Chapter 105: The Black Dragon

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Jiang Xiaotian reached out and grabbed at the figure, but his hand passed straight through the man once more.

A fake?

Could this not be real? Jiang Xiaotian tried running to the man’s front, but the stranger’s face was so blurred that he could not make out a single feature.

He did not even know whether the stranger was human or some divine being. The man was terrifyingly powerful—summoning thunder from the heavens with a casual gesture and defeating a dragon without the slightest effort. What kind of monstrous existence was he?

Jiang Xiaotian could not understand it. Perhaps because he had spent so much time with Ling’er, he felt an especial pang of sympathy for the dragon he had just seen, and an even stronger hostility toward this stranger.

Yet no matter how loudly he shouted, the other party ignored him completely. Jiang Xiaotian could neither touch nor interfere with anything. Everything around him was so indistinct that he was certain this was not reality—at least, not the present.

He hurried back to see how the dragon was doing, but the moment he turned around, the scene changed again. Once more, everything was shrouded in mist. In the distance stood the silhouette of a girl.

“Master, have you come to save me?” she suddenly asked.

Jiang Xiaotian glanced behind him and saw no one. Then he pointed at himself. “Me...?”

The girl nodded.

Jiang Xiaotian immediately gave an awkward laugh. “Miss, you have mistaken me for someone else. I’m not your master. My name is Jiang Xiaotian, and I’m useless. I only came to take a look at the treasure. What was that thing I just saw?”

The girl remained silent for a long while. At last, she answered despondently, “A memory, Master...”

Jiang Xiaotian clicked his tongue. What was wrong with this female dragon? He had already told her she had mistaken him for someone else. Master, indeed! What qualifications did he have to become anyone’s master? He would only mislead his disciple.

As he pondered this, the girl had already come to stand before him.

He still could not see her face clearly. She slowly extended a hand, as though she meant to caress Jiang Xiaotian’s cheek, but her hand passed through his body all the same.

At once, an immense sorrow filled his chest. Jiang Xiaotian was certain he did not know her, yet he felt her grief and pain as though they were his own.

“You... What’s wrong? Who are you?” Jiang Xiaotian felt sorry for her. Though they had never met, she gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

It was precisely that feeling that had guided him here.

“It seems even Master has been defeated...”

The girl withdrew her hand and let out a soft sigh.

Jiang Xiaotian was about to ask another question when she suddenly shoved him.

“You’re in danger.”

The world spun violently once more, but Jiang Xiaotian did not lose consciousness. At the same time, everything around him abruptly came into focus.

He stared blankly at his surroundings. Smoke filled the air, and beneath his feet lay only a small patch of land. His right hand was still clutching that battered sword.

Jiang Xiaotian froze. “What... happened?”

Everything that had just occurred felt as unreal as a dream, yet it had undeniably happened.

The girl had said it was a memory.

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Jiang Xiaotian looked at the sword. Was it the one showing him these memories?

He released his grip and absently rubbed his eyes, only to realize that tears were streaming down his face. When had he begun crying?

Jiang Xiaotian hurriedly wiped away the tears, but the sorrow remained. Who exactly was that girl? Why did she feel so familiar to him?

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine. In the next instant, it felt as though something heavy had slammed into his back, sending him flying into the lake.

He struggled to climb ashore, coughing up several mouthfuls of water. Blood mixed with the lake water sprayed from his mouth, and Jiang Xiaotian finally awoke from his daze.

He had been attacked!

But what shocked him most was the extent of his injuries. How long had it been since he had been wounded so severely? Who was this person?

Jiang Xiaotian hastily raised his head and saw a black figure standing on the shore.

His pupils contracted. Could it be that masked man?

No, that was not right. This person’s back was hunched, and he was much shorter.

Jiang Xiaotian had no time to think. He immediately charged forward to seize the sword, but before he could take two steps, he was blasted backward again. Even with his spiritual energy plentiful, he had no time to heal his internal injuries. Gritting his teeth, Jiang Xiaotian was consumed by excruciating pain.

“You’re breaking the rules! Anyone above the mid-stage of Inner Strength isn’t allowed in here!” Jiang Xiaotian shouted through the pain.

The hunched old man paid him no heed. Several strange, meaningless chuckles drifted from his throat.

In the blink of an eye, he had arrived beside the ancient sword. Jiang Xiaotian hurriedly crawled backward, but there was only the lake behind him. Where could he go?

“Oh?”

