Chapter 101: I Haven't Been a True Dragon for Many Years

In the monitoring room, Tang Nai leaned on his sword-cane, watching the footage transmitted back by the camera.

On the screen, the Black Dragon King was kneeling before Du Fang on the other side of the steel cage, his body shaking uncontrollably. The frequency of his trembling was fast enough to match an electric motor.

At this moment, everyone gasped in unison. Du Fang looked completely harmless, yet his presence was this oppressive?

"President, Du Fang has released his Dream Spirit. He must have pulled the Black Dragon King into a dreamscape to talk," said Wen Ji, who was wearing sunglasses and looked cool and aloof.

"Talking in a dreamscape?" Tang Nai murmured, pondering for a moment before waving his hand. "Then so be it. No need to continue monitoring."

"Once Du Fang is finished talking with him, resume twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Black Dragon King."

"A high-tier City-Destroyer class Heavenly Demon Dragon King prisoner poses an immense threat. Triple the security forces of the Nightmare Prison."

"Understood!" Wen Ji accepted the order and left.

Zhang Changlin, dangling a cigarette from his lips, walked with President Tang Nai toward the president's office.

"Last night's storm has finally blown over."

"Fortunately, you three managed to slay three City-Destroyer class entities. Otherwise, there's no telling what kind of catastrophe Jiangling City would be facing right now," President Tang Nai said with a chuckle.

Zhang Changlin rubbed his nose. In truth, he hadn't done much besides taking a beating. But he couldn't say that now; he had to claim this credit.

"By the way, that member of the Divine Core organization earlier... he must have detonated a miniature divine core. Who was it that stopped the explosion?" President Tang Nai asked.

This was what Tang Nai cared about the most. Last night, the beam of light from the miniature divine core shooting into the clouds, seeming to rip the night sky apart, was what had truly filled him with dread and despair.

Zhang Changlin paused, then said, "President, since you've asked so sincerely, I won't hide it from you."

Tang Nai looked at him.

Zhang Changlin puffed out his chest and smiled with supreme confidence. "It was me."

Tang Nai glanced at him. "Impossible."

Zhang Changlin: "???"

That stung. Why did he shoot it down so fast? Couldn't he at least think about it for a second before dismissing it?

"I know your strength, Little Zhang. You can hold your own against a City-Destroyer class, but preventing a miniature divine core from detonating? You're not capable of that," Tang Nai explained with a smile, perhaps realizing he had been a bit too blunt.

"It really was me! President, did you see that slash? That blade light... wasn't it the exact slash produced by my broken blade, Sequence Taboo 098?" Zhang Changlin said, his face darkening.

After all, it was unleashed using his Taboo weapon!

Tang Nai paused, falling into deep thought. Indeed, that slash... was undeniably the energy signature of Sequence Taboo 098.

Tang Nai glanced at Zhang Changlin's dark face, which now showed a flash of silver teeth, and muttered suspiciously, "Could it really be... Little Zhang?"

"No, that's impossible..."

"Has my judgment gotten... this bad?"

Zhang Changlin: "..."

***

The Black Dragon King knelt on the ground, looking up blankly at the blood-red hand resting on Du Fang's shoulder.

How could he not recognize this hand?

It was the Hand of God that he had been searching for all this time, the very object he had risked his life to extract from a Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster, all to forge a perfect physical vessel.

"M-Master..." Sweat began to bead on the Black Dragon King's forehead.

"Do you recognize it?" Du Fang asked calmly, looking down at him.

Since they were now in the dreamscape, Luoluo and the little pig, Qiqi, materialized as well.

Luoluo tilted her head, drooling as she stared at the Black Dragon King...

Tucked under her arm, Qiqi was drooling just as heavily.

Even though they had both eaten their fill the night before, they were never ones to turn down a meal.

"Qiqi... it's a dragon."

"Oink, oink!"

"Dragon meat is the tastiest. I remember Daddy once roasted an ancestral dragon. It smelled so good!"

"Oink, oink!"

"We can also have steamed dragon meat over rice, braised dragon meat, and... dragon meat stew..."

Luoluo tilted her head, listing the dishes in her sweet, childish voice.

Hearing this, Qiqi grew increasingly excited. Just the names of the dishes were enough to make him salivate uncontrollably.

The Black Dragon King felt his vision go dark, nearly fainting on the spot.

He wasn't even a real dragon anymore! He was merely a nightmare entity possessing a human body. He hadn't been a true dragon in years!

Tears welled up in the Black Dragon King's eyes.

Du Fang smiled and patted Luoluo's head. "Don't be in such a hurry to eat him. If he refuses to cooperate, then you can have him."

Du Fang's words sent a shudder through the Black Dragon King, who desperately pinched his own philtrum to keep from passing out.

"Tell me, where did you get this?" Du Fang asked calmly, pointing to his wife's hand on his shoulder.

