CHAPTER 412: CHAPTER 252: A FATHER’S LOVE LIKE A LANDSLIDE MUDFLOW (PART 2)

They quickly fetched their tadpole siblings from the brain pool and began the incubation process, aiming to rapidly replenish their depleted combat forces.

However, the newborns soon encountered a perplexing problem.

One of their brothers, who should have hatched with the first batch, seemed to be ’stuck’ in his host.

At the same time, this host was skilled in various arcane magics and possessed strength that should not be underestimated.

"He’s a Silver Dragon!" One Spirit Sucker recognized the fellow, once captured by Spider Nest City, through the lingering memories of a Drow slave.

Realizing the threat, they had two Spirit Suckers hold down Attilicia while another tried to pry open his mouth with its tentacles, attempting to rescue their ’kinsfolk’ before preparing to stuff them back into the host’s skull.

As a result, only two of the five Spirit Suckers originally assigned to incubation were left for the task.

Even though Attilicia had drawn most of the ’firepower,’ this ’tadpole implantation,’ akin to a scene from a horror show, still caused the captured unfortunates to panic and struggle with near-madness.

Just as their eye sockets were being filled with tadpoles by the Spirit Suckers, the Spirit Suckers received a psionic warning from the Governor:

"A Red Dragon has breached the defenses—stop him!!!"

One of the Spirit Suckers, accepting the critical mission, rushed toward the Snail Shell Ship’s hatch, but it was too late. He barely saw a blur, an afterimage, before David’s ferocious Red Dragon head plunged into the hatch, roaring:

"Dad! What the hell are you up to again? If you’re not dead, get back to work... uh?"

Wrath

He had only spoken halfway when he found himself eye to bulging eye with the newborn Spirit Sucker.

The next moment, both dragon and Spirit Sucker moved simultaneously. But before the Spirit Sucker could ready its psionic spells, David unleashed an unannounced blast of Fire Dragon Breath.

David had intended to restrain his power, considering his Dragon Dad was inside. To his surprise, the liquid in the brain pool—flammable and explosive for some unknown reason—ignited instantly.

With a muffled boom, the stone chamber erupted as if a gas explosion had occurred.

David himself was the first to be blasted out by the violent shockwave.

Dazed, he saw the Snail Shell Ship spewing dragon breath-like flames from its hatch, along with several burning Spirit Suckers, as if it were a deflating, leaky hydrogen balloon. One wildly twisting tentacle was even blown off, hurtling directly toward the inner city of the Royal Capital.

Then, with its remaining five tentacles also aflame, it swept across the Royal Capital, still showing signs of crashing down into the human capital.

"No!!!" The Spirit Sucker Governor, engaged in a fierce mid-air battle with Brittany, immediately let out a Mind-Piercing Scream that made nearly half the Royal Capital’s populace clutch their heads in agony.

With a gesture, it cast a Plane Banishment Spell, temporarily banishing the troublesome female dragon.

Then, seizing the momentary gap, it cast Greater Teleport to return to the pilot cabin of the Snail Shell Ship, now greatly disfigured from the blast. It pulled down hard on the ship’s neural tentacles, tore open a spatial rift, and escaped just as a barrage of bolts from the city walls flew toward it. David and Christoph, who were in pursuit, lunged at thin air.

"Follow!" With a flick of his tail, David conjured Festanterriles’s Portal. Christoph, an even faster Red Dragon, plunged in first without a care for what plane lay beyond.

Just as David was about to follow through the Teleportation Gate, a heart-wrenching roar thundered from the battlements above:

"David Uthos! You accursed calamities! Atone for His Majesty’s death!!!"

David, slightly confused, instinctively turned his head and indeed saw a familiar figure: Kasim, the Martial Technique Master, leaping toward him, sword in hand, his bloodshot eyes filled with desperate rage.

But such a foolhardy move, helpless to change trajectory mid-air, was suicidal in David’s eyes.

In a hurry to proceed, David swiped his tail, sending the legendary Kasim flying like a golf ball. Kasim smashed through an unknown number of buildings before disappearing from sight.

Yet only as David stepped through the portal did he belatedly realize the implication.

"Atone for His Majesty’s death?"

