Under the Red Dragon

Time continues to flow, and the atmosphere within the Cathay Empire has become increasingly tense recently. Emperor Charaal Caesar's fervent desire for conquest is rapidly expanding under the impetus of those hidden, influential figures.

With the Dragon Clan's almost self-destructive resource supply, the empire's military preparations are gradually becoming abundant.

And the resources from the Golden Land, exchanged with neutral faction nobles, have brought ample food reserves to the empire.

With enough profitable exchanges, those nobles will no longer be stingy with resource exchanges.

However, before the Cathay Empire could take action, the neighboring human principality of Marino unexpectedly launched a silent attack on the empire's southernmost province and successfully breached the provincial defenses.

They not only plundered grain, weapons, and resources but even drove and coerced many people into their territory.

Emperor Charaal Caesar was furious and dispatched two legions to the front lines of the already devastated southern province to provide support.

But the news was leaked from somewhere, and the entire two legions were ambushed by the Marino Principality's army and were completely annihilated.

Even the legion commander who had entered the Saint domain was publicly beheaded by the Marino Principality's Saint domain warrior leader.

For a time, the Cathay Empire fell into trouble. The emperor had the reason and strength to launch a war, but the situation did not go as smoothly as he had hoped.

Karoon's mind is now starting to feel sleepy. His dormancy period is approaching, but he resisted his drowsiness and looked at the tall werewolf who had just returned from the arena.

The werewolf and the vampire species went out together, but only he returned.

Luck no longer favored the vampire and the werewolf; their battle was a life-and-death struggle.

The werewolf's body was riddled with wounds, strips of flesh torn open, even revealing the white bones hidden deep within his flesh and the internal organs of his abdomen. This battle must have been very fierce.

But the werewolf who returned alive did not have any happy expression on his face. He silently dragged his battered body into the prison cell.

"Hey, how did the vampire's flesh taste? Weren't you always clamoring to eat the vampire species?"

The centaur warrior had already understood his destined fate. He taunted the werewolf, but there was no smile on his face.

"It didn't taste good at all," the werewolf replied in a hoarse voice, "but I swallowed his heart core. From now on, his fate will be forever linked to mine."

"Tsk," the centaur stopped talking. The vampire's heart core is the race's most central bloodline.

Perhaps if this heart core were sent back to the vampire's holy land, the blood pool, and soaked for hundreds of years, that vampire would be resurrected again, but now that possibility is gone.

"Guard me," the red dragon's crimson pupils were already filled with hazy sleepiness. He said in a deep voice, "I am about to enter dormancy. When someone calls me to wake up, we will regain control of our destiny."

The silver-haired werewolf hidden in the darkness, his faint green pupils lit up. He reappeared from the darkness, knelt in his prison cell, and bowed his head to the red dragon, "I will guard you with my life, Lord Karoon!"

The centaur warrior exhaled and knelt down with his strong body, "I, Chiron, son of the orthodox centaur tribe, will guard you with my life!"

The red dragon nodded and closed his eyes. Soon, his breathing became even, and he began to enter dormancy.

And those young dragons also entered dormancy one after another around this time. Their childhood has been long enough; it is time to enter the juvenile stage.

Perhaps the arena did not have any experience in raising dragons. By the time they realized it, the dragons had all entered their dormancy period.

They did not dare to disturb the sleeping dragons casually. Dragons undergoing bloodline growth would be particularly irritable; they did not want to be torn apart by the dragons.

By the time they reported it, the empire's higher-ups were already too busy to care about these things. They were busy figuring out how to eliminate the sudden crisis, so the arena's management personnel could only let these young dragons sleep in the quiet underground.

The underground prison cell where the dragons were sleeping began to be deliberately ignored by the arena attendants. They no longer dared to set foot in this underground prison cell, and even those gladiators of various races who were also imprisoned on this level were gradually ignored.

Time passed slowly, and changes occurred in the peaceful underground prison cell.

Every dragon will generate a nest effect in the environment they are often in, although the nest effect of these young dragons is very small.

However, because the space was too narrow and these young dragons were distributed too densely, the nest effect gradually spread from the prison cell where the strongest Karoon was located.

Gradually, it came into contact with the influence of other young dragons, and the nest effects between them suddenly produced a mysterious connection. Under this mysterious connection, this effect produced an unknown resonance.

