Evolving by devouring from a young dragon

Memory seal?

Was it Leon who did it? Or the Lion King?

No, the style isn't right.

Leon is a master of spatial magic, and the Lion King is a legend of desolate rock magic, but the rune structure of this seal is biased towards the mental type, and there should be no experts of this type among the Lion Clan.

Regardless of who it is, the existence of this seal itself proves one thing: what the prisoner knows is far more important than he thinks.

Alduin crouched down again, pressing his claws back onto the prisoner's head.

He condensed his soul power into a needle, roughly pierced the gap in the sealing runes, and then suddenly expanded it.

The prisoner's body arched violently, letting out a scream that was not like a lion's roar, and blood began to seep from his seven orifices.

His soul was crushed, and the seal was destroyed.

However, the overflowing soul fragments were directly absorbed by Alduin, and scattered fragments of memories resurfaced in his mind.

He couldn't help but sigh again, that lich must have been a genius on a spiritual level in his previous life...

Auduin shook his head and began to quickly piece together the fragments. Although incomplete, they were enough to deduce the general outline.

Leon, holding the Rock Emblem, is searching for the remaining two emblems, their whereabouts a mystery; the Lion King, clutching the Rock-Splitter Emblem, is hidden deep within an altar...

Auduin narrowed his eyes, a hint of doubt in his mind.

The Rock Crest is the sacred relic of the Lion Clan, and the Lion King's condition depends so heavily on it—is this passive dependence, or...?

The information obtained from the forcibly broken memory seal was too fragmented for Alduin to make an accurate judgment.

But it doesn't matter.

For him, the fact that the Lion King was in extremely poor condition was a great thing.

And from the broken memory seal, he had already pieced together the location where the Lion King was hiding: in the deepest part of the North, at the source of the Frostbreath Land.

That old bastard is stuck in the same spot, barely clinging to life, waiting to die...

Alduin opened his dragon eyes and flicked the blood off his claws.

In a corner of the stone chamber, two other wounded lions huddled together, trembling like leaves, too afraid to utter a sound. They had witnessed the entire ordeal.

First comes physical torture, then spiritual devastation. The crushing of the soul is far more cruel than any physical killing.

One person's trousers were already soaked, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of urine.

Alduin glanced at them indifferently, showing no intention of killing them.

Killing two wounded soldiers who couldn't even hold their weapons properly yielded no benefit and wasted several seconds.

Moreover, leaving these two alive will allow their lion clan companions to return and witness the horrific scene after the soul search, causing fear to spread like a plague.

Fear is far more useful than death.

He turned and walked towards the entrance of the main hall.

Dragon wings unfurled silently behind him, casting a shadow over the ruins of the throne.

Alduin paused just as he was about to step out the door. Without turning around, he said calmly, "Tell Leon that I will come to collect the Rock Emblem myself."

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure soared into the sky, tearing through the swirling snow and wind, and sped towards the deepest part of the northern border.

The stone chamber fell into a deathly silence, and no one knew how much time had passed.

The two wounded lions exchanged a glance, both seeing in each other's eyes the disbelief of surviving such a close call.

"He...didn't kill us?" the young lion asked, his voice trembling.

The older wounded man remained silent, his gaze fixed on the corpse on the ground, its seven orifices bleeding.

That was his comrade-in-arms who had guarded the capital with him for more than ten years, but now he lay on the ground like a stray dog ​​that had been casually crushed, his wide-open eyes filled with fear and despair as he stared intently at the ceiling.

He slowly clenched his fist, but eventually relaxed it.

"Go...go inform His Highness," the older wounded man said with difficulty, his voice weak. "That dragon...he went north."

"North? There's only..."

"Ancient Rock Altar".

……

The ancient rock altar was even more magnificent than he had imagined.

Alduin stepped out of the shadows and carefully surveyed his surroundings.

The dome is immeasurably high, and the rock walls are covered with ancient totems, the ancestors of the lion clan, mysterious symbols, and patterns of four intersecting emblems.

However, most of these carvings have weathered and peeled away, and the lines are blurred and difficult to identify.

In the center of the altar is a sunken circular plaza, more than 300 meters in diameter, with the plaza surface paved with a single piece of gray-white rock.

In the very center, on a simple stone seat, sat a figure.

The Lion King.

He was older than Auduin had seen in his memory…or rather, more decayed.

His body, which should have been as solid as a mountain, was now somewhat hunched over, as if he might collapse at any moment.

The grayish-white mane was matted and clumped together, like withered grass in late autumn.

Large areas of skin were petrified, and cracks spread from his ankles to his chest, a shocking sight.

His left eye was tightly closed, completely petrified, while his right eye was half-open, but the dim, yellowish light in his pupil locked onto Alduin the moment he stepped into this place.

His body was like a burlap sack with a hole in it, with the power of the desolate rock constantly leaking out, but the aura was very solid, as heavy as a mountain and as deep as an abyss.

Auduin stopped in his tracks and refused to go any further.

He stood at the edge of the circular plaza, facing off against the Lion King on the stone throne.

The distance is about two hundred meters.

This distance, for a legend, is no different from being face-to-face, yet it's enough for Alduin to react.

He stood there, his dragon wings half-folded, his vertical pupils calmly scrutinizing the half-dead old lion on the stone seat, while quickly making a judgment in his mind.

The Lion King's realm remains legendary, but his physical body is on the verge of collapse, his magic is in disarray, his old wounds are difficult to heal, and the petrification curse is gnawing away at his last bit of life.

He could still make a move, but only a few times, and each outburst only hastened his death.

If I were to confront them head-on, I would have no chance of winning.

A legend is a legend after all. Even if it only has one breath left, a full-force attack is something that a seventh-tier epic can't withstand.

But he doesn't need to confront them head-on. As long as he gets the intelligence and confirms Leon's location, that's enough.

The previous prisoners' memories contained no details of the Lion King and Leon's interactions, so it seems that only the two of them knew about this.

He had to find the other party as soon as possible, otherwise, if he managed to collect all four stone emblems, he might be in big trouble...

Auduin withdrew his gaze, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Where did Leon go?

The Lion King did not answer, but his cloudy eyes remained fixed on Alduin.

Auduin knew he wouldn't answer, and he never expected to get an answer by asking.

He slightly raised his fingertips, and a wisp of dark soul power quietly wrapped around his claws, the soul magic he had learned from the lich silently spreading out.

Without any unnecessary movements, his vertical pupils flashed with a cold light, directly probing towards the Lion King's soul sea...

Since we can't get the answer from asking, we might as well just steal it.

A deep growl rang out, and the scattered desolate rock magic around the Lion King suddenly contracted, instantly covering his body with a thick layer of rock-patterned barrier.

Alduin's soul tentacles struck it, as if hitting an invisible high wall, having no effect whatsoever.

Auduin's vertical pupils flickered with surprise.

He had anticipated that the Lion King would be on guard, but he hadn't expected that even on the verge of death, the Lion King's resistance to soul magic would still be extremely strong.

Most importantly, the old lion's understanding of the soul was far more profound than he had imagined.

That's a bit of a hassle...