thefictionvixens Page 239
Page 239
"Isn't it said that memory is closely related to the physical body of a living being?"
The bone dragon remained silent for a moment, then reiterated:
"I am a bone dragon, where would I get a physical body?"
“…Oh oh oh!!” Latis and the bone dragon stared at each other for a few seconds, then suddenly exclaimed in realization. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with a subtle expression:
"So you were originally a bone dragon... the undead kind?"
“Yes.” The bone dragon retracted its bone wings and raised its chin, saying, “I am a necromancer bone dragon.”
“Uh…” Latis wanted to steer the conversation back to the main topic, but he couldn’t resist his curiosity. After a moment’s hesitation, he asked:
"So even the undead can die? You've already died twice? Does that mean you'll have to die a third time after you reach the Bone Spirit Realm?"
The bone dragon remained silent, its two empty eye sockets staring at Latis for a while, its entire body filled with a sense of bewilderment.
"Oh, I see." Latis tactfully ended his tactless question, glanced at the bone dragon's body, coughed lightly, and said politely:
"This bone dragon lady..."
“Sir,” the bone dragon interrupted, clearly displeased, “I am male.”
"Huh?" Latis glanced again at the bone dragon's empty lower body, chuckled awkwardly, and said:
"Bone Dragon... Sir? Ha, ha... Has the winds of lgbtq blown into the undead horde?"
"Damn it! What did you mean by that look?" The bone dragon roared in fury, scrambling its claw into the ground, kicking up a cloud of white sand, and cursing loudly.
"It's all because of that damn wizard who polished my cow bones every day while I was sleeping! I didn't realize it for a whole thousand years, and by then it was too late!"
"..." Latis was silent for a moment, then couldn't help but ask, "Could it be that your second death was caused by this?"
"Of course!"
The bone dragon's claws dug deep into the ground, and it said viciously:
"My head may break, my blood may flow, but Brother Niu's dignity cannot be lost! I fought to the death against the slave contract and launched a revenge attack against him! In the end..."
"...In the end?" Latis listened with great interest and couldn't help but chime in.
"Finally," the bone dragon said proudly, head held high, its broad bone wings flapping. It let out a cold laugh.
"He smashed his precious specimen."
"...No, this won't do either?" Radist immediately squinted and retorted, "They killed you in the end, and you just smashed a specimen of theirs?"
"Don't rush me, I haven't finished yet."
The bone dragon shook its head proudly and explained:
"That wizard was naturally tall and strong, but his only flaw was that his ox was small. In order to indulge in sensual pleasures and debauchery for many years, he found many large oxen to help him grow them."
"However, although he has a way to connect with the big bull, he has to maintain the calf's vitality. Otherwise, his life box will determine that the calf is dead and reclaim the calf's soul... In that case, even if he connects with the big bull, he will not be able to revive it, unless he is willing to spend the cost of a life box to be reborn."
"...?" Latis remained silent for a long while before he understood the meaning behind the bone dragon's words. He couldn't help but gasp, shivering slightly from the phantom pain, and asked:
"So the specimen you broke... was the wizard's calf?"
“Yes.” The bone dragon grinned, revealing its teeth.
Latis instinctively clutched his head, feeling a throbbing pain in his brain. He shook his head, sighed, and said:
“Mr. Bone Dragon, let’s get back to our original topic… I’m not particularly interested in defeating you. I just made an appointment with that knight to try to find the whereabouts of his companions.”
The bone dragon lowered its head to look at Latis, remained silent for a moment, and then burst into laughter.
"?"
Latis stared at the bone dragon laughing inexplicably, completely bewildered, wondering what had gotten into it.
"Boy!" The bone dragon laughed for half a minute before finally closing its mouth and saying with a mocking tone:
"You've definitely been lied to! What did he say to you?"
"Cheated?"
Latis frowned and looked up at the expressionless bone dragon. For some reason, he seemed to see a hint of cunning in the bony dragon's face.
'If the bone dragon can communicate, it might know even more... It's strange, I wonder where the bone dragon's memories are stored...'
He thought for a while and said:
"The knight told me that he set out from a very distant village and arrived in this town several months ago with some companions, intending to launch a campaign against you for the sake of the people here."
"But fate had other plans. His companions gradually disappeared during the several White Moons, thus ending his plan to subdue you. During a break in this White Moon, I happened to be searching for 'Mount Amadeus,' and he used the opportunity of telling me the location of this mountain as a pretext to ask me for help in finding his companions."
"Haha, I see..."
The bone dragon flicked its long tail, shook its head, and said:
"You've really been fooled by him! That guy arrived in this town more than a dozen white moons ago, not just a few white moons as he told you!"
“Huh?” Latis frowned, pondered for a moment, and said, “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s lying to me; he might not remember that.”
The bone dragon opened its mouth wide, chuckled silently twice, turned around, and said:
"Boy, come with me."
Latis turned around and glanced at the dilapidated houses behind him. After a few seconds of contemplation, he followed in the direction the bone dragon had gone.
……
A dozen or so moons ago, a small group of four wanderers arrived in this town from afar. After helping the residents eliminate some invading vagrants, they temporarily settled here.
[At that time, there was an innocent bone dragon that had just arrived in the Bone Spirit Realm. Being new to the place and not yet understanding the situation, it accidentally killed several residents and was being hunted by a wandering squad.]