Under the dominance of the red dragon's nest effect, an inexplicable aura began to spread throughout the underground prison cell.

And the young dragons, who were in the midst of bloodline growth, continued to strengthen the nest effect power in this resonance. Gradually, all the gladiators of different races in this underground room were affected.

Their personalities, which had originally been honed by a dull, indifferent life, gradually began to change, becoming irritable and easily angered, becoming more aggressive. They began to crave the flesh of those companions who had originally been at peace with each other.

In addition, the arena attendants gradually ignored this place, and the warriors of various races, who were already starving, suddenly broke out in battle one day. Every prison cell was shrouded in slaughter and bloodshed.

They roared and tore at each other's bodies, using the most barbaric and simplest way to determine the winner. Teeth and claws unleashed unimaginable destructive power on each other's bodies. Blood flowed like rivers, and flesh was everywhere.

The weak died at the hands of the strong, and the corpses were also devoured by the victors. After being satisfied with blood and flesh, these victors, who had been replenished with nutrients and energy, also entered dormancy like the dragons.

A layer of extremely tough skin began to grow on the surface of their bodies, and short thorns emerged from the skin of their dissimilar faces, transforming them into the legendary dragonkin.

The most powerful centaur and werewolf among these monsters were also undergoing some strange and bizarre mutations under the gradually increasing bloodline radiation of the red dragon.

In the absence of food supplements, the werewolf and centaur, who also autonomously entered dormancy in some magical way, underwent different changes on the surface of their bodies.

The centaur's bloodline was originally inferior to the red dragon's ancestral evil dragon blood, so although his strength was stronger than the werewolf's, he was affected even more.

The centaur's already tough outer skin was covered with a layer of scarlet scales, the same color as the red dragon's, and the dense scales gave him greater defense than before.

The centaur's tail also began to transform into the red dragon's tail. The hair on the fluffy horse tail began to fall off, and the regrown hair was short and thick, more like some kind of leathery thorn.

His ears also turned into the dragonkin's erect ears, and his body became stronger under this influence. The slowly beating heart made a sound like the beating of a drum.

The same magical changes also happened to the werewolf.

However, the werewolf did not grow scales on his body like the red dragon, but his hair gradually fell off, and a layer of extremely tough leather covered the werewolf's original skin.

The color of the regrown hair became white mixed with scarlet, like a layer of fire burning on the white hair. Two wings emerged from both sides of the werewolf's shoulder blades, and when they grew to a certain extent, a layer of red scales began to cover the newborn fleshy wings.

Two small dragon horns emerged from the werewolf's beautiful hair on the top of his head. If these dragon horns had not continued to grow and become thick and long over time, the top of the werewolf's head would have looked comically like it had four ears.

And the bodies of the young dragons were also gradually changing during the bloodline growth. Their bodies gradually crossed the age limit under the nourishment of the bloodline and were regrowing and developing.

The originally somewhat thin scales began to grow larger and thicker, and the color of the scales also gradually changed from bright to dark.

Spines of varying lengths, like Karoon's, also began to spread on both sides of their heads, as if bloodline growth was also converging to some extent in the resonance of the nest effect.

Kleineria, the little female dragon who had been actively fighting and drinking the blood of her opponents, seemed to have obtained some satisfaction from the evil dragon blood in her body.

The will of the evil dragon blood quietly receded, and a more powerful force was born from Kleineria's bloodline.

A scent similar to Karoon's ancestral blood emanated from Kleineria's body. Although it was not as strong as Karoon's, there was no doubt that this red dragon had also successfully embarked on that path to power.

Ancestral blood, this is the most orthodox and powerful method for dragons. Since dragons were born from the dragon god, the closer the dragon's bloodline is to the dragon god, the more powerful they are.

Karoon, the strongest red dragon in the dragon group, his body is also constantly adjusting during bloodline growth.

After repeatedly practicing using willpower to influence and strengthen the heart energy, Karoon can now allow his willpower to influence the heart energy, allowing his body to adapt and adjust autonomously during bloodline growth.

When the five-colored dragons were born in the hands of the dragon god Tiamat, they basically had a very strange body proportion.

The long neck, like a snake's neck, accounted for about one-third of the body proportion, the tail also accounted for one-third of the body proportion, and the most important body was also one-third.

