Stranger Danger

Chapter 607: Dragon Scaffold

“How dare you spy on my memories! Die!”

Innocent Miao roared inside her heart as a monster with a dragon’s body but a human’s head appeared inside her headspace.

The monster’s body was over three hundred meters long. It had glittering scales that produced halos when light reflected off its surface. At the center of its head was the youthful, innocent face of a young girl—Innocent Miao’s face to be exact.

This was Innocent Miao’s Yin God, the Guileless True Dragon.

Although Dragonrider Mountain was a waning, disreputable sect today, it was the complete opposite a couple centuries ago. They were once famous throughout the jianghu for their dragonslaying arts, a secret art that focused on cultivating qi and especially the mind and astral qi.

Innocent Miao was an elder of Dragonrider Mountain, so of course she was no weakling. She was a Spirit Master with an exceptionally potent mind.

She did not know how the young man was able to track her even after she used Dragonrising, but he was apparently foolish enough to tackle her greatest strength with his biggest weakness. He actually dared to go peek into her memories inside her own headspace. That was akin to lighting a lantern inside a toilet—suicide.

Overconfidence was the unmaking of many warriors. If he thought that she had no way to turn the tables, then he had another thing coming.

You only have your arrogance to blame for what happens next!

Innocent Miao sneered internally as the Guiless True Dragon manifested a scaffold from its scales. There were tall, massive stone pillars shrouded in lightning at each corner of the scaffold, and four burning chains descending from the skies. Sitting at the center of the scaffold was an executioner’s blade which tip was facing upward. The blade was covered in rust and dried blood, and the aura of death rising off of it was so thick that it was almost tangible. The painful screams of dragons could be heard from the aura of death from time to time.

The second the scaffold appeared, draconic roars, fiendish aura and killing intent immediately permeated Innocent Miao’s headspace.

“Dragonslayer Art: Dragon Scaffold”

Legend had it that the ancient heavenly court used to own a dragon scaffold that was specifically used to punish vile dragons who abused their power. A dragon king had even been slain at the dragon scaffold in the past. The first swing of the executioner’s blade would rid them of their scales, the second swing would strip them of their skin, the third swing would sever all their tendons, the fourth swing would turn their body into mush, and the fifth swing would enfeeble their mind. It was said that any true dragon unfortunate enough to enter the dragon scaffold would suffer the cruelest punishments imaginable.

At best, the punished dragon would lose its scales and skin. At worst, it would lose its tendons, break many bones, and even lose its mind.

The Dragonrider Mountain’s “Dragon Scaffold” was an imitation of the ancient dragon scaffold. An offensive Magia that specifically targeted the mind, it could bind a true dragon’s mind to the dragon scaffold and put it through the five punishments at the adept level.

Of course, Innocent Miao had never subjected a dragon to the “Dragon Scaffold” since mastering the technique. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to, but because she had never even seen a dragon before, much less fought it.

Humans though? Oh, she had put many, many humans through the “Dragon Scaffold”.

Anyone whose mind was entrapped by Dragon Scaffold would suffer the cruelest of punishments. A mind was originally intangible, but it gained both form and substance once it entered the Dragon Scaffold. The Dragon Scaffold would then dice their membrane into bits, skin them alive, sever their tendons, pound their flesh into mince meat, and annihilate their mind as if they were a true dragon. The victim would die slowly in a world of pain and suffering.

Therefore, Dragon Scaffold wasn’t just Dragonrider Mountain’s strongest mind-attacking Magia, it was a brutal and inhuman method of torture as well. Anyone from Dragonrider Mountain would turn green the second they heard its name.

Right now, Innocent Miao wanted nothing more than to subject her tormentor to her Dragon Scaffold and teach him the pain of the mind. Only then could she vent her fury and hatred.

Clatter clatter clatter!

With a thought, she commanded the descending chains to wrap around the unknowable object in the void. But when the chains actually caught their target, they failed to drag it to the Dragon Scaffold. Not only that, they clattered restlessly almost as if they were trembling in fear.

Whatever they had caught, they instinctively knew that it wasn’t something that they could control.

