“Nooo!” A roar of fury erupted, causing Long Jin and Long Cang to look at where a bloodied man was chained to the wall.

****

Thick chains bound his neck, wrists, ankles, and waist. A silver halberd was in his hand, but he was unable to use it to free himself courtesy of the chains.

This was, of course, Long Huangdi, Long Di’s father. Much like his wife, blood ran from his body in rivulets, but this did little to quell the fury and anger within him, drunk as he was in their inebriation.

“Ugh!”

C-C-Clank!

The chains clanked ceaselessly under his constant struggles. Unfortunately, they held fast in their desire to have him bound.

Right now, all he could see was his wife being beaten within an inch of her life only for her to be swallowed up by these infernal lizards!

“Damn you!” he cursed Long Jin, Long Cang, the wyvern and all dragon kind!

“Damn you all a thousand times! Damn you to death! Damn you to the end of my Heaven Asunder Halberd!”

Spittle flew from his mouth as he fired off the only weapon he was free to use; his tongue.

“If she is dead from that, then she was all but useless and not worth my time,” Long Jin’s voice resounded and raised himself to his full height as he got ready to leave.

“You bind me here and set loose a monster upon her! Coward! Afraid we would spill precious dragon blood! Is what you fear!?”

Long Jin snorted as a puff of smoke exited his snout. “One-on-one!” He growled. “That was the deal! You and your woman would face the lowest of us one on one and the rest of your chaff-”

“Don’t call them that!” Long Huangdi’s body buckled, drawing another bout of clangour from the chains.

“The chaff!” Long Jin doubled down on it as if to mock his captive. “Will die if they can’t make it out of this. Though I suspect they have already perished since it’s been so quiet. Useless! The lot of you!”

Referencing the quietude, their gazes all turned to another cave way that was silent when it was filled with the clangour of battle not so long ago.

Long Huangdi burned with fury as he eyed both that and the beast that just devoured his wife.

So his son and now his wife and family members were all dead? Were the heavens so blind!?

No, this wasn’t blindness, this was wanton wickedness! A vacuous viciousness!

Since Long Jin learned of the humans’ arrival, many things had taken place. He had decided to tolerate their presence here while Long Cang oversaw their training.

Seeing as how Long Huangdi and Long Nuhuang appeared to be cut from a different cloth, Long Cang wanted their training to be of a level higher than the rest of the Long family.

The regular Long family members were supposed to be fighting regular beasts as a group while Long Huangdi and Long Nuhuang fought on their own against a beast at levels similar to their own.

Long Jin then grew bored with this and ordered for them to instead fight dragonkin to hasten their progress. Long Cang was worried that hurrying them like this would be detrimental instead of helpful.

This wasn’t something simple either. Earlier when Long Huangdi or Long Nuhuang were fighting or facing off against a dragon, they were only able to inflict any sort of injury because the dragon either allowed it, like Long Cang and the leader of the bastion of bastion who the former forced to endure it…

OR

The dragon never saw it coming and refused to put up any sort of guard since they saw humans as well below them AND that the attack landed in one of the very few soft and weak spots of a dragon, such as what happened with Long Baofu, the Second Claw of the Dragons.

Any single one of those existences would be able to kill Long Huangdi and his entire family effortlessly. It was the nuance of seeing a human like Long Nuhuang for the very first time that spared them their lives though they might not be aware of it.

For these humans to truly fight dragonkin, even if they weren’t dragons on the level of Long Cang and the others, this wasn’t a simple task and one that could easily lead to their deaths.

Despite this, Long Cang wasn’t in a position to say anything, since this whole situation wasn’t one that could end well if it was known by too many people or just a few of the wrong ones.

Under the circumstances, he agreed. However, during one of these sessions, Long Huangdi got injured and his wife grew impatient and rushed in to save him, which was against the regulations of their training.

After all, the training of the dragons, especially for humans, could easily end in death.

The same was the case when Long Nuhuang was injured. He charged through and disregarded the dragons’ warnings to save his wife.

Because of this, once Long Huangdi’s battle was over, they shackled him without treatment. This way he couldn’t force his way to the battle, and Long Jin didn’t have to take action which would very likely end up with him being accidentally killed, though it was more at the behest of Long Cang, why Long Jin had yet to do so.

The same would be done to Long Nuhuang once her combat session was over.

Of course, Long Huangdi couldn’t care less about their reasoning because of his late wife’s fate.

Boom!

An explosion rang out that caused Long Jin, Long Cang and Long Huangdi to look over just in time to see a large wyrm, similar to the one that Long Nuhuang was fighting, crashing through a hole in the cave into the stage where Long Nuhuang was not long ago.

The large wyrm lay there unmoving as the blood drained from its body. A group of bloodthirsty men and women stepped through the hole created by the wyrm and eyed the surroundings with ill-at-ease looks.

“Long Chen!” Long Huangdi’s fears were assuaged the slightest bit when he saw the family members who appeared transformed from their former selves.

The man at the forefront, covered in the blood and ichor of the wyrm that turned the cave wall into a doorway body-first, turned to look at the person who called him out.

When he saw Long Huangdi, the killing intent that darkened his face into a monstrous scowl lit up with joy until the latter’s state bade that happiness to regress to its earlier form.

“Family lead-”

“Forget me!” Long Huangdi knew what he was thinking and advised against it immediately. “Save my wife!”

Long Chen saw the wyrm that had its face buried into the ground and instantly knew what had happened.

Not just him, everyone else understood what took place and their expressions darkened even further. They were, all of them, extremely injured, but they wouldn’t tolerate these damned things picking them off.

“Kill!” Long Chen ignored their currently weakened state and led a charge forward towards the wyrm.

They were like a blood-stained, gore-suffused flood that stormed its way to Long Nuhuang and her latest foe!

“Grkh!” The wyrm that still had its face buried in the ground suddenly convulsed, causing Long Chen and the others to slow down and approach with caution.

‘Something’s wrong,” one of the family members uttered.

Crack!

Without warning, the upper section of the wyrm’s jaw bent back on itself with a wet sickening cracking sound.

“Raaarrgh!” A roar of pain escaped the wyrm’s mouth as it futilely struggled to escape whatever was happening to it.

Everyone froze and stared in shock as a small, bloodied hand, held on to it like an iron vice grip on the broken upper jaw of the wyrm.