I want to be a faded person for life

Xiangzi did not see any demi-humans in this passage. After walking about a few dozen meters, light appeared in front of the girl. It seemed that this was another exit leading to the cave.

Prepared for an ambush, the girl tentatively threw the torch out of the cave entrance.

no response.

Xiangzi swapped out his shield and walked up out of the coastal cave.

call--

The sound of the sea breeze and the tide came from all around.

Feeling a chill on his face, Xiangzi raised his hand to wipe away the water droplets that splashed on his face.

"here it is..."

She turned around and saw the coast in the direction she had come from.

This turned out to be the island that could be seen from the shore. The cave just now was located on the seabed and could be reached directly.

A few antelopes noticed her arrival, but had no intention of leaving. They looked at her for a few seconds and then continued to lower their heads to nibble on the grass.

The island is not big, only a few hundred meters in radius, and a dilapidated temple alone occupies almost all the space here.

"There is actually a blessing light here?"

Xiangzi squatted on the ground and found the swaying golden flames on the ground, proving that this island was indeed the place where the blessing guided her to.

Speaking of which, ever since killing Greg, the direction guided by the Blessed Light has become less certain - she often finds that the golden light points in several directions at the same time.

After the touch blessing, Melina appeared beside Xiangzi.

"I smell thunder and rock."

Xiangzi fell silent as he looked at the building made entirely of stone.

Of course stone smells like stone, but what about thunder? Does that thing have a smell too?

The island was still within the range of the Soul Summoning Bell, so she decided to go and take a look at the temple.

Just as she approached the temple entrance, a huge creature caught the girl's full attention.

"This is......!"

A gray-white dragon was crawling in the center of the temple. It was even larger than the dragon corpse that was found deep in the main tower of Stonewell City. The length from head to tail was probably more than twenty meters.

Unlike the dragon that Greg used to reattach his limbs, it had long, powerful limbs, and instead of black feathers covering its entire body, it had rock-like scales.

It was just a corpse, seemingly long dead.

Xiangzi took a few steps forward and stroked the dragon's gray scales with his hand.

Several headless dragon statues are placed around the temple, as if paying homage to the great life that has long since died.

If Stonewell's wyvern was a powerful beast, then this dragon corpse gave people the feeling of an elegant and noble ancient god.

In front of the dragon's corpse was a stone altar, with dark red flames burning in the altar's holy chalice.

Xiangzi ran his hand over a line of small words on the altar.

"What blood...what—"

Although she could understand the common language of the border area, the girl could not understand the meaning of this sentence, just like students in Chinese class find it difficult to understand the language used by ancient people.

"Melina—you're a professional."

Riddles should be left to the riddle teller to interpret.

"...your magic teacher should have taught you a little more about grammar."

Melina also touched the text on the altar and read it aloud.

"—soaked in my blood, revealed in glory, hunted my enemies, and received the dragon's feast."

"There's no doubt this is a Dragon Feast Church."

"what is that."

Xiangzi sat on the broken wall and prepared to listen to the story.

"...a place where warriors perform ancient rituals. It is said that by devouring a dragon's heart at the Dragon Feast Altar, one can claim its power as their own."

Xiangzi thought of the narrative poem he had read on Earth before: the story of the hero Siegfried in "The Song of the Nibelungs" who bathed in dragon's blood and gained immortality.

She poked her chin, piqued some interest.

"Does it really have such an effect?"

"Yes, but this ancient ritual also has hidden dangers."

Melina saw the longing in Xiangzi's eyes and immediately added to the story.

"The heroes who performed the Dragon Feast ritual met their end when the dragon's heart devoured them, causing them to lose their sanity and transform into earth dragons."

"A dragon slayer will eventually become a dragon... Is it the same in this world?"

The girl tilted her head to gaze at the dark red flames in the altar, and her mind recalled the powerful strength that Greg displayed after taking over the dragon's head, the sea of ​​fire that covered the sky and the earth - the burning sensation seemed to still linger on her skin.

Power...

"Dragon Heart, I remember—Stonewell seems to have one."

Melina sighed softly, knowing that her advice was in vain.

"I knew it would turn out like this... But if it's just one, you can handle it."

Chapter 4: Wood's Backstab

"Are you okay? Oh...my Needle!"

Burke ignored the pain and got up from the ground.

"This is my mother's legacy... I also want to be a tailor like her, so I can't just die here..."

The girl squatted in front of Burke and handed it the sewing needle.

"Of course, I'll have to ask you to help me modify my armor later, so you must live well."

The demi-human wiped away his tears.

