Gu Yue's First Encounter with the Original Silver Dragon King: There Could Only Be One Silver Dragon King in the World!

Just then, Lin Yan sensed a gaze fixed firmly on him.

Without changing expression, he tilted his head slightly.

Through the gaps in the crowd, he caught sight of a girl standing in a corner of the Spirit Pagoda's lobby.

She wore an Eastsea Academy uniform.

She looked ordinary.

The kind of face that would disappear completely in a crowd.

But her eyes were not the eyes a girl should have.

Something ancient and cold churned deep within those pupils.

It pierced through layers of people and locked tightly onto him.

No.

It was not locked onto him.

It was locked onto the foolish dragon at his feet.

Lin Yan's brow twitched slightly.

He looked down at Gu Yue.

The World-Destroying Dragon, who had been strutting around with her tail wagging just moments ago, now looked as though someone had seized her by the throat.

Her tail had frozen in midair.

Even her breathing had stopped.

Her violet dragon eyes stared straight at the girl in the crowd, her pupils narrowed into vertical slits.

"Leave."

Gu Yue's voice exploded in his mind, urgent and clipped, as though forced out through clenched teeth.

"Quickly."

Lin Yan did not ask why.

He bent down, scooped up the plump dragon, who had stiffened into a stick, and stuffed her into his arms.

Gu Yue's body was ice-cold.

Her four claws clutched tightly at his collar, wrinkling his faded school uniform in several places.

He raised his head and gave a slight nod in the girl's direction.

A polite, perfunctory gesture without a trace of emotion.

Then he turned around, pushed through the crowd still chattering and questioning him, and strode toward the Spirit Pagoda's entrance.

Someone called after him.

Footsteps chased after him for several paces, but soon stopped.

The glass doors closed behind him.

The afternoon sun of Eastsea City beat down fiercely.

Lin Yan hurried along with Gu Yue in his arms, crossed two streets, and turned into a quiet alley before finally slowing down.

Lowering his head, he pulled the stiff lump from his arms and held her up before his eyes.

Gu Yue's eyes were still darting around, occasionally glancing behind him.

Her whole body looked as though she had just been fished out of an ice cellar. Even the tip of her tail was trembling.

"Who was that girl just now?"

Lin Yan's voice was calm.

Gu Yue said nothing.

Her two front claws twisted together unconsciously.

"You know her."

It was not a question, but a statement.

Gu Yue's body stiffened even further.

Her brain was spinning madly at thirty thousand revolutions per second.

Another me.

The real Silver Dragon King Gu Yue from this timeline.

Why was she here? Shouldn't she have been at Eastsea Academy?

We're done, we're done, we're done.

Gu Yue's heart pounded wildly in her chest.

She was the ruler of the Soul Beasts.

She was half of the Dragon God.

Her earth-shaking wisdom told her that there could only be one Silver Dragon King in the world.

Just as she and Na'er were destined to merge, there was absolutely no possibility of peaceful coexistence between her and another version of herself.

If it were her, and she saw a weakened version of herself reduced to such a state, what would she do?

Devour her.

She would devour her without the slightest hesitation.

There was no second choice.

She could read the same thing in that girl's eyes.

That cold, appraising gaze that measured the value of prey.

Gu Yue broke free from Lin Yan's hand, scrambled up onto his shoulder, and poked half her head out from behind it to peer back the way they had come.

People flowed back and forth along the street.

The sunlight was blinding.

There was no sign of the girl in the school uniform.

She let out a long sigh of relief and went limp across Lin Yan's shoulder like a boneless snake.

"I don't know her."

Her voice was soft and thin as she tried her best to look innocent.

Her violet eyes blinked at Lin Yan.

"I just felt that girl was really scary."

Lin Yan narrowed his eyes slightly.

Didn't know her?

He knew Gu Yue's background inside and out.

Every part of her origin and every experience she had gone through had taken place in his battered pot.

Logically speaking, she should not have known anyone in the real world.

Yet her reaction just now clearly showed that she had seen someone who knew her, and whom she knew as well.

And she was afraid.

This World-Destroying Dragon who spent all day plotting rebellion in her heart.

She had actually been frightened by a girl's gaze until her whole body trembled and she could barely speak properly.

Eastsea Academy.

The uniform belonged to Eastsea Academy.

Someone capable of terrifying the Silver Dragon King to this extent—

The corner of Lin Yan's mouth twitched slightly.

He thought of the ruler of the Soul Beasts from the original novel.

Gu Yue of this spacetime.

His footsteps did not stop.

But his heart had already sunk.

He had already manifested Gu Yue from the cultivation vessel.

Yet now, an original Silver Dragon King had appeared as well.

He did not know what the relationship between the two was.

A projection? A clone? The same person from a parallel timeline?

But one thing was certain: the disappearance of Destiny Power had likely alerted an existence that should not have been alerted.

This variable was not part of his plan.

He hated things beyond his control.

"Foolish dragon."

He suddenly spoke, his tone as casual as if discussing the weather.

"Mm?"

Gu Yue was still looking around, her tail swishing uneasily.

"You should lose some weight. My shoulder's sore from carrying you."

"..."

Gu Yue lifted her head from his shoulder and widened her violet eyes.

She glared at him with an expression that said, Are you even human?

"I won't! Who says I'm fat? I'm not fat at all. This is called being well-rounded."

She angrily smacked his back with her tail.

Lin Yan ignored her protest.

He left the alley, crossed two streets, and entered Eastsea City's job market.

There were not many people in the market that afternoon.

Several wilted parasol trees swayed in the hot wind.

A few day laborers waiting for work sat scattered beneath the shade.

Across the street was a fried chicken shop.

The greasy aroma drifted over on the hot wind, making stomachs churn with hunger.

Gu Yue's nose suddenly twitched.

She turned her head and stared fixedly at the fried chicken shop.

Golden fried chicken was piled into a small mountain behind the glass display case, glistening with oil.

Drool spilled from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto Lin Yan's collar in a shining thread.

She tugged at Lin Yan's ear with a claw, then pointed at the fried chicken shop.

"Human... I want fried chicken. Buy it for me."

"We haven't made any money yet, and you're already thinking about food."

Lin Yan raised his hand and rapped her on the forehead.

There was a crisp knock.

Gu Yue covered her head and shrank back onto his shoulder with tears in her eyes.

"Wuwu... you beast. Abusing a dragon. You'll die horribly."

She buried her head between her front claws, her tail drooping weakly.

Like a salted fish that had lost its dreams.

At that moment, her stomach let out a long, loud growl.

She was genuinely hungry.

Ever since she had been manifested into this real world, the consumption of this body had been absurdly high.

One meal could devour hundreds of thousands of living creatures from a Small World.

The entire world's biomass would not even be enough to fill the gaps between her teeth.

But as the ruler of the Soul Beasts, even if she starved to death, she could not use her own subjects as food.

Yet she could not go without eating.

This juvenile body burned through calories frantically every day.

Instant noodles, mushrooms, eggs—those few calories were not even enough to maintain basic activity.