After listening, Lu Qiuchen nodded. Seeing Odin’s earlier silence replaced by a sudden dragon-slaying rage, she now held full vigilance toward him.
“Although I can’t enter the Spirit Realm, I had some understanding of it before. The thing you called Beta is essentially the brain of the Spirit Realm. It has no consciousness of its own, only following certain rules to maintain order within the Spirit Realm.”
“Though I’m only a spiritual body now, I still retain the Star rank. Suppressing something without consciousness like Beta is extremely easy for me.”
After saying this, Kaont stopped speaking, unwilling to answer any more foolish questions.
Lu Qiuchen still had many doubts waiting to be resolved. Just as she was about to speak, Kaont sensed it and interrupted the question that was about to leave her lips.
“Any other questions can wait until later. I’ve already expended a lot of mental energy escaping from Odin. I need to rest now.”
“Don’t leave yet! I have two more questions!” Lu Qiuchen immediately asked, sensing Kaont was about to fall asleep and knowing she still had many doubts.
“How did you escape the joint forces of Odin and the Lich King ten thousand years ago? And what did you mean when you said your Silver Dragon magical talent was suppressed?”
“If you don’t answer these two questions, I’ll have to suspect you intend to possess my body. If that’s the case, I’ll consider going back to Dragon Island to turn you in to Odin!”
“小 one, it seems I was too gentle with you before! Odin was just barely an adult back then, and the newly crowned Lich King without any Star rank — how could they possibly defeat me! If it weren’t for my descendants being captured by the Demon Tribe and a curse weighing on me, how could those two brats have beaten the Dragon Lord?”
Kaont’s anger spread through his voice, pressing heavily on Lu Qiuchen’s heart. Though he was weak now, his spiritual pressure alone made her feel suffocated.
“A Star-rank expert’s anger only causes strong suffocation? Seems you really are very weak now.”
After testing, Lu Qiuchen confirmed Kaont’s frailty. Facing the former Dragon Lord, she showed no fear and retorted, “Star-level power, Dragon Lord — so what! That was all in the past. Now you’re forced by Odin to hide underground for ten thousand years, afraid to come out!”
“Heh… little one, you certainly have a knack for provocation. You’ve successfully angered me!”
Hearing the voice inside her mind, Lu Qiuchen closed her eyes and entered her spiritual space, arriving at the blood-red heart.
There, she immediately saw Kaont in the shape of a little chick.
His spiritual body was much smaller than before — once roughly a two-and-a-half-month-old chick, now just a mere two-and-a-half-week-old hatchling, covered in fluffy down.
“So this is it!” Lu Qiuchen’s eyes lit up, mocking, “Is this what the Dragon Lord looks like now?”
“You bastard! This is the curse’s effect!” The chick angrily jumped up and flapped his wings at Lu Qiuchen’s knees but was easily caught.
Seeing Lu Qiuchen’s ill-intentioned smile, Kaont realized he could no longer intimidate this Silver Dragon and instantly panicked.
“W-What do you want? You want to ask questions, right… I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
Seeing his cooperation, Lu Qiuchen nodded slightly. “Then hurry up and speak!”
Held firmly in Lu Qiuchen’s hand, Kaont grimaced and explained, “Among the Metallic Dragon lineage, the Gold Dragon has the most balanced physical constitution of all giant dragons. It masters all magic except space magic, making it the strongest combatant among dragons; the Silver Dragon, while physically weaker, specializes in space, water, ice, earth, and wind magics, with combat power even higher than the similarly ranked Five-Color Dragons.”
“I’ve previously examined your body and found that your Silver Dragon heritage and memory inheritance have been sealed by Odin’s power. The earth and wind magic talents have been locked away, leaving only water, ice, and space magics accessible.”
“Actually, I know Odin did this to prevent the Silver Dragon’s talents from being too strong and provoking jealousy from the other dragon tribes, isolating it.”
“This is because the relationship between the Metallic Dragons and the Five-Color Dragons was historically hostile, with frequent clashes. Gold and Silver Dragons had to unite just to hold their own, but due to mistakes, the Silver Dragons’ numbers sharply declined. They were once no match for the Four-Color Dragons.”
“Currently, the dragons aren’t as strong as before, and with the Metallic Dragons’ low birthrate, they cannot afford internal strife.”
“Odin imposed restrictions on the memory inheritance of all giant dragons to establish a brand-new relationship between the dragon lineages.”
“Ten thousand years ago, pureblood giant dragons’ memories weren’t limited to knowledge from the last thousand years — they even retained fragments of memories from their ancient ancestors. However, most of those memories were scattered and incomplete.”
“If you want, once my mental energy recovers, I can help you break Odin’s seal.”
Hearing this, Lu Qiuchen’s eyes brightened. She lowered her head to contemplate, then after a moment, held Kaont close to her face and said seriously, “Thank you. You’re very honest, but I refuse.”
Kaont began screaming and struggling desperately.
Ignoring the chick’s terror and struggles, Lu Qiuchen opened her mouth and swallowed Kaont’s spiritual body whole.
