Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Having stayed in Johannesburg for a few months, Zhang Lisheng already had a good understanding of South Africa’s military strength. Since Africa was at the very bottom position among the five continents, he knew this country was known to have the strongest military strength in Africa. It could barely be ranked as third-rate in the global military power rankings.
Especially after the social peace reforms that took place in the 1990s. When the political power fell into the hands of the blacks from the Caucasians, the South African army originally composed of white people was completely replaced with a pure black army. The high-tech military units such as the Air Force and the Navy were reduced to being only a decoration. After 30 years of hard work, they barely recovered to how it once was.
In other words, the South African Air Force was very weak. It was completely impossible for the South African Air Force to intercept the self-propelled missiles the supernatural realm’s people sent. Now that Zhang Lisheng was clear about this, he secretly cursed himself for his bad luck.
Sighing, he said, “Consultant Zheng, your inference is correct. Looking at it, our situation does indeed seems to be very…”
Suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed in the sky, drowning the words the teenager was saying. Then, bean-like raindrops began to fall and hit on them till their heads froze.
Gradually, the rain became heavier. Soon, torrential rain gushed down in splutter.
“Now that these supernatural realm’s people launched their general attack, the back part must be empty! It’s a good opportunity for us to sneak in now!” Seeing how the torrential rain was about to extinguish the group’s last speckle of spirit, Captain Hu wiped off the rain from her face and shouted, “The door heading to the supernatural realm should be near their base! We’ll move to a safe place with Director Liang and then we can locate it through satellite surveillance map…”
“Satellite surveillance map? That’s right! The troop of these supernatural realm’s people going through the door leading to the supernatural realm would be photographed by the satellites. We can hide and take a detour away from them,” Zhang Lisheng chimed in with his eyes lit up.
“But we don’t have any instrument to intercept the military satellite signal!” Director Liang, who basically had the least combat experience in the group and who felt that he was unfortunate enough to walk into a fantasy movie, said in a vague and uncertain manner. “I estimate that we’re at least 100 kilometers away from the survey team’s base site of our plan. It’d take us two days and two nights at least if we have to travel by feet.”
Upon hearing his words, the group fell into a dead silence.
“Looks like everyone is on their own now!” After weighing the options of staying together with the group to walk around aimlessly or taking the risk to fly back to Johannes once and for all, Zhang Lisheng suddenly chuckled.
Then, he began to let out a slender snake figure from his rainwater-soaked clothes. The small snake figure began to become bigger and longer upon coming in contact with the wind and rain. A few seconds later, it transformed into a green wyrm dragon more than ten meters long that was thick as a bucket before hovering around the teenager in midair.
Upon seeing this scene, everybody became dumbstruck, even Consultant Zheng’s eyes stared straight in a daze. After all, a dragon always had a special meaning to the Chinese people since ancient times.
“D-Dragon… B-Boy! Y-You… My god! Dragon Ascendancy! This is the ability of our witchcraft Dragon Ascendancy! It turns out to be true after all! It’s really true! It’s not that the Dao bloodline inherited from my, Xu Feng’s, ancestor is useless, but it’s me who is not lucky enough! Now that I’ve finally seen the real thing today, I can finally leave this world! I can die with no regrets now! Hahaha…” Old Man Xu suddenly threw his head back with laughter like a maniac under the heavy rain.
“Uncle, you won’t be able to die today.” Zhang Lisheng, who had transformed into a three-meter tall man, grabbed the old man and threw him onto the wyrm dragon’s back before looking at Consultant Zheng. “What do you think of taking a ride on the dragon today?”
“Young man! You won’t be able to move me. I’ve already freeloaded from the government for several years now, so I can’t just leave when the situation turns critical.”
“But this is a battle level… Forget it! Since you dare to remain behind, of course, you have the confidence in protecting yourself using omniscient power. In that case, I’ll bid my farewell…” As Zhang Lisheng was speaking, he was about to straddle his wyrm dragon and command his wizard gu to leave, but suddenly, Director Liang, whose expression had long turned pale and uncertain, stopped him. “Friend, bring me with you as well. I’m just an ordinary person and remaining behind here would only result in my death. If you get me out of here, I’ll definitely repay you! I don’t dare to promise empty cheques but I can still give you one or two million cash…”
“I-I don’t want to stay here as well! Take me away with you! Please! Your dragon is so huge, and I only need small space…”
“I want to leave too! I’m very skinny! Please! You’ll climb up to the seventh floor of the ladder of humanity if you save a person’s life!”
Upon seeing somebody begging to leave, and this somebody was none other than Director Liang who was at equal footing with their Captain Hu, a few young girls also ran out from the group and pleaded Zhang Lisheng to take them away.
“It’s not that I can’t bring you along with me, but other than this Uncle Xu, I won’t care about your safety if you get on my wyrm dragon. The wind in the sky is very fierce, and it can even cut or slice a human’s flesh. You better think properly!”
When they heard Zhang Lisheng saying such remarks with a blank expression, those who were begging him became stunned right away. At once, they did not know what to decide.
“Young man, we all practice witchcraft here and they are only young girls on top of that, so why do you have to scare them? A dragon can command rain and wind as it likes. Even though yours seems to be more of a wyrm, it’s still not possible for the riders to be blown by the fierce wind when they’re sitting on it. How about this? I’ll give you the True Book of Rubbing that can allow you to master the transformation energy completely as a reward, and you’ll take all of those people in the group who want to retreat to a safe place with you?” Consultant Zheng saw through Zhang Lisheng’s excuse and commanded a living corpse to sway its way to him before reaching out a hand to touch the corpse abruptly.
