NOVEL NEXT Chapter 210: Hair
The worm-beast lunged after Fluffy with unrelenting hunger, its grotesque bulk tearing across the ruined landscape like a natural disaster that had grown bored of sleeping. Its thousand mouths screeched in overlapping tones, some screaming in agony, others whispering lullabies soaked in madness.
Fluffy flew like a comet of panic and fur, his nine tails streaming behind him as he tore across the sky at breakneck speed. He was powerful. He was fast. He had just killed two dragons like it was nothing. But right now, none of that mattered.
Because the thing chasing him didn't care.
And it was ugly.
So unbearably, cosmically ugly.
Fluffy growled low in his throat. "Why me? Why is it always me…"
Up ahead, the battered remnants of the red dragon squadron were already fleeing for their lives, what was left of their pride now scattered like scales in the wind. Fluffy, seeing them, adjusted course and sped after them enthusiastically.
Safety in numbers. Company. Anything was better than being eaten by a walking war crime.
The red dragons spotted him almost immediately.
The leader turned his head mid-flight and bellowed in horror. "Why is he following us?! Why is the damn ugly talking beast thing following us?! He is leading the even uglier beast in our direction!"
Fluffy replied sharply, his voice tight with anger at being called ugly. "Who's ugly? You are ugly! Your mother is ugly! Your wife is ugly! Your whole damn family is ugly!"
One of the dragons snarled. "Grotesque beast! Stay away from us! Go and chase after the green dragons!"
Fluffy flicked a tail and swerved to dodge a mass of writhing tendrils. "Ahhhh! Sheesh that was close! I would love to. I really would. But it's too late now! You guys are closer, I need it to chase its target to you guys so I can escape!"
Another red dragon twisted his neck around and spat. "Damn you! You're the apocalyptic death chimera! Act like one and kill that damn thing!"
"I did. I killed two of your friends. That was enough apocalypse for one day."
"You have nine tails. Fight it!"
"I have nine tails, not nine lives. If you haven't noticed, that thing has more mouths than you have scales."
A younger red dragon shrieked as a wave of bone shards narrowly missed his wing. "Then die with dignity!"
Fluffy growled again, eyes narrowing. "Are you blind? I'm already dead! I've been there and done that. You haven't. You should die in my place and we'll be even!"
The red dragons wailed in despair at Fluffy's warped logic even as Fluffy surged forward again towards them.
The massive worm-beast howled behind him and smashed through floating peaks while vomiting swarms of acidic insects from one of its many auxiliary mouths.
General Hei Tian stared after them in dumbstruck silence, his jaw hanging open. He turned toward Damien hesitantly, eyebrows raised. "Will he… will he be okay?"
Damien shrugged and said dryly. "He'll be fine. He's too sneaky to die again."
General Hei Tian nodded solemnly, trying to appear sympathetic, but inside he secretly rejoiced.
With the group's strongest fighter now gone, it would be far easier for the black and blue dragons to eliminate Damien.
Suppressing a pleased smile, Hei Tian motioned the group onward. "Let's move. The Bloodroot Ginseng awaits."
They pressed forward in silence, the laughter and absurdity of Fluffy's airborne escape slowly fading into the dusty distance.
They had no idea when or where they'll meet Fluffy again, but since Damien wasn't worried, Rage Monkey and Blackie were content to just follow his lead.
Very soon, they reached a massive forest that seemed to stretch endlessly.
The air here was denser, heavier somehow. Shadows moved differently. Leaves rustled even when there was no wind. It felt like the kind of place that didn't appreciate visitors.
General Hei Tian frowned as he trudged behind Damien, glancing occasionally at the surroundings with growing tension. "We're deviating from the planned route," he finally said, voice low but firm. "If we're seeking Bloodroot Ginseng, we should be heading east."
Damien didn't slow.
He didn't answer either.
Hei Tian gritted his teeth. "Do you even know where you're going—"
"Quiet," Damien said without looking back.
The command was delivered like a passing breeze. Calm and soft, but it carried irresistible weight.
Hei Tian shut his mouth.
Blackie, moving just behind Damien, tilted her head slightly, ears twitching. She said nothing, but her pupils had narrowed, watching the undergrowth with a kind of detached curiosity.
Rage Monkey didn't speak either, which was rare.
Even he could feel the pressure now.
The group walked for another five minutes through terrain that grew increasingly warped and mineral-rich. Trees twisted into unnatural shapes. Stones shimmered faintly beneath patches of moss.
The deeper they went, the more the air began to hum with some unseen current, like the earth was vibrating with its own heartbeat.
Then Damien stopped.
Ahead of them lay what looked like a sunken basin, no larger than a small pond.
Its edges were ringed by jagged, pale blue crystal outgrowths, sharp and unnaturally symmetrical. In the very center of the basin, nestled between three crisscrossing arcs of stone, pulsed a single, low, glittering plant.
It didn't sway.
It didn't move.
But it glowed softly and steadily with a strange, otherworldly rhythm. Its petals shimmered like star-forged quartz. Its stem was forged of some mineral-metal fusion that looked like both jade and mercury at once.
Blackie's breath caught. "That's… impossible."
General Hei Tian's eyes widened. "That can't be… that's not…"
He took an instinctive step forward.
And then everything changed.
The ground trembled. Not from the plant. But from the basin.
With a thunderous groan, the perimeter stones exploded outward, and crystalline tendrils erupted from beneath the soil, shooting straight toward Damien like spears of light.
Rage Monkey dove left with a howl.
Hei Tian raised his hand to defend but stopped when he saw Damien hadn't moved.
Damien didn't even blink.
He stepped once to the side. The tendrils missed by a hair.