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“You’re looking to die.” All of a sudden, the emotionless expression on gruff-face turned into one of extreme malevolence. A terrifying surge of killing intent blasted out from his body, its target obviously being the person standing before him, me.

However, I am a mighty dragon! How would I be frightened by a human’s killing intent! Shrugging my shoulders with indifference, I replied: “It’s not that easy to kill me.”

“Is that right?” Gruff-face sneered, extending his tongue to give an extremely disgusting lick of his short sword before continuing: “Then you will pay the price for your arrogance. Let me use your blood to pay tribute to my sword.”

“……”
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”
“Nope. I’m just waiting for you to say “My sword is coated with the blood coagulating venom.”
“Why do I have to say those words?”
“That’s what always happens in movies.”
“Movie?”

“Movies are scenes that a group of actors would come together to create for other people to watch. Let me explain. The movies I’ve seen in the past were massive 360-inch screens, although they will always place a few weird advertisements within. However…”

“…You’re saying that I’m acting?!” All of a sudden, gruff-face unleashed an angry roar, frightening me. It was really hard to believe that this gruff-face was able to unleash such a clear and resonant sound.
“The sun and the moon can attest to my loyalty towards my master, and yet, you dare to say I’m acting!”

“I don’t mean that…”

“You meant that!!” Gruff-face grew increasingly agitated, breaking his emotionless expression, while the corner of his eyes turned bloodshot: “Since picking us up 30 years ago, the master has fed and clothed us, trained and even taught us martial arts! Where can you find such a good master?”

“For the sake of repaying our master, we guard him at all times, and will do whatever he says. We will never claim any salary or take any leave despite the tough labour day in and day out. If we show the slightest lack of attention, we will get scolded and cursed at. For the sake of showing our loyalty, we will always maintain this look to show that we’ll never betray him. We have to even take shifts to guard his god damn collection which consists of a few pieces of broken glass! Why the hell do we have to guard it day in and day out! We don’t even have any time to sleep because of that! We aren’t magically created golems! Why the hell does he have to treat us like that!”

“The most frustrating thing is that he had actually given me the name [Number 1]! What the hell is with that name! How can it even be considered a game! It can’t even be considered as a nickname. My other brothers were also given equally trash names of [Number 2], [Number 3], and [Number 4]! It’ll sound better if he just calls us shadows, you know! Can you imagine the scene when he calls us together?”

1,2,3,4…are here…Pfft~
Hey~ Wait, that doesn’t seem quite right…

“That’s…”
“What?”

Due to my sudden interruption, the fellow with the un-name-like name of [Number 1] butted back with extreme displeasure.

“The words you’ve said at the end of your speech doesn’t seem to tally with your claims of loyalty.”

“……” The atmosphere turned awkwardly peculiar for a few seconds…

“Since my acting’s been discovered by you, the only thing left to do is to eliminate you.” All of a sudden, [Number 1] turned serious and spoke out in a deadpan voice.

“In fact, I basically didn’t discover it. Everything came out from your mouth. In fact, I’ve thought that you’ve facial nerve paralysis all this while.”
“There’s no need to act cunningly anymore. I understand.”

What the hell do you understand!

“You really are a person from that organization. Within 3 minutes of us making contact, you’ve already broken through my acting facade.”

What the hell did I break! You’re the one that has broken it!

“However…” not giving me any moment to explain myself, [Number 1] slowly raised the short sword in his hand: “For the sake of my survival, I’ve no choice but to kill you.”

This fellow…might not be an idiot after all. Alright. In any case, I’m already no stranger to idiots. At this moment, the most important thing would be to deal with him, before helping Eleanor and the others, who might very well have fallen into a trap.

“As you wish. I just so happen to wish to know exactly how strong I am.” I started to activate the Dragon Blood in my body as I gave my reply. The amplification effects of Dragon Blood start to make all of my bones turn numb. At this moment, I’m already unable to hold back my urge to fight.

“You’re very strong without a doubt. In fact, my left hand’s already numb from receiving your punch. However…”

Why the hell are you so arrogant about that!

I’m too lazy to tangle with this fellow any more! I immediately launched a right-handed punch straight towards the left side of [number 1]’s face.

After eating my earlier punch, [Number 1] had learnt his lesson and not dared to meet me head-on. After rapidly swerving to duck away from my punch, he proceeded to hop back and increase the distance from me.

“What’s the matter? Afraid?”

“Afraid?” A look of extreme disdain appeared on [Number 1]’s face. Ever since exposing his true facade in the lengthy complaint earlier, this fellow had let all of his emotions out onto the surface, causing his expression to be extremely exaggerated.

“Haha! You’re afraid, right?”

He waved his short sword about to draw an extremely beautiful flurry of sword flashes in the air: “I’ve discovered your weakness.”

“Hm-hm! More fighting and less nonsense. Who doesn’t know how to trash talk?”

“I’m not trash talking. I’m speaking the truth…”

Black battle aura started to rise from [Number 1]’s body, then it enveloped his entire body like a shadow.

“Shadow strike!”

The blackened [Number 1] appeared to shatter into bat-like pieces before they rapidly shot towards me. In the next instant, they converged together to reform into a complete [Number 1].

“Do you think… that your little tricks are effective against me?”

All of a sudden, a humiliating feeling akin to being played with surfaced within my heart, causing fury to erupt within me. In the presence of this anger, I no longer hold back my strength, unleashing my full might within the next punch. A ferocious wind kicked up while a sharp sonic boom rang out as my punch travelled through the air.

However, unlike my earlier punch, which had landed head-on, the shadowy [Number 1] shattered apart like a person reflected in the mirror, disappearing into thin air. At the same time…

“This isn’t some little trick…” [Number 1]’s delight-coated tone rang out in my ears.

“This is a genuine martial skill.”

“Puff swish.” The sounds of a sharp object piercing and slicing through flesh rang out clearly in my ears, while my acute senses allowed me to lock on clearly on my opponent’s heartbeats.

“Ⓑⓐⓢⓣⓐⓡⓓ!” Ignoring the wound and racking pain coming from my abdomen, I continued to unleash another punch towards [Number 1]. However, like before, it only smashed into thin air.

“You’re very strong. However… it’s pointless if you can’t hit anything.”

That disdainful smile was still present on his face, as though he was a mouse laughing at an elephant.