Chapter Eighteen: Dragon-Slaying Is a Perilous Vocation
988 Words
After inwardly cursing the War God System with all the venom he could muster, Lin Fei knew there was no way to refuse a mandatory mission.
He broke into a swift run toward the cave's lift, snatching a high-caliber energy rifle from the prison guard beside him with a single motion. With a powerful leap, he landed on the elevator platform and slammed the descent button.
“I’m off to slay that damned serpent! Tonight, we feast on snake meat!” Lin Fei bellowed, trying to bolster his own courage.
Moments later, the antiquated lift screeched and rattled its way down into the heart of the cavern. As it ground to a halt, Lin Fei surveyed the chaos unfolding within the subterranean mine.
A monstrous, serpent-like creature—nearly sixty meters in length and covered in grey-black scales—slithered through the dark like a mutated python. Its head, sharp and spiraled like a drill, bore a mouth that split from the crown of its skull to the base of its neck. From this grotesque maw, it was devouring the lower half of a human prisoner, teeth glistening with blood.
The creature had already demolished several of the crystal-mining cave’s support pillars. In mere minutes, Lin Fei counted that over a fifth of the prisoners lay crushed beneath falling stone or charred into blackened flesh by the beast’s scorching breath, their bodies still smoldering with dark smoke.
Over a hundred surviving inmates were frantically scrambling onto the lift, desperate to flee. Yet the overcrowded platform refused to move under the excess weight. Not one man was willing to cede his place.
Cries of pain, screams of terror, and the sound of violent scuffling filled the air like a dirge.
At first, when the prisoners spotted another lift descending, hope surged—they thought reinforcements had arrived. But when they saw it carried only Lin Fei, armed with a massive energy rifle and nothing else, despair returned.
As soon as Lin Fei stepped off, the platform behind him was swarmed by inmates once more, rendering it inoperable.
Bang! Bang!
With two swift shots, Lin Fei destroyed the cables of the only two lifts.
The prisoners froze. Their last means of escape had just been obliterated—by Lin Fei himself. Yet none dared protest. They had seen what he could do: one man against a mob, unshaken, unmatched. Now, he held a gun.
“A single mutated snake, and you’re reduced to trembling cowards? I descended thinking I’d bear the burden of a leader, to fight alongside you—and this is what I find?” Lin Fei roared, fury lighting his gaze. “You shame the name of Karl Prison's condemned.”
“Remember what you are—we are death row inmates, lifers, the most feared creatures in the Tianlong Federation. No beast should make us cower.”
He raised the rifle high. “There is no escape now. Either we kill this monstrosity together, or it makes a meal of us all. If you want to live, arm yourselves and prepare to fight.”
“To the inmates from Mess Hall One—get those metallic mining cables. Wrap that snake up, bind its movements!”
“Mess Halls Two and Three—grab your drills, your iron rods. Drive them into its hide!”
Then Lin Fei raised the rifle and opened fire.
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
The cavern echoed with the deafening staccato. Though Lin Fei's aim lacked precision, the beast’s massive size and proximity made it an easy target. Over a dozen high-caliber blasts struck its armored scales, bursting open wounds the size of bowls.
But the gun carried only fifteen rounds.
When the last shot was fired, Lin Fei tossed the weapon aside and seized a nearby iron spike.
The wounded beast, writhing in agony, lifted itself from the ground and, with a roar of rage, charged toward the cluster of inmates where Lin Fei stood.
Knowing it was time to act, Lin Fei gripped the metal rod, sprang upward, and vaulted over the charging creature’s head, landing atop its neck. The heat and stench of the beast’s breath assaulted him.
With all his strength, he plunged the rod downward into the beast’s skull, burying it more than a meter deep before it would go no further. Then, straddling the monster’s head, he twisted the embedded spike with all his might.
Seeing Lin Fei so fearless—seeing him draw first blood—roused the other inmates. Armed with drills and iron bars, they surged forward from all sides and began to assail the creature’s flanks.
Clangs and shrieks filled the cavern as metal struck scale and bone.
Suddenly, the creature let out a thunderous howl. In a frenzy of pain, it opened its massive jaws and unleashed a torrent of flame—an inferno of blue fire pouring from its mouth like the jet of a high-temperature furnace, incinerating everything in its path.
Smoke roiled through the cave. The brief unity Lin Fei had inspired shattered instantly. One blast from the beast’s breath scattered the assault and claimed dozens of lives in seconds.
Lin Fei, still atop the monster’s head, narrowly avoided the searing flames. But the beast’s violent thrashing nearly dislodged him multiple times. Only the embedded iron spike kept him anchored.
He knew—if he let go now, he would be the first to be burned to ashes.
The air filled with screams. The creature’s onslaught claimed more and more lives. And in that smoke-choked chaos, Lin Fei tasted despair. For the first time, death felt so close he could hear it breathing down his neck.
He cursed the War God System with every fiber of his soul. A threat ranked at danger level 177—this was no battle he could win.
And yet, letting go meant instant death. Lin Fei’s grip tightened.
He wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
- Writer
