Chapter 99 Chapter 99 They beat me.
The wind whispers across the shattered country, singing a dirge that no one can understand. Thousands of cracks in time and space, like tear marks, meander across the torn sky.
The god who once burned the sky collapsed like a mountain, and his black flame-like blood cooled and solidified.
In the boundless shadow cast by the dragon's head, the two men stared at each other silently, savoring the heavy weight of their victory. Then, their gazes passed over each other and together they gazed at the great loser who would be buried by time.
He stared at the dragon's slowly closing eyelids.
Those golden eyes that contained the aura of death and destruction were now dim as dying ashes.
He spoke softly, his voice almost swallowed by the wind: "So, the final chaos has finally settled into silence."
——"Elegy for a Black Sun: Final Chapter"
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They stayed in the town briefly and soon set off again without anyone mentioning what had happened before.
Su Cheng was very satisfied with this.
She was enjoying the pleasant time they had spent together and didn't want to recall something unpleasant.
"…But where are we going? And how are we going?"
They stood on a path in the field. In the distance were rolling indigo mountains, and on the other side were the towering walls of the imperial capital hidden in the clouds.
When Su Cheng looked up, he suddenly heard the sound of wind in his ears.
Amid the sounds of fascia relaxing and bones stretching, a large black shadow suddenly opened up and enveloped her from the side.
She looked back in surprise.
Kai loosened his cloak slightly, and the thick fur fell back, revealing his strong shoulders and arms that were as bulging as mountain ridges, and the wings that slowly spread out behind him.
The pitch-black membranous wings are like the vast night sky, with strong muscles and bones supporting a powerful outline, and the strong and sharp bone spurs cut through the air, making a terrifying whistling sound.
He was already tall, and his wingspan was incredibly large. She estimated it to be five or six meters long, maybe even more.
The next second, Su Cheng was gently wrapped by the open black wings.
The moment the black wings closed, the world became cramped and dim, and the inside of the wings was slightly warmer than expected, and the tight and neat scales looked like some kind of handicraft.
There seems to be a layer of fine down under the exoskeleton, which is gently sweeping across the cheeks and eyelids.
Her eyelashes began to tremble.
"Fly over there."
Kai's deep and powerful voice sounded in his ears, and his tone was still very gentle.
He leaned forward and stretched out his arms, then closed them and hugged the slender girl.
In the familiar feeling of floating in the air, Su Cheng leaned back relaxedly and nestled into the man's arms.
Her back was pressed against her half-naked, muscular chest, and her tailbone pressed against her well-defined abdominal muscles.
The hair was crushed between their bodies, and a few strands caught on the leather straps and tangled with the metal buckles.
"……hiss."
Su Cheng took a deep breath and tilted his head to try to pull out his hair.
"Feel sorry."
Kai whispered, and raised his hand to help her pull out the few strands of soft black hair. His movements were light and careful, as if he was afraid of pulling out even a single strand.
Through the thin fabric on her shoulders, the man's long gloved fingers rubbed her butterfly bones.
Su Cheng felt a little itchy for no reason.
She was distracted for a few seconds, perhaps longer, and then was awakened by the sound of flapping wings, a violent airflow, and then a feeling of weightlessness.
Wind mages were most familiar with this feeling, and she had traveled a long distance on a flying beast, so she didn't feel much discomfort at this time.
But it was still too fast.
With a slight flap of the huge black wings, the two of them almost rushed into the clouds, and the rapidly moving ground turned into an abstract oil painting.
The strong wind from high altitude blew her hair, and her back rubbed against the man's chest more tightly.
The leather straps pressed against the spine, and the tailbone could even feel the contraction of the waist and abdominal muscles. Every inch of the tight skin seemed to be filled with strength.
Su Cheng: "Have you always been able to fly?"
Her voice was torn apart by the strong wind, but the other person obviously heard it.
"Yeah," he nodded, "It's just... I always feel like there's no real urgency, and there's no need for this."
Su Cheng couldn't help but look sideways, "So we are in a hurry? What will happen if we are late? Oh my God, then I shouldn't have delayed just now-"
"No," Kai said helplessly, "Nothing will happen if we delay a little longer. I just don't want to affect your return to school."
Su Cheng: “…”
Everyone knows that the protagonist’s adventures are all in adventures, and one of them is worth decades or even hundreds of years of hard training for others.
Su Cheng: "...That's not very important."
Kai thought for a moment, "I also think that human schools can only teach you so much, but you seem to be enjoying it, so I don't want to—"
"You didn't," Su Cheng interrupted him, "I'm enjoying it now too."
After saying that, she felt a little strange again, "I mean... this is very fresh, and I also, um, like being with you."
Oh my god.
This sounds even weirder.
As soon as she finished speaking, before she could complain to herself in her heart, a low laugh came from above her head.
"I know," the man behind me said, "and so do I."
Su Cheng suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of security.
She didn't want to say anything, she just put her arms around his neck and leaned quietly and relaxed in his arms.
The journey didn't last too long, maybe more than ten minutes, and Kai lowered his altitude when he crossed a range of snow-capped mountains with pale peaks.
He rushed into the foothills with her in his arms.
On a slope covered with shadows of trees, a vertical black-purple halo was suspended in the air, and the surrounding space was twisting inward, as if there was some kind of vortex inside.
Su Cheng didn't have time to see clearly before he was dragged in.
The whole world seemed to begin to lose its color.
