Chapter 168 (1): Remember Your Human Form

How could something as precious as dragon blood be mass-produced? Wayne couldn’t believe it. He remembered a certain demon from hell working so hard on Dragon Heart Island just to create a powerful host body for their descent. The demon would’ve succeeded if the faith they went after hadn’t turned out to belong to an ancient god.

Even demons coveted dragon blood. Had anyone asked them before making it commonplace? Even if the demons said yes, Wayne wouldn’t. As the soon-to-be dragonrider of the Lando family, he wanted dragon blood to be exclusive.

Growl—

The eight dragon-blooded soldiers completed their transformation, howling as they shook their arms. Their muscles bulged, turning as hard as boulders. Their sharp claws glinted coldly like they could cut steel like butter. Their long tails swept around wildly, the rumbling currents making clear their power.

Their fierce eyes locked onto Wayne. From their mutated, crocodile-like mouths, heated steam and saliva leaked continuously.

“Maybe it’s crocodile blood...” Wayne grumbled. Personally, he would like to reject the possibility that the eight soldiers were mass-produced dragon-blooded creatures.

“Do you need help, Master?”

Mona sent a voice message. Wayne turned her down. He had to personally devalue the dragon-blooded creations to ensure Veronica’s worth. It would be a great loss for the exclusive car he bought to depreciate without warning!

Moreover...

He narrowed his eyes. The thought that there was a faction capable of mass-producing Dragonbloods chilled him to the bones. The implication was so serious that he worried he would be biting off more than he could chew.

Damn it, he shouldn’t have taken a stand.

While regretting his recklessness, he beckoned the dragon-blooded soldiers over. Even if he went back in time, he would make the same decision in the heat of the moment, given what the other side had done.

Boom!

Wayne made a powerful stomp, crushing the carpet beneath his feet. His fist cut through the air and flew toward the dragon-blooded soldier at the very front. Their stiff thoughts never considered dodging as an option, so they instinctively swung their fists to meet Wayne’s punch.

The big and small fists clashed, creating a burst of mist-like current with an audible boom. White flesh splattered as the dragon-blooded soldier’s fist fell apart, bone by bone and segment by segment. Then their entire arm trembled violently. They roared as they retreated with fierce gaze, showing no signs of pain.

Wayne’s concern melted. Feet continuing to advance, he made fiercer and fiercer swings with his fists.

The sound of cloth tearing reverberated through the corridor, accompanied by angry roars and cracking bones. Every few moments, a white figure would slam into the walls or the ceiling.

Wayne pinned a soldier to the wall with a hand on their chest. When the soldier responded by swinging their claws, he caught their wrist, tightening his grip to sink his fingers into the flesh and thick joint.

Rip!

He tore the joint and a segment of the arm bone out, leaving the dragon-blooded soldier’s arm drooping. Unable to feel pain, the soldier opened its large maw and let out a thunderous roar.

“Shut it!” Wayne’s eyes glinted sharply. Thrusting the arm bone into the crocodile's mouth like a sharp blade, he exerted an explosive power and pierced through the back of the soldier’s neck.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“You must be well fed. Your bones have overgrown.”

He made a rotating kick to the soldier’s waist violently. Amid the sound of tendons and bones breaking, the white figure slammed into the far end of the corridor like a cannonball.

Filomina stared in regret.

(♯는‸눈)

Good news, the Gold-rank mage on the fifth floor came to the rescue!

Bad news, he came too late. Her body was already transformed by the flesh of an Astral Beast, which was an irreversible process that not only corrupted her body but also her thoughts.

Looking at the soldier having a seizure at her feet, she cursed at her bad luck. If she had persisted a little longer, she wouldn’t have had to merge with the Astral Beast.

She was in a terrible state, her right arm bulging with swelling muscles and the five fingers morphing into an octopus’s tentacles, hanging down to her feet. They curled and writhed like they had a mind of their own.

