On how PhDs become human evil

"Seriously, this is the first time I've ever met someone and been sprayed with fire in my face. Are dragons all this violent these days?"

Bai Jie's voice suddenly rang out amidst the dragon's breath, and the next moment—

"boom--!"

A deafening dragon roar erupted across the land, and swirling azure vortexes gathered on the ground, rotating clockwise like a blue vortex. As the vortex rotated, the azure vortexes underwent irregular changes, eventually rising to the surface and forming a shape like a model.

That was a dragon, the head of a colossal, azure dragon!

The Soul of the Azure Dragon!

Gods of the Four Directions: The Azure Dragon of the East!

"Boom!"

The dark dragon breath was directly shattered by the roar of the Azure Dragon. Inside the Azure Dragon's soul, Bai Jie was holding the Four Directions Divine Sword in one hand, surrounded by gusts of blue wind. The Azure Dragon's emblem appeared on the blade of the Four Directions Divine Sword in his hand.

"Alright, since you've insulted me, I'll retaliate in kind!"

Bai Jie revealed a slightly arrogant smile, gathered the Four Directions Divine Blessings to his waist, and assumed a stance for drawing his sword.

"There are gods in the four directions, and the god of the east is called the Azure Dragon!"

"Form ranks in the east, Azure Dragon, heed my command! — Kill!"

As if by decree, the moment the last syllable of Bai Jie's words fell, the dragon lurking on the earth immediately revealed its dragon might!

The Crouching Dragon emerges from the mountain, the Flying Dragon soars in the sky!

"Clang—!"

The Azure Dragon Blade was drawn from its scabbard, and sword energy burst forth the instant the blade was unsheathed, instantly slicing the surrounding ground into countless fragments.

Awooo!

With the sword flashing through the air at an incredible speed, the azure dragon, over ten feet long, soared upwards, rushing towards the black dragon flying in the sky with the momentum of a roller coaster going straight up!

One day, the Azure Dragon roars!

Bai Jie's swordsmanship consists entirely of lightning-fast slashes based on speed. His characteristic is to use high-speed combos to overwhelm the enemy before killing them with a single strike.

However, "One Day" is Bai Jie's only single-hit sword skill. While losing the combo, it gains a slashing speed that other sword skills cannot match!

To Will, an onlooker, all he could see was a streak of pale blue light shooting out in the blink of an eye, while the surrounding ground shattered at the same time!

"Hey!"

“GGGAAAA!”

The black dragon's wings were immediately severed, and its blood gushed out in the air like a fountain, causing a red rain to fall in the mountains.

"Boom!"

The black dragon, having lost its wings, crashed to the ground with a thud, kicking up a raging sandstorm.

As Bai Jie swung his sword to cut through the sand and dust flying towards him, his gaze toward the black dragon suddenly took on a strange meaning.

"That feeling just now... I broke through the magic?"

This wasn't the first time Bai Jie had severed magic. During his exploration of the Orcus Great Labyrinth, he had encountered countless monsters that could use specific magic. He had already severed magic countless times by then, so he wasn't surprised that he was severing magic again.

To his surprise, the magic he had severed was a dark magic. Because it was the evil of this world, Bai Jie was particularly sensitive to dark magic. The feeling he had when he struck the black dragon was clearly that of dark magic.

Incidentally, when Nagumo Hajime and Yue learned that Bai Jie could cut through magic and knew the types of magic he could cut through, they both looked at him as if he were a monster.

"Is this dragon being controlled by someone? But dragons have extremely high magic resistance, so controlling a dragon...?"

Even Bai Jie wouldn't dare say he could control a dragon 100% of the time. If it were a wyvern or a sub-dragon, that would be fine, but with a true mythical beast, he could only rely on luck.

"Well, it's no use thinking about it here. I'll just ask the dragon directly. Now that I've cut off its magic, it should have woken up by now."

With that thought in mind, Bai Jie walked up to the dragon, drew his Four Directions Divine Sword, and aimed the tip at the dragon's neck.

"Hey, are you awake? If you're still not awake, I'm going to chop off your head."

"No, no, no! I've woken up! Please don't kill me!"

Bai Jie was stunned.

"It hurts so much! This is the first time I've had my wings cut off. It really hurts terribly, but this feeling..."

The voice sounded female. It didn't speak directly, but rather seemed to be a wide-ranging telepathic communication. A dragon's vocal cords and mouth should not be able to speak human words, so it must have been communicating through methods other than air vibrations.

However, monsters that can speak human language cannot exist.

At least Bai Jie had never seen a talking monster. The Great Labyrinth of Orcus contained almost every type of monster in the world, but not a single one could talk.

Therefore, the dragon in front of us should not be a demon.

"I say, you wouldn't happen to be a dragon-human, would you?"

Bai Jie asked with some uncertainty.

Dragonkin.

That was the name of a race that ruled this continent hundreds of years ago. For some reason, they were nearly wiped out and disappeared from the continent. They were once thought to be an extinct race.

But now it seems that the Dragonkin race still has members.

Upon hearing Bai Jie's question, the black dragon couldn't answer for a moment, but then sighed as if giving up, seemingly not wanting others to know that it was a dragon-human.

However, with all the corroborating evidence readily available, it understands that at this point, its clumsy cover-up will no longer be enough to fool anyone.

"What a huge failure..."

Although I heard it muttering regretfully to itself, I wondered if it was because its true nature had been discovered, or because it had accidentally spoken due to the impact of having its wings cut off by Bai Jie... It was probably both.

“That’s right. I am one of the most honorable members of the Dragonkin race. There are many reasons for this, and I will explain them later. In short, could you please move my wings back to my body? My magic power is almost exhausted, and it would be terrible if I were to return to human form like this.”

