Dragon Court

As soon as the teleportation from the Dragon Court Key ended, Chen Xu immediately summoned Bone Guard Two, Flideng, and hundreds of thousands of ghosts.

Then he summoned Xuan Chu and ordered him to lead the ghost army, coordinating with Bone Guard Two's skills to scout the surrounding environment.

"Xuan Chu, take Bone Guard Two and the ghost army to map out this wilderness. Most importantly, find the location and status of the Dragon Court."

"Yes, my Lord!"

"Remember, focus on gathering information. If you encounter dragons, try to remain undetected if possible."

"Yes!"

Chen Xu used his mental strength to perform a rough scan of the area upon landing. The terrain here was very similar to a dungeon he had cleared before—the Dragon Court Wilderness—except it looked like a version of it that had been magnified countless times.

High mountains stood tall, and the rainforests were lush. With insects, fish, and beasts everywhere, it was truly a fertile land.

This abundance of food had nurtured thousands of dragon-vassal races. Tribes of kobolds and centaurs were scattered everywhere, and there were also many burrows that appeared to belong to blackrock dwarves.

But what struck Chen Xu as strange was that he had not seen a single dragon. It was not possible that all the dragons of the Dragon Court were hiding inside, lost in deep slumber.

As such, Chen Xu did not act rashly by ordering his undead army to flatten these dragon-vassal races. Instead, he first released his army of ghosts and the Destiny Dragonslayer, Bone Guard Two, to scout the Dragon Court's location.

Xuan Chu led the ghost army as they quickly spread out into the surroundings.

Chen Xu also opened a spatial gate to return to the Undead Kingdom for the time being.

...

Inside the Dragon Court, on a volcano within the Dragon God Holy City.

A Holy Light Dragon lay sprawled in a lava hot spring.

Suddenly, it seemed to sense something. It lifted its head out of the magma, opened its eyes, and looked toward the east.

"What is it, Boss Wright?" asked a red dragon, poking its head out as well.

"I caught a whiff... the scent of the undead."

"The undead? Maybe those dregs caused another accident? Black Anomaly dwarves or kobolds?" the red dragon said dismissively.

These vassal races lived on the outskirts of the Dragon Court and often collected strange artifacts. Dragons were natural hoarders, but they did not keep just anything.

Some young dragons did not know how to recognize quality yet, so they would scavenge trash from outside and treat it like treasure. When they returned to the Dragon Court and their elders identified the items as garbage, they would bestow these scraps upon their vassals in the wilderness.

Among this trash, many were very dangerous curios. These strange objects might not pose a threat to dragons, and some would not even trigger in their presence.

However, once these curios fell into the hands of the vassal dwarves and kobolds, strange things would happen.

This was especially true for statues carrying the power of evil gods or items infused with the power of special worlds.

Once, a dragon had gifted a tooth from a necrotic archduke to some blackrock dwarves. Those blackrock dwarves were overjoyed and placed the necrotic archduke's tooth into a wine barrel to brew it into fine liquor.

At the dwarves' festival, they shared it with the entire tribe. Then, on that day, one less dragon-vassal race existed near the Dragon Court, replaced by a horde of necrotic dwarves.

Events like this happened frequently, occurring several times every century. Therefore, the red dragon did not care at all. It thought Wright had just found something mildly interesting that made him stop soaking in the lava.

One had to know that access to these lava hot springs was limited. It, the great red dragon Red, had waited in the lottery for a full hundred years before finally securing a ten-year slot.

"Those dregs were weak to begin with, and they become even weaker as undead. We do not even need to act; the other dregs will clean the undead up themselves. Boss Wright, do not worry about it. You might as well sleep a bit longer. These hot spring slots are hard to come by; who knows when we will get another chance?"

Red buried its head back into the lava and returned to its slumber.

Wright ignored Red and continued to stare toward the east. That necrotic aura had only appeared for a fleeting moment, and even though it had expanded its perception, it could no longer find even a trace of it.

Perhaps it truly was as Red said—just some trouble caused by garbage discarded by the dragons that had already been handled by the vassals.

Wright sensed for a while longer and, finding that it still could not capture any necrotic aura, buried its head back into the lava. It closed its eyes contentedly and fell asleep.