“Roar!”

Inside Innocent Miao’s headspace, the Guileless True Dragon roared loudly. The Dragon Scaffold behind its back grew increasingly solid, and lightning flickered wildly above the four stone pillars. As the aura of death of the executioner’s blade rose to the heavens, the chains abruptly snapped straight and let loose a draconic roar.

“Quiet. I’m trying to work here!”

Suddenly, an impatient voice resounded throughout Innocent Miao’s headspace. It wasn’t particularly loud, but its authority and dominance would not be questioned. As if its words were the law itself, the draconic roar abruptly disappeared into nothing, and the taut chains broke into pieces without a sound.

Before Innocent Miao could react, an overwhelming, indescribable fear suddenly swelled inside her heart. Her consciousness fizzled for just an instant, and a gigantic foot smashed through the sky, shattered the sun and moon, and landed right on top of her “Dragon Scaffold”.

BOOM!

A loud boom later, her prized “Dragon Scaffold” shattered into a million pieces. Even her three-hundred-meter-long Guileless True Dragon was utterly scattered in one stomp.

“Impossible...”

Before her consciousness blurred, Innocent Miao vaguely saw a tall, vast, mysterious silhouette sitting on a throne and looking down on her with scorn and disdain. They looked just like an untouchable god looking down on a puny ant crawling in the dirt below.

The silhouette tapped their throne lightly, and her headspace abruptly collapsed into nothing. With that, her consciousness sank into a sea of chaos.

......

Innocent Miao and the young man’s battle might feel long in words, but in reality, it lasted only a dozen or so breaths.

On one hand, Innocent Miao summoned twin dragons at the young man, transforming a water droplet into a roaring river, and manifested dragons from the very same river. On the other hand, the young man punched again, and again, and again. His technique was so basic one could barely call it a technique. Wang Shengkui and his men had seen street hooligans who put up a fight that was more visually appealing than this.

That was the thing though. As grand as Innocent Miao’s technique seemed, it was utterly dismantled by the young man’s simple techniques. Before they knew it, Innocent Miao was on the run.

A short while later, the young man returned with an unconscious girl in his arms. It was none other than Innocent Miao. He descended from the skies smoothly like a living celestial.

After he landed, the young man threw Innocent Miao beneath the feet of the Dragonrider Mountain female disciple, Hanxue.

“Did... did you kill Elder Miao?”

Hanxue trembled involuntarily as she stared at her unconscious elder, but she still mustered the courage to look up and ask the question.

“Relax. She’s still alive.”

The young man said indifferently before adding, “Whether she can wake up is a different story though.”

Hanxue was just about to sigh in relief when she heard the strange remark. What did he mean by that?

“What did you do?”

“Not much. I just scoured her mind and accidentally damaged it a little,” the young man replied indifferently.

“You scoured her mind?! How... how could you...” Hanxue trembled with shock and disbelief.

Wang Shengkui and his people’s hearts skipped a beat as well. Soul scouring was considered a heretical technique, which was why the warriors of major clans and the orthodox factions rarely used them. A practitioner of the Dark Ways had no such qualms, however. Could the young man really be a heartless, blood-soaked murderer despite his clean appearance?

Had they just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire?

“You didn’t try to slaughter those men, so you may leave.”

The young man paid Hanxue’s shock no heed whatsoever. “Take her with you. It’s up to her whether she wakes up again.”

Hanxue wanted to say something, but as soon as she met the young man’s eyes, a surge of indescribable terror suddenly paralyzed her mouth. In the end, she was unable to voice her doubt and anger.

A moment of silence later, Hanxue wrestled her fear back into the confines of her heart and glanced at her seniors. “What... What about my senior brothers and sisters?”

“Oh, them? They may leave too—if you don’t think they’re too heavy.” the young man chuckled.

“What... What do you mean by that?” A bad feeling punched right through the mental defenses she just constructed.

“What I mean... is that they’re already dead,” said the young man as he waved his hand. As if on cue, Tong Chuan and everyone else abruptly collapsed to the ground.

He had wiped out all of their consciousness in one gesture.