Chapter 41: He Who Injures You Is Lind, the King of Men

Before the young dragon could even finish laughing, an angry roar echoed from the palace behind them.

Victoria’s smile instantly froze, and she asked with slight hesitation:
“Do you think that red dragon wasn’t roaring because it was happy...?”
“Er... maybe every dragon expresses joy in its own way,”
Linde made up nonsense.

But obviously, both of them knew the answer crystal clear.
In any case, the red dragon was certainly not enthusiastically inviting the three of them back for egg fried rice.

“It’s coming after us,”
reminded Sirona, who had been silent until now.

Linde turned his head to look.
That ferocious red dragon was beating its wings, hurtling toward them like a streak of flowing fire.
At the same time, the creature opened its cavernous maw, and after a brief buildup, a scorching lava sphere blasted directly at them.

“Victoria, fly to the left!”

Without a second thought, the young dragon shifted her body according to Linde’s command.
After dodging this attack, Linde glanced downward; they were still about halfway from crossing the canyon.

At a time like this, besides focusing on evasion, they also needed to prepare to counterattack using the mirror.
Ideally, they could stoke the enemy’s anger to its absolute maximum and provoke them into using a devastatingly powerful spell against them.

At this thought, Linde whispered to Sirona:
“Sirona, quick, take this opportunity to hurl fierce insults at it.”

The butterfly dragon glanced at him in surprise, but ultimately chose to speak up:
“Stupid red dragon! Your sesame-sized brain is just like a groundhog squealing all day long!”
“Roar!”
It seems it’s working, Linde thought to himself.

After Sirona finished roaring, Victoria chimed in to help:
“Big stupid dragon! Just wait until we turn you into a giant dragon dumpling later!”
“Forget it, stop cursing, you have zero aggressiveness,”
Linde said faintly.

To his surprise, however, Victoria’s words actually had an effect.
Flames could be seen igniting upon the red dragon’s crest, vividly illustrating what it meant to be hopping mad.
The beast most likely recognized Victoria as the melon-stealing dragon, and seeing her still dare to taunt it only fueled its rage further.

Yet among the red dragon’s thorns in its side, he himself was certainly high on the list.
Hatching two ordinary eggs out of a mystery box—if it were him before crossing over, he would have overheated with anger too.

The cost of provoking the opponent was that the frequency of lava spheres flying toward them grew increasingly rapid.
To the point where Victoria had to slow down her flight speed just to dodge, and the situation was turning precarious.

The timing was just about right, so Linde delivered the critical blow:
“Your Majesty! Did the gift I sent bring you any joy? Getting hot-headed harms the liver, eat some eggs to nourish your body!”
“ROAR!!!”

Gehlbert emitted a roar far surpassing any of his previous ones.
It was this little wretch who had dared to trick him!
Putting on an imposing act and bluffing him completely inside the grand hall, making him lose all his face.
He had even dared to use the great Red Dragon King to disturb his state of mind.
And finally, leaving two eggs in a box just to mock him.

No dragon could possibly understand the emotions he felt when he opened that box back then...
This ghost-pretending bastard committed crimes heinous enough to warrant death.
Anyone else could be spared, but this white fellow must be reduced to ashes!

Gehlbert halted his flight, his crimson eyes locking onto Linde as he began to chant an incantation:
“Guided by my blood and my hatred, summon the fire from the deepest and most wicked abyss to burn away the enemies before my very eyes!”

As Gehlbert finished chanting, the magic power all over his body began to converge toward his maw, and the twisting black flames grew increasingly fierce.
Once fully charged, the black flames—guaranteed not to stop until striking their target—erupted outward, charging toward Linde and the others with an unstoppable momentum.

“Purgatory Demon Flame!”
The dragon’s roar was deafening.

We’re doomed, we’re doomed. Even without looking back, Victoria could feel the back of her pants growing scorching hot.
Were they really going to turn into small dragon dumplings today? Or soup dumplings...
Wondering if there was still time to use the super-large gemstone, she prepared to pull it out just in case.

Sirona’s body was trembling too; that black flame felt fatal the moment it touched anything.
Yet precisely at this moment, her heart grew remarkably calm.
The fact that the three of them could make it this far proved that the red dragon was not as omniscient and omnipotent as imagined. Since it was not omniscient and omnipotent, it could ultimately be defeated.

Of the three, only Linde was thrilled rather than panicked; he had long since prepared for his counter-attack.
Wielding the Book of World, he stood atop the dragon’s back with a piercing, radiant gaze. Right before the black flame arrived, he flipped open the pages and simultaneously activated the mirror command.

This rebound attack was slightly different from the previous one.
Perhaps aided by the Book of World, just as the black flame was about to reverse its trajectory toward the red dragon, a surging vitality poured into it, purifying the End-force hidden within and transforming the black flame into an even purer crimson fire.

[/mirror successfully activated]
[Deducted prestige: 999]
[Achievement 'Face the Red Dragon' unlocked]
[Rewarded prestige: 500]
[Achievement 'A Dragon-Shaking Might That Resonates Across the World' unlocked]
[Reward: ...]

Linde had no time to examine the system notifications popping up in detail.
At the exact moment 999 prestige points were deducted, his prestige column plunged into the negative, all commands turned gray, and his crafting abilities were stripped away as well.
Simultaneously, it felt as though a heavy hammer had struck the back of his head; the instantaneous pain was simply indescribable.

Subsequent prestige gains did not stall. Once the negative balance was fully paid off, the original commands and crafting functions lit up once more.
Clenching his teeth, Linde forced himself to remain standing, determined to witness the red dragon’s fate after the rebound damage.

The red dragon Gehlbert had not anticipated this sudden turn of events at all.
Yet his bodily instincts from years of combat reacted faster than his brain. He half-turned his body, preventing the crimson flame—imbued with extra power—from striking his vital spots.

The End-force within his body trembled, detesting the power carried by the crimson fire.
However, missing vital spots did not mean he escaped heavy injury. The power affixed to that flame tore open his defenses, ripping a massive gash across his right wing that exposed bare bone.

Having lost his aerodynamic balance, Gehlbert plummeted straight down toward the canyon.
Before that descent, he heard that white figure shouting loudly, heard thunder reverberating across the entire sky:
“The one who wounds you is none other than Linde, the King of Men!”

The anger in Gehlbert’s heart completely eclipsed the pain in his body.
“Linde... I swear I will kill you!!!”
The red dragon unleashed an unyielding roar, his eyes filled entirely with Linde’s figure.

Whether it was the tribute-bearers who had yet to leave, or the various dragons and sub-dragons lingering nearby, all of them stared blankly up at the sky at this moment.
The peerless tyrant was falling, while the white-robed figure stood high in the heavens like a divine deity.
Thunder proclaimed his name, and with flames, he judged the tyrant.

The red dragon, deemed invincible in the hearts of all dragons, could actually bleed just like any ordinary dragon, could actually plummet down to the earth.
The word 'invincible' represented by the red dragon developed a fracture within their hearts.
And what cleaved that fracture open, utterly shattering the myth of the red dragon, was...

Every living creature firmly engraved that name in the depths of their hearts—
Linde.
The invincible myth finally came to an end within the canyon today.
The name of the King of Men was carved into the hearts of ten thousand dragons on this day.