The viscous sewing quickened the flow, and the radiating heat surged upwards into the cavern above. As the temperature began to rise, the snort of the giant creatures in the lair, long enough to make people mistakenly think that they were dead, began to pick up speed. The beating of the heart made the white bones piled up in the other corner of the cave rub into a noisy sound, and after squirting out two consecutive snorts that made the rock wall burn red, the slender pupils protected by the black dragon Nidhogg's double eyelids were stimulated by the dim light, refocused and contracted into a narrow slit, and the 752nd hibernation of his life ended.

Throughout the winter of hibernation, Nidhogg did not move, and his heartbeat and breathing rate were reduced to the minimum to sustain life. This period is the most dangerous cycle. Whether it's other carnivorous giant dangerous species that don't need to hibernate, or humans who are carried away by money, fame, and so on, these are usually the same as ants, and this time period can easily end the life of a dragon. Relying on careful and meticulous measures such as carefully camouflaging and covering the entrance and exit of the nest before each hibernation, and blocking the entrance bend from the inner wall, the black dragon has survived every hibernation so far.

Peeling open the exit of the nest, the early spring breeze with a hint of chill ruffled the dragon's nose, stretching its muscles and bones that had not been active in the sun for a long time. The dust and mist from the shaking of the scales and the rock ash on the wings had not yet lifted, and the massive body had risen into the air in the wind of Mana, splitting the cloud of smoke and dust, and Nidhogg began to tour his territory, looking forward to the first meal of the new year. The stomach pouch that had been empty for months was waiting for some daredevils who had broken into the territory of the Black Dragon to fall in, and only then would the humiliating rumblings and hunger pangs subside.

In order not to disturb the prey on the ground and miss the opportunity, Nidhogg was at a considerable distance from the ground. Even some birds may not be able to reach that height to help stuff their teeth, and creeping creatures on the ground will only see a small blurry black dot even if they look up at the sky. Dragons' dynamic vision, on the other hand, can accurately capture any moving object on the ground.

The proud sight soon searched for a similar target, a mass of yellow-green lines wriggling between the gray gravel at the bottom of the valley.

Jormangund, Nidhogg's neighbor, is an old slippery snake that is more than 164 feet long, nearly half the length of Nidhogg. Today, he also twisted his body to look for its sacrifice with the stench of rotting flesh, and when he saw this neighbor who also woke up from hibernation, his exuberant appetite was suddenly beaten away.

The snake has the ability to shatter the bones of an ogre's body, it can spew venom or poison gas from its mouth, it has more combat experience than Nidhogg, and more importantly, the strange smell will make the dragons with a keen sense of smell unbearable in the first place...... It is completely a type that cannot be swallowed, and it may cause inexplicable symptoms if you barely have a stomach.

Although it was unappetizing, the speed of the snake somewhat aroused the dragon's curiosity. On weekdays, the crawling speed can be called leisurely, but now it is a bit close to the high-speed range. Maybe something good has been found? If Yormangund does find something to satisfy his stomach, it must be swallowed before the bad guys do. Anyway, it's not that you can't beat that old immortal.

The black dragon, who has made up his mind to make a cameo appearance as a corpse bird, carefully adjusts the air flow through the membrane and the mana who holds up his body, slowing down his gliding speed and avoiding his whereabouts from being detected by the other party. The Celestial Stalker's calm tail line soon paid off—the triangular head of the snake pointed straight at a black egg lying at the bottom of the valley.

It was a long, dark oval egg with some red and black hanging from it...... Strangely soft vines of various colors seemed to have tumbled from some giant fir tree or something like that into this barren valley with only hot sand and gravel. Believing that eggs are the most delicious in the world, it was only natural for Jörmangund to include this orphan in his first menu after waking up. ...,

This seemed very reasonable, but Nidhogg didn't think he should do it immediately, and even vetoed the possibility of lowering the altitude. The caution that had helped it avoid danger countless times was ringing alarm bells in the dragon's heart, stronger than ever before that drove the dragon to look at the black egg again, and some of the details that began to emerge began to amplify the restlessness in its veins.

Nidhogg had eaten many eggs, but no species in his memory could lay such a peculiar egg. The object was more like the obsidian in the dragon's collection, and the outer entwining object was also different from the vine, the color and pliable material had never been seen before, and it could never have been owned by any known plant, not to mention that the substance wrapped in [bark] was obviously some kind of metal.

In the end, what dealt a decisive blow to the dragon's luck and appetite was that neither living nor non-living beings would release an ominous aura like this [Black Egg], and even the dragon who stayed high in the sky tasted the tingling from the scalp to the tip of the tail.

Get out of here quickly - it didn't take more than half a second to reach this conclusion and prepare for execution, but compared to the speed with which the anomaly occurred, it was almost fatal.

The longitudinal circumferential crack with a smooth trajectory appeared on the shell of the [Black Egg], and the milky white gas erupted to block the black dragon's vision, and the sudden cold air brushed the tip of his nose by Yormangund immediately coiled his body and entered an attack posture like tightening the bowstring, the triangular head hanging above the white mist kept spitting out bifurcated letters to capture the smell in the air, and the organs that sensed heat also entered a high-speed state, and the slightest abnormal movement of highly toxic liquid would shoot out of the gland, poisoning the opponent.