"Why are you being so nice to me... I understand. Although I can't sew it from scratch, as long as you need to make some modifications, I will do my best to complete it - you are my master, and this is the way it should be."

"Master or something... that sounds too heavy."

Xiangzi turned off the soul-summoning bell.

"Burke, do you have a safe place to go now?"

"There is no such place, Master... There is no such place for a demihuman like me. I would like to stay with you if possible."

He tried to correct the other party's way of calling him, but that only made Burke look sad, so Xiangzi had to give up the idea.

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"It's not safe to move with me."

Considering that he might need to modify his armor at any time, he had to keep Burke in a place where he could find him at any time.

-

"So you introduced him to me?"

Kale was holding a strange stringed instrument, probably something he made for entertainment.

"You are such a nice guy..."

The businessman tried to pluck the strings on the instrument, which produced a sound somewhat similar to that of a violin.

"I don't care. Your name is Burke, right? If you're willing to do some business with me, that would be great. As for the other thing..."

Kale put down his instrument and took the straight sword from Xiangzi's hand.

"...I'm not a professional blacksmith. I heard that the Round Table Hall has the best blacksmith in the border area, who specializes in forging weapons that can slay gods and dragons for the heroes there."

"Why don't you go directly to the Hall of the Round Table instead of coming to me, a half-baked businessman?"

Xiangzi was choked by this question and didn't know how to explain it for a moment.

"Well, I won't ask if you don't want to talk about it, but it just so happens that—"

The wandering merchant suddenly remembered something.

"...I'm going to introduce you to someone. Have you ever been to the foggy forest east of Post Station Street?"

Xiangzi has been going back and forth to the ruins of Yizhan Street every day recently. There is indeed a misty forest near the ruins. Although he has never actually entered it, he passes by it often.

"It seems like there's often the sound of wolves howling from that direction."

Kale nodded.

"If you hear a wolf howl again, go directly below the sound and type this signal."

As he said this, the merchant stretched out his dry and slender right hand and snapped his fingers crisply. It was hard to say how far the sound of the snap could be heard in an environment like the forest.

"That way he'll know it's an acquaintance I introduced him to."

Xiangzi nodded, then asked again with some confusion.

"Could you introduce me to that guy? He's also a businessman?"

The wandering merchant waved his hand.

"Not a businessman—nothing more, I just thought you two would get along well given your personalities."

"Also, I remember that guy mentioned to me that he seemed to know an old blacksmith with superb skills."

"...Blacksmith?"

Xiangzi kept this important information in mind.

"Okay, I remember."

She left a set of armor of the Lost Knight at the Church of Elay - it was originally collected from Stonewell and intended to be sold directly, and she commissioned Burke to modify the armor to be smaller according to her own body size.

It was getting late, and Xiangzi planned to stop by Wulin and Jialie, an acquaintance of his, on the east side of Yizhan Street, to meet before returning to Teacher Selian.

"By the way, there's one more thing."

Kale suddenly sat up straight.

"Ms. Melina mentioned before, are you planning to go back to Stonewell soon?"

Xiangzi nodded. She did plan to go to the city lord's tower in Stonewell to look for the dragon corpse.

"I have this plan—"

"It's better not to go."

Kale interrupted her.

"After Stonewell lost its master, it was said that something bad happened there."

"That city seems to have died along with its owner. Some say they've seen wandering dead in Stonewell—not zombies, but something far more terrifying."

"If you want to perform the Dragon Feast, I have some other information about flying dragons here—you might be interested—but what I'm saying is that Stonewell City might be more dangerous than the dragons right now. Do you understand what I mean?"

"You mean—"

Xiangzi was suddenly stunned. She thought of the abnormality that Zizai had seen in Stonewell.

There were large holes in the city walls corroded by something unknown, thorns spreading everywhere in the city, lax defenses in the city, and heavy troops stationed in the square right in front of the city lord's tower.

She thought again of the warning Melina gave her when she entered the city: Don't touch the face at the bottom of the city, it is something more terrifying than Greg.

Although she overlooked some details at the time, but thinking back on it, Greg, who was hiding deep in the city lord's tower, might have been forced into a desperate situation by something long before she entered the city.

When Xiangzi and Nepheli entered the city lord's tower, Greg had already planned to use a dragon to reattach the limbs.

And the dragon corpse used to reattach limbs was obviously not prepared to deal with them.

"Melina?"

The figure of the one-eyed girl emerged and she spoke calmly.

"If you insist on going to Stonewell, I will go to the Round Table Hall and tell Miss Lantern about your whereabouts."

"...Are you going to betray me?"

-