Although the red dragon's relatively thicker neck compared to other five-colored dragons concealed this overly strange proportion, Karoon still felt that this proportion was too ugly.

Moreover, in this way, the overly long neck is more vulnerable to attack and is a weakness, and after analysis by the sub-brain node group, this proportion has more disadvantages than advantages for the red dragon.

So, under the influence of Karoon's willpower and under the analysis and control of the sub-brain node group, his neck, which had already undergone some adjustments, gradually shortened the body proportion and became a relatively normal length, which did not look abrupt.

His neck also grew thicker as a result, and thick muscles and skin wrapped around his neck, matching the already majestic and ferocious head, showing an extraordinary sense of power and beauty.

His body became longer and stronger as a result, allowing the development limits of the organs in his body to be expanded again. His blood vessels and various organs adjusted to adapt to the increase in body size,

His blood vessels and various transmission nerves were widened as a result, and his heart was also growing, which meant that the blood and magic flowing in his body would be more turbulent in the future.

His explosive power was also enhanced, and he would explode with unimaginable power in the case of mental overclocking.

And the bat-wing-like tissue that originally grew on the back of the red dragon and the back of the tail became tough, leather-clad bone thorns that grew backward.

These thorns were of moderate length and connected all the way to the back of the red dragon's neck, which looked quite ferocious and was very deterrent to those who liked to jump on his back.

The red dragon's wings also originally grew a pair of wing claws, but in fact, these wing claws did not play any role in the dragon's daily life and battle. The dragon's flexible limbs were more practical than any wing claws,

And the flapping of the dragon's wings played more of a deterrent role. No dragon would expect to use its wing claws to harm the enemy.

So, under Karoon's will, the largest wing claws on both wings gradually changed.

It became a claw-shaped membrane similar to a bone nodule, protecting the bone nodes of the dragon's wings, and the red dragon's wings also looked smoother.

And after the lesson of having his wing bones broken by the advanced magic Flame Ring last time, Karoon also strengthened the reinforcement of the wing bones.

The originally relatively thin wing bones grew thicker, and the hollow bone-like material gradually became dense, reducing the hollow space inside the bones.

And the price of this change was that the dragon's wings became longer and wider as a result, far exceeding the proportion of ordinary dragon wings.

These changes and the growth of the dragon's bloodline require a massive amount of nutritional energy and magic to nourish the dragon's body as it grows.

The nine-meter body gradually grew to eleven meters, but the red dragon's body became thinner.

Under the body's demand, the magic that filled the air also began to be gathered and absorbed by the red dragon's body, but the other young dragons were also absorbing the already scarce magic during their growth.

The magic crystals used for lighting and ordinary lights were also extinguished under the influence of the dragons.

Under the action of the red dragon's bloodline and magic, the magic array on the walls of the underground prison cell began to be slowly eroded, and traces of magic patterns became blurred and gradually disappeared.

Cracks began to appear in the solid walls, and countless rich fire elements came from the cracks, which was the breath of the fire element plane that existed somewhere.

Affected by the red dragon's nest effect and bloodline, the barrier between this fire element and the main plane of Akania world was quietly broken, but the aura was concealed because the magic array covering the entire arena was too large.

The red dragon's body, which was replenished with elemental magic, began to become full, and a misty magma aura covered the entire prison cell.

As time passed, the red dragon's power had spread throughout the underground passage, and droplets of extremely condensed fire elements turned into flowing magma and dripped into the cracks in the wall.

Pop, a spark splashed in the already completely silent and dark underground.

The auras emanating from the dragons and the countless drops of dark red lava became the central theme of the entire underground, resembling a deep, fiery hell.

Time passed day by day, so long that it felt as though this place had become an eternal, dark hell.

Until one day, a faint whisper reached the red dragon's ears from afar, "Karon, Karon, wake up, the time has come."

The entire dim underground immediately lit up, it was the red dragon opening his eyes.

His scarlet, vertical pupils emitted an incredibly intense red light, and his deep voice echoed throughout the deep, narrow passage, "Who is it that calls me!"

As the red dragon's voice fell, spots of light instantly ignited in various dark corners of the underground.

They were pairs of eyes also emitting light, belonging to dragons and dragonkin alike!