Chapter 233: Dead Red Dragon (1/2)

Sakasugi is a red dragon.

Or, as one would put it, was.

Being a red dragon—the greediest and most arrogant draconic species amongst all five shades of dragon, Sakasugi was basically the standard template of evil dragons depicted in knight novels.

It was obsessed with plundering the treasures of humans and every other sentient race, and would incinerate its victims and villages whenever it felt like it, oppressing weaker beings and enslaving them so that they would plunder even more treasure or anything that interest them.

Such rampant vice naturally drew discontent. When Sakasugi’s havoc finally affected humans too severely—or as one would say, the needs of the gods whom the humans worshipped, they took action.

The boundary between the Prime Material Plane and the divine realm was not as sturdy as it was today compared to Sakasugi’s active years. Even though it was costly for the gods to cross over, they could at least manifest their true forms in the mortal realm, something that they were unable to do in the present.

Still, descending on the mortal realm directly to slap a red dragon would cost the gods more than what they could gain, which was why the god that Sakasugi provoked chose one of his believers, conferring him the title of Chosen One and bestowed upon him a portion of his divine power.

The god then sent forth an oracle that guided the Chosen One to obtain a divine dragon-slaying weapon, after of which he found Sakasugi in his lair and stabbed him to death like the protagonist of an isekai novel, after of which he took home the dragon’s treasure and returned as a hero in human legends.

“I see. I was already dead…”

Sakasugi opened its rotten eyelids, but its eyeballs were already gone.

The frightening strength of the dragon was still there even after death. Moreover, Sakasugi had died in a lofty mountain—though not frozen, the decaying process was exceedingly slow that less than half of its body had decomposed!

Aside from softer parts such as the eyes rotting off, it was still rather complete in other departments.

That naturally gave Sakasugi greater strength and defense than skeleton dragons!

“Even so, this familiar energy that flows in my body definitely isn’t magic… There is no telling its essence, but it must have freed me from the shackles of death and allowed me to awaken from the darkness.”

Sakasugi found it unusual. By logic, its soul should have been claimed by the God of Death after it was slain, and it shouldn’t have maintained its self-awareness after so long had passed.

“Come to think of it… which god was it that the human who killed me believed in?”

Bemused, Sakasugi felt as if it had forgotten something very important—but with its brain having long since rotted, it naturally couldn’t remember what it had forgotten.

The reality was that Sakasugi’s mind would have been blank even though it was revived if not for the resemblance between the soulfire of dragons and the divinity of the gods which held memories to a certain extent. Otherwise, it would know nothing and would only wreak havoc by instinct.

But before Sakasugi’s mind cleared, its resurrection had heightened temperatures around itself, melting the piling snow on the peak and causing tremendous avalanches. The landslide continued downwards, dragging mud and stone in its weak that destroyed the villages by the foot of the mountain.