Fishing

“Name?”

“Bole.”

The receptionist of Rhode City's Fourth Hall pulled a stack of portraits from the drawer beneath the desk as soon as he heard the name, comparing them with the thick-bearded man in front of him.

“I'm sorry, you've been expelled from the guild. You cannot apply for adventurer registration.”

Bole had run to three different guild halls in a row, and the receptionists' reactions had been identical in every single one.

Tag followed behind him without a word.

Vera leaned against the wall at the street corner, watching the two retreat from the entrance of the Fourth Hall in dejection. She let out a cold snort but said nothing.

“Let's go.”

Bole slung his broadsword over his shoulder, looking thoroughly disgruntled. “The official path is blocked, so we'll take the unofficial one. I refuse to believe a city as big as Rhode City can starve three living people to death!”

...

The black market of Rhode City was hidden deep within the slums of the west district, at the end of a narrow alleyway without even a single streetlamp.

Behind the iron door was an underground tavern, completely devoid of any signage.

The air was a mix of sweat, rust, and cheap ale. A few mercenaries sat around a chipped table gambling, while a masked broker in a corner bargained with someone in hushed tones.

The table at the very back of the tavern was occupied by a burly, middle-aged man.

In his early forties, his left arm below the elbow had been replaced with a rusty iron hook, which he was currently using to pry open the seal of a keg of ale.

Those in the black market called him Broken Hook.

He looked up and swept his gaze over the three.

“New faces. Who referred you?”

“One-Eye.”

“I heard you got kicked out of the guild. What for?”

“Because some wet-behind-the-ears brat ran his mouth. We talked back, and then a Dragon Rank showed up,” Bole growled, gritting his teeth.

The man let out a brief, sharp chuckle.

He knew this thick-bearded fellow was telling half-truths at best, but he couldn't be bothered to care.

“Perfect. I have a job that needs a few people who aren't afraid of death—destroy three altars on the tenth floor of the Blood Fiend Dungeon.”

He tossed a bag of gold coins onto the table. The pouch loosened, and coins spilled out, gleaming temptingly under the oil lamp.

“This is the deposit. There will be two more bags once the job is done. Do you dare take it?”

...

Outside Rhode City's north gate, in the forest.

The pure white dragon spread her wings, exhaling and inhaling frost dragon breath.

A sky full of tentacles snapped under the freezing current. Before the black mist could even reconsolidate, it was frozen in midair, turning into countless tiny ice crystals that showered down.

The two in front were forced back repeatedly by the dragon breath, white frost forming on the edges of their masks, their movements visibly slowed by half a beat.

She whipped her dragon tail to send one on her flank flying, and her left claw crushed a black spike that had just erupted beneath another's feet. Using the momentum to charge, her massive body crashed directly into two cultists who were trying to leap back and gain distance, sending them flying backward as they coughed up blood.

This strong?

Lu Mao was dumbfounded.

No wonder she didn't seem scared at all earlier—turns out she actually had the strength to back it up!

It seemed he had been a bit presumptuous in worrying about her.

At this rate, these five Servants of the evil god would sooner or later be played to death by Novia.

But obviously, the enemy wasn't willing to just let themselves be toyed with.

Seeing things going south, one of the cultists plunged his dagger into his left arm, and the other four followed suit—

Five dark red streams of blood erupted from their wounds, defying gravity as they floated upward.

Using the blood as ink, they converged high in the air to form a crimson magic circle composed of countless runes.

First-Circle... Fourth-Circle... Seventh-Circle... Tenth-Circle... Eleventh-Circle!

The system panel suddenly flashed frantically at the edge of his vision.

A phantom condensed from churning plasma slowly emerged from the center of the magic circle, its features blurred, showing only a humanoid silhouette.

The moment that thing appeared, the entire clearing in the forest seemed to be covered in a thin membrane of flesh and blood, causing even the frost dragon breath Novia exhaled to freeze for a split second in midair.

This thing...

Lu Mao felt a bad premonition.

The phantom raised its hand, its arm stretching into a blood spear, thrusting toward Novia's chest and abdomen.

The dragon dodged to protect her vitals, meeting it head-on with her dragon claws.

The blood spear exploded into a mist of blood upon impact, but at the instant of shattering, it split into several fine threads, bypassing her claws to pierce into her right ribs from the side, exiting through her back.

She let out a muffled groan, her massive dragon body crashing to the ground, staining the soil red with dragon blood.

It wasn't that she couldn't dodge this blow—it was because Lu Mao was right behind her.

Before the cultists could step forward, she had already stood up again, the bloody hole in her right ribs still seeping blood, and the frost dragon breath lit up between her teeth once more.

This exchange of attack and defense repeated three times.

There was now more than one bloody hole in her right ribs. Her snowy white dragon scales were mottled with pinkish-brown dragon blood, and the furrows her claws plowed into the ground grew deeper with each strike.

Yet she never fell, the dragon breath in her mouth still condensing.

Lu Mao could see that Novia was nearing her limit.

“Trust me for once, stop worrying about me—I really can't die. If I get hit, I'll just turn into blood mist and escape.”

He tried to brush it off with an ill-timed joke.

Novia ignored him.

She stood up yet again, her dragon tail sweeping across the ground to draw an arc of frost in front of him, rejecting his proposal with her actions.

The bloody phantom raised its hand once more.

This time, instead of immediately turning its arm into a blood spear, it sucked all the churning plasma around its body into its palm.

The bloody light across the entire clearing converged into its palm, compressing again and again.

The surrounding air grew thin, causing Lu Mao's eardrums to ache slightly.

Novia spread her wings, shielding Lu Mao beneath them, charging her frost dragon breath to the absolute maximum in her throat.

The crimson torrent and the pure white frost collided violently in midair.

The shockwave uprooted the surrounding trees, sending shattered leaves and ice crystals swirling through the air.

For a brief moment, the frost even pushed forward slightly—but only slightly.

The phantom's crimson torrent quickly overwhelmed the cold light. The dragon breath began to retreat step by step, the pure white frost swallowed inch by inch by the crimson until it vanished completely.

The crimson torrent rapidly expanded in Novia's slit pupils, drawing closer and closer.

She forced her battered dragon body to try and stand again, but the previous dragon breath had drained all of her magicules and strength.

The crimson light reflected on half of Lu Mao's face. Looking at her trembling wingtips and the pinkish-brown dragon blood seeping from beneath them, he let out a soft sigh.

It seemed this time, he had no choice but to load his save.

He took a step forward, shielding the dragon.

Lu Mao slipped his dagger back into his waist and reached behind him to unstrap his recurve bow.

The bowstring hummed.

The fletched arrow left the string, plunging straight into the crimson torrent—and then, the torrent shattered.

Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the tip of the arrow, and the crimson light peeled away like shattered glass, showering down.

Everyone froze in shock for a split second.

How could such a seemingly effortless arrow...

“Who is it?”

Snapping out of it, the cultists stumbled backward, their heads beneath their masks turning frantically from side to side.

But there was nothing in the clearing except the moonlight and fallen leaves.

The leader's voice was trembling:

“Who is it—come out!”

No sooner had the words left his mouth.

A figure materialized beside Lu Mao without warning, as if he had been standing there all along, and the moonlight had simply forgotten to shine on him.

The man patted Lu Mao's shoulder with just the right amount of force:

“Well done. We finally hooked a big fish.”