The sight of the fog turning into a white storm could not be captured by the sight of the snake's near-blind man, but the tiny vibration of the ground turned into a nerve signal that transmitted to the brain marrow, and the snake that got the signal tried to attack, but its body did not react, and fell to the ground like a puddle of mud.

The disconnection of the useless visual system and the body's nerve signals prevented Jörmangande from understanding and grasping the situation, and the strange scenery was deeply seared into Nidhogg's retina, and the dragon's fear instincts could not describe the impact of the scene when he looked at the vision that he had never imagined.

A small, humanoid figure wielded a large white belt in mid-air—something that looked like a snake's vertebrae.

Yormangund's body has hard scales that resist high-level spells, and the slime attached to it absorbs physical shocks and allows attacks to slip away. Such a double line of defense was torn apart like tissue paper along with the musculature in an instant, and then the spine was pulled away from the body and leaped into the air.

By the time the dragon's brain understood and accepted what had happened, the black egg had already dealt the final blow to the dying Jörmangund, and the torn brain and flesh were pushed out of the body by the fist, and the red and white paste burst into the skin and sprayed to the ground. The strangulation power of a large ogre, the venom that corroded the flesh, the poisonous gas that paralyzed the opponent's body - none of them worked, and the 164-foot-long serpent was killed like an ant.

Complete, unilateral killing.

Fear gripped Nidhogg's body and mind, and with Mana's suspended body, he couldn't stop the trembling that swept over, and the instinct for survival sent out a hurried escape alarm, leaving here, leaving this ominous breath, and fleeing far away.

But that piercing gaze unmistakably told Nidhogg—to move would only meet the tragic fate of Jörmangund.

The creature on the ground, which was only the height of a dragon's finger, looked up at the sky, and after a few seconds of pause, the hand that slew the serpent beckoned to the black dots in the sky. ...,

"Great Marfa, save me from misfortune!!"

The dragon's heart let out a blood-soaked cry, and since the howl could easily be misinterpreted as a prelude to rallying his companions or launching an attack, the black dragon only carefully spread the mana around his body, while controlling the spread of his wings while slowly lowering his height. The 73-foot dragon danced in the wind like a dandelion seed and landed at the scene of the killing.

At the end of the landing, not even more than 1 foot of sand had been raised, and Nidhogg, who had completed such a difficult maneuver, was neither happy nor interested in showing off. Just lying on the gravel ground with a short head in his arms, his whole body trembling slightly and making a sound of broken rock, his slit-like pupils looking through the gaps in his paws at the powerful being with a human appearance.

Something outside of cognition—the phrase from witnessing that powerful force resurfaced, and then superimposed with the image imprinted on the retina and engraved into the brain spindle.

Not a powerful giant, not a stocky dwarf, not an old man with a beard that reaches down to his chest and whose skin is cracked like the bark of a dry tree. The disparity with the influence of the strong of the above-mentioned bipedal erect creatures was so great that Nidhogg almost forgot that he was being shrouded in the shadow of death.

The unobtrusive nudity is not a problem for the dragon's point of view, the well-proportioned and slender slightly petite physique and smooth pearl-like skin outline the best statue-like line combination, and when the gaze is moved above the neck, the perfect combination of highlights makes the dragon's breathing stop for a moment.

The face of the handsome man is markedly different from that of any known humanoid creature, the height of the nose bridge and cheekbones is lower than the average height, the facial muscles and skin together are still a little childish, the unseen black hair hangs down in front of the forehead, and the lower-hanging eyes below are as crimson as the sunset that has sunset on the horizon after purifying blood.

The vision of the night and the sunset skillfully blending together, flying all over this continent that was created and loved by the ancestral gods has never seen a face - this is the beauty of 752 years of life accumulation without resentment.

The beauty of the delicate jewel, which was inferior to dust, raised her hand, her fingers spread out, her palm aimed at the dragon's head, and a mass in her consciousness was being stirred by the intervention of an invisible hand. At this moment, the dragon is no longer afraid of death, but just puts the mysterious life that deviates from the common sense of the world on the top seat of appreciation, and tries to interpret the mystery.

You are a wise race. 】

Not contempt, not exclamation, pure transactional tones resounded in the language of dragons in Nidhogg's brain.

There was no need to look confused, and the dragon lying on the ground understood that this was the work of the being in front of him, and without any resistance, the will responded with obedient phrases.

Yes, Your Excellency. 】

[I need knowledge, your knowledge of the world. 】

【一qiē belongs to you, Your Excellency. 】

As if the master and servant had been talking smoothly for many years, two creatures that had met for no more than 2 minutes were naturally reached. The consciousness in his brain met with an explosion of light, and a strange scene passed before Nidhogg's eyes.

The raised palm hung back, and he returned from the ground to the air, and the flesh on the ground retracted into Yormangund's jaw, and the white spine burrowed into the flesh from the air.

Is this its memory, or a backward memory.

Autumn hunting to store heat before hibernation, caravans looking out over ant colonies from the air 43 years ago, bloody battles between onlookers 116 years ago, excitement at the first hunt, smell when biting open the throat of a living creature brought to you by your mother for the first time, light and cold that stings your senses when you drill open an eggshell.

Memories trace the focus on the other side of life.

I don't know what it is, I don't know why it's not death.

Seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking are all beyond reach, and even memory is not on the other side of the zài—not even darkness, and complete nothingness covers Nidhogg's consciousness.