souls freely, or maybe the rune’s fluctuations made him discover some hidden dangers, these are all unknown.

But after years of exploration and research, Karon found that absorbing magic power could also enlarge that vortex in his mind. However, the rune needs not just pure magic power.

Over the years, the giant dragon spontaneously absorbed a massive amount of magic power, which only increased a tiny amount of the dream vortex’s mass, clearly this vortex filters some sort of energy from magic power, maybe absorbing only some essence contained within magic power.

There should be a common aspect in the essence of soul and magic power that causes rune fluctuations, then what exactly is this common aspect? The red dragon has many speculations in mind, and some ideas are born consequently.

But none of these methods can be immediately utilized right now, thinking this, the red dragon sighed.

The airmen who had fished half a day without catching any fish immediately vented anger on the little female dragon Kleyna, who was leaning, head resting beside him, tail swayed hard on her particularly tough head.

”It’s all your fault Kleyna, not restraining your dragon power well, causing me to not catch any fish again.”

Ever since the young female dragon found out the dragon group didn’t take her on their first hunt, she was been upset. Every time Karon leaves the dragon nest, she would follow him. During this period, you could say that Karon was never far from Kleyna, and Kleyna was never far from Karon.

Accustomed to this situation, Karon opened his eyes and laughed loudly at the red dragon: ”Karon, if you want to eat fish, you can have Rosani help you catch some in the water. Otherwise, with your fishing skills worse than the low-level monkeys in the forest, the giant dragon would starve to death.”

Furious and embarrassed, Karon immediately shouted, ”Rosani, Rosani, come out quickly. Go block this river section upstream and downstream. Today I have to drain this segment of the river and get that cunning brutal fish.”

Rosani, who was playing with fish several meters upstream, popped his head out of the water. He knew this was just Karon’s joke. Karon usually doesn’t look down on others just because he’s strong and is easy to get along with for a dragon.

So Black Dragon Rosani ignored Red Dragon’s unreasonable request, grinning while flicking his scales and rolling his eyes, ”Forget it, Karon, or I could just catch that damned brutal fish and hang it on your tail. That would be faster than draining the water.”

”Pfft,” Karon stood up on all fours, spread his wide wings, and spat out a mouthful of sparks, swearing, ”Kleyna, go back and gather the dragon group. It’s hunting time.”

This vast and fertile grassland may be deeply favored by the Icaria World. The numerous rivers crisscrossing the grassland never run dry, even in the driest seasons.

The river, originating from a far-off point in the north, flows eternally through this grassland, nurturing the plants and the numerous beast tribes here.

The dragon group flew forward in a triangular wedge formation in the sky, led by the largest juvenile red dragon, the leader of the juveniles, Karon Gogomola, serving as the formation’s most formidable attack point.

At the tips of the wings were the second-largest dragons, a female red dragon Kleyna, already over three meters and close to four meters in length, and Blue Dragon Doss, who commands storms and lightning in the sky.

Several other juvenile dragons, with bodies the size of adult horses and three meters long, connected the wingtips and the formation’s apex, ready to aid the wings and front at any time.

High above the juvenile dragons’ formation, the eleven-meter-long caretaker dragon Akzhi soared on open wings.

Her pupils, capable of adjusting, had become vertical slits, her sharp eyes scanning ahead, searching for areas that might pose a danger to the juveniles.

Ever since Karon consciously trained the juveniles’ sense of teamwork and cooperative combat ability, each hunt would have the juveniles pouring out in full force from the dragon nest.

This was partly to satisfy the juveniles’ desire for combat and slaughter, and partly for the dragon group to take the opportunity to explore the environment surrounding their territory.

As such, each juvenile hunt would venture further from the dragon nest, slightly beyond the nest’s territorial range, slowly and methodically expanding their activity area.

The dragon group flew over the familiar territory, setting their sights on a herd of over three hundred wild horses.

These wild horses were large, robust, and well-fed, with shiny coats suggesting they were well-fleshed. Moreover, the herd ran daily on the grassland, ensuring that their meat would be tough and chewy.

The juvenile dragons began locking onto their targets, all aiming for the strongest stallions in the herd. This was due to Karon’s influence.

Karon generally didn’t hunt females or the young, nor did he hunt near water sources. The juveniles knew this was called sustainable development, avoiding depleting resources in one go.

The top-down influence was quick and noticeable; the juveniles still revered strength but were slowly getting accustomed to using intelligence.

The juvenile formation began diving with Karon, the red dragon leader’s wide and powerful wings breaking the wind in the front, the group’s dive gaining speed.

By the time the herd realized something was wrong and attempted to scatter, the dragon group’s attack was upon them. The juvenile dragons swooped over the herd, their claws reaching for their targets. Karon’s powerful front and hind claws firmly grasped the lead stallion, leading the group into the sky before releasing the stallion and slamming it onto the grassland.

The other juvenile dragons did not possess Karon’s strength but left incapacitating wounds on their respective targets.

The remaining wild horses scattered, leaving behind those who couldn’t move whimpering on the ground.

The dragon group landed, Akzhi also landing in front of her prey, exhaling breath like the red dragon, charred the wild horses’ pelts to ash.

She then opened their abdomens, discarding the filthy internal organs, consuming the other energy-rich and nutritious viscera.

Finally, she signaled Karon to breathe the dragon’s breath to char her prey, using his exceptional control of flames to roast the wild horse to perfection with a crisp exterior and tender interior before opening her mouth wide to enjoy the meal.

The other juvenile dragons did likewise, with the only difference being that the white dragon liked to freeze the cleaned prey into ice blocks before crunching them noisily, causing the dragons’ teeth to ache.

Many black dragons enjoyed eating carrion, using their acid to corrode the prey before eating.

Rosani claimed that this was the lowly taste of other inferior kin, stating that a real male dragon should be clean and tasteful like the mighty Karon.

So every time, either licking his face or asking for the help of Green Dragon Antajena, or dragging prey and looking at Karon with pleading eyes, Karon couldn’t bear it and would help voluntarily.

These influences from the unique red dragon were slowly changing the dragon group. Although subtle, these accumulations eventually led to qualitative changes. This is true for anyone or anything.