In the eastern side of Emperor Xun's military camp, under rolling clouds, was an artificial lake created by a powerful magic.
In an exquisite gold and jade palace by the lake, Shixin and his brothers kneeled on the ground, while Dragon Mother carried a silver-dark wooden staff, bashing them violently.
Dragon Mother beat her sons brutally. After three to five strikes, the armors worn by Shixin and his brothers were shattered. Along with muffled bone-cracking noises, they fell to the ground with broken bones, twitching and howling in pain.
Shixin and his brothers started vomiting blood, but Dragon Mother didn't stop. She continued thrashing them soundly while cursing madly. She beat the heads of Shigu, Shisui and Shiya out of shape, and crushed their horns.
As the oldest, strongest, and bravest one, Shixin burst into a thunderous roar and leaped up when he saw Dragon Mother swing the staff towards his chin. His body glowed with a blood-red light and his broken arms healed immediately. He pulled out a long blade and swiftly chopped at Dragon Mother's waist.
"You crazy old woman! Are you gonna beat my brothers and I to death? Let's die together then! You old crazy woman, which blind b*stard released you?" After the first swing, Shixin never stopped. He roared hoarsely and launched thousands of strikes in a row.
Blade lights dazzled, as shreds of blade shadows tore apart the space and momentarily enveloped Dragon Mother.
Dragon Mother gave a twisted smile. She slightly shook the wooden staff and hit hard at Shixin, bringing up beams of frosty light. Following a series of deafening tinkles, Shixin's blade shattered into pieces. The sharp pieces swished shrilly back to Shixin, penetrated his body, and brought out streams of blood from his body.
"Brothers, let's kill this crazy woman together!" Shihun roared hoarsely, "She beat us every day! Month after month, year after year, she beat us whenever she isn't happy! We've had enough! Even the life back in ocean eyes was better than this...Let's kill her together! Let's eat her flesh, drink her blood, devour her marrow! We'll grow stronger that way!"
Shisui, who was howling in pain, leaped up as well. His wounds healed in a moment as he pulled out a sun and moon shovel and fiercely stabbed at Dragon Mother's neck. "What sh*t has happened to this old lunatic? Now she's venting on us again? Damn it! Which idiot released her? He should have only released us! Kill her, kill her! Brothers, let's kill her!"
The eyes of Dragon Mother's nine boys exposed a fierce light. The cruelty and ferocity buried in the nature of Chaos dragons had been aroused. They knew nothing about the love between mother and sons. Instead, they pulled out their weapons and laid their murderous hands on their mother.
"Haha! I should have strangled you one by one that year!" Dragon Mother gazed at her nine sons with lusterless eyes, "If the dead old b*stard didn't protect you, I would have swallowed you to replenish myself when you were born. I was so weak after giving birth to you!"
Witnessing all this, the group of dragon elders on the scene had their faces paled. They stepped back, unable to hide the shock on their faces. Great dragon ancestor, why on earth did they choose to follow these ten lunatics?
The sons wanted to kill their mother, and the mother wanted to eat their sons. By following the psychopaths who might even do things like this, could anyone end well?
Ao Bai and his brothers were 'weak', and were too nice to human beings, thus didn't manage to lead the dragon-kind to dominate the world. But at the very least, they were fair-minded and warm to the young dragons, always protecting the young ones in the family. How could they ever be so ruthless like these mad ten?
The ones who decided to follow Dragon Mother and her sons might die in their hands before even knowing how!
The cold light brought up by Dragon Mother's wooden staff surrounded Shixin and his brothers. The muffled metal clanks quaked the entire palace as more and deeper cracks appeared on the ground.
"Nine useless losers, didn't I tell you what to do before I left? What did I tell you? I told you to fight a 'commanders' battle' against Ji Hao and his people. Fight a 'commanders' battle'! Do you know what that means?"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Three of her boys were thrown to the ground by Dragon Mother with the wooden staff, folded. Clearly, their spines were completely crushed.
Shixin shouted himself hoarse as he launched tens of thousands of blade strikes at Dragon Mother in a row. The blade light flickered and left a bone-deep wound on Dragon Mother's face. "Old crazy woman, didn't we fight? Didn't we? All these days, hadn't we been fighting the nine weak losers? Didn't we fight our heads broken? Didn't we bleed?"
Dragon Mother vomited blood because of anger. "What did I tell you? Did I tell you to fight the battle yourselves? What did I say? I told you to encourage those human leaders, especially the young and elite ones, to fight Ji Hao. I told you to make as many of them die as possible!" She yelled.
"What did you do? You stupidly rush up yourselves, and give the enemies the lives of your countless warriors! Did I tell you to do this?" Dragon Mother screamed. She suddenly lunged her left hand and penetrated Shixin's stomach with her sharp claws, then tore apart his body and gripped his spine.
Crack!
Dragon Mother took back her hand, holding a crystal piece of dragon spine.
Shixin shrieked in pain. He dropped his weapon and fell to the ground tumbling. Dragon Mother laughed evilly as she raised her right foot, seeming about to stomp on his head.
Seeing Shixin was going to die in his mother's hands, among the three people who had been sitting in the guest seats and watching this show, the long-bearded old man who looked perfectly relaxed coughed slightly. He raised a finger and sent out countless glistening, tiny bone pieces.
Along with a series of cracking noise, a thick bone shield emerged above Shixin's body, protecting him from Dragon Mother's foot.
"Dragon Mother, my friend, please calm your anger, calm your anger..." The old man stood up and smiled, bowing slightly to Dragon Mother as he said, "For the sake of us, the three friends from Mount Skeleton, calm your anger. We have important things to do, and they will just be used. If you kill them, you'd be weakening ourselves, right?"
Shixin sighed in relief as he glanced at the old man with gratefulness.
However, he then heard the old man continued, "If you are really gonna kill your nine useless sons, you should at least leave their bones undamaged...So, after they have died, I can pull out their bones to make nine Chaos dragon bone puppets...Haha, that might be more useful than these nine!"
The gratefulness in Shixin's eyes faded immediately. Instead, those eyes were filled with ferocity as he and his brothers stared at the old man, the young man, and the girl behind him, who called themselves 'the three friends from Mount Skeleton'.