This Is Gobada

Barn looked at the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon before him in confusion. The other was curled up in a ball, holding his tail to his mouth. He seemed to be chewing on it, or perhaps sucking on it.

"Declan? What are you doing?" Barn asked in confusion.

"Ah!" Declan quickly hid his tail behind him. "Barn, why are you out?"

Barn looked at the blood at the corner of his mouth, then at the tail behind him. "You're... eating your own tail?"

A panicked expression appeared on Declan's massive dragon head. He mumbled, "It's fine. I'm big, so losing a little meat isn't a big deal."

"Why didn't you eat anything—" Barn stopped short as soon as the words left his mouth. Among the jumbled fragments of memory in his mind was one insignificant detail: the piece of meat he had just eaten was the last of their food.

Gobada was a cruel place. Godlevel beings could draw Divine Power from their Godheads to sustain themselves. Sanctuaries, however, had only two options: pledge allegiance to a Godlevel being in exchange for a sliver of Divine Power, or let hunger drive them to fight and devour one another.

Barn and Declan had eaten all the food in their spatial rings during their first few decades. They had tried to endure their hunger for a while, but in the end, hunger had defeated them, and they had been forced to start "hunting."

Yet in the Gobada Plane, Sanctuary Beasts were at the very bottom. Even the mighty Tiger-pattern Warriors and Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragons could barely scrape by. Things had been especially bad for the two of them in recent years. They had run into one powerful enemy after another, getting nothing for their efforts and suffering injuries time and again. Their condition had steadily worsened.

Before their last battle, they had only one meal's worth of meat left. They had no choice but to attack a powerful enemy. In the end, Barn had been badly wounded, while Declan had escaped with his life by burrowing underground.

Now Barn finally understood why Declan had called roasting meat with dragonflame a "luxury." Dragonflame not only consumed energy, but roasting also caused the fat to drip away. The food that had originally been enough for two people had only filled him up.

Barn drew his spear. "Let's go hunting!"

"No. You need to rest and recover to your peak. That way, we'll have a better chance in a fight."

"You're a Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon, the proudest of the dragonkind. I can't watch you devour yourself just to fill your stomach!" Influenced by the fragments of memories spanning a thousand years, Barn now saw Declan as his brother.

Declan only gave a forlorn smile. His dark golden eyes glistened with unshed tears. "No matter how proud the dragonkind may be, here, we can only bow our heads. This is... Gobada."

The Gobada Plane Prison was a land of despair, forged by the Overgod through the cruelest laws. No sun or moon hung in the sky. Gray fog had lingered since time immemorial, shrouding the entire plane in eternal gloom. The land was barren and desolate, its mountains shattered and its plains cracked. The elements were faint, and the breath of life was all but gone.

If one gazed up intently, they could make out flashes of rainbow light behind the gray fog that veiled the sky, intermittently illuminating the land below. They were the terrifying Spatial Turbulence.

The Gobada Plane was extremely unstable. Spatial Rifts could be found as close as a thousand meters above the ground, and the higher one went, the denser they became. In certain areas, Spatial Rifts could even appear just a few dozen meters above the ground.

As a result, not even Godlevel beings dared fly high. They could only fly close to the ground. Sanctuary beings, meanwhile, more often chose to dig holes and huddle underground.

But to their despair, a Spatial Barrier set up by the Overgod lay a thousand meters underground. Its immense repulsive force was like a wall, preventing all living creatures from advancing even half a step farther.

This left all Godlevel and Sanctuary beings trapped in a narrow zone stretching from a thousand meters above ground to a thousand meters below it, where they had to survive, fight, and die.

At that moment, a Snow Lion was curled up inside a cave five hundred meters underground.

The Ice Snow Lion had been a peak eighth-level magical beast. He had lived in the northern part of the Dark Forest, where he had considerable talent. Through hard work, he had broken through to the ninth level. Then, by sheer luck, he had stumbled upon two Sanctuary Beasts fighting and snatched a Water Law Sanctuary magical core amid the chaos. From then on, he had risen to become a Sanctuary Beast.

An eighth-level magical beast's talent was considered poor among Sanctuary Beasts, but low talent had its advantages: comprehending laws was easier. So, within a few hundred years of breaking through to Sanctuary, he had made up for his lack of talent by mastering laws, and killed two human Sanctuary beings who had tried to subdue him.

During this time, the Ice Snow Lion had discovered that humans were delicious!

So he had let himself go, attacking human adventurers again and again. In the end, his greed got the better of him, and he attacked several human villages and towns.

As far as he was concerned, these humans attacked one another, and more of them died every year than he ever ate. The region known as the Eighteen Duchies of the Northern Territory had few Sanctuary beings, too, so he figured no human would come after him over it.

Unfortunately, one day, while he was feasting, a huge black hand grabbed him and tossed him into this desolate world.

He regretted it now. He really, really regretted it.

But regret was useless. The elements here were entirely different from those on the Yulan Continent. On the Yulan Continent, the seven elements were lively. The Ice Snow Lion only had to gently stir the Water Element around his magical core, and it would surge toward him like a flock of sprites.

But here in Gobada, the elements were like frozen corpses. Even if he used all his mental strength, he could only rouse a tiny portion of them—barely enough to replenish the energy his body consumed.

"I can't focus on comprehending profound mysteries on an empty stomach!" the Ice Snow Lion grumbled to himself. "At least I still have provisions."

He glanced at his spatial pendant. There were only three thousand human corpses left inside. At this rate, they would last him only a hundred years—

"Roar!" The Ice Snow Lion suddenly sprang into action, swiping at a patch of black shadow in the corner of the cave.

"Clang—" Metal clashed against metal, followed by a mocking voice.

"At last, our luck's turned! An Ice Snow Lion will feed us for three years!"

Declan's fearsome body emerged from the shadows. His two Dragon Claws were like curved blades as he slashed at the Ice Snow Lion.

But the Ice Snow Lion had been able to terrorize the region despite having only the talent of an eighth-level magical beast for a reason: he had something to rely on. Among the Water Law's mysteries, he had comprehended the one with the greatest physical attack power—the Profound Mystery of Ice.

Countless icicles appeared around the Ice Snow Lion, forming a suit of armor like a hedgehog's spines. Then he charged straight at Declan, swinging his claws.

The two magical beasts fought wildly inside the cave, neither gaining the upper hand.

However, the Ice Snow Lion failed to notice that the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon had said "us."

The cave wall suddenly collapsed, revealing a half-man, half-tiger figure holding a spear.

A flash of cold light arrived first, then the spear struck like a dragon.

The Ice Snow Lion's hedgehog-like ice armor bristled in an instant, then shot out like countless arrows.

But the half-human, half-tiger figure seemed to know what was coming. He spun through the air, dodging every ice shard without losing speed. In the blink of an eye, his spear was already before the Ice Snow Lion.

The Ice Snow Lion roared like a tiger, forcing the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon back. Then he rose onto his hind legs and met the spear with his tiger claws.

Yet the spear's point strangely curved around, growing larger and larger in the Ice Snow Lion's pupils. A trail of blood, steaming with cold, hung in the air.

Barn had agreed to Declan's request and rested in the cave for ten days. Only after he had fully mastered the original owner's combat techniques and absorbed every memory fragment related to profound mysteries did he finally decide to set out "hunting."

The soul from another world had completely taken over this body. The fragments of Barn's former memories had now been absorbed by the current Barn without any resistance.

As a result, Barn had also gained all of the original owner's insights into the Fate Law.

The Four Great Rules were abstruse and difficult to explain. Barn had named the portion of the Fate Law he had comprehended "Destined Hit."