Thousand-Faced Dragon

Chapter 54 The Family of Our Lady

[Evolution material detected: a shattered pseudo-dragon soul (gold). May it be extracted?]

At that moment, Rean was stunned.

He turned around abruptly, his Dragon Eyes activating automatically, and he noticed that there was a vague, ugly dragon phantom on Kverdov's corpse.

"Refuse? Why refuse?" Both body and soul instinctively craved evolution, and without having time to think seriously, Rean had already subconsciously given his permission.

Thus, the "dragon blood" on the blade of his sword was instantly absorbed and drained, becoming a catalyst linking spirit and flesh.

The dragon's phantom pounced forward and was absorbed by Rean's physical body.

【生物等级：原石，状态：力量6(13)，体魄7(11)，敏捷5(6)，精神6（16）】

In just a moment, the original inferior stone level was broken through.

Other numbers are also beginning to subtly change, seemingly poised for growth.

Rean felt as if something was breaking through the soil beneath his body.

Please find a safe area to sleep in as soon as possible to facilitate evolution.

But now is clearly not the time to wait for evolution.

He took a deep breath and looked at his opponent.

Although it's impossible to strengthen oneself before the battle, this is at least good news.

However, he still underestimated the Heroic Spirits Encyclopedia.

[The evolution material, Shattered Pseudo-Dragon Soul (Gold), has been disassembled, and the materials 'Wilder Dragon (Gold),' 'Fire (Silver),' and 'Volcano (Silver)' have been added to the material library.]

[Useful evolution materials detected in the resource library. 'Fire (Silver)' will be used automatically. Racial talent Dragonfire (Burning World) is activated. Lower-tier ability 'Magic Release (Fire)' is activated.]

Then, just like with the "dragon eye" and "dragon claw" before, Rean subconsciously gripped his sword and swung it.

A faint flame flowed from the palm, covering the sword blade, and the Flame Sword was born.

The flame was thin and weak, its intensity even less than that of a barbecue fire; it seemed quite feeble.
"What is this?" Maria, who had been driven into a corner but remained calm, instinctively stepped back.

Looking at the fragile flames, she instinctively felt fear.

Rean was also confused, but that didn't stop him from putting pressure on Rean verbally.

"Given your abilities, you don't really think you're immortal, do you?" This wasn't a lie; he believed that dragon-type power was naturally restrained by beasts.

"That's not good. How about you let me go, and I'll pretend I don't know anything and won't commit any more crimes."

The nun smiled slightly, turned her head, and seemed genuinely troubled.

"Heh, do you think I'd believe a promise from an animal?"

Only instinctive "beasts" can imitate human speech and even understand its meaning.

But for them, words are merely a tool; they don't care what they say.

The feigned baby crying was merely a ploy to lure in delicious prey.

When facing attackers, she kept crying out, "It hurts so much, please let me go," just to lower her opponent's guard.

If lies help with survival and hunting, then every single one of them is a lie.

"A heartless beast. Even though I don't know why you still pretend to be so human, today will be your end."

"Ah, actually I don't want to fight. It would be better if we could live in peace. I don't have a big appetite. How about I give you my territory and I'll go somewhere else?"

From the very beginning, the two sides were not communicating on the same level.

Rean was talking about crime, promises, and justice in the context of social structures, while the monster named "Maria" was simply asking the outsiders who had invaded her territory why they had to stop her "hunt."

I'm hungry and want to eat, isn't that a normal need of mine?

The previous "retaliations" were not out of anger, humiliation, or revenge, but simply because "you have violated my hunting grounds, and I want to assert my sovereignty" to prevent future hunting from being affected.

The monster has always been disguised as a human, pretending to understand humans, but no one has ever discovered this.
"What a disgusting monster! How dare he talk about justice in front of a knight?"

The thought of Larry having been lectured on justice by Larry, and even actually taking it seriously, made Rean feel even worse.

This was not the idea of ​​the "fake," but rather the idea of ​​Sister Maria.

Sister Mary, perhaps she was constantly praying, praying that a righteous person would come to save her and this filthy city.

These thoughts and ideas may have lingered in his mind countless times, otherwise the monster wouldn't have been able to say them so easily.

This monster simply utters these "words" at the appropriate time, like a stress-reactive machine, responding instinctively to external stimuli.

Mary yearns for justice, so the monster in Mary's skin also talks about justice in order to get closer to those who uphold it.

Why does she try to get closer to people? Of course, it's animal instinct—to make hunting easier.
"No need to wait any longer, it's useless." When it became clear that a death match was inevitable, Maria smiled and revealed the reason why Rean had been waiting.