"Before that, answer me your reason for being here. Why has the dragon race, which was thought to be extinct, reappeared on the continent?"

P.S.: I've been catching up on the Demon Slayer manga lately. It truly lives up to its nickname, "Pillar Slayer"—every time they encounter an Upper Moon, a Pillar is either seriously injured or dies. The author is ruthless!

Section 244, Chapter 19: The First Day of the Seven-Day National Day Holiday (2/4)

Seeing Bai Jie press her for answers, the black dragon, though desperate to restore her wings, feared that if she didn't speak, Bai Jie would cut off her head in the next second. Since Bai Jie could sever her dragon wings with one sword, he could also sever her neck in one stroke.

To be honest, even during the heyday of the dragon race, she had never seen a swordsman who could unleash such a terrifying sword strike. His swordsmanship must have reached the level of the gods.

"I understand. I will tell you everything."

Black Dragon lowered his head resignedly and then began to recount his story from the beginning.

Several months ago, a member of the dragon race with exceptional perception sensed a large amount of magical energy being released and discovered that something had come into this world.

Although the Dragonkin's rule is not to interfere in external affairs, they could not simply ignore the unknown visitors without knowing anything about them, so they decided to conduct an investigation.

The black dragon in front of her seemed to have left the village to investigate. After flying over the mountains, she originally planned to blend into the city as a human, conceal her identity as a dragon-human, and start gathering intelligence.

But she thought she needed to rest first, so she rested between the first and second mountains in the Northern Mountain Range. Since there were monsters around, she naturally used the unique magic of the dragon race, Dragon Transformation, to transform into a black dragon.

Shortly after she rested, a man covered from head to toe in a black robe appeared before the sleeping black dragon. He used various dark magic spells, such as brainwashing and suggestion, to gradually erode her thoughts and spirit.

Of course, if someone casts a spell on her, she will usually wake up and fight back, but at this moment she made the mistake of the dragon people's bad habit.

That's right, just like the origin of that proverb, once the dragon-human race enters a sleep state after dragonification, they will not wake up unless they are kicked in the butt.

Even so, the dragon race is very resilient in terms of mental strength and will not be so easily controlled.

So why was she completely manipulated? That's because...

"He is a terrifying man. His dark magic is so powerful that he can be called a genius. To be subjected to magic by such a man for an entire day without stopping is something even I could not bear... It is truly humiliating!"

Incidentally, she basically had her reasons.

Because the Black Dragon's physical strength was greatly depleted after flying across the ocean, but she had a mission to complete, she entered a deeper sleep than usual in order to recover in a short time.

However, no matter what she said, it couldn't change the fact that she had made a mistake, so she didn't say it.

As for how she knew the caster had spent a whole day, since she was still conscious after the brainwashing was complete, and her memories remained, she heard the caster complain that "it actually took a whole day."

According to what the black dragon later said, after that, she obeyed the robed man and helped him brainwash the monsters in the second mountain range and beyond.

One day, a group of monsters sent to the first mountain range encountered Will and his team, who had been commissioned to investigate the mountain. Because they had been ordered to kill the witnesses, the monsters chased after them, and one of them came to report to the man in the robe.

Fearing that it would be disastrous if his brainwashing of the demons and the gathering of them were discovered, the robed man sent the black dragon to silence them to ensure everything went smoothly.

What happened next was just like what had just happened. Brainwashed, she obeyed the deeply ingrained commands in her mind and launched an attack on Will. However, Bai Jie cut off her wings with a single sword strike, and all the brainwashing and suggestive magic on her was completely eradicated, which brought her back to her senses.

After hearing Heilong's words, Bai Jie's expression became somewhat subtle.

The black-haired man with an exceptional talent for dark magic—this feature seemed strangely familiar to him, if he remembered correctly...

"It seems like one of the classmates who came with us was a dark sorcerer, I remember his name was... Shimizu Yukitoshi?"

If it really was his classmates causing trouble behind the scenes, then Bai Jie really couldn't let it go. After all, although these classmates were not as good as him and Nan Yun Shi, they were all incredibly strong compared to the people in this world.

He's brainwashed a dragon now, who knows if he'll brainwash some incredibly powerful monster later? In any case, if he's allowed to run rampant, the world is doomed.

(Shouldn't we just take care of Eshid as soon as possible, and then use spatial magic to take these troubles back with us?)

"I have told you everything. Now, may you please take my wings back?"

"Ah, that's true, I had forgotten about it if you hadn't mentioned it."

Bai Jie walked to the side, raised the two dragon wings that were taller than him, and then swung them at the black dragon's face, while also smearing the bottle of divine water that Nan Yunshi had given him all over her face.

"You don't know how long it will take to treat yourself, so you can take this and use it."

Feeling the tingling sensation of healing spreading through his back, the black dragon exclaimed in astonishment, "This is divine water? You actually gave me such a treasure so casually?"

"It may be a treasure to you, but it's just trash to me. If I'm seriously injured, I can just die and be resurrected. Immortality is much more useful than divine water."

Bai Jie's words revealed nothing but disdain for the divine water.

Hearing that Bai Jie regarded a treasure that could cause war between nations as trash, Black Dragon gasped: "What a terrifying man. Just who are you?"

"It's just a passing big shot's alt account, no need to remember it."

"Is that so... I'll take it that way."

As she spoke, the black dragon suddenly released her magic. The black magic enveloped her body like a cocoon, completely covering her before rapidly shrinking. When it shrank to a size just large enough to hold a person, the magic vanished in an instant.