Traces of the Lava Dragon and the Beginning of Revenge

The only slight regret was that the intense smell of blood from the fish corpses scattered across the ground lent this swamp a grim, murderous air. When that Mudfish Dragon came by, it would probably be much more cautious, making it impossible to continue the pursuit.

But Xingyan was in no hurry. Now that he had settled on revenge as his general direction, waiting a few more days was nothing. He had the patience.

Revenge was not something to rush. The more hurried he was, the easier it would be to make mistakes. A little progress each day was already quite good.

Today, he would chop up Bite Fish. Tomorrow, he would clear out those Mudfish Dragons that had not grown up yet. The day after that, he would look for a suitable place to set traps...

Besides, with these extra days to eat his fill, Xingyan might become even stronger, raising his odds of winning by a bit more.

According to the information in his memories, although monsters like Bite Fish had always been classified as fish before this installment of World, they were classified as Piscine Wyverns in this one... In any case, it was rather mysterious. If they really were Piscine Wyverns, then they should provide more Life Energy, right?

All good things.

With two or three of the largest fish carcasses clamped in his jaws and several more chunks gripped in each of his tiny, pitiful foreclaws, Xingyan grunted and shuffled out of the swamp.

Not long after he left, the Mudfish Dragon swam into the area. It breathed heavily, having already caught the lingering scent of blood in the air, and then discovered the Bite Fish corpses Xingyan had been unable to carry away.

It showed neither sorrow nor anger over the death of the little brothers that usually followed it around for food. Though Mudfish Dragons were classified as large wyverns and occupied a middle ecological tier, their intelligence was still far lacking compared to high-tier wyverns like Glavenus.

It could only be said that it was a little smart, but not very.

With no time to mourn its Bite Fish brethren, the Mudfish Dragon quickly devoured the fish chunks Xingyan had left behind—honestly, they smelled pretty good.

They really whetted its appetite.

But Xingyan knew nothing of its little joy. In fact, on his way home, he had stopped. He stared blankly at the enormous thing before him, not even noticing the fish chunks hanging from his foreclaws falling to the ground.

It was a feeling difficult to describe with words. If he had to compare it to something, it was as though the air surrounding him had suddenly acquired tangible weight, pressing down so hard that Xingyan could barely breathe.

Pressure.

Pressure emanating from the gigantic thing before him.

Every muscle in his body, even the blood flowing through his veins, seemed to be suppressed. Xingyan's instincts kept warning him to run—to flee from the territory of a creature stronger and more advanced than himself.

The thing before him... was like a small volcano that had appeared out of nowhere amid a desolate stretch of yellowish-brown stone. A real small volcano, around two or three Xingyans tall, formed from several chunks of charred black rock... probably rocks, anyway. In short, they were piled together into a small mountain.

More than that, dark red magma, nearly solid and barely able to flow, slowly dripped from the gaps between the rocks, as if something inside them were still burning silently.

It was an invisible form of intimidation. Even though the owner of this thing was not here at the moment, merely the debris it had casually dropped had already thrown nearby creatures into disorder. Even the large monsters that usually ruled this region were no exception.

An Elder Dragon.

This was the intimidation of an Elder Dragon.

Its mere existence was enough to affect every creature in its environment. To put it bluntly, even taking a dump could make species within the normal food chain restless and feel threatened.

Mudfish Dragons, Horned Dragons, Glavenus—before an Elder Dragon, they were all insignificant small fry, not worth mentioning.

Xingyan knew what this was. If his memories were correct, then this was a trace left behind by the Lava Dragon.

The so-called Lava Dragon was a kind of Mountain Dragon. As its name suggested, its very existence was an exceptionally enormous mountain range. When its feet stood upon the seabed, even its head and back could rise above the water's surface. One could only imagine how immense it truly was.

Naturally, the burning rocks before him could not possibly be Lava Dragon dung. A dragon whose body was as enormous as a mountain range could not possibly leave droppings this small, and the Great Sand Sea had not seen any strange giant footprints or trails of lava recently.