Elsewhere in the Dragon Court, inside the Dragon God Temple, the black dragon Blake, a Dragon God Priest, also sensed a trace of necrotic aura. It was more cautious. Although the scent had only appeared for a moment, it planned to send a dragon-kin squad to investigate.

Blake pressed a dragon claw onto a nearby crystal ball and infused it with mana.

The face of a dragon-kin appeared within the crystal ball.

"The Dragon God be praised. Priest Blake, I wish you holy peace!"

"Hav, take the third and fourth squads to the east. Investigate the vassal territories there to see if any abnormalities have occurred."

"Yes. Hav will attend to it immediately."

Blake withdrew its claw and turned its gaze toward the Dragon God statue in the hall. It stared for a long time before letting out a sigh.

After receiving the order, the dragon-kin Hav immediately notified his teammates. Once they were quickly assembled, they set off toward the east.

The members of these scouting teams were all dragon-kin. Dragons were naturally lustful. While it was extremely difficult for dragons to produce offspring with each other, it was very easy for them to breed with other creatures to produce dragon-kin.

Although dragon-kin carried half the bloodline of a dragon, the pureblood dragons, who considered themselves noble, looked down on these half-breeds. In the eyes of pureblood dragons, dragon-kin were no different from other creatures, perhaps only slightly better.

If other creatures were equivalent to excrement, then dragon-kin were roughly a pile of excrement with a tiny bit of gold dust on top.

It was only after the Dragon God, Dragon God ascended to godhood that, troubled by the small number of dragons and the limited faith they provided, he issued a doctrine to accept dragon-kin. He affirmed their status and allowed them to build small towns for themselves outside the Dragon Court.

Since then, dragon-kin became the intermediate existence beneath the dragons but above the vassal races. They relied on the dragons and handled matters that the vassals could not resolve.

Furthermore, the Dragon God personally handed down a divine oracle: the outstanding among the dragon-kin could receive the Dragon God's blessing to wash away the impure blood in their veins, leaving only pure dragon blood and allowing them to ascend directly to the rank of a noble dragon.

This measure drove the dragon-kin into a frenzy. They dedicated themselves heart and soul, becoming the most loyal pawns of the Dragon Court just to fight for that slim possibility of transformation.

Every dragon-kin knew that only by becoming a pureblood dragon could they truly be accepted by the Dragon Court. They took pride in the dragon blood within them but were ashamed of their mixed heritage. Purifying their bloodline and evolving into a dragon was the ultimate dream of all dragon-kin.

...

"Xuan Chu. Pull back the ghosts. Some little cuties with a mix of dragon blood are rushing toward us at high speed."

Bone Guard Two sensed the movements of Hav's team and immediately informed Xuan Chu.

"Can you predict their path?"

"I can."

"Good. Give me a location, and I will prepare a surprise for them."

With a sweep of his spear, Bone Guard Two knocked a branch off a nearby tree, caught it, and threw it toward the north.

Xuan Chu looked at where the branch landed. There was a narrow trail between two high mountains, and the branch had fallen right there.

"They actually dare to take a path like that?"

Xuan Chu was skeptical, wondering if Bone Guard Two had miscalculated.

Bone Guard Two nodded. "Trust me. No one understands creatures with 'dragon' in their name better than I do."

Since Bone Guard Two had said so, Xuan Chu had no choice but to believe him. He issued orders to the surrounding ghosts, telling the ghost army to lie in ambush on top of those cliffs.

At the same time, he sent Flideng to pick up the branch Bone Guard Two had thrown to avoid the enemy noticing anything unusual.

Although Flideng was dissatisfied with Xuan Chu giving him such a simple task, a Black Knight was an extension of the Lord of the Undead's authority. The words of a Black Knight were the words of the Lord of the Undead. No matter how unhappy Flideng was, it could only obey and flicker to the bottom of the valley to retrieve the branch.

Meanwhile, Hav's squad to the west was completely unaware. they were rushing toward the east at top speed.

Soon, Hav's squad reached the entrance of the valley. Without any hesitation, they plunged straight in. They had walked this route as dragon-kin thousands of times. On the Dragon Court's territory, they feared no enemy.