Her mutated arm had burst through her jacket and the right side of her bathrobe. Black veins squirmed under her fair skin, and muscles popped up in strands. The flesh and blood of the Astral Beast were spreading along her blood vessels. Even her chest looked incredibly macabre at this moment.

Black veins had climbed up her shoulders and neck to reach her face, leaving half of it bloated. She couldn’t open one of her eyes. Her now slimy skin secreted viscous fluid.

There was no mirror for her to check her appearance, but she had to be repulsive if her mutated arm was anything to go by.

“If only you had shown up sooner...” she murmured regretfully. In this state, she didn’t dare to show her face. She would rather die than be seen as a fallen abomination by the Gold-rank mage. It would be less of a humiliating ending!

While she dwelled in her regret, the dragon-blooded soldier nearby rose to their feet once more. They pulled the arm bone out of their maw. White foam wriggled from the stump as their critically injured body slowly healed. Their flesh and bones didn’t seem to belong to the same entity!

Filomina keenly caught the detail, a bold idea forming in her head. Perhaps the brainless soldiers could help her recover from her unsightly state.

She isolated her corrupted thoughts and forcefully suppressed her mutating body. A force always came with counterforce, and she knew she couldn’t endure for long. Once she exhausted her thoughts, she would transform into an octopus monster entirely with no chance of recovery. Moreover, the mutated parts could not be undone. It was better to release the pressure than to hold it in.

Let’s try!

If I lose, I’ll kill myself and die a human!

She clenched her jaw, swinging the five tentacles connected to her right arm toward the dragon-blooded soldier. The poor fellow had only just mended themselves, but before they could take more than two steps, the tentacles lifted them off the ground.

The Astral Beast’s flesh rushed forward like it had discovered a new continent. It wasn’t picky about which host body to expand in.

Filomina seized the chance to drive her mutated flesh out of her body with her thoughts, recovering her stunning face. Finally, she had a face she could show others again, but her neck, chest, and right arm were still mutated, with octopus-like features.

She tried the same trick, attempting to banish the corruption further, but the Astral Beast’s flesh had already completed its takeover of the dragon-blooded soldier and was now turning back to corrupt her body. She hurled the soldier far without hesitation.

The dragon-blooded soldiers were created out of a complicated mix of materials, including human soldiers, diluted dragon blood, and the flesh of a Forgotten One, combined through alchemy formations. Every stage of the process was essential and delicate. The Ministry of Magic had experimented for years to identify the right patterns to create these organic weapons.

Although they were magical creations, they were scientific in formation.

On the surface, the dragon-blooded soldiers seemed rough and brainless, nothing but a chimera of different parts, but in reality, they were complex beings. Their complexity made them sophisticated, and their sophistication made them easily damaged by outside forces.

The Astral Beast’s flesh corrupted the dragon-blooded soldier. The flesh of a Forgotten One fell apart when facing an existence on a higher plane. The mud-like white flesh crumbled and pooled, exposing the white skeleton of the body.

This time, the dragon-blooded soldier didn’t regenerate.

The bones scattered. The white skull rolled away and stopped at Wayne’s foot. He stepped on it thoughtlessly, crushing it.

“Huh?”

Did it just die?

Wayne raised an eyebrow, punching a soldier attempting to catch him off guard and sending them flying. He assessed that the soldier wasn’t even fifty percent as strong as an untransformed Veronica.

The dragon-blooded soldiers were decently strong, so while they were nothing special to Wayne, they could easily overpower an average Silver-rank mage. With the anti-magic domain acting to their favor, they were particularly deadly.

Moreover, they were experts in firearms and had received professional training, each a powerful soldier in their own right. If they were deployed in a war between powerful nations, they would be a formidable trump card.

Wayne analyzed their strengths. Their unkillable nature was their greatest feature, but without the anti-magic domain, it would be easy to kill them completely by using earth, fire, water, and wind.

He was about to take the soldiers out when one of them turned into bones, irreversibly dead. He curiously peered at the other end of the corridor, wondering who was powerful enough to do that. When he saw the culprit, he wished he could unsee it.

“Tentacle monster!”