Chapter 19

  A Dragon

  She flew higher than she’d ever dared before. Even though she knew, with absolute confidence in her genius, that it would work no matter the altitude since she was floating on her own madra.

  But that knowledge didn’t make the distance between her and the ground more comfortable. At least she wouldn’t run out of madra anytime soon, having been working on the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel since she’d hatched.

  At least those people, Yin the shrine guardian dog looking little boy (or maybe girl?), and Zeurel the very big goat woman, had made their abode visible. Or maybe that was only because they were currently flashing back and forth fighting each other?

  Yuri- No. Kaido! Halted her momentum and peered down at the group of little two leggers flitting about. One of them was currently Ruling all the sharp energy on their little slice of the mountaintop. Using it to admirable and, frankly, very frightening effect against the others.

  She couldn’t even tell how many little blades the woman was currently controlling!

  And her opponents! What even was that?! Yuri could feel metal and- Kaido! Kaido could feel venom and water from the man who stood against her. His madra doing something sinister and either blocking or destroying the blades that came his way.

  Scary. Truly scary! What a monster!

  Yuri was too far away to.. Whatever. Yuri was too far away to measure their madra in any way other than telling that it was strong. They both might be high golds.

  Certainly, while Yin had been a measly jade in both his pure and oddly radiant core Zeurel had been truegold, just like Yuri. It was only logical that their companions would be equally strong.

  Yuri drifted in a nice breeze and churned her storm madra around her lengthy body.

  How to approach?

  Her social anxiety was flaring again for the first time in a long while. This reminded her of going to work, finding her coworkers all at a table with a seat open. But Yuri wasn’t all that close to any of them, so Yuri had opted to get a coffee and sit in the smoke room by herself since no one else smoked.

  Now she was depressing herself.

  Could she just drop down to them and say ‘Pardon the intrusion’ like some smooth operator character?

  Yin had invited her..

  Yuri descended, approaching the sparring ground, considering making a noise or something to alert them to her coming.

  ‘’Yo! Kaido’s here!’’

  Yuri’s heart rate doubled. The voice was familiar, and a glance told her Yin was there waving. But the other people, the two from the sparring ground, a great bird of prey peeked out from a hollow, Yin was joined by two little ladies. And finally, Zeurel, the unusually tall goat woman and mortally dangerous life artist came out to greet Yuri.

  ‘’Pardon the, uh, intrusion?’’ Yuri- No, Kaido now, for real. Yin must have already told everyone that was what Kaido was calling herself. Kaido tried to go for casual, but hesitated and failed.

  ‘’Perfect timing! I wish you would have showed up last week, like, same day I invited you. But this is fine too!’’ Yin bombastically shouted as he met Kaido halfway to the sparring ring. How he managed to act so confident despite being seemingly second weakest in the group was beyond Kaido’s ability to reconcile. ‘’Kaido, I have a favor to ask you!’’

  Oh no. ‘’What’ll you give in return?’’ Aaah! Kaido hadn’t meant to say something so thuggish! Her nature as a dragon kept twisting her words with unearned pride!

  At least Yin didn’t seem to mind, smiling earnestly as ever, those dangerous yellow eyes of his glinting with untold schemes. ‘’Well, hear me out first and then we can discuss payment, hm?’’

  Kaido wanted to see the faces of everyone else in Yin’s posse, but turning away from the staredown was difficult when Kaido hadn’t won it yet. ‘’Fine, tell me.’’

  ‘’I want you to hunt sacred beasts for us, to aid our advancement.’’

  Kaido broke the staredown first, looking first at the goat woman, then at the bird, peeking at them from behind a boulder. ‘’You.. You do know sacred beasts are basically people like us right?’’

  ‘’Debatable.’’ Yin said with finality. What?

  ‘’What?’’

  ‘’Yeah, I know, I know, you’re probably thinking. ‘But I am a sacred beast, and so are those two.’’’ Yin stopped his monologue to look at Kaido, seeming reassured in his opinion when he saw her face. ‘’Now here’s the thing. You, Zeurel and Montai are formerly humans. You still think like humans.’’

  Yin pointed down at the lake, Kaido’s home, looking so vast from up on the mountain and yet only capturing a corner of all that was down there. ‘’Actual Sacred Beasts? They’re not human, and even if they advance into the lord levels and change shape they never will be. They will never think like humans, they will never understand humans. Humans are not their people.’’

  ‘’Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with Sacred Beasts that don’t have any bad intentions with people. Like, literally all the ones in Titan’s Grove but-’’

  ‘’Bro are you giving the dragon a fucking Hitler speach!?’’ Kaido was startled when the bird suddenly yelled, and even more so when Yin roared right back. Having no idea what either of them were saying other than knowing the name Hitler.

