Chapter 664 - 552: News of Companions! The Mysterious Dragon Descendant

Chapter 664: Chapter 552: News of Companions! The Mysterious Dragon Descendant

The two frames were exceptionally clear, yet they carried the characteristic fragmented and fractured sensation of a Space-Time rift. Like sharp shards of glass, they unexpectedly pierced Roland’s consciousness.

The first frame.

A rocky platform, soaked in seawater and covered in slimy, dark algae. The angle seemed somewhat similar to where they now stood, but the light was much dimmer and the fog, far thicker.

In the center of the frame, a small, furry figure was staggering, trying to get to its feet.

It was Qiao.

The usually nimble squirrel looked utterly wretched at this moment.

Its once smooth and fluffy brown fur was soaked through by the seawater and fog, plastered to its small body. A few tufts were even stuck haphazardly to its cheeks.

It propped itself up on the slippery rock with one forepaw, while the other quickly rubbed its small, seemingly dizzy head.

Its black eyes, which usually sparkled with cunning and liveliness, were now wide and round, filled with a nearly vacant confusion and bewilderment.

It jerked its head rapidly from side to side, ears pricked in alarm, as if trying to make sense of this completely unfamiliar and perilous environment.

Then, a distinct urgency replaced its bewilderment. It began to quickly and meticulously scan every rock and every patch of Shadow, its small nose twitching nonstop as if searching for a scent or a trace of something.

After a moment, apparently not finding what it was looking for, it leaped with resolute nimbleness into the Shadow in a nearby crevice and vanished from the frame.

The entire scene was silent, with only Qiao’s noiseless but tense movements betraying its inner anxiety and urgency.

The second frame.

The scene shifted abruptly, the perspective now looking down from a slightly elevated position onto the edge of a recessed, inky-black pool of water.

A figure in a wrinkled, seawater-soaked dark scholar’s robe was floating face down on the water’s surface near the rocks, motionless.

It was Bronson.

The scholar’s hair was plastered messily to his scalp and the side of his neck, looking lifeless.

The frame was exceptionally blurry and shaky, as if seen through turbulent waves and distorted light. Only the familiar outline of his clothing and his build were barely discernible.

At that moment, several indistinct shadows began to rapidly approach the unconscious Bronson from the thicker fog on the other side of the water.

The outlines of these shadows were extremely indistinct, as if composed of the mist itself or subject to some intense interference; one could only vaguely make out what appeared to be humanoid forms.

One of the shadows seemed to lean down, reaching for the surface of the water. The frame then rippled violently and shattered, like a broken reflection in water.

In the final instant, a hand covered in some dark material emerged from the blurry light and shadow, reaching for the tattered robe on Bronson’s shoulder.

Then, everything abruptly ceased, swallowed by a deeper Darkness and Chaos.

The image vanished, and Roland’s consciousness was violently pulled back to reality.

He was still standing on the cold reef platform, but his breathing had involuntarily quickened, and his heart was pounding heavily in his chest.

Holland and Ellis were a short distance away, vigilantly observing their surroundings. They seemed not to have noticed the brief Space-Time regression he had just experienced.

’How did they end up here?’

’And in such... separate and bizarre circumstances?’

’Qiao, awake and searching. Bronson, unconscious and being taken away...’

’These must be fragments from different points in time, or perhaps different stages of the same event.’

’Could they have...’

A startling inference, accompanied by grave apprehension, instantly clutched at Roland’s heart.

Just then, more fragments from the temporal regression surged into Roland’s Perception.

And this time, the scene was even clearer than the fragments involving Qiao and Bronson, and far more... unsettling.

What first grabbed his attention wasn’t an image, but a sound.

It was a blasphemous symphony: the piercing shriek of the world’s very fabric being forcibly torn asunder, the dull roar of an Abyssal forge, and a malicious metallic grinding worthy of a torture rack in the Nine Prisons.

The scene then unfolded before his eyes.

Above the inky-black, recessed pool of water, the fabric of reality was being brutally ripped apart by a malevolent force, like rotting flesh.

The edges of the rupture were jagged, oozing a foul Energy like pus and continuously sputtering Sparks of mingled crimson and ghastly green.

One side of the rupture roiled with pure Void and a bone-chilling cold, a Darkness that seemed capable of devouring all Hope.

The other side spewed forth the fetid stench of Burning sulfur and a scorching, crimson light the color of coagulated blood, seemingly laced with innumerable, faint, agonized wails.

These two equally detestable yet starkly different malevolent forces madly eroded and gnawed at one another at the rupture. Their friction with the air of the Prime Material Plane created unsettling, distorted ripples that set one’s teeth on edge. Even the inky-black water below seemed to tremble violently and sink, as if recoiling in disgust.

Then, a figure forcibly squeezed its way through this blasphemous planar rift.

It was a Dragon Descendant, but its very presence radiated pure Chaos and malice.

He was exceptionally tall, his entire body covered in thick, unnatural Scales that looked like a mixture of sickly bronze and tarnished iron.

The edges of many Scales showed the charred marks of corrosion or burns, and their arrangement was not entirely uniform, conveying a sense of distortion.

His head had the savage form of a Giant Dragon, its snout covered in scars. His vertical, amber pupils burned not with wisdom, but with a predatory, cruel, and cunning Flame, like a dancing, malevolent fire.