The air around them grew thin and cold, with a lingering smell of rust.
She straightened up slightly from Kai's arms, and first saw a dark sky covered with gray haze. Countless black cracks were circling in the sky like a group of twisting worms.
The surrounding trees were bare and charred, their bark like burnt scales, and their curved branches pointed towards the sky, looking from a distance like countless claws trying to struggle and climb.
There is not a single green on the ground. In the cracks of the rocks, there are some dark vegetation that looks like moss, and when you step on it, it will ooze out black oily mucus.
Su Cheng: "...Is this thing on the ground not poisonous?"
Kai looked down at his feet and said, "Yes, but it doesn't matter. Look ahead——"
He jumped up lightly, passed through a narrow chasm that seemed to have been split open, and the road ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a rugged valley with lead-gray clouds hanging low, covering it like a thick curtain, and the sharp peaks like knives rose and fell in an irregular pattern.
The ground was still covered with rubble, and poisonous moss grew in the cracks between the stones.
"This is the Valley of Mourning."
He raised his sharp chin and motioned the girl in his arms to look forward.
Su Cheng saw a cemetery.
Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of massive skeletons were scattered throughout the valley.
Most of them have been stained grayish white by time and some unknown force, and their surfaces are covered with dark moss and some strange crystals.
A pile of huge, crescent-shaped ribs was placed in the open space in front of them, like arches leading to purgatory.
Between the forbidding bones, some withered and weathered vines were coiled.
They also seemed dead, but were still tightly entangled there, looking at first glance like a pile of shriveled intestines.
A little further away, a skull about two or three meters high was half buried in the rubble, revealing empty eye sockets and a broken jawbone lying beside it.
“…These are all dragons.”
Su Cheng whispered, "What happened?"
She suddenly remembered what she had heard at the auction. The host seemed to have said that the ruler of the dragon clan fell because of fighting against the evil god from the void.
"War," Kai whispered, "is not much different from the stories of humans."
"Really?" Su Cheng raised his head. "Now that I've taken history classes, no matter from which angle, humans kill each other more often."
He was stunned for a moment, then laughed, "That's true... but the dragon race is actually similar."
Kai did not continue to rush, but held her and walked slowly.
Su Cheng wanted to come down, but then he remembered that the team leader had said that the mosses were poisonous - perhaps people with dragon blood could be immune?
No wonder he was still holding himself.
So she nestled comfortably in the man's strong embrace, "So what exactly happened?"
"These dragons you see now..."
Kai thought for a moment, "Most of them died fighting each other. They were just ordinary dragons, instinctively submitting to the ancient dragons and obeying their orders. So, if there were disagreements between the ancient dragons, they would provoke such wars. But I can't describe the specific scenes, after all, I wasn't there."
Su Cheng inexplicably felt like laughing.
Although this should be a serious topic and scene.
But his tone was light, and his expression was not heavy or sad.
——Of course, if you think about it carefully, if he is a dragonborn, he is just a creature with dragon blood, and he is not the same as the dragon race itself.
Some dragonborn consider themselves dragons, some are eager to become dragons, and some just watch the tragedy out of a sense of humour.
Based on her understanding of the team leader, he was considerate to his companions, but he didn't seem to have much sympathy for those who were insignificant.
Of course, Su Cheng appreciated this state of affairs, otherwise their relationship might become troublesome.
"...How did you get in?"
"Everyone knows there are unstable rifts in the western wasteland, but in fact, this kind of thing has always appeared in the northern and southern continents - rifts that are not fixed in place and do not last long."
Kai paused. "I've always been able to sense their presence, but... I'm only now clearly identifying some of the differences, specifically where they're connected. The aura is different."
This kind of question is too beyond the scope of the syllabus.
Su Cheng looked at him silently for a few seconds, "Is it given to you by those bones?"
"It's related to that, but I can't really put it that way." He paused and lifted the person in his arms a little higher. "So thank you again."
Su Cheng thought that there was no need to say it so many times.
Yet they grew closer.
Amidst the mountains of bones, amidst the dead and desolate ruins, amidst the remains of wars that had taken place thousands of years ago—
She did not take the time to observe rare things or look for anything valuable.
Instead, he looked at the person in front of him uncontrollably.
That extremely handsome face was now very close to him.
The dark curly hair was slightly messed up by the wind, but it made her look even more unruly and wild.
But his eyes were very gentle, like some large tamed wild beast, and all dangers were temporarily hidden because of his obedience to his master.
“No…you’re welcome…”
Su Cheng spoke with some difficulty, "You once said that you lost some of your memory. You know who you are, but you forgot the details of some of your experiences. Have you recovered them now?"
"Almost," Kai nodded slightly. "I always knew I slept for a long time, and I also roughly knew what happened before that."
"Um?"
"There were two men, they beat me, and I fell into a deep sleep."
He thought for a moment, "Now I remember who they are."
Su Cheng opened his eyes wide, "Are you going to seek revenge on them? Where are these two people now? Wait, are they still alive? Why did they hit you?"
"They—" Kai sighed, "Their state might not be considered alive. Back then, they wanted something from me."
"Oh," Su Cheng curled his lips, "I thought it was an honor duel, but it's one-on-one."
Kai chuckled, seemingly without much resentment, as if he was discussing someone else's business. "Only if the two of them work together can we win."
"…Are they friends?"
"They were probably just temporary collaborators back then, but now it seems like they have a deep-seated feud and are sworn enemies."
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