Chapter 26 – Blood Red Dragon Scale

The terrifying aura that paralyzed Ling Xi with fear finally disappeared. She thought Long Chen was fine but in the next moment, he was rolling on the ground in pain. Shocked and afraid, she emerged hurriedly from the sword and her tiny body circled Long Chen in a panic. “Long Chen! Long Chen! What happened? Don’t scare me ...”

Her eyes slowly reddened as she spoke. If she could still shed tears, they would’ve been flowing by now. “My skin, it hurts!” Long Chen felt pain all over the surface of his body!

The tiny particle of Inherited Blood Essence had quickly spread across his body like a poison, and the pain was due to the blood touching his skin. “Long Chen, something’s ... growing out of your body!”

Long Chen was still full of agony when he heard Ling Xi’s frantic exclamation. In a panic, his eyes sprang open to look at his arm.

His arm had completely turned blood red and the skin had fractured into countless neat segments, each the size of a fingernail, and something was growing out of them. To his horror, they were blood-red scales!

Long Chen gasped in shock. He looked down at his body despite the intense pain and saw that dense red scales had covered his entire body. A piece of red bone that looked like a sharp knife protruded from each of his fingers, toes, knees, and arms. They looked much sharper than regular blades too!

Long Chen froze in shock when he saw the sharp bones protruding from his fingers. “Is this ... a fucking claw? Did I become a wild beast?”

He felt his back and found a row of sharp spines along it. The blood-red spines also appeared on many parts of his body. His head was also covered in dense scales, his hair had completely disappeared, replaced by terrifying red spines!

Although Long Chen couldn’t see his entire body, from his body and limbs, he could tell that his body had become the perfect weapon. The blood-red scales strengthened his defenses greatly; the spines were great for attacks! “This look ... With the blood red scales ... Well this is dramatic ...” said Long Chen, trying to find something good to say as he stared at his body.

By this time, most of the pain had faded. It looked like his metamorphosis was almost complete.

Ling Xi finally heaved a sigh of relief when she heard Long Chen speaking coherently. She was about to speak when Long Chen asked, “Xiao Xi, do you think I’m handsome looking like this?”

Ling Xi regarded him for a while. Long Chen looked vicious and violent but the lines on his body from the scales to his spines were perfect. It

was

cool. But what’s the use of that? “Long Chen, how ... how are you feeling?”

Long Chen observed the sensations in his body. “I don’t know ... but I can feel immense power inside! I feel powerful!”

He was feeling the strength of this body. The particle of the Inherited Blood Essence from the Dragon Seal had penetrated his body and was now headed towards its final destination, his dantian.

Long Chen’s body had already been modified into something very strange.

Long Chen could even see that every organ, every bone, even every drop of blood contained a blood-red dragon’s shadow twisting and roaring angrily!

Every organ and muscle came alive; his heartbeat grew several times stronger. When the enhanced blood flowed into his organs and muscles, his body practically devoured it! Long Chen had never dreamed of such a strange phenomenon! “Why did I become like this ... What happened to me?” Long Chen mumbled to himself.

While he muttered to himself, the expanding Inherited Blood Essence merged into his Qi, which had attained the Fifth Draconic Stage. In an instant, his Qi changed at lightning speed. A wisp of red appeared in it, and as it changed, the red grew denser!

This process was not painful but Long Chen realized to his shock that ten units of his original Qi had turned into one unit of this blood-red Qi!

This realization had just hit him when a strong wave of hunger crashed through his body and his face contorted.

Ling Xi asked worriedly, “What ... What’s going on with you?”

He could feel her concern and saw the worry in her eyes, and he felt a gush of warmth. “I-I feel so hungry .... I can’t take it anymore ... I’m so hungry!”

Long Chen groaned in suffering. Yet they both realized in horror that his groan was actually a dragon’s roar!

But Long Chen had no time to concern himself about it. He needed ten units of Qi for one unit of blood-red Qi! The feeling of starvation was due to the lack of Qi. He realized he was like demonic beasts! “I’m so hungry! So hungry ...”

Long Chen collapsed on the ground. He was so hungry that he had no more strength left in him. Ling Xi’s mind was a mess after the events of the day. She didn’t know how to solve his problem so all she could do was say in a panic, “I-I’m going to get you something to eat!”