Behind his head was a thick yet slightly twisted neck, as well as a pair of folded, dilapidated membranous wings.

The wing membranes were a dull, dark brown, riddled with holes and what appeared to be dried bloodstains. The bony protrusions were sharp and irregular.

His claws were enormous, their tips gleaming with an ominous dark light, as though constantly steeped in filth.

A long tail covered in the same dull Scales swished restlessly behind him, its tip like a spiked Siege Hammer.

He was haphazardly draped in pieces of armor crafted from crude metal and the tanned hide of some unknown creature, all of which were etched with incomprehensible yet repulsive, twisted symbols.

His very existence exuded an oppressive aura that made the air stagnate, a mixture of the stench of sulfur, the coppery scent of blood and rust, and a more abstract, soul-piercing air of depravity.

Just as he fully stepped into the space above the water—and the nauseating rift behind him began to twitch and mend like a festering wound—the Dragon Descendant seemed to sense something.

His amber, vertical pupils, burning with an evil fire, pierced through the lingering blasphemous Energy and sea mist to look toward Roland, the one "watching" it all.

He wasn’t looking toward where Roland might be standing, but directly through the thin veil of time.

His gaze crashed into that of the observer from another timeline, meeting it within the shattered vision.

At that, the scene froze and shattered, dissolving into countless scattered streams of light.

The cold touch of the reef pulled Roland back to reality, but those amber, vertical pupils from the shattered fragment of time, burning with an evil fire, felt as if they were still branded on his retinas, leaving behind an unpleasant, clinging sensation.

He stood frozen, surrounded by the eternal, damp chill and dead silence of Drowned Man’s Reef. Holland and Ellis’s hushed conversation sounded as if it were coming through a thick pane of glass, muffled and distant.

The Space-Time fragments that had just flashed before him—Qiao’s lost search, Bronson’s silent drift, and the final appearance of the Dragon Descendant radiating pure malice—collided and reassembled violently in his mind.

The subtle Space-Time tremors caused by [Rift Walker] had not yet fully subsided. Intertwined with his affinity for the Space-Time Attribute, this gave his Perception a deeper understanding of the area’s "anomaly."

The "Echo" of the Shell Ship was distinct, carrying the unique Spiritual Mark of Duraga and the Heartstealer Race. Although it appeared in a "past" where it shouldn’t have, its roots could be traced to the "future" and were directly related to his contract with Phaethon.

It was a dislocation—the "effect" preceding the "cause." While illogical, the connecting thread was faintly discernible.

However, this Dragon Descendant...

Roland closed his eyes, shutting out the distractions of his immediate reality. He once again focused his Perception on the subtle "folds" and "faint marks" in the surrounding space, carefully discerning the residual "imprints" of differing natures left within.

The imprint of the Shell Ship was cold, orderly, and carried the hum of Spiritual Energy—like a foreign thread, twisted but still whole.

But the other imprint...

...it was more subtle, yet also more "corrosive," and felt wild and chaotic.

It hadn’t simply "appeared" here; rather, it seemed to have used an impossibly brutish force to "tear" a hole in the fabric of Space-Time and then "shove" itself through.

The residual "Echo" was filled with sulfur, the tang of blood and rust, and a naked loathing and destructive urge aimed at the existing Order.

The "rejection reaction" between this imprint and the surrounding environment was extremely violent, and the "scars" it left behind were "fresher" and more "glaring" than the traces left by the Shell Ship.

Most importantly, the "source" time of this imprint... was utter Chaos.

It neither belonged to the proper historical timeline of this "past" moment, nor did it seem to have any direct link to the "future" Roland knew.

Like a foreign object that shouldn’t exist, forcibly wedged into the timeline.

’It doesn’t belong to the past, nor does it originate from the future I know...’

Roland’s brows furrowed deeply.

In the "future" timeline, aside from that brief yet shocking encounter in Wuxi Town, he had never had any significant dealings with a true Giant Dragon or Dragon Descendant, let alone such a malevolent one.

’Then where did this Dragon Descendant come from?’

’Unless...’

A cold thought suddenly seized him.

He recalled Phaethon’s words—the explanation regarding the root cause of the world’s impending collapse.

"In the distant past, at a sealed-off temporal juncture, a certain ’event’ caused the very warp and weft of time to suffer an improper... and severe disturbance and distortion."

"This disturbance went undetected and uncorrected, and the ’paradox ripples’ it generated have been continuously eroding the foundational structure of the world’s Order..."

"One of the fundamental causes..."

Roland’s eyes snapped open. His gaze, sharp as lightning, shot back toward the space above the inky-black, recessed pool where the vision of the Dragon Descendant’s arrival had appeared. The lingering scent of sulfur in the air seemed to grow more pungent.

’The appearance of the Shell Ship was perhaps one of the foreseeable "ripples" resulting from his contract with Phaethon.’

’But this malevolent Dragon Descendant, whose Space-Time imprint is chaotic and highly corrosive...’

’His arrival was so violent, his very existence so paradoxical...’

’This is clearly no "ripple"...’

’Could he be...’

’the one who caused the "severe disturbance and distortion" of Space-Time’s warp and weft in the "past"...’

’...the "event" itself?’