"Great Master, the lifespan of this vessel my humble self occupies has reached its end. I did not want to keep extending my life by possessing one human body after another, so I planned to forge a perfect physical vessel."

"Thus, for the sake of this perfect vessel, I chose to explore a Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster. Inside that dreamscape, I risked my life to retrieve a miniature shrine. Inside that shrine was this very hand."

"What ill intentions could I possibly have? I only wanted to survive."

The Black Dragon King dared not conceal a single detail. He knew full well that this divine hand was of monumental importance.

Du Fang's eyes flickered. His wife's hand... had been found in a Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster?

"Where is this dream disaster located?" Du Fang asked, fixing a cold gaze on the Black Dragon King.

"I don't know..." the Black Dragon King stammered.

Du Fang stared at him. A brilliant golden light flashed deep within his eyes, resembling the burning sunset clouds of the heavens.

"You don't know? How could you not know the location of a Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster?" Du Fang felt the Black Dragon King was trying to deceive him.

"Mercy, Master, mercy!" The Black Dragon King's soul trembled as he hurried to explain. "There are four Unsolvable class dream disasters in this world. Originally, I had planned to venture into one of them to seek my fortune... but on my way there, I crossed paths with this Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster."

"In fact, calling it a Nation-Destroyer class might not even be accurate, because the Dreammaster Association has never officially assessed it. It doesn't even exist in their records," the Black Dragon King said.

"Why is that?" Du Fang asked.

"Because... this dream disaster moves," the Black Dragon King said, taking a deep breath and speaking with utmost gravity.

Du Fang was taken aback, a look of bewilderment crossing his face. "Aren't dream disasters supposed to expand outward? A moving dream disaster... how is that possible?"

The Black Dragon King shook his head, offering a sycophantic smile from behind the steel bars. "Master, not all dream disasters expand continuously. Only the weaker ones, which lack powerful dream anomalies to anchor them, will bleed out and spread."

"Truly terrifying dream disasters—like high-tier City-Destroyers, Nation-Destroyers, and Unsolvables—have fixed boundaries."

"A Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster might only span the size of a single village, but the anomalies within it are so monstrously powerful that if they ever escaped, they could wipe out an entire country. That is why it is called a Nation-Destroyer."

"For classes of that scale, physical boundaries no longer matter."

As a Dragon King of the Heavenly Demon organization, he was privy to many such secrets.

"Then what did you mean by it moving?" Du Fang frowned, realizing that finding the rest of his wife was going to be much harder than he had anticipated.

The Black Dragon King took a deep breath. "That dream disaster is like a patch of formless black mist. Blown by the wind, it drifts across the mortal realm like a wandering ghost in the wilderness, completely aimless."

"It goes wherever the wind takes it..."

A faraway look entered the Black Dragon King's eyes. "The reason I classified it as a Nation-Destroyer is because the moment I retrieved the shrine, I was hunted by several Nation-Destroyer class dream anomalies. I barely escaped with my life. That is why I tentatively labeled it as such."

A formless mist, drifting like a lost soul...

Such a dream disaster existed?

Du Fang's eyes flickered, his understanding of dream disasters completely overturned.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that this dream disaster was undoubtedly connected to his wife.

"Where was the last place you saw it?" Du Fang asked, looking intently at the Black Dragon King.

Kneeling within his steel cage, the Black Dragon King paused to think. He looked up at Du Fang, then turned his gaze toward the exit of the Nightmare Prison, as though looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Dreammaster Building's top floor, out into the boundless distance.

"The last time I crossed paths with it was..."

"Just outside Jiangling City."

"And it is... slowly drawing closer."

***

Once his conversation with the Black Dragon King was over, Du Fang stepped out of the Nightmare Prison and let out a long breath.

He did not know if the Black Dragon King was telling the truth, but his resolve to find his wife remained unshakable.

"Don't worry. I will find every last piece of you," Du Fang murmured, smiling gently at his wife's hand resting quietly on his shoulder.

The moment he left the prison, Du Fang was stopped by Zhang Changlin, who had been waiting outside.

"How did it go? Did you get the answers you were looking for?" Zhang Changlin asked with a smile, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Captain Zhang, do you remember the dream disaster that enveloped Jiangling First Girls' High School?" Du Fang asked, his expression grave. "The Black Dragon King admitted that he was the one who layered the double dream disaster over the original one. And that miniature shrine... he said he took it from a Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster."

The smile slowly faded from Zhang Changlin's face.

That dream disaster...

Of course he remembered it. He had, after all, personally eaten the soil from it.

He stared at Du Fang, gesturing for him to continue.

Du Fang looked him in the eye. "The Black Dragon King said that this Nation-Destroyer class dream disaster... moves."

"And the last time he saw it... it was just outside Jiangling City, slowly drawing closer."

Outside Jiangling City?

Zhang Changlin's pupils constricted.

The cigarette slipped from his lips, falling silently to the floor.