21 HOW DOES THAT SOUND NOW? (2/2)
The Hellish Nightmare Dragon would never forget the way the human had looked at himself: it was as if, at the slightest slip up, he would become a roasted dragon for the golden-eyed youth to enjoy!
Such a thought had deeply terrified him. Not to mention the even more gigantic Heaven Devouring Dragon, Blindlight, that, if it weren't for the fact that it was under that human's control, let alone roast the black dragon, the golden beast would have long since swallowed the 'tiny' snake in one gulp!
Those trauma from the past which he had attempted to forget had actually never truly left him and had now come back to haunt him.
When he lost the fight and became Xu Ling's slave, he had been forced to free all the prisoners from the World's End, second highest security prison in the True Heaven, and even followed them to fight Tian head on. Indeed, back then, his face had long since been sent flying away. However not only was Cheng Hao's face-smacking skills so advanced he accomplished the same feat again, he did it with a cultivation that was more than two whole realms weaker than Blacky's!
As far as the black dragon was concerned, its face had already been slapped clearly off a thousand years prior, but it looked like Cheng Hao was not happy to leave it at that. So he had taken a thousand years off to allow the poor beast to piece that face back up, only to send it back to hyperspace a second time!
At least, this was the way the Hellish Nightmare Dragon had interpreted the whole thing. Still, he had already signed a contract. What could he do to escape that? Absolutely nothing. At least, not anytime soon.
”I... I...” Blacky gulped and finally shook his head, ”Agh! Fine! Just don't cause too much trouble for me, you golden-eyed dick!” The beast gave up as a stream of golden light flew towards Cheng Hao's right hand: this was none other than a clear connection to Blacky' Soul. Prior to this, Cheng Hao having won the bet would only have amounted to him being able to kill the snake anytime he wished. Now however, he had really become the beast's master and anything he would order from that moment forward would be absolute, whatever it may be.
At the moment the ray of light approached him, Cheng Hao raised his right hand and allowed the ray to hit his palm; following this, a single golden light tattoo appeared floating a few inches away on top of the back of his hand. The tattoo depicted a black serpent: it had no arms and his mouth was a grotesque, teeth-filled, pointy beak, but his long body was enough to wrap around mountains and a single stare from its eerie, white eyes would be enough to stun most foes...
This was none other than the guardian of the first level of Tian's dungeon for life-sentenced prisoners; World's End! It was the one and only Monstrous Beast, the Hellish Nightmare Dragon! The tattoo wasn't imprinted on the skin but was actually a light hologram so it could be hidden or showed on the owner's whim until it eventually disappeared, absorbed into the boy's very consciousness. This wouldn't take any longer than a few hours, a day at most.
The bronze gate issued a loud clacking sound as it closed shut. It had no lock, but Cheng Hao was sure that the beast wouldn't try any tricks with him there, especially since he had made a Soul Contract. He basically held control over that monster's life and death. He decided it was time to turn back so, with but a thought, the tower and everything surrounding him shrunk.
The golden-eyed youth then put the tower in the very middle of the golden pellet that was his Pseudo-Core and relaxed as he allowed the Martial Way to stabilize the object in his place. Then, he finally relaxed and the golden core made a single rotation upon its imaginary axis, feeding upon the Qi from the tower until it had grown so dense the treasure's outline could only be barely noticed... finally, the semi-transparent pellet turned completely golden!
”ROOOAAAR!!!”
A heart-wrenching, Heaven-shaking roar could be heard as the Pseudo-Core finished absorbing all the energy it had been fed from the Immortal Ascension Tower... And Cheng Hao stopped holding back his cultivation base! Suddenly, a golden pillar could be seen rising into the sky beside the black-white-purplish pillar from before. It shot upwards and almost immediately reached the ten thousand feet mark! However, it did not seem discouraged as it failed to progress any further vertically, and instead increased its radius and expanded horizontally! By the time it had stabilized, it became clear that it was many times larger than Xiao Wu's.
Within the majestic pillar of golden light, the faint outline of a tall mountain peak stood out from the golden surrounding... Cheng Hao felt this change and furrowed his brows: the Qi Apparition also served to identify one's Qi attributes if for some reason the cultivator had failed to understand them prior to a breakthrough. However, the apparition of an object within the apparition was unheard of, or at least there were no recorded cases of such a thing happening. As for whether that would be a good thing or not, he had no idea.
”Phew...” he exhaled and relaxed his body, shrugging his stiff shoulders and massaging his neck. He paused for a second and then raised his right hand! ”Come, my Tower.”
Whoosh!
Cheng Hao smiled and finally opened his eyes: his body was encased within a glowing, golden illusory Avatar of his own Immortal Ascension Tower.
The Tower was the exact copy of the tower in his Pseudo-Core. This time however, unlike when he had first shown Xiao Wu his Martial Way, the first of the fifteen gates was open! Within the first floor, six big, eerie, white eyes instilled fear and terror upon anybody unlucky enough to look into them!
The illusory outline of a black, wingless and limbless snake-like dragon crawled out from behind the giant doorway and wrapped around Cheng Hao's wrist. The black scales and cool aura gave the snake a somehow deathly feeling, as if such a beast shouldn't exist in the world of the living.
Suddenly, Cheng Hao's eyes glowed an even brighter golden hue and he dispelled both the golden pillar shooting into the sky, and the illusory Avatar.
The dragon's physical manifestation however did not vanish, and climbed up the child's arm, shoulder and finally wrapped around Cheng Hao's neck like a scarf. It seemed somewhat illusory, but with each moment that passed it would grow more and more solid.
The scarf was really a live, breathing dragon. Unfortunately though, that dragon was still asleep. Cheng Hao was aware of the reasons for that: living for such a long time in a closed-off space such as the Immortal Ascension Tower would be detrimental to even a beast as powerful as the Hellish Nightmare Dragon.
At best one month, at worst three or so: that was the time the dragon would need to grow real from illusory and regain its strength!
At that moment, the sound of a person falling caught Cheng Hao's attention. The golden-eyed youth turned towards the source of the sound: a wide-eyed, slack jawed Xiao Wu had been staring at him in utter silence for more than five minutes, without daring to interrupt. As for Goldy... His reaction was pretty similar, with the sole exception being his knowledge of the Immortal Ascension Tower far surpassing that of the purple-haired girl's, which allowed him to recover after swallowing a few mouthfuls of saliva.
Enjoying the looks of surprise and shock that were being displayed by his two companions, Cheng Hao scratched his neck nonchalantly and asked with a smile, ”How does that 'Twelve-year-old-Ageless-Realm-genius plan of mine sound now?”
Xiao Wu blinked once, twice, twenty times, and was finally able to utter a broken sentence as a response. ”It... It sounds,” she swallowed some saliva, ”Well, not too shabby...”
”Eheheh,” Cheng Hao winked, ”Told ya!”