Her gaze fell on Talia behind Rean, whose wooden sword was still slowly burning in her hand.

The entire cave already smelled strongly of incense; Rean was stalling for time precisely for this reason.

“Since I knew it was a weakness, why didn’t I overcome it? I would smell this every night before falling asleep, and after a while, I got used to it. Heh, I’m not like those impure little guys.” The nun’s gaze swept over the wooden sculpture that Tianba had transformed into, and her shining eyes seemed to hold some emotion and a hint of regret.

Is it disdain for the weak? Is it sympathy for one's own kind? Or is it a cleverly disguised false emotion?

No, Rean saw it clearly; it should be joy—the joy of missing a competitor of one's own kind vying for food!

"You think it's useless just because you say so?" At this moment, Rean was also a little confused. How could the weakness he had just found really be ineffective?

But the aromatherapy was so strong that he sneezed, yet the other side didn't attack him. It seems this time it wasn't a lie.

"As expected, we still have to confront each other head-on." Rean took a deep breath, seemingly sighing and feeling helpless.

But Longan captured that instant—the instant the nun blinked!
"Destroy evil."

In just a moment, Rean was already within arm's reach of the nun.

The "tricks" brought by the hero's combat experience actually resulted in a daytime surprise attack.

The "acceleration boots" made all of this possible.

"Boom."

The sword was blocked.

Unlike her previous casual killings, this time Maria did not allow the flames to touch her flesh.

How was it blocked? Could this black nun's robe be a divine artifact? At this moment, everyone was a little confused.

The sword's edge was right next to the nun's black robe, but Rean's sword hesitated to strike!
"Aaaaah!" Rean gripped the sword with both hands, using the brute force enhanced by the giant gauntlets to try and slay the demon with all his might.

However, it was he himself who was pushed down further!
"flame!"

With gritted teeth, he transformed his slash into a sword-slaying slash, suddenly retreating and then slashing diagonally upwards.

"Boom!"

But this time, it was blocked by something again.

Unable to comprehend what had happened, Rean stepped back, maintaining a safe distance.

The next moment, he saw what had stopped his sword.

He instinctively gasped. The information he had gathered was not only true, but also based on real witnessing, and even more outrageous than he had expected.

"Child, don't run around." The nun was still so gentle.

The flames and sword blades did not harm the nun, but they destroyed part of her nun's clothes and exposed what was covering Rean's "thing" underneath.

At the waist, there was the upper body of a tiny baby, whose little hands had just grabbed Rean's sword!

And on her left shoulder was another one.
“Kevin, uh, I think it’s Brandy, don’t put everything in your mouth.” Sister Maria also stopped the head from stuffing the torn strips of cloth into its mouth.

"They've really gone mad, completely mad, these anthropomorphic things!" At this moment, Rean was filled with utter rage.

This applies not only to the demons before us, but also to the unscrupulous cult members.

The emergence of the Horned Animal is a fusion of "small beasts" and humans.

The raising of young animals involves the "small horn" (the harvested tail/horn), which, as a pure crystallization of life, is placed into the mother's womb for further cultivation.

Most of the offspring are canine, simply because female dogs are easy to sell and the offspring raised from them are relatively docile and easy to control, with neither high nor low intelligence.

Generally speaking, if two horned beasts only take in one small beast, they will quickly lose their sense of self and perish rapidly.

This is also why Hek hurriedly bit off the "new head" back then; otherwise, the beast-transforming factor would have quickly caused it to completely spiral out of control.

Even though they are all small animals, they have different genes and their own instincts, and they will perish when they clash with each other.

And what did Maria do?
"She turned her children into little horns." This was the root of her downfall and the reason she was persuaded to participate in this experiment.

The promise of "eternal happiness with the children" is a deception offered by the religious order.

The bizarre reality is that she not only believed it, but also seemed to have made it a reality in some sense.

"She used her own body to grow the little horns that the children had transformed into, and then swallowed them and integrated them into her own body. Since they were all children of her own genes, she did not reject them very much. But how many 'children' did she actually eat?"

At this moment, Maria, no longer concealing herself, allowed the "children" on her body to do as they pleased.

Tiny hands and heads tore through the black robes and emerged, the writhing heads and arms beneath the garments driving onlookers mad and sending chills down their spines.

One, two, five—in just this moment, five “babies” peeked out, their pure eyes surveying the outside world.

"Test subject number 113, internal test code name 'Holy Family'. That's really quite a twisted sense of humor."

Sometimes, there are far more "humans" with human hearts than beasts with no moral bottom line.

Rean gripped his sword tightly, his anger flaring within him.

This was destined to be a tough battle, but he was really looking forward to it.

"Let me end all of this."

(End of this chapter)