In an instant, the flesh and blood on the living corpse disappeared while the bones snapped loudly to twist and transform into a bamboo-like bone book.
“In fact, judging from the current situation, no matter whether it’s in the air or on land, it’s impossible for me to guarantee complete safety too. Otherwise, I’d have already left quietly all by myself. Besides, the more people I bring, the bigger the target will be…” As Zhang Lisheng was muttering, he picked up the bone book from the rainy ground dexterously and opened it. Right away, his eyes lit up as he quickly added again. “However, since it’s you who made such a request, Consultant Zheng, of course, I’d have no choice but to do as you asked.”
When Consultant Zheng saw the sudden change in the teenager’s attitude, Consultant Zheng nodded his head without any smile. Turning around, he told Captain Hu, whose expression had already turned grave, but who still maintained her composure, “Captain Hu, our group is originally not built for combat. Now that we’ve suddenly fallen into such a dangerous situation without any transition period at all, it’s inevitable for our group to fall apart. This kind of thing can’t be forced, so we might as well let it go naturally. Don’t worry, with me here, the mission still has a complete chance of succeeding. Even though we’re sent here as a ragtag team, I, Zheng Heyun, have already reached such an age, so of course, I’ll still strive on with my last breath.”
Since things have already developed to such a stage, Captain Hu knew she could no longer force the situation. For the first time, she looked at Consultant Zheng with respect and nodded, before glaring at Director Liang, whose head was lowered as he stood under the rain as though he was dying. She then waved her hand viciously. “Those who are scared and timid can leave if you want. Nobody will ask you to stay! Our country has no need for cowards like you!”
Under the Captain’s scolding, about half of the group slowly moved their feet and walked towards the wyrm dragon in panic. The other half of the group, on the other hand, chose to remain behind.
Upon seeing the group distinctly divided into half, Zhang Lisheng did not say anything and merely commanded the wyrm dragon to turn bigger. Then, he commanded the wizard gu to crouch on the ground before climbing onto its head.
By the time everyone who had chosen to leave had gotten onto the wyrm dragon, he cupped his hands together and made a respectful gesture towards Consultant Zheng, before commanding the wizard gu to produce countless amounts of thick clouds as it rose into high up to the sky.
“That’s the legacy to my witchcraft…” Watching the wyrm dragon soaring into the sky, Consultant Zheng chuckled aloud looking extremely happy.
At the same time, as the great wizard was laughing happily, Zhang Lisheng had already merged into the clouds while riding on his wyrm dragon.
Even though the thunder and wind had all blocked out by the wizard gu’s omniscient power, the deafening roar and glaring thunder still sent chills down everybody’s spine, to the point that some of them had even fainted.
If it was not for the scales on the wyrm dragon’s back that had a high level of friction, as though a layer of glue had been brushed onto it, some of them might have already fallen from the sky.
Just as other people were having the hardest time of their lives, most of them almost died. Zhang Lisheng who had transformed into a magnificent giant was filled with vigilance. With his head high against the thunder, he opened the pathway of the clouds. He commanded the wizard gu to fly, following the road on the ground.
The giant force of the self-propelled rotating missiles of the supernatural realm was so terrifying he could not help but be concerned about it.
Fortunately, all of his bad luck seemed to have been exhausted last night. Even though he could see the raging fire that could not be extinguished by the torrential rain in the distance from the air and could hear the sudden detonating sound of bombs that were so powerful they could even drown the sound of the thunder, the wyrm dragon flying in the sky did not come across any danger. Gradually, the explosions grew farther as they flew further away from them.
The dragon flew for a long time. Finally, dawn appeared in the sky. When the first ray of sunshine appeared at the horizon in the distance, Zhang Lisheng could see the huge city outline of Johannesburg appearing before his eyes.
Looking at this African city he was already familiar with, the teenager heaved a long sigh of relief and commanded the wizard gu to land.
After the wyrm dragon landed, it transformed into a small four-legged green snake before flying around Zhang Lisheng with fog around it. At the same time, the teenager also shrank his body back to his normal size.
After that, he chose a young wizard who had a similar body size with him, who was so exhausted by the overnight and difficult flying trip that he curled up in a ball. After taking off his coat and shoes, Zhang Lisheng put them onto himself. “You’ll reach Johannesburg City after walking for more than 10 kilometers at most. No matter how powerful the supernatural realm’s people are, they won’t be able to reach Johannesburg all the way from Cape Town in just a night, so it’s absolutely safe here. Now that we’ve reached this point, I’ve already completed my two promises as well. Uncle Xu, everybody, I’ll see you all again.”
“D-Don’t leave yet, boy! You have the great omniscient power, so p-please save us until the very end! Why not just go the whole hog…” Old Man Xu panted and shouted as he pleaded.
“Uncle, I, who is only a wage earner, will not be as useful as Director Liang now that we’ve reached here. You can wake him up and ask him to send you guys anywhere you’d like to go.” Zhang Lisheng waved his hand without even turning his head around. He gradually drifted away while laughing loudly.
Upon hearing the teenager’s reminder, everyone shifted their eyes intuitively onto Director Liang who had fainted and was lying on the ground, with bubbles forming in his mouth, their eyes gradually lit up.