A dry voice came from the old man, tinged with surprise and sudden realization.

He looked at Jiang Xiaotian with a mocking air. “What? Going to repeat the same mistake?”

Jiang Xiaotian did not understand what he meant, but he would not sit idly by and await death. Fortunately, spiritual energy was abundant here, making this his home ground. He immediately summoned flames that surrounded him completely. If the hunched old man dared to attack again, he would surely face Jiang Xiaotian’s desperate counterattack.

Yet when the old man saw the flames, a trace of fear flashed through his eyes before vanishing almost at once.

“You actually cultivated a secret dragon technique?”

Jiang Xiaotian’s mind rang with a loud hum, and he grew genuinely tense.

Everyone he had encountered before had failed to recognize the Dragon Breath Technique, but this old man had identified it with a single sentence.

An unprecedented terror seized Jiang Xiaotian. He attacked without hesitation. Every flame erupted at that moment, and under his will, the entire patch of land transformed into a sea of fire, twisting like a flaming dragon as it sought to devour the hunched old man.

But the two of them were on entirely different levels. Jiang Xiaotian’s all-out assault looked to the old man like nothing more than a child’s game.

The old man stood at the center of the fiery vortex, showing not the slightest intention of dodging.

“Heh heh. Even a fine treasure is wasted in your hands.”

Jiang Xiaotian dared not hold anything back. He immediately pushed his perception to its absolute limit. Everything around him slowed, gradually approaching stillness.

His fist, wreathed in blazing fire, shot forward like lightning, aimed directly at the old man’s throat. He intended to kill him with a single blow.

Jiang Xiaotian knew very well that today, either he died or the other man did.

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Thus, he fought with every ounce of strength he possessed. All the power in his body was concentrated into that single punch. Scorching flames mingled with terrifying energy— even someone in the late stage of Inner Strength would have been astonished by its might.

Jiang Xiaotian’s heart pounded wildly. Unless something unexpected happened, even an opponent this powerful would be injured by the blow. If he could not defeat him, he could at least seize the opportunity to escape.

But just as his fist touched the old man’s neck, an icy sensation shattered all hope in his heart.

Those pitch-black scales were not something a human could possess. Not only had they blocked his attack, they had even numbed his palm with the impact.

“Dragon... dragon scales?” Jiang Xiaotian murmured.

Before he could recover, the hunched old man broke through the limits of his perception. His movements instantly returned to normal, and with a single reach, he seized Jiang Xiaotian by the throat.

“Heh heh. Who taught you?” The old man’s dry voice seemed to carry a trace of excitement.

“It doesn’t matter if you refuse to say. The treasure does not belong to you.”

As he spoke, he reached out with his other hand to draw the ancient sword.

But the moment his fingers touched the hilt, a sizzling sound like something being scorched rang out, and white smoke rose into the air.

The hunched old man’s face twisted in agony. He hastily withdrew his hand and flung Jiang Xiaotian to the ground.

“Hand over the Dragon Soul! It belongs to our dragon clan!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the hunched old man’s eyes widened. A golden sphere of light emerged from behind Jiang Xiaotian, striking him and knocking him flat before darting back to Jiang Xiaotian’s side.

Jiang Xiaotian did not know what the Dragon Soul was, but this sphere of light was almost certainly it.

He immediately thought of the dragon-clan girl who had called him Master. Could it be her? Had she just protected him?

For those two reasons alone, he absolutely could not hand her over to this villain.

Jiang Xiaotian looked at the hunched old man’s sinister expression. His heart hardened. He seized the sphere of light, and Dragon’s Fury instantly enveloped it. Then, with all his strength, he hurled it into the sky.

“Run!”

It flew toward the clouds like a ball of fire. After hanging motionless in the air for a moment, it suddenly accelerated.

Jiang Xiaotian breathed a sigh of relief. He had bet correctly. The sphere possessed its own consciousness. Most likely, when he touched the sword, he had released it.

“You’re courting death!”

The old man’s aura surged violently. But as he watched the sphere fly farther away, he actually leapt into the air and gave chase.

In the next instant, a girl’s delicate cry rang out.

“Get down!”

Boom!

The black dragon old man was kicked from the sky, crashing into the lake like a falling meteor.

Jiang Xiaotian looked up. It was the little girl who had warned him not to touch the sword.

She was looking at him as well, her voice filled with utter exasperation.

“I looked away for just one minute, and you were already trying to get yourself killed again. How can you be this unlucky?”

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