If she left, she would have to use the Ling Xi Sword to fly away. She would probably collapse after a while, and there wasn’t any hope that she would find him something to eat. When Long Chen heard her say she was leaving, he stopped her, “No, you don’t have to! I don’t eat that ...”

The sentence seemed to have come out of his subconscious. Ling Xi asked in a panic, “What the hell do you want to eat then?”

Long Chen froze. He too was wondering about that. This hunger arose from insufficient Qi, so ...

Long Chen had more than 500 spirit jades on him. When he remembered this, he fished them out quickly. When he saw them, he realized he didn’t want to cultivate the spiritual energy in the spirit jade but to eat them!

To Ling Xi’s horror, Long Chen stuffed a handful of spirit jade pieces into his mouth, crushing the Qi-filled jade stones into powder with his sharp teeth. He swallowed huge amounts of nature’s spiritual energy, which entered his stomach and his dantian where they were quickly converted into new blood-red Qi!

Long Chen felt like a person who had been starving for several days suddenly receiving a feast! While that person might choke to death if they ate too quickly, that wouldn’t happen to him!

His strange body absorbed the spiritual energy extremely quickly. In just fifteen minutes, he had consumed almost 600 jade pieces and turned them all into new blood-red Qi!

Yet he realized the hunger had only been momentarily sated!

The spirit jade didn’t seem very effective in making blood-red Qi. Although the amount he had was enough for him to break through the Sixth Draconic Stage if he had cultivated them normally, it was more like a side dish now.

At least the plate of side dishes was enough to slightly ease his hunger.

He had a feeling that he might die of hunger if he didn’t eat anything else that night.

Ling Xi was stunned and speechless when she watched Long Chen eat the spirit jade. Despite her vast experience, she didn’t know what was happening at all. Her nerves finally calmed a little when she saw Long Chen returning to normal after eating the spirit jades.

She was about to speak when Long Chen, who had finished his spirit jades, suddenly spoke. “Xiao Xi, get back into the Ling Xi Sword. We need to get out of here. Help me find a herd of nearby demonic beasts! Quick!”

They were still in an emergency situation. Despite her many questions, when she saw the urgency in his eyes, Ling Xi turned into the sword and pierced herself into his ear.

However, Long Chen’s scales were so hard that despite being a very sharp sword, Ling Xi had to exert immense effort to stick herself on his ear.

Long Chen ran out without another word. It was late at night and his bloody aura was extremely obvious. However, there was an ancient majestic feeling within the bloodiness. The small demonic beasts could sense this from far away and trembled.

Long Chen headed towards the deeper areas of the Desolate Mountains. After a while, Ling Xi said, “There’s an underground burrow in front. I can sense many creatures inside but they seem to be at least Category 5 Yellow-tier beasts. You ...”

Before Ling Xi could finish, Long Chen scurried into the underground burrow. The scent of food was already obvious.

The burrow was damp, with a thick scent of blood. He could faintly see bones sticking out along the way. Very soon, he reached an underground burrow.

It was a large space with a dark pool of mud on the ground. A rotting stench attacked his nose, though Long Chen was unaffected.

The mud was not far from his feet. A blood-red silhouette slowly lifted its head above the muddy surface. A pair of red eyes stared at the intruder coldly. “It’s ... an Underground Blood Lizard.”

Long Chen’s presence was too obvious. Very soon, he noticed a sea of red dots igniting like countless lanterns in the dark. A sense of violent hostility radiated from them.

Whoosh!

Long Chen sensed the closest Blood Lizard pouncing at him, a rotting stench wafting from it.

He realized that the Underground Blood Lizards also had blood red scales and bony spines just like he did. However, their scales were rough, large, dirty, and irregular. Their spines were crooked as well. Aesthetic wise, they were as different as heaven and earth!

Long Chen didn’t have time to think. The Blood Lizard pounced on him as if it wanted to crush him flat with its huge body. In the past, Long Chen would have destroyed it using combat techniques but this time, he did not.

He felt his blood surge throughout his body. Although the Blood Lizard was dirty, Long Chen had a peculiar feeling that it would be a delicious meal.

Long Chen shot forward, turning into a red shadow. In an instant, his arm stabbed through its abdomen, his claws squeezing its heart!