"No way? The Emperor of the Vitali Empire was killed by a single tentacle?"

For an empire, their defenses are a bit too weak, aren’t they?

But David quickly remembered the Spirit Sucker Governor’s Mind-Piercing Scream that had echoed heartbreakingly through half the Royal Capital.

He guessed that very scream had momentarily incapacitated all the Court Mages and defense forces, allowing the tentacle falling from the sky to smash the Emperor to death.

And that tentacle seemed to have a teleportation function too. But since it was severed from the main body, it might have even torn the unfortunate emperor in half...

"But who cares? If he wants revenge, he should go after the Spirit Suckers," David shrugged his paws and dived into the Teleportation Gate.

Arrogance

It was as if he had completely forgotten that the Emperor was smashed by the tentacle only because his own Dragon Breath had caused an aerial disaster over the Royal Capital.

What followed was a chase spanning several planes.

They passed through the smoke-filled Avernus of Barto Hell, the forest-covered Reckless Wilderness full of wonders, and the mystically symbolic Elysium. Finally, as they flew towards the desolate, Undead-strewn Grey Wilderness, Brittany—who had been banished by the Spirit Sucker Governor into the noisy void—caught up using David’s coordinates.

"Damn it!!!" Even for a seasoned legend like Abaidra, the three troublesome Red Dragons were proving unprecedentedly difficult. He even felt a hint of inescapable Despair.

He could only use psionic spells to aid his two brethren in repelling the enemy from afar, while simultaneously maneuvering the precarious Snail Shell Ship, attempting another planar jump to escape the Red Dragons’ pursuit.

He didn’t notice at all what was happening on the lower deck, which was filled with Spirit Sucker carcasses. Attilicia, unable to speak due to the tadpole parasite in his throat, had broken free from the charred tentacles. He crawled out of the parasite’s birthing pod and, like Voldemort, was sneakily crawling towards the main brain.

"What are you doing... hmm." His mouth opened on its own, but the voice wasn’t his. Startled, Attilicia quickly covered his mouth, then gently conveyed his thoughts:

"Don’t be afraid, and don’t make a sound. The source of all your fear is *it*! Let me sever its connection with you, and you will gain ultimate freedom."

"But my instincts tell me you’re lying... After all, I’m just a Spirit Sucker tadpole... You’ll kill me in the end..."

"No, no, no, why would I kill you? Look, didn’t we cooperate quite well before? I’ve been banned by the Magic Goddess from using the Magical Net, and you can serve as my casting substitute. We can choose to coexist. I’ll guarantee your safety and growth. But if you choose to expose my actions, you’ll remain a slave to the main brain and the Governor. You know what the right choice is, don’t you, my child?"

"But... this is betrayal..." While the naive Spirit Sucker tadpole struggled with its dilemma, their mental exchange still alerted Abaidra, who was piloting the ship.

"Who are you?! Why are you trying to bewitch my kin?" Abaidra was more furious than ever.

Hurry, do it! For freedom! Attilicia screamed in his heart.

Seeing the enraged Governor raising his hand towards them, Attilicia quickly amended his thought:

And for me!!!

Ultimately, Attilicia’s unparalleled charm played the decisive role.

This Spirit Sucker tadpole, now bound to the Silver Dragon by a bond ’thicker than blood,’ in an attempt to ’save its father,’ used its own psionic energy to help the weakened, cursed Attilicia open the Half-Plane Rune on his palm.

In an instant, Attilicia’s palm opened like a vast black hole, swallowing the main brain, which had already been half-cooked by David’s Dragon Breath.

"No!!!" Abaidra instinctively wanted to kill the bastard who stole the main brain and the Spirit Sucker tadpole that dared to betray him.

But the moment the main brain was swallowed into the half-plane, the severing of the long-standing psionic link stunned him for an instant.

And Brittany, outside, seized this momentary lapse.

BOOM! With a loud bang, the prow of the Snail Shell Ship, along with Governor Abaidra, was torn off by the giant Red Dragon.

The Snail Shell Ship, having instantly lost both its main brain and its ’head,’

finally, irresistibly, plunged towards the desolate Undead Plains of the Grey Wilderness.