The clever bone dragon had outwitted the cunning wizard for a thousand years in its previous life, and thus quickly outmaneuvered the wandering party. However, the wandering party still managed to push the bone dragon to the brink of despair with their treacherous schemes.
Fortunately, the raging white moon arrived at that moment, and the wandering group frantically rushed back into the houses in the town, attempting to escape the moon's onslaught.
[The Bone Dragon, being new to the area, was unaware of the White Moon's terrifying power and thus bravely endured its onslaught. Caught in the overwhelming white torrent, it had nowhere to escape and was forced to accept the White Moon's baptism.]
[It saw its past life in the white moonlight, before it was refined into a bone dragon, when it possessed a strong body, wings that could whip up a gale with a single flap, and a massive bull-like body.]
However, all of this was brought to a brutal and inhumane end. It seemed to remember many things and forget many others. Yet, the death of its skeletal dragon solidified its perception. Among countless memories, some belonging to it and some not, as long as it could recognize that it was now a skeletal dragon, it could preserve its fragmented memories.
The skeletal dragon, possessing memories, spent several white months destroying the homes of the wandering group and watching them gradually lose their bodies and turn into skeletons. Ironically, human personality and thinking can undergo drastic changes depending on the amount of memories one has, and so the wandering group soon ceased to be a group at all.
The lurking bone dragon secretly absorbed the bones of the residents while waiting for its chance to eliminate the wandering team. However, their soul bones were too powerful, and the bone dragon, being a different species, was powerless against them. It could only grow old in vain beneath the forest, filled with resentment.
However, things soon took a turn for the better. The knight from the wandering party left the town for some unknown reason, and when he returned, he personally killed his former teammates.
……
"He must be crazy."
The bone dragon mocked as it walked away:
“I’ve been observing Bai Yue for over a dozen months now. Every time, that guy leaves town early and doesn’t come back for a long time. And when he does come back, he kills his former teammates and throws them back into town.”
"Huh? Why?"
Latis asked, completely bewildered:
"Has he forgotten that those were his teammates?"
"Maybe it's a memory lapse; he's mistaking his teammates for enemies," the Bone Dragon laughed heartily.
“Living beings are so fragile; the contracts between them are extremely weak. Once forgotten, there is naturally no reason for them to continue.”
Latis remained silent. He knew that what the bone dragon said was true in a sense, so although it sounded unpleasant, he couldn't refute it.
"Mr. Bone Dragon, what do you mean by telling me all this?" he asked after thinking for a moment.
"I don't think Tang Keke deliberately lied to me about these things, after all, he didn't get any benefit from them."
"How could there not be?" the bone dragon let out a strange laugh and said.
"Didn't he use you to kill all his teammates? Maybe that was his goal? Heh...maybe he just wants to use their soul bones to level up..."
"Those skeleton units that were wiped out were his former teammates?!"
Latis was taken aback and couldn't help but ask.
"Hehehe, didn't expect that, did you?" The bone dragon shook its bone wings and said, "I noticed you approaching the town a long time ago, and I've been secretly observing you for a long time. Sure enough, you launched another attack on those poor skeletons."
"..." Latis took a deep breath, shook his head, and decided to ask Donco about these things when he got back. However, at this moment, he had made up his mind not to listen to the bone dragon's nonsense.
He raised his hand to signal the bone dragon to stop, and asked in a deep voice:
"What exactly do you want from me?"
"Kid, you're quite straightforward," the bone dragon chuckled, speaking calmly.
"I need you to kill that knight for me, or I'll kill you."
……
……
Latis did not immediately agree, nor did he suddenly lash out; instead, he made a temporary refusal.
Bone Dragon wasn't in a hurry. He chuckled and pointed out a depression below the waterfall, then agreed to meet again in town.
Latis hesitated for a moment, unsure of the situation, then called out the two spirit girls and asked for their opinions.
"The Bone Dragon's words cannot be trusted!"
Hai Yue'er shook her head repeatedly, and said with a serious expression:
“Mr. Latis, when I was a child, the elders in my tribe often told us that after a dragon was refined into an undead, it was as if the tendons in its head suddenly twisted up, and the originally dull and stupid dragon suddenly became treacherous and cunning.”
"Therefore, bone dragons are the epitome of relentless pursuit of their goals. Under the influence of necromancers, they will stop at nothing to satisfy their vicious and greedy desires and nature..."
Latis stroked his chin, nodded, and looked at Seren.
Sai Lengxu sat in the air, spinning around a few times, tapping his cheek with his fingers as he pondered:
"For skeletons in the Bone Spirit Realm, memories are washed away along with their bodies, but their strong obsessions will remain permanently attached to them. Even if they degenerate into wanderers, are eaten, and are resurrected in the white moon, their obsessions will not fade away."
"I think this obsession isn't attached to a specific memory, but rather it's deeply rooted in the soul of such a person. Some wanderers are naturally timid and hesitant, while others are naturally prone to causing trouble. Perhaps the Bone Dragon also has a strong obsession with its fate of being refined into a Bone Dragon, which is why it has been able to retain some fragmented memories in the torrent of the White Moon."
"Makes sense."
Latis nodded, took the hands of the two girls on either side, and sat cross-legged by the waterfall to begin thinking about the current situation.
"First of all, since it is known that the Bone Dragon's goal is to kill Tang Keke, its description of Tang Keke is not objective. Admittedly, Tang Keke may have lived here for more than a dozen White Months, but judging from his condition, he probably doesn't have many memories left."