CHAPTER 348: CHAPTER 220: THE FALLEN RED DRAGON

In just a few seconds, there came the sound of a whistle and the roar of waves behind him, the skyward fury of Orochi’s eight heads, the thunderous crash as the Sword in the Stone struck a dragon wing, and the sky-splitting sound resonating when a meteor exploded.

The only thing that remained unchanged... was the dragon’s roar and wail.

The world seemed to be lamenting, the atmosphere raging, the frenzied winds continuously fluttering his clothes while a huge meteor fragment skimmed past the side of the sled, barely overturning the reindeer.

Finally, amid a rapid cry, the sled tilted steeply and teetered precariously; at this moment, Cezar snapped back to his senses, turning his head urgently to look.

"Li Qingping—!"

His pupils suddenly contracted. He saw a dragon, a giant dragon without a head. Wings broken on the ground, a shattered tail, and broken claws.

Blood oozed from Li Qingping’s every pore; at this moment, he was akin to a figure of blood, his viscera shattering under the siege of a legendary-level phenomenon. The Red Dragon shielded him from ninety-nine percent of the impact, but the remaining one percent was enough to devastate his organs.

Blood poured out from his ripped pores. His skin on the right half of his face was cracking inch by inch, leaving only a patch of stark white bone exposed to the air.

In a trance, he turned slightly, using the last remaining eye to gaze at the retreating sled, and a feeling of relief tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Good child..." he rasped softly.

Cezar’s roar was drowned out by the dragon’s cry; Li Qingping’s figure wobbled like a tumbler in the wind, staggering two steps backward.

His fractured scapula turned into a cloud of white mist descending, followed closely by his entire right arm, as blood flowed like a waterfall from the shoulder’s severed end, splashing onto the ground-strewn limbs, staining the ashen skin blood-red.

"You bunch... have the heart to do this," Li Qingping gasped, lifting his dim left eye to look at Laine approaching him, chuckling hoarsely, "Is showing off in front of kids... that difficult?"

He managed to stand with effort, the remaining half of his left face dyed red by the blood streaming from his forehead, his vision starting to blur, yet the broken image of the Red Dragon erupted with unprecedented brilliance, like polar daylight.

A curtain of purgatorial flames surged up, isolating the sky, carving a bottomless channel over the ocean, a void without seawater, as the seas on both sides rushed in like waterfalls, but vaporized in thin tendrils upon touching the flame curtain.

"For the protection of the Third Prince, it’s gone to such lengths?" Ruth pondered.

The view of five people was obscured by this overwhelming flame curtain, unable to see the distant sky; they couldn’t cross this flaming barrier in a short time, so they had to wait quietly.

Moments later, when the flame curtain receded, Laine gazed up, unable to see the Third Prince’s figure.

Yet he knew in his heart that as long as they were in the ark, the Third Prince had no escape, akin to a trapped turtle.

Ruth walked over, her sea-blue earrings swaying.

"Laine... give him peace."

She lowered her head, expressionlessly gazing at Li Qingping slowly tilting toward the ground.

The image of the Red Dragon faded at this moment; Li Qingping’s body had turned completely charred, stark white bone and pitch-black blood forming his shattered torso. He fell to the ground like a skeleton ready to fall apart.

He lifted his heavy eyelids, half-opening the remaining left eye, a stream of bloody water flowing down from the stark white forehead. In a daze, he suddenly recalled when he was a junior high school student outside, whenever he fought in school, no matter how many people were against him or whether they had weapons, Gu Wenyu would always rush to help him.

Impressed from one time when they were outnumbered, Gu Wenyu stayed with him, taking the beating together, and afterward, they lay on the sunset playground, bruised and looking at the sky, too weary to utter a word.

Half a day later, Gu Wenyu stared at the sunset sky, suddenly murmuring:

"Why didn’t I notice before, the sunset... is quite beautiful."

"Are you a fool?"

"Isn’t it beautiful?"

"Uh... it’s okay."

After a moment’s silence, the two bruised figures laughed on the playground ground.

Thoughts drifted here, Li Qingping suddenly opened his broken eyelids, took a glance at the never-changing dusk of the ark, the never-changing twilight, the descending sun.

His bloody lips slightly moved, lightly murmuring:

"Yeah... quite beautiful."

Laine raised the Sword in the Stone, and the sword’s body covered the sunset in Li Qingping’s eyes.

The next moment, the sword shrouded in shadows slowly slashed downward; as Li Qingping was about to close his eyes, suddenly a piercing sound broke the air, followed by a hoarse roar:

"This trash Red Dragon hasn’t paid today’s buddy fee, let Shark let him go!"

Laine hesitated for a moment, then quickly looked up, only to see a three-meter-long dark blue shark enveloped in dark-colored currents, shooting towards him like a rocket!

He frowned, raising the Sword in the Stone horizontally in front, but the impending force was so fierce, like a high-speed train crashing mightily.

At the moment of impact on the shark’s head, the Sword in the Stone trembled intensely, Laine was sent flying over a hundred meters, even his ribs fractured several times, his figure tossed in the sky, finally caught by Ruth as she lifted her hand.