Scale-kin (Part 2)

Chris adhered to the wall beside him. Rhythm Stripping could make him repel objects; by choosing a compatible Rhythm instead, he could generate adhesive force.

"Sure enough, something on me affects this so-called Scale-kin, making it hesitate ever so slightly when facing me." Chris climbed up the wall and stood on the rooftop.

"The Scale-kin's Rhythm is filled with madness and pain. A creature with such a Rhythm is nothing more than a mindless beast, so how is that Crow Man commanding it?" Chris's body flashed to the side.

An extremely thin black thread flashed past. Chris kept breathing, sensing the situation around him. Right now, he was walking a tightrope high in the air—one lapse in attention meant death.

A dark golden gleam flashed. The Scale-kin burst from some corner and destroyed the rooftop where Chris had landed. Its body hung in midair, its movements slowing, and its appearance finally came into view before Chris.

It was broadly humanoid, covered in mottled dark-golden scales. Membranes stretched beneath its armpits, and a barbed tail trailed behind it. Its face was full of madness, pale teeth interlocking, viscous saliva dripping down.

After landing, the Scale-kin's body flashed and turned into a dark-golden streak of light, vanishing into the alleyway.

"Those are dragon scales?" Chris sensed the intense, utterly discordant Rhythm from across from him, brimming with madness and violence, and recalled an old adventure.

That Sub-Dragon he had defeated with Deep Chaos Rhythm had been a somewhat different color, but once he examined it through their combined Rhythms, he could tell that the dark-golden scales on this creature were indeed dragon scales.

"Dragons... damn it, was this why Negary kept Nara?" In an instant, Chris understood many things. Negary had discovered Nara's secret as the Dragon Daughter long ago. He had forcibly kept Isabella and her daughter in Rea all these years in order to study the secrets of Dragon Blood. Now, it seemed Negary's research had already achieved certain results. The Scale-kin was one such result.

Chris was not wrong. The Scale-kin was a product of Negary's years of research into Soul Blood. Those Kexi People half-breeds had received implants of Dragon Blood, but their souls could not withstand the Dragon Might contained within it. Under the pressure of that Dragon Might, the implanted subjects grew increasingly mad. In the end, not only did they lose all reason, but their bodies also mutated under the effects of Dragon Blood.

These monsters were merely irrational beasts of madness and violence. If Negary had not developed a means of controlling them, they should have been destroyed long ago.

"Then the item that can affect the Scale-kin..." Chris looked at the pair of teeth hanging from his clothes. They were the teeth of that vicious Sub-Dragon.

If not for the influence of the Sub-Dragon Tooth, this Scale-kin's strength would have utterly crushed Chris. Each time it attacked him, it hesitated for a moment. Otherwise, one careless mistake would have gotten him killed.

"I wonder how many Scale-kin like this there are. From the looks of it, Negary's accumulated strength is truly terrifying. Such ominous evil things must be uprooted." Thoughts raced through Chris's mind as he flipped his hand and took the Sub-Dragon Tooth into his grasp.

"Whatever happens, I need to get through this current crisis first. With the Sub-Dragon Tooth, I at least have a little protection against the Scale-kin. The dangerous one now is that Crow Man commanding it." Chris recalled the black thread that had flashed past.

"Kill him, Scale-kin!" Adre's voice rang out, and Chris immediately felt an unprecedented danger.

The dark-golden Scale-kin turned into a streak of light and charged at him. Chris held the Sub-Dragon Tooth in its path, buying himself time to flee. But in the next moment, his body stiffened. Several fine black threads beside him had sealed off every route of escape, waiting for Chris to walk straight into the net.

Boom~~~

Smoke and dust swirled as the Scale-kin smashed a huge hole through the rooftop where Chris had been standing.

Black threads spread outward from the ground, probing every inch of the surroundings. If one traced them back to their source, one would find that they were connected to Adre's fingers.

A third of his body had already been replaced by the Black Crow Pathogen. The front sections of all ten fingers were formed from this Black Crow Pathogen. He had cultivated the pathogen into threadlike strands that could, at his will, easily pierce or slice through a living creature's flesh. They were also extraordinarily sensitive, capable of detecting vibrations in the surroundings.

If these threads pierced a body, they would swiftly spread throughout the enemy's entire body and control them like a puppet on strings. Beyond that, many other parts of Adre's body had been implanted with the Black Crow Pathogen. This was precisely why he had become the strongest among the Crow Men.

"No heartbeat detected. Has he already been killed by the Scale-kin?" Adre continuously sensed the movements around him through the threads at his fingertips. Carrying out Lord Negary's orders, he absolutely could not allow himself to make any mistakes.

"Wait, something's wrong with the Scale-kin..." Adre sensed the violent Scale-kin stepping over a pitch-black thread. The vibrations it produced were slightly too heavy.

Through the gradually settling smoke and dust, Adre saw a person covered from head to toe in powder clinging to the Scale-kin's body. Who else could it be but Chris?

At the very last moment before the Scale-kin charged into him, Chris had used Rhythm to shatter the Sub-Dragon Tooth that had been sitting around for years. The dense bone powder was blown onto Chris by the wind raised by the Scale-kin, and Chris used Rhythm Adhesion to stick it to his body.

The heavy "dragon" scent made the Scale-kin abandon its attack, allowing Chris to take the opportunity to climb onto its body.

As it ran, Chris leaped away to another place and let out a heavy breath. The Scale-kin's body twisted violently, then collapsed, unable to rise again. Golden-tinged blood spilled from its mouth, mixed with fragments of internal organs.

After Chris climbed onto the Scale-kin, he had continuously inflicted Deep Chaos Rhythm upon it. Even with the Scale-kin's monstrous physical constitution, it could not withstand its own strength attacking its internal organs.

"Chris, I never thought you could actually kill a Scale-kin." Adre's expression was grave. "But this is as far as you go. To avoid disturbing Lord Negary's slumber, you must die here."

After saying that, Adre's expression changed slightly. It was as though some force had guided him into speaking those words.

Chris's eyes narrowed as he caught the information in Adre's words. So Negary really was injured, hiding somewhere in slumber to recover?

"It doesn't matter." Adre suddenly laughed. Four Scale-kin, like streaks of dark-golden light, landed at his side. Four black-robed Crow Men sat atop them. Dessa was among them. She had acquired another rapier and was staring coldly at Chris.

Chris looked at the Crow Men and Scale-kin surrounding him and gave a bitter smile. Faced with such overwhelming power, there was nothing he could do. After all, he was only human.

Just then, a pleasant voice rang out. "Looks like we arrived just in time!"

There were a lot of things to deal with today. They were installing broadband back in my hometown, and an old classmate asked me to go out, so there's only one update today. I'll make it up tomorrow. Thanks to Ying Song · Jiu Kou, Ren Yi, and Lingyi Miao for the tips. Thank you all for your support.