  She knew of the Austrian man, but was more familiar with the starfish villain from the old series. Aah, being a fan of such high culture material sure made friends hard to come by.

  ‘’Sorry about Yin, he can be.. performative.’’ The gentleman with the odd venom and water path said, coming closer. Kaido saw his soul and was impressed, not only venom and water, but also metal. And his soul was even split, allowing him a pure core of almost the same strength.

  The woman walking behind him had knives framing the sides of her eyes. Scary.

  ‘’No, well. He certainly has a grand personality despite his-’’ Kaido had to stop herself before calling him weak. A bad habit when she knew all too many creatures in the world were more dangerous than they seemed. ‘’Height.’’

  The smallest of the group, a little girl snickered and pressed both hands over her mouth to suppress herself. Kaido had often done that as well when she had been human, when someone unintentionally said something hilarious.

  The goat Zeurel frowned at Kaido, making her carefully and surreptitiously drift away from the dangerous life artist. ‘’Anyways, if you want cultivation resources you don’t need specifically sacred beasts to aid you. I know of a few species of crab and starfish that have strong vital energies good for consumption.’’

  ‘’Now you’re speaking my language!’’ Yin appeared as if teleporting, something he’d done that day Kaido met him.

  The bird yelled something Kaido couldn’t understand. ‘’Yin, I’m not fucking done with you!’’

  ‘’In a minute, retard! I’m doing business! Sorry about that, tell us more about the crabs.’’ Yin’s angry face was a twisted mask similar to a heavenly king guarding the Buddha. And the next second his face looked as perfectly beautiful as ever despite the scar over his nose. He truly was a performative character.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  ‘’There isn’t much to say, they have vital energies that aid recovery of madra. They’ve become less useful to me since I advanced past high gold.’’ Kaido tried her best, but the words forced their way out. ‘’So, I can name my price for them?’’

  Yin smiled. ‘’How hard are they for you to gather?’’

  The only problem was that they were good at hiding in the ruins and caverns below. There was also that school of gold level barracuda-like fish that could cause some slight issues. ‘’It might be somewhat dangerous even for me. What can you offer?’’

  Pointing first to the sparring ring. ‘’All of us other than Secretary and Ti Li can be your sparring partners when you please. And if that’s not good enough, Secretary here-’’ Yin indicated the little lady with an odd soul. ‘’Can give you lectures on almost any topic you can imagine. If you want to learn something she’s your go to.’’

  The little lady’s whole body shimmered and faded away, leaving a pink remnant standing in her place. Kaido carefully suppressed any reaction at the revelation. Illusionists were dangerous, almost as bad as life artists.

  ‘’And if all of that isn’t good enough we have a cloudship that’s pretty fast so we can go further afield and find something more tantalizing. So, what do you say?’’

  The training was honestly not that interesting. But knowledge and potentially shiny trinkets?

  ‘’I could be persuaded to get one or two for information on the dangers in this country and further. And, I might trade one to one for some nice gold or gemstones.’’

  Kaido couldn’t discern what the look on Yin’s face meant, but it sure wasn’t a nice one. ‘’Alright, okay.. Shiny trinkets and gold.’’ He paced a few steps around, glaring down at the littlest of the group. ‘’Cough up some goods Ti Li.’’

  Shaking down a literal child was an unpleasantness that Kaido couldn’t stomach, and was ready to intervene. But then the child pulled out a marvelously polished gold ring with a radiant ruby socketed upon it.

  It was in her claws before she knew it, and what joy to admire the faint reflection of her august countenance, dyed crimson by the jewel and washed golden by the precious metal.

  Someone slipped an arm over Kaido’s neck, and she awkwardly turned to look at Yin who was hanging off of her. ‘’So.. When can we expect those crabs and starfishes?’’

  —

  Yin

  Yin stood on the deck of the Miniature Rose. Its cloud base was so close to the water that the waves touched the underbelly.

  Montai was squeezed in under the thorny canopy as well, sourly staring into the blue below.

  ‘’So, you ready to tell me what the problem is yet?’’

  Montai glanced his way and then resumed his staring match with the water. Yin resigned himself to waiting for an answer rather than keep antagonizing him.

  Finally the bird took a deep breath. ‘’Gramps just.. fucking off like that, without telling me.. It just really took me back to my last life.’’ He sighed wearily. ‘’That kind of shit happened to me way too often.’’

  ‘’And I know. I know me moping and lashing out was no good. I know. But seriously, you have not helped to cheer me up one fucking bit with your bullshit these days.’’

  Yin nodded, completely unmoved by the suggestion that he had been in the wrong. Because he’d known that from the start.

  ‘’And seriously, what’s your deal with beasts? You keep going on about eating us, and fuck em and all that bad noise.’’