Therefore, the most likely possibility was that the Lava Dragon had breathed out or vented heat somewhere, blasting away in one go the rocks and ores piled atop the heat-dissipating organs on its back. They had eventually landed here in the Great Sand Sea.

The Lava Dragon itself had probably not come ashore in the Great Sand Sea. Otherwise, the entire Great Sand Sea would not be so peaceful.

If an Elder Dragon as vast as a mountain range crossed the Great Sand Sea, the destruction and impact caused by its movement alone would be enough to ruin a huge stretch of land.

It would be much like Arthas advancing upon Silvermoon City, leaving behind a trail of death.

Yet even so, Xingyan had already been affected by this enormous trace of the Lava Dragon.

His rational mind told him that the Lava Dragon had not appeared in the Great Sand Sea, that this place was still safe. Yet his instincts continued to warn him to run—Young Dragons were especially sensitive to danger.

It was something that Mudfish Dragon could never make him feel.

A suppression embedded in his bloodline.

After staring at the little mountain of slag for a while, Xingyan silently picked up the fish chunks that had fallen to the ground, then left without looking back.

Being frightened by a piece of waste casually spat out by another dragon stung the pride of his Glavenus heart. If he were merely an ordinary Glavenus, it would not have meant much. After all, bowing to Elder Dragons or being suppressed by them was not something unacceptable to their kind.

But Xingyan was different.

After realizing that his body was unique, he had developed an equally unique ambition... Ordinary Glavenus might be intimidated by Elder Dragons, but if a Glavenus with the wisdom of a transmigrator was also intimidated by Elder Dragons, then would he not have transmigrated for nothing?

Besides, they were only Elder Dragons. If he really got the chance to eat them, who was to say which one was the Elder Dragon?

The fish chunks he brought back became breakfast the next day. After a good night's sleep, it was another wonderful day.

The appearance of the Lava Dragon's trace left Xingyan somewhat confused. In the game, the hunters of the First Expedition Team had initially set out while tracking a Kushala Daora undertaking the Elder Dragon Crossing. They had first discovered the Lava Dragon's existence along the way, then arrived in the New World. Yet according to the game's background setting, the Lava Dragon that was ultimately prevented from entering the Leyline Corridor to die had not actually come to the New World for the first time.

From beginning to end, there had only ever been one Lava Dragon, and the story had clearly emphasized that the Ley Line Energy of the New World could sustain only one such being.

The Lava Dragon's life cycle was measured in centuries. Setting aside the years of its infancy and youth, once it entered old age, it would attempt to enter the Leyline Corridor once every few decades.

But perhaps because its lifespan had not yet reached its end, or perhaps because the Light Dragon hidden where the New World's ley lines converged did not yet need the Life Energy accumulated over a Lava Dragon's lifetime in order to grow, the summons had not been strong enough. In short, during its previous attempts, the Lava Dragon had ultimately failed to enter the depths of the Leyline Corridor.

At this moment, Xingyan also did not know which attempt it had been when the Lava Dragon left behind this trace while returning from the sea to the New World. Since his birth, he had thoroughly explored the surrounding region and knew very well which places were dangerous and which were safe, yet he had never seen any traces of human-made objects.

Still, the trace left behind by the Lava Dragon was a conspicuous sign. Perhaps hunters had already come ashore somewhere in a remote corner of the Great Sand Sea.

What sort of impact would they have on the Great Sand Sea?

Uncertain of what exactly was happening outside, Xingyan's revenge plan continued as usual. He merely reminded his Bird Bros to be careful lately and not run around recklessly.

If Guild Hunters had truly landed at the edge of the Great Sand Sea, then small bird wyverns like the Bird Bros would become a source of materials that those hunters, lacking all kinds of supplies and equipment, could quickly make use of.

After all, unlike hunters in the Old World, hunters in the New World were not restricted by all those cumbersome and strict reviews and applications when they wanted to hunt.

After steadying himself, Xingyan even returned to the stone mass bearing traces left behind by the Lava Dragon. Thanks to the Elder Dragon aura it emitted, the area nearby had become considerably safer.