A warm current flowed from her mouth into her stomach, and Lu Qiuchen felt her mental power surge instantly.
At that moment, Odin appeared in Lu Qiuchen’s spiritual world, swiping a front claw at her body and pulling out an invisible thought from within her.
This thought resisted Odin sluggishly but was ultimately absorbed by Odin’s spiritual form.
The Dragon Lord from ten thousand years ago never escaped Odin’s grasp.
Everything that had just happened was actually a trap set by Odin.
Ten thousand years ago, Odin and the Lich King failed to capture Kaont’s soul and had been troubled by this ever since but could not find any trace of Kaont.
This wasn’t just because Odin feared Kaont suddenly causing trouble — there was something more important: Odin’s status as Dragon Lord was obtained by usurpation. As long as Kaont’s soul remained intact, Odin’s authority as Dragon Lord was incomplete.
Eight hundred years ago, during the fall of the Sama Empire, Odin noticed something suspicious about the disappearance of a tortured and killed young dragon.
Odin sent Calmer to investigate.
Calmer extracted and interrogated the souls of Sama’s royal family one by one and finally found clues — the Sama Empire bordered the Knight Empire, and the young dragon’s disappearance was near the border where a Knight Kingdom gold mine was located.
Gold mine, Gold Dragon soul, and the mysteriously missing young dragon — Odin was sensitive to these connections, suspecting Kaont was hiding in this area. Previously, Kaont attempted to entice the young dragon to use its body for necromantic reincarnation, but the bold Sama Empire intervened.
Following Odin’s instructions, Calmer carefully traced the clues and discovered deposits of Mithril and Adamantine beneath the gold mine.
Both Adamantine and Mithril have extremely high magical affinity, meaning they accept mental energy well and are ideal for spiritual bodies. Odin deduced Kaont was likely hiding there.
Odin thought of the well-preserved Gold Dragon heart and tried to lure Kaont out through a mental and physical link, personally performing a bloodline transformation ritual on a Lucky Sea Dragon.
Unfortunately, the plan failed — the implanted Blue Dragon bloodline clashed between Gold Dragon and Sea Dragon, resulting in incomplete Blue Dragon evolution.
Seeing the failure, Odin had no choice but to break open the dragon egg, remove the Gold Dragon heart, and secretly conduct the bloodline transformation ritual on the Sea Dragon again, explaining why this Sea Dragon’s egg took two years to hatch.
Seeing the timing was not right, Odin endured once more, only sending dragons periodically to observe the gold mine until Lu Qiuchen arrived.
During the bloodline transformation ritual for Lu Qiuchen, Odin implanted the Gold Dragon heart into her body. Possibly because both Silver and Gold Dragons belong to the Metallic Dragon lineage, this experiment succeeded.
Later, Odin had Lu Qiuchen manage the relations between the Knight Kingdom and the Empire, intending to use Beta’s hand to reveal the gold mine incident later. Of course, Lu Qiuchen was unaware of this.
To make the reaction authentic and avoid arousing Kaont’s suspicion, Odin chose to thoroughly eliminate Kaont in one go, all done in secret from Lu Qiuchen.
Even after entering Kaont’s spiritual world, Lu Qiuchen remained unaware of Odin’s plan. Only when Kaont’s spiritual world collapsed did Odin glance at Lu Qiuchen, revealing some details of the plan.
Facing the struggle between two Star-rank titans, Lu Qiuchen’s only option was to cling to Odin’s support and cooperate fully to destroy Kaont’s soul.
Moreover, this was not without benefit — Odin promised Lu Qiuchen that swallowing Kaont’s soul would grant her a great power boost, an irresistible temptation for someone eager to increase strength.
Returning to the mine, Lu Qiuchen’s trembling wasn’t just due to Odin’s cold image in her heart but also fear of his far-reaching and meticulous plan.
Before reaching Star rank, she must never stand against Odin! Lu Qiuchen silently resolved.
“Well done,” Odin praised Lu Qiuchen.
“As a reward, I will remove the magical restrictions on you and help you fuse the Gold Dragon’s lineage. From now on, you will possess traits of both the Silver and Gold Dragons. Don’t worry — I’ll publicly declare this as a unique trait of you, the ‘Savior.’”
With that, Odin waved a front claw. Lu Qiuchen’s spiritual body appeared inside the gigantic heart. Her vision darkened, and her consciousness slipped into sleep.
*****
The new year had just begun. While most people were still deep in sleep, a certain group was filled with excitement.
The massive bone dragon in the center of the dungeon slowly collapsed. Players cheered loudly, releasing their pent-up emotions.
After nearly ten days of intense strategy and hardship, the current version’s final boss — the Bone Dragon — was finally defeated by the 【Python】 guild!
The server-wide announcement of 【Python】’s first kill floated before every player in the world.
As the previous announcement ended, all players received a game prompt immediately:
The final stage of the main storyline’s first chapter will seamlessly open for all players who have reached level 80!