  ‘’Do you remember what the Lion was like in the books? What about the Napalm Dragons?’’ Montai didn’t answer. ‘’Montai, you’re not an animal. But your grandfather is. I bet- Fuck it. I bet my life, right now, that your grandpa has said some seriously derogatory shit about humans to you. Tell me I’m wrong and I will kill myself right now.’’

  …

  ‘’You’re quiet, and I’m hoping it’s because I was right.’’

  Montai let out an explosive sigh, madra enhancing it to create a wind that almost took hold of Yin even when he was so far from its area of effect.

  ‘’For fucks sake man..’’ Montai sounded on the verge of crying.

  ‘’You know.. I read this one manga once where a group of non-humans raised human children for meat. That is what some sacred beasts around here are like. We both know the dragons do shit like that.’’ Yin crossed his arms, thinking of what his second life might have been like if he’d been born in another continent crossing his mind.

  ‘’Your grandpa is an old bird. Not Earth old, Cradle old. Has he ever told you how many years he’s lived?’’ No answer. ‘’Sacred beasts can talk, reason and probably outsmart us no problem in a lot of cases. But to them we are the same as chickens were to us back on earth.’’

  ‘’Again with the fucking Hitler speech, man.’’

  ‘’The important thing to note is that I am right about this shit and Hitler wasn’t.’’

  Montai managed to look supremely tired despite having a face that couldn’t emote. ‘’I’m not going to eat anything that can talk.’’

  ‘’Yeah, that’s fine, I’m honestly kind of iffy on that myself.’’

  ‘’Fuck you man, that shit is half you ever talk about.’’

  ‘’If I get my hands on a gold dragon I’m gonna savor every drop of blood and fat and tendon. I’m gonna put the Indians to shame, I will consume every bit of the animal.’’

  ‘’Remember that bit of the book where Worst Mom just genocided a whole city of them?’’ Yin looked askance at his friend. ‘’That had me fucked up, she really killed every one of them while only naming the crimes of a few. Yin I don’t think every single one of them is bad.’’

  Sighing deeply and looking out over the darkening horizon Yin was forced to concede. ‘’Yeah.. I don’t think so either. Oh!’’ A dark spot in the water grew and in moments Kaido broke the surface, burdened by a pair of crabs the size of horses.

  ‘’I would appreciate some help with lifting these if you don’t mind!’’ Kaido angrily snarled at the two who watched the dragon in awe.

  Yin tried to take one and Montai the other. And when that turned out to be impossible they both worked together to drag them onto the deck one by one. They both had deep indentations on the top of their carapaces. Looked like Kaido had simply punched them hard enough to kill them.

  ‘’Good haul, but let me sample the merchandise before we do anything else.’’ Yin gleefully wrestled a claw the size of his torso and spun until it cracked out of its socket. The revealed meat was oddly reddish orange, and a feeling of fire filled the air as vital energy seeped out of it. ‘’Wow, I thought these guys would be unattuned.’’

  ‘’They usually are, but these ones lived around an old fire treasure that’s fused with a ruin.’’ Kaido had slipped up onto the deck and lazed there, catching their breath.

  ‘’’’Ruins?’’’’ Yin and Montai asked in synchronicity.

  The dragon turned slightly with a wet flop. ‘’Yes, ruins. This lake is only five hundred years old.’’

  ‘’What else is down there?’’ Yin dragged his claw with him and got down in Kaido’s face. ‘’Are there any good natural treasures?’’ Kaido pushed him back with a clawed hand that could have seriously injured him if the dragon were less careful.

  ‘’Some, but I’m not going to challenge the two deep lords until I’m-.. I’m not going to challenge them.’’

  ‘’Lords?’’ Montai asked. ‘’Did they advance down there or did they come from somewhere else? If there are multiple sets of treasures down there..’’

  ‘’There aren’t. As far as I know at least.’’ Kaido pushed up on their arms and looked both the boys in the eyes. ‘’I don’t think there is anything but a few death and water treasures. They hoard the best ones of those and let the human gatherers have the crappier ones.’’

  ‘’Do you talk to those guys?’’ Yin set the claw down and drew a preservation script on it to keep the leaking energies in. Then he moved and did the same to the socket he’d pulled it out of.

  ‘’Only when they come to warn me that I’m getting too close to their territory. Why?’’

  ‘’Well, what if they’re willing to part with, say.. eight of each kind of treasure? Do you think they have anything they might desire, something we could trade them?’’

  Kaido visage became flat. ‘’Do you think I eat dinner with them?’’

  ‘’Maybe you could ask them?’’ Montai suggested.

  ‘’Yeah please ask them next time they show their faces.’’ Yin happily demanded.

  The dragon dove into the water and, with a whipping twist, showered them both in enough water that Yin was pulled off the deck.

  ‘’I make no promises.’’ Kaido rumbled and disappeared into the depths.