Hidden genius: Black belly snake

The dragon stared at Tang Yue for an entire minute, myriad emotions unnoticeably flickering through its eyes. However, after that short pause… the proud and arrogant beast unexpectedly did a completely 180.

"Empress! Great Empress!!! Please forgive my impudence!!! This humble servant has made a grave mistake. Please forgive me." 

The dragon started wailing loudly, all of its previous smugness completely erased out of existence. There wasn't even an ounce of pretense in its actions. 

It acted as if it had seriously committed an unforgivable sin and started banging its body against the tunnel once again. 

"I deserve to die for this foolishness, my Empress. I was your beast. I was your slave. But I dared to attack you." 

"Please, your highness. Please kill me with your own hand. Please bestow that mercy on this foolish slave."

Tang Yue looked up and down at the dragon, well at least the part of the beast which she could see. The beast was genuine whimpering and wailing.

She had to admit. This bastard was really good at acting! But there was absolutely no way that she was going to fall for that!

She smirked and then looked at the beast. "Please. Save this for someone else. Do you think that I am a fool?" 

Tang Yue scoffed at the dragon while simultaneously thinking about how to use this to her advantage.

She immediately sent a message to Little Plum through their linked mental connection. "Come back."

"Master?" Little Plum who was in the middle of a fight reacted with confusion but it didn't question her. 

He quickly conveyed the message to Little Blue and Eleana and the three of them instantly made a move like Tang Yue had warned them beforehand. 

She had repeatedly asked them to follow her command and drop whatever they were doing and run back to the tunnel. So the three of them did just that.

The fiend boar hopper that they were fighting against looked puzzled. It was a huge flying beast that made loud screeching noises like an insect. 

It assumed that they were running away because they lost the fight and followed the trio back all the way to the tunnel.

But it couldn't enter the tunnel, so just like the dragon, the boar hopper also parked its butt outside waiting for them to come out again.

However, the trio showed no signs of stepping out at all.

Comfortably standing inside the tunnel, Little Plum asked Tang Yue. "Master, is everything alright?"

"Yes. Yes. Everything is alright. I found a sucker." She grinned in response.

The three of them looked at each other in confusion. Someone new?

"Some of the beasts were just killed. Let's take them to Master immediately. Maybe she will be able to siphon off some soul strength." 

Eleana muttered and the trio quickly made their way to the tunnel where Tang Yue was located.

A few moments later…

Little Plum, Little Blue and Eleana stood in front of Tang Yue with their heads bowed. 

They had heaped their harvest in front of her and Tang Yue activated her skill to absorb whatever soul strength that remained.

"Good job. You guys did great in the short time."

All three immediately became overjoyed and excitedly nodded after hearing Tang Yue's praise, but they still kept looking here and there every now and then.

Who was this new person that their master was talking about?

Just when they were wondering, a strong gush of wind thundered outside the tunnel and a loud flapping noise echoed.

The trio simultaneously gulped and turned their head to look outside as an ominous feeling welled up in their heart.

Their widened eyes met the sharp slit-like eyes and they collapsed on their knees, unable to withstand the killing intent.

However, the tremendous pressure did not last long and the vicious monster outside the tunnel all of a sudden revealed its big canines and an ugly grin unexpectedly surfaced.

Huh? Eleana, Little Plum and Little Blue, all three of them were utterly shocked. A chill ran down their spine as they watched the dragon in disbelief.

The very next second, a loud thud echoed and corpses started raining outside the tunnel forming a heap. This heap was nothing compared to their own measly heap. 

Even the fiend boar hopper whom they had been fighting earlier was in the so-called heap. And more importantly, every single beast in the mound seemed to be freshly hunted and killed.

In the time they had taken to travel through the tunnels and come over to Tang Yue, the dragon had plundered half of the beasts on the island and dropped them at her feet.

"Your highness." The dragon bowed. There was no longer any animosity or hostility in its eyes.

Tang Yue chuckled inwardly but she only revealed a surprised look to the dragon. "So many beasts!" She exclaimed.

She quickly used her wind magic to pull everything into the tunnel in one swift motion. After that, she started siphoning the soul strength once again.

The dragon snorted at the three dumbfounded pets and then smugly laid down. It only needed to act polite in front of Tang Yue, so it made no effort to be friendly to her pets.

After a while, Tang Yue absorbed the soul power and then turned innocently to the dragon. "This is good, but I would rather prefer Emperor-tier beasts."

The dragon's eyes twitched. It was a little wary about giving Tang Yue Emperor beast bodies as it didn't want to make her too powerful unwittingly.

But it had already committed so it also couldn't give up just yet. Besides, it believed that Tang Yue would truly trust it better if it delivered this time.

"As you wish, your highness." The giant beast flapped its wings once again and took off.

Little Plum, Little Blue, and Eleana looked at each other and then at Tang Yue. So the sucker she was talking about earlier was the dragon…?

Tang Yue grinned and nodded as if she knew exactly what they were thinking about.