Xingyan took a deep breath—honestly, he had no idea how long this Lava Dragon trace had been lying here. Compared with yesterday, the Elder Dragon aura it gave off had faded somewhat, but it was still dense.

But Xingyan still opened his mouth.

He intended to eat this ore mass imbued with the Lava Dragon's aura.

Yes, an ore mass—though it was a trace left by an Elder Dragon, this pile of fused stone was not the Lava Dragon's flesh, shell, excrement, or anything like that. It was formed from rocks and mineral veins that had clung to the Elder Dragon's body as it traveled through the earth veins or during volcanic eruptions.

Compared with ordinary ores, this clump of ore merely contained some Elder Dragon Energy belonging to the Lava Dragon, accumulated over countless years of clinging to its body.

That was what Xingyan wanted to eat now.

Over the long years, the Lava Dragon had relied on volcanoes to store the energy needed to sustain itself, then accumulated the minerals spewed out by volcanic eruptions across its back, forcibly piling an entire mountain onto itself.

For Xingyan, this was absolutely a nutritious feast that had fallen from the heavens.

The refined essence of ore smelted by volcanic heat was no longer the inferior stuff he usually had to search painstakingly for, mixed with vast amounts of impurities, rocks, and dirt. This was pure finished ore.

There was no need to separate the various ores fused together. Iron ore, copper ore, Lapis Lazuli, Dragonite Ore, Firestone, Lightcrystal... they were all good stuff. All he had to do was eat!!

This was a feast that an ordinary Glavenus baby could never obtain. Xingyan devoured it desperately like a bottomless pit. At that moment, he did not resemble a Glavenus that fed on flesh and blood at all, but rather some kind of wyvern that lived by eating dirt.

Only after Xingyan had swallowed the entire massive Lava Dragon stone mass clean—scraping away even a layer of soil from the ground—did he let out a satisfied burp and pat his chest with his forepaw. His arms were too short to reach his belly.

He now had a clear understanding of just how unusual his body was. At the very least, no normal wyvern could eat something twice the size of its entire body in one go.

Even his belly did not seem to have grown much larger.

But Xingyan knew clearly that the things he had eaten had not vanished. He could feel the tip of his tail itching, as though something were about to grow, while the surging heat within his body became even more intense.

After he returned to his nest and slept quietly for a day, the changes in his body became increasingly obvious. Perhaps because he was still young and small, any changes always showed themselves in the shortest possible time.

For one thing, the most obvious change was Xingyan's Sword Tail—it was no longer the grayish-white color tinged with blue-green from eating too much iron ore and Lapis Lazuli. It now bore a streak of vivid red.

There was no doubt that the ores infused with the Lava Dragon's abundant Fire Attribute Energy had played a major role in this process, and the Glavenus greatsword Xingyan had forged underwent corresponding changes as well.

When Xingyan ground it until it was red-hot, he was surprised to find that its temperature was far higher than before. Sparks flew everywhere when he swung it.

However, the shell on Xingyan's body had not changed much. It seemed that all the essence of what he had eaten this time had gone into his tail.

Still, that was a good thing. With the hunt for the Mudfish Dragon approaching, a sharper and more damaging weapon made Xingyan even happier.

It was like someone who had just left the beginner village being handed an endgame weapon. The feeling was completely different at once.

With such a new weapon in hand, Xingyan did not hesitate to... set a trap.

Uh, right in the Flower Field Marshland Area.

Being able to fight was one thing; setting traps was another. There was no conflict between the two.

It was still the familiar location and the familiar hiding place. The not-particularly-clever Mudfish Dragon had not even realized a wyvern was watching it, much less imagined that the Glavenus hatchling it had driven away some time ago would return to hunt it.

It spent every day as though nothing were wrong, eating, drinking, and wandering about without the slightest sense of tension.

"Awwooo! Awwooo!!"

In a relatively open patch of marshland, several trees stood there all alone, with a few rocks of varying sizes around them. The view was fairly broad, and there was nothing worth being wary of.

At the crossing branches of those trees, a Carapace Dragon was continuously howling. Its cries were mournful and exceptionally loud, audible even from